Tag Archive for Burbank Blvd

US traffic deaths soar, LA Times picks Pynoos over O’Farrell, and Friedman fights for bike safety on Burbank bridge

May 18, 2022 / / Comments Off on US traffic deaths soar, LA Times picks Pynoos over O’Farrell, and Friedman fights for bike safety on Burbank bridge

If you thought our roads are getting more dangerous, you’re right.

According to figures from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 42,915 people were killed on American streets last year — the highest total since 2005, and an increase of 10.5 percent over 2020.

Bicycling fatalities rose five percent, to 985 — an average of five deaths every two days — while pedestrian deaths jumped 13 percent to 7,342.

Not surprisingly, nearly two-thirds of US traffic fatalities occurred in urban areas, where there are more people, and more cars.

Artwork by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay.

Thanks to Ted Faber for the heads-up.

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In political news, Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer dropped out of the race for mayor, swinging his support to Karen Bass.

And the LA Times made a surprising endorsement of former Mike Biden staffer Karen Pynoos over incumbent Mitch O’Farrell in CD13 — without mentioning O’Farrell’s role in tanking the shovel-ready Temple Street lane reduction in the wake of the Playa del Rey fiasco.

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California Assembly Transportation Chair Laura Friedman jumped into the road safety fight to push for steps to improve bike and pedestrian safety on the new Burbank Blvd Bridge.

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Still more Bike to Work Week news.

Or bike anywhere, for that matter.

Tonight marks the annual Ride of Silence, with rides throughout California; a ride will be held in Los Angeles at 7 pm tonight, starting at 3554 W. First St .

Metro is celebrating tomorrow’s Bike to Work Day by offering free rides for everyone on all Metro Bus and Rail lines, as well as free half-hour Metro Bike rides.

Bike Metro is teaming with the LACBC to host a lunchtime ride through Chinatown on Thursday’s Bike to Work Day.

Culver City Bus is offering free rides for bike riders on tomorrow’s Bike to Work Day.

The Pasadena Complete Streets Coalition and Day One are hosting a Handlebar Happy Hour at the Dog Haus tomorrow night.

And make plans for a Spoke and Art Ride this Saturday.

https://twitter.com/BikeLAredditors/status/1526757480918700032

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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

There’s a special place in hell for the bike thieves who rammed an 81-year old British man with their car, knocking him into a ditch and stealing his new mountain bike.

But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.

A 35-year old ex-con will stand trial for the unprovoked murder of a San Diego man in a Pacific Beach restroom, before the killer fled on a bicycle; Martin Alvarez, Jr. has entered a not guilty plea to the fatal stabbing.

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Local

The proposed LA River Master Plan has been posted online, along with public comments about the plan.

A massive Puente Hills landfill could soon become the new Puente Hills Regional Park, including plans for a bike skills park.

 

State 

Plans for a two-way bikeway down the middle of Palo Alto’s California Street hit the skids, failing on a tie vote at the city council.

 

National

No surprise here. A new study from the Urban Institute shows that tax rebates are a better solution to soaring prices than cutting gas taxes, while policies that discourage driving — like high gas prices, for instance — would have the greatest longterm impact on inflation.

Advisory bike lanes, which give bike riders priority and force drivers to share the roadway, are coming to a pair of short Portland streets. Advisory streets have bike lanes on either side, with a single car lane shared by drivers traveling in both directions; drivers are expected to move into the bike lanes to pass one another, before returning to their lane. Let’s hope they have a better rollout than they did in San Diego. 

A crowdfunding account has raised over $91,000 for the family of a young Las Vegas father who was killed by a speeding driver while riding his bike on Sunday.

A Minneapolis man pulled himself out of depression and got his life on track with an apprenticeship at a nonprofit bike shop dedicated to providing mentorship and training for young people dealing with housing instability.

Miami bike riders demanded safety improvements to the city’s Rickenbacker Causeway following the death of a couple riding in the bridge’s green bike lane.

 

International

Cycling Weekly considers what makes a good beginner bicycle.

After bike riders complained about a 22 mph speed limit, organizers of the 20,000 person Ride London backed off and removed the speed cap.

Someone cut the locks off a semi-truck in the UK, and made off with 133 Merida bikes as the truck was stopped at a truck stop, while leaving 73 bikes behind.

The co-owner of the Israel Cycling Academy WorldTour cycling team has donated one million dollars to complete a bike trail in Elad.

A Kiwi driver was captured on video ramming a woman riding a bike directly in front of her car, but will only get a lousy $150 fine because she “wasn’t injured enough.” But at least the driver apologized and offered to fix her bike.

 

Competitive Cycling

History was made Tuesday when 22-year old Eritrean cyclist Biniam Girmay outsprinted Mathieu van der Poel to win stage 10 of the Giro, becoming the first Black African to win a Grand Tour stage.

Ayesha McGowan, the only Black rider on the women’s pro tour, called it a victory for all of us.

Even van der Poel showed his support for Girmay in defeat, with a thumbs up gesture as the African rider crossed the finish line.

https://twitter.com/nealrogers/status/1526757824440766465

 

Finally…

Your next e-cargo bike could be self-charging with solar panels. And Giro podium today, followed by a Prosecco cork in the eye.

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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Able-bodied mtn biker confronts disabled ebike rider, Metrolink helps promote bikes, and redesigning LA’s worst intersections

May 26, 2021 / / Comments Off on Able-bodied mtn biker confronts disabled ebike rider, Metrolink helps promote bikes, and redesigning LA’s worst intersections

A video from last fall has popped up again, causing fresh outrage online.

Justifiable outrage, for a change.

David Wolfberg forwards a story from Boing Boing that picks up a video we posted last September, showing an able-bodied mountain biker complaining about a disabled rider’s adaptive ebike, and demanding to see the rule allowing him to use it on the Indiana trail.

Maybe you’ll remember it.

Lord knows I do.

The story doesn’t end there, though, as reprehensible as this uncomprehending attack on a disabled man is.

Wolfberg also forwards videos revealing the disabled man, Tom Morris, to be a noted endurance athlete and coach.

And yes, going back to the original video, Morris had every right to ride it on the trail according to this piece from Road.cc.

Morris…has since said he has been in touch with Terry Coleman, the deputy director of Indiana’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR), who told him that his bike was perfectly legal to ride on trails.

Morris said: “What I’m on is not an e-bike, it’s an adaptive piece of equipment. And adaptive equipment is allowed on all of the trails throughout all of Indiana. So if you’ve got this equipment, get out and use it, use it in the state parks, use it on these trails.”

Morris also said Coleman told him that the DNR had actually just bought 12 “off-roading wheelchairs”, to give disabled people in the state more access to trails and paths for leisure activities.

So the next time you find tempted to criticize someone else for some infraction, real or imagined, think twice.

Then don’t.

There may be some reason why they’re doing what they’re doing. And it doesn’t really matter whether you understand or agree with it.

Because it’s not your job to enforce the rules, any more than driveway vigilante drivers have the right to enforce their interpretations — or misinterpretations, more often — of bike laws on you.

Try a little empathy and understanding instead.

And maybe make this world a little better for all of us in the process.

Image by Michael Gaida from Pixabay.

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Remember this tweet the next time someone insists Los Angeles isn’t (insert more progressive city here).

https://twitter.com/fietsprofessor/status/1397195715529564172

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Metrolink is teaming with the LACBC to promote bicycling as Bike Month sinks slowly in the west.

Taking Metrolink makes a great way to explore other parts of Southern California by bike, especially with their $10 weekend fares.

And particularly now that it’s getting safer to get back on a train.

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Great thread from 18-year old housing and transportation enthusiast Zennon Ulyate-Crow, who is doing the work LADOT should be doing to reimagine some of LA’s most problematic intersections.

Here’s his latest project, which turns an East Hollywood mess into something we could all live with.

Let’s hope LADOT is already keeping an eye on him, with the promise of a job once he gets his degree.

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Speaking of LADOT, it seems the ostensibly progressive department ostensibly focused on Compete Streets still hasn’t gotten the message of the mayor’s Green New Deal — that we have to reimagine our streets and how we get around if we’re going to meet the city’s climate change goals, let alone survive.

Or maybe they still have old school engineers on staff who retain their focus on automotive throughput, as an obsolete plan to widen Burbank Blvd rises from the dead.

https://twitter.com/streetsforall/status/1396938808650731520

Meanwhile, Streetsblog’s Joe Linton busts the myths in Metro’s half billion dollar highway budget for next year, saying this is not what Angelenos voted for when they approved Measure M funding.

With auto-centric crap like this is still being pushed by Metro and LADOT, maybe we can’t afford to wait, and need to get Ulyate-Crow working there now.

Or better yet, running it.

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The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration wants to instruct you in how to wear a bike helmet.

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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going. 

No bias here. San Carlos has installed a bicycle dismount zone where people are supposed to get off their bikes and walk them across an intersection to “minimize conflicts between vehicles, pedestrians and bicyclists.” Even though bike riders have every right to just ride across the damn street.

But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly. 

A man in Baton Rouge, Louisiana was sentenced to 25 years behind bars for fatally shooting another man who tried to take his bicycle from outside a convenience store.

A Jackson, Mississippi man is on trial for fatally shooting a 14-year old boy in the back after one of the boy’s friends stole a bike from his yard. We all hate bike thieves. But no bicycle is ever worth a human life. 

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Local

Streets For All introduces Destruction for Nada, a much-needed campaign to stop all highway widening in LA County, as Metro considers an induced-demand boosting jump in highway spending at Thursday’s board meeting, along with a proposal to kill the wasteful and destructive $8 billion plan to widen the 710 Freeway. It’s long past time all of Metro’s funding was shifted to transit and Complete Streets.

Speaking of Streets For All and highways, mark your calendar for Wednesday, June 9th, as they host another of their virtual happy hours, featuring Caltrans District 7 Director Tony Tavares.

LAist examines the battle over the Beautiful Boulevard plan to create a livable Complete Street along the route of the planned NoHo to Pasadena Bus Rapid Transit line through Eagle Rock.

 

State

Antioch could build the Bay Area’s first Bicycle Garden, a fully landscaped miniature streetscape within an existing park to teach bicycling skills to kids and adults.

The post-pandemic reopening is raising a debate over the streets of San Francisco, as advocates call for keeping closed-off streets carfree, while drivers insist they need the roads open to get around. That’s a debate that should be happening in Los Angeles, as well, as the city faces an urgent need to reimagine how people get around in order to meet climate goals, and confront the ever-increasing congestion on our streets. But isn’t. 

San Francisco installs the city’s first advisory lane, where bike riders use bike lanes on either side of the street, while drivers in both directions share a single center lane.

Sad news from Northern California, where a man riding a bike in Cottonwood was killed by a hit-and-run driver who just left him on the side of the road to die. As we’ve said before, in cases like that, the driver should face a murder charge once they’re caught for making the conscious decision to let their victim die.

 

National

Marketplace reports on why you should care about the draft update to the MUTCD, the country’s traffic control bible.

The NRDC has rejected the proposed federal highway bill under consideration in the US Senate, calling it a small step when we need a great leap.

Bicycling explains why you should ride your bike for fun more often. As usual, read it on Yahoo if Bicycling blocks you.

An anonymous donor gave a whopping $1 million to purchase land for mountain bike trails on Washington’s Bainbridge Island, as well as conserving land and expanding an existing dog park.

A Chicago man took an “epic” bike ride across Indiana just to dine at the nearest Waffle House. Although the real story is how he was able to make almost the entire trip on offroad bike paths.

The New York Times offers a photo essay examining bike style around the city. These days my only sense of style is whatever will look least humiliating in public.

Island Press introduces Bike Easy, which has played a significant role in the remarkable transformation of New Orleans into a bike friendly — or at least, friendlier — city.

Miami joins the Vision Zero club, as the city announces plans to eliminate traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2030. Let’s hope they take it more seriously than Los Angeles does, like planning to remove bike lanes and sidewalks to widen Burbank Blvd.

 

International

Momentum Magazine offers a primer on the different types of cargo bikes.

An IT professional from a tiny Uruguayan pueblo is now riding a bicycle through Mexico, in the fourth year of his quixotic quest to ride from Uruguay to Alaska.

A Canadian girl got a new BMX bike for being honest enough to return a bike a stranger had given her, after learning it had been stolen. Although the question is why did a stranger give her a stolen bike to begin with.

This is who we share the road with. A British man will spend six years behind bars for intentionally running down and killing another driver in a road rage dispute.

The UK press continues their onslaught of photos contradicting Prince Harry’s claim that he was never he was able to ride a bike with his father, heir-to-the-thrown Prince Charles.

Members of a Dublin bike club testify that a speeding driver rounded a bend on the wrong side of the roadway moments before slamming into a woman who couldn’t get her bike off the road in time; the driver is on trial for her death.

You’ve got to be kidding. When a Welsh bicyclist tried to take video of dangerous drivers to the local police, they threatened to charge him for swearing at the motorists who nearly killed him, instead.

The Air Force Times tells the story of a top secret suicide squad of bike-riding Jewish commandos dropped behind German lines during World War II.

More proof that bicycling pays. A study of bike paths in Helsinki, Finland, shows a gain of the equivalent of $4.41 for every $1.22 spent to place bikeways along major arteries in the city. Then again, they increase property values, too.

 

Competitive Cycling

The BBC questions whether anyone can beat Columbia’s Egan Bernal, saying the pink leader’s jersey is his to lose.

However, Cycling Weekly says the race is far from over, and offers five things to watch for as it enters its final week.

American Joe Dombrowski rode the cycling roller coaster in the just the first week of the Giro, going from winning a stage one day to crashing out the next.

Cycling Tips introduces Tim Declercq, who they call one of the world’s best domestiques, and who is always at the front of the action.

International politics once again reaches into the sports world, as Germany responds to the hijacking and apparent torture of an opposition journalist in Belarus by pulling out of next month’s Elite Track European Championships in the country. And yes, that’s the right move; hopefully other countries will follow their lead.

Durango, Colorado’s annual Iron Horse Bicycle Classic mountain bike race has proven to be a launching pad for cycling careers, including rising US WorldTour star Sepp Kuss.

 

Finally…

The answer to N+1 could soon be a subscription. Your next ebike could go 40 mph — as long as you’re willing to get a helmet, registration and motorcycle license.

And if your toddler feels left out by the time you spend on your Peloton, just build him one of his own.

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Be safe, and stay healthy. And wear a mask. 

And get vaccinated, already.

Category: Bicycle Safety, Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

San Diego bicycling death confirmed, a little LA gravel grinding, and fresh paint coming to Burbank Blvd

January 24, 2020 / / One comment

A couple quick notes before we get started. 

Thanks to the efforts of Phillip Young, we now have confirmation of the fifth bicycling fatality in San Diego last year. 

As we noted Tuesday, we had received numerous reports that the victim of a collision on San Diego’s Moreno Blvd last November had passed away after he was hospitalized, but were unable to confirm the death. 

Now we know that 27-year old Dylan Herrick died as a result of the crash. 

I’ll followup with the long-delayed story over the weekend. Because like every fallen bike rider, he deserves to be remembered, even if it’s two months late. 

Photo is fallen bicyclist Dylan Herrick.

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In better news, we now have a new advertiser over there on the right. 

CyclingSavvy, one of just two national organizations offering bike safety training, along with the Bike League, is now offering online training modules. 

I wish safety training like this wasn’t necessary. But until we have safer streets and better infrastructure, it’s vital to know how to keep yourself safe out there. 

As a result, I’m providing them with an ad on this site for the next few months. Use the code bikinginla, and you’ll get a 25% discount on the training sessions.

At the same time, I’ll also get small amount for each person who signs up. 

Check it out, and let me know what you think. 

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Here’s evidence that it’s possible to show a little humanity in the worst situations.

If it’s real, that is.

A man storms into store, accusing a customer at the counter of stealing his custom-built bicycle, and demands it back.

But when the customer tells him he bought the bike for $10 to get to work, the man quickly changes his tune, and says he can borrow it for now. Then says he can keep it once he finishes the bike he started building when the first one was stolen.

But there’s more than a few red flags to suggest this one may have been staged, which is why I’m not embedding the video here.

I’ll let you decide.

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Nothing like a little gravel, past and future, to start your day.

And apparently, women cyclists like gravel, too.

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CiclaValley’s Zachary Rynew isn’t just into rough trails, though. He’s got a pretty good eye for bouncing baby bike lanes, too.

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Sometimes it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly. 

A 57-year old man was stabbed in the head by a younger man who fled by bike, in an apparent random attack near New York’s Times Square.

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Local

The guitarist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers is one of us. Or was, anyway; Josh Klinghoffer got the boot after riding his bike over to Flea’s house, to make way for original band member John Frusciante.

The North Hollywood Neighborhood Council rejects the ridiculous plan to widen the already too wide and too fast Magnolia Blvd.

 

State

San Diego’s El Cerrito community is mourning a beloved neighborhood postal worker who served the area for 25 years; 56-year old Kevin Wilson was murdered by a hit-and-run driver on Monday.

A kindhearted cop in Sanger arranged to get a new bike for a young boy, after the one he received as part of a Christmas bike giveaway was stolen.

California’s cap-and-trade program is paying for walking trails, sidewalks and bike lanes in disadvantaged Fresno neighborhoods.

A San Jose op-ed argues that no bikes of any kind belong on the area’s trails, ebikes or otherwise.

San Jose is focusing on a number of Vision Zero improvements this year to fight the rising tide of traffic deaths in the city. Los Angeles, meanwhile, is making room on the shelf for Vision Zero, right next to the city’s dusty mobility plan and the 2010 bike plan it subsumed.

 

National

No surprise here. No SoCal business made the Bike League’s list of new or upgraded Bicycle Friendly Businesses; the nearest one was a San Luis Obispo government agency, which upgraded to a gold level.

PeopleForBikes announces their latest list of community grants, none of which are in California. Hate to say it, but their name just looks awkward jammed together into one word like that. Says the guy from BikinginLA.

Once again, a bike rider is a hero, after an Austin TX bicyclist spotted the hand of a man who’d been trapped in a drainage tunnel for over 24 hours; it took over an hour for rescuers to get him out.

Justice delayed doesn’t always mean justice denied. A Michigan man was arrested for a five-year old hit-and-run that left a then-18-year old man on a bicycle seriously injured; fortunately, the victim has made a full recovery.

Nashville TN is the latest city to adopt an Americanized version of Vision Zero.

New York Governor Cuomo calls for legalizing ebikes and scooters in the state, with mandatory helmets for ebikes that can go over 25 mph. And says he needs to see more data before calling for car helmets. And yes, he’s serious.

New York City’s notoriously anti-bike crusading reporter demands to know why ebike riders should be required to wear helmets, but other riders aren’t. Maybe because most bike riders don’t go over 25 mph on a routine basis. And bike helmets aren’t designed for those kinds of speeds, anyway.

The Brooklyn borough president says double parking is fine as long as the scofflaw drivers are going to church. Let’s hope they pray for the bike riders they’re endangering while they’re in there.

A kindhearted Pennsylvania community came together to raise $400 to buy a new bicycle for disabled man known as the town’s unofficial mayor, after his was stolen.

There’s a special place in hell for any driver who’d flee the scene after hitting a kid; fortunately, they caught the woman behind the wheel, and the five-year old Florida boy she hit was not seriously hurt.

 

International

A writer for Bike Radar makes the case for why every bike should have a kickstand. Not on my roadie, you won’t.

Sadly, no surprise here, either, as the US refuses to extradite the spy’s diplomat’s wife who killed a British motorcyclist in a hit-and-run, then fled the country claiming diplomatic immunity; officials say it would set a bad precedent to bring a cowardly killer to justice.

An English man is asking for help recovering his $7,200 ti mountain bike, one of just 500 worldwide, after thieves threatened him at knifepoint.

Puducherry, India — population just under 250,000 — becomes at least the sixth Indian city to get a bicycle mayor. Los Angeles, with a population twelve times larger, still doesn’t have one. Or any other sort of mayor devoted to improving bicycling in the city.

 

Competitive Cycling

Aussie Ritchie Porte took the ochre leader’s jersey in the Tour Down Under as the peloton passes through regions devastated by recent fires. Be honest, who actually knew what color ochre is without looking it up? I didn’t think so.

 

Finally…

When it’s just too hard to move a badly parked dockless bike. I don’t have a problem with ride outs, but this is pretty much how you define the term effing idiot.

And your next bike ride could be on a turn-of-the-century carousel.

No, the other century.

 

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , ,

Morning Links: Balboa bicyclist crashes with LAPD moto, search for hit-and-run driver, and making SD customers drive

July 23, 2019 / / Comments Off on Morning Links: Balboa bicyclist crashes with LAPD moto, search for hit-and-run driver, and making SD customers drive

Frequent contributor Danger D came across the immediate aftermath of a serious collision near Balboa Park early yesterday afternoon, involving a bike rider and an LAPD motorcycle cop.

Just passing by on the bike path on Burbank Blvd in the Balboa Dam area. They have the whole of Burbank Blvd closed in the area (probably to hide what they did until they can find a reason it’s not their fault)

An officer let me through while others tried to stop me from going under the tape. You should make some inquiry into this collision. Cop bike on its side in the westbound lane and a totaled bicycle with a bent over front wheel in the center of the road.

There’s no word on how the crash happened. Particularly since there’s a separated bike path around Lake Balboa that parallels Burbank Blvd.

According to traffic reports, the street was blocked off entirely throughout the afternoon and through the evening rush hour, which is not a good sign.

An extended total street closure like that usually means a fatal crash, or one they think could become one. Unless maybe they were just taking extra care with the investigation because a police officer was involved.

But at last report, the officer was hospitalized with minor injuries, while the person on the bicycle was in critical condition with non-life-threatening injuries.

Let’s hope it stays that way.

Photo from LAPD website.

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Tony Berquam is looking for the cowardly jerk — my words, not his — who left an injured bike rider lying in the street.

On 7/16, 5-5:30 pm, eastbound on Beverly near Fairfax, a lone cyclist was clipped by an unknown vehicle, knocking him to the ground. The rider was rendered unconscious and left injured in the street. The driver did not leave contact information. The cyclist was subsequently transported to Cedars by emergency services. Any help in establishing the involved vehicle and or related information is appreciated.

If you have any information, you can contact him at tbb422010@gmail.com.

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If you think your customers only arrive at your business in cars, maybe it’s because they don’t have any other choice.

That’s the battle San Diego merchants in the North Park neighborhood continue to fight, demanding that the city reverse plans for removing 420 parking spaces along 30th Street in favor of protected bike lanes.

Never mind that studies have shown that bike riders shop more often, and spend more in the long term, than people who arrive by car.

Or that making a street more bikeable — and therefore more walkable — results in an increase in livability, and a thriving, prosperous commercial district.

Not to mention a decrease in commercial vacancies, while boosting property values in the surrounding area.

But instead of explaining all that to his constituents, a weathervane councilmember stuck his finger in the wind, and decided the plan needs “slight changes” in favor of maintaining the automotive hegemony in the district.

So business owners continue to fight against their own self interests.

And San Diegans will continue to do their shopping by car, because it’s the only real option they have.

Full disclosure — I lived in the North Park neighborhood before moving to Los Angeles in 1990.

And while I loved living in one of the city’s few truly mixed neighborhoods, I hated the feeling of being unsafe anytime I tried to walk or bike to local restaurants or shops. It was easier to just hop in my car and take my business somewhere else.

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To the best of my knowledge, no bicycle ever flew off the road into one of my favorite fishing spots just outside of Rocky Mountain National Park.

But I admit I may have come close a few times.

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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes goes on.

A Northern Irish bike rider learned the hard way that someone had scattered box cutter blades on a Belfast bike path after one sliced through his rear tire.

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Local

LAist’s Leo Duran offers tips on how to get started riding a bike in Los Angeles.  He also says Biking in LA can be dicey. But I’ll try not to take it personally.

Long Beach addresses concerns about the recent Broadway road diet by agreeing to make “tweaks” to the roadway design — including widening traffic lanes in places by taking space from the protected bike lanes.

 

State

The Orange County Transportation Agency wants to improve your safety on your bike and on foot with a series of Be Safe Be Seen workshops. If they really want to improve safety for bike riders and pedestrians, they should give the workshops to drivers. And make them mandatory.

San Francisco Streetsblog says it’s time to stop Caltrans and Alameda County from building another bike and pedestrian hellscape by removing sidewalks and crosswalks, and forcing both to share 3.4 foot maintenance catwalk through a tunnel.

This is who we share the roads with. A red light-running Tesla driver is accused of slamming into a San Francisco couple as they walked in a crosswalk, killing the husband.

He gets it. Great piece from an Oakland illustrator, explains graphically why he’s afraid to ride a bicycle, even though his neighborhood is flat and he doesn’t drive a car.

 

National

The high-end Robb Report looks at the new and ponderously named Specialized S-Works Turbo Creo SL-Founder’s Edition, saying someone finally made an ebike that doesn’t look like an ebike. Which should come as a surprise to all the other ebikes that don’t look like ebikes that got here first.

A Portland nonprofit uses adaptive bikes to help people living with a disability or dementia enjoy the thrill of getting outside and riding a bicycle, even if someone else is doing all the pedaling.

The Department of DIY suffered a setback after an Alaska father used his own money to rent plastic bollards to keep drivers from mistaking the bike path his kids ride on for a roadway; the state DOT took them down the next day, insisting the 17 signs drivers already ignore are good enough.

Denver bike riders complain about downtown’s patchy bike network, and the total ban on bike riders on the 16th Street Mall. Which are the same things I complained about when I lived there. Except not even a patchy bike network was there then.

A Missouri writer says bike lanes are political, not practical, and everyone should just merrily mix with traffic in the streets like he does. Which is exactly what’s inhibited the growth of bicycling for the past 60 years. And will keep depressing bike rates, and bike riders, until people like him stop giving cover to anti-bike traffic engineers. 

Good for them. An Illinois woman’s own parents turned her into the police for the hit-and-run that left a 63-year old man with serious injuries, after she crashed into his bicycle. My dad would have done the same thing. Then made me apologize to the victim and pay for the damages.

They get it, too. The New Yorker asks if the automobile era was a big mistake, saying our cars haven’t loved us back for the love we’ve given them over the past century. Short answer, yes. Longer answer, things weren’t so awful for the first 50 years or so, if you can ignore all the pollution and killing people and stuff.

This is who we share the roads with, too. A Queens, New York community board member’s comment that pedestrians deserve to get run over reflects a car-first culture that continues to grant motorists hegemony over the street at the expense of everyone else.

A Maryland woman was killed in a collision while participating in a 50-mile fundraising ride for a local fire department. Note to WJZ-13 in Baltimore — chances are she didn’t collide with a car; the driver hit her.

Hats off to a group for teenagers in a Georgia youth home, who rode their bikes 500 miles through two states to move past addiction and show themselves and others what they’re capable of.

 

International

Counterfeit bike saddles could literally mean the difference between life and death.

A Toronto op-ed says bike lanes won’t end the city’s hostility to people on bicycles.

A British barrister claims his client’s Parkinson’s means he couldn’t be responsible for killing a bike rider because he was driving in a state of automatism, with no idea what he was doing. Which only means he shouldn’t have been driving in the first place.

A UK writer says start the two-wheeled revolution without her.

 

Competitive Cycling

The AP says this year’s wide open Tour de France is saving its best for last.

The Beach Reporter offers more photos from Sunday’s Manhattan Beach Grand Prix, where CiclaValley’s young daughter got to meet her idol Coryn Rivera and got a souvenir jersey from last year’s US road champ.

 

Finally…

A Hall of Famer’s career was nearly derailed by riding his bike back home after arriving too early for his first practice as an eight-year old. Comic-Con, where dockless scooters and bicycles go to die.

And a properly sepia-toned look back at the early days of bicycling in Europe.

………

I neglected to thank Eric L yesterday for his very generous donation to help support this site, and keep SoCal’s best source for bike news and advocacy coming your way every day.

Although you can be thankful we haven’t followed the lead of all the “Christmas in July” sales and TV movies to run a midsummer holiday fund drive.

And yes, I’m properly embarrassed that last year’s holiday fund drive page is still up on the header for this site, like someone who still has the Christmas lights up on his doublewide trailer. 

 

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