No surprise which side John and Ken are on.
The KFI shock jocks have done their best to drum up anger over the lane reductions in Mar Vista and Playa del Rey, coming down squarely on the side of keeping our streets dangerous.
Now they’re using the KFI website to support the misguided effort to recall Mike Bonin, one of the city’s best councilmembers. And one of the few with the guts to stand up to bullies like them.
Although I have to wonder if the national iHeartRadio chain, which owns KFI, knows what their employees are up to? And what they’d think about using the company website for partisan political purposes?
Then again, I also wonder if the people leading the recall effort are aware that anonymous political contributions totaling over $100 in a single calendar year are against the law. And that Los Angeles has a $700 limit on contributions to city council campaigns, which would undoubtedly apply to recall campaigns, as well.
Making the nearly $25,000 pledged to the recall so far tainted, and questionable as to whether it can be used for political purposes in the City of Los Angeles.
But then, that’s something for the city Ethics Commission to sort out.
What is clear is that this recall attempt — and especially John and Ken’s involvement in it — have little to do with Bonin.
It’s really about putting a stop to Vision Zero, and maintaining the deadly automotive hegemony on our streets at the expense of everyone else.
And sending a message to the rest of the council that they could be next.
Which should send a chill up the spine of anyone who cares about traffic safety. Or good government.
Note: Just to be clear, the term “bullies” was in regard to John and Ken. I did not refer to anyone opposed to the road projects in Mar Vista and Playa del Rey bullies, nor did I intend to.
Photo of Mike Bonin taken from CD11 website.
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A woman was shot in the upper thigh with a BB gun from a passing car while riding in La Verne on Wednesday.
As the Claremont Cyclist commented, attacks like this should be classified as hate crimes.
If not terrorist attacks.
Update: A comment from Robs Muir indicates that this attack occurred near Benson and 7th Street in Upland, rather than La Verne.
Thanks to Erik Griswold for the heads-up.
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It’s been a bad week in the war on bikes. And yesterday was the worst yet.
A Sacramento bicyclist was shot with a stun gun by a teenager in a passing car.
A Houston mountain biker was left bloodied and scarred when someone strung a line thorny vines like a clothesline across a popular bike trail.
A Vermont man faces charges for running a bike rider off the road, then crashing his truck as he tried to flee, and running away from that crash.
A British bicyclist suffered head injuries when he was kicked off his bike by a passing motorcyclist.
Another British rider was apparently shot at from a passing car; fortunately, the bullet missed.
Of course, it sometimes it goes the other way. Concord CA police are looking for a bike-raging bicyclist who shot a driver with a flare gun following an argument. Yes, a flare gun.
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David Drexler forwards security video, along with a wanted poster, of “crusty old men” stealing bicycles from a locked garage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZYC_Xux67o
Which serves as yet another reminder that locked garages and storage rooms aren’t as secure as they may seem; the isolation gave these thieves over 15 minutes to cut the locks and make off with the bicycles without anyone noticing.
Store your bikes inside your home or apartment if you have the room; if not, lock them as securely as possible to an immovable object in a locked garage or storage room.
And make sure you register them.
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These are the people we share the roads with, as road raging Highland Park driver is caught on video repeatedly ramming the car ahead of him.
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Local
LA Curbed offers a great interview with former LACBC Executive Director Tamika Butler about her efforts to expand the conversation about bicycling beyond just bikes during her time at the coalition.
CiclaValley discovers just how hard it is to ride up the third steepest hill in the US.
Seventy cyclists raised nearly $15,000 for the Agoura Hills chapter of the ALS Association at the inaugural Ride to Defeat ALS last month.
State
Under proposed regulations to combat racial profiling, police in California would be required to collect data on every traffic stop they make, including bicyclists and pedestrians.
As Laguna Beach debates the need for more parking, one councilmember suggests removing parking from PCH to widen sidewalks or install bike lanes. As the story notes, they can’t build enough parking spots to meet the demand from tourists and residents. So the obvious solution is to provide transportation alternatives to reduce the demand for parking.
A 60-year old San Diego man was seriously injured when he lost control of his bicycle riding downhill and slid into a retaining wall.
Lake Elsinore will begin work on adding sidewalks and bike lanes on some of the city’s older streets.
The annual Tour de Big Bear rolls this Saturday with rides ranging from 25 to 100 miles.
Now there’s a good cause. Three Texas women stop in Santa Barbara on a 1,700-mile ride down the Left Coast to raise funds to care for young sex trafficking survivors.
A writer in San Luis Obispo complains that the bike lobby is forcing crazy ideas for a bicycle boulevard on unwilling residents — never mind that bike boulevards actually benefit the people who live on the street. And says Los Angeles had to “roll back many similar improvements” at great expense to the public. Um, no. LA is undoing a single road diet on Vista del Mar, which simply involves removing a little paint and restriping the roadway. And it’s not like we actually have bike boulevards to roll back.
A hairy Santa Rosa mountain biker goes riding in Annadel State Park.
Bicyclists are excited about plans to ban private cars from San Francisco’s iconic Market Street, but merchants are worried about the effect it will have on their businesses.
National
It’s not unusual for a blind bicyclist to ride a tandem. But a blind cyclist is riding coast-to-coast on his own bike to raise awareness for people with vision impairments, guided by a riding companion via two-way radio.
Oregon dedicates a new bicycle and pedestrian bridge connecting parks in the state capital.
Streetsblog Denver reminds the local constabulary that ticketing a man in a wheelchair after he gets hit by a car is not Vision Zero.
Colorado officials find a leg bone from a 70 million-year old duck-billed dinosaur while conducting a survey for a new bike trail.
Austin TX is installing 12 bicycle traffic lights around the city to give bike riders a few seconds head start at intersections.
New York plans to add more bike lanes to meet surging demand.
NY Streetsblog says the NYPD continues to slander victims by incorrectly blaming them for causing crashes, inflicting needless pain on their families.
An anti-bike Philadelphia columnist says put a referendum on the November ballot about bike lanes, and let the entire city vote on whether it wants them. Which won’t pass if people like this woman have anything to say about it.
International
Ped-assists have made their way to the foldie world, with new folding ebikes from Tern and Brompton.
This is why you always carry ID when you ride. Canadian authorities are still trying to identify a woman who was killed in a crash on Tuesday.
The Guardian asks if cyclists and autonomous cars can co-exist by 2035. Or ever.
A British bike rider wants to thank the hit-and-run driver who left him lying on the side of the road, because doctors found a brain tumor as they were treating him for head wounds.
A motorcyclist in the UK is being called a hero after he ditched his bike to avoid a head-on crash with a group of cyclists, leaving him paralyzed from the chest down. A crowdfunding campaign to buy him a new specialized wheelchair has raised nearly twice the original goal of £15,000, the equivalent of almost $20,000.
British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is taking a break from politics with a cycling vacation in Croatia, while royal-in-law Pippa Middleton is back on her bike to the delight of the paparazzi.
Bicycling is booming in Israel, as the country encourages riding as an alternative to driving, though not everyone is happy about it.
A Malaysian city moves to ban teenage bike riders from certain streets at night, in response to a crash earlier this year that killed eight young riders.
Finally…
No, don’t knock a bike rider off his bicycle and drag him by his dreadlocks, even if you think he’s a snitch. If you’re going to wrestle a bike from its owner, make sure it doesn’t have two flat tires first.
And you could buy a new car for the price of some bikes.
But then you’d have to drive it.
