Tag Archive for cicLAvia

Metro bikewashes 605 freeway expansion, LA council considers safety measures, and CicLAvia heads to South LA

October 21, 2021 / / One comment

Sometimes, the explanation stinks as much as the project.

And the location.

Anyone who ever drove the 605 Freeway through Baldwin Park and the City of Industry in years past noticed the stench of the duck farm long before it came into sight.

And it lingered long after, making you wonder if the odor was still wafting through the air, or burned into your olfactory nerve.

It’s been 20 years since work began to turn the poultry farm into a park. Although you have to wonder if even that is long enough to get the stink off the land.

But now the stench is wafting from the Metro boardroom, instead.

Streetsblog’s Joe Linton reports the board Planning Committee unanimously approved a $35 million project to widen the freeway interchange at the 605 and Valley Blvd. And is greenwashing it with supposed benefits to bike riders and pedestrians.

What’s depressing is how inexorably these small freeway expansion projects continue to advance. And the Metro gaslighting that now promotes polluting auto-focused freeway expansion as good for equity and for active transportation.

He goes on to note that Caltrans bizarrely certified that the project would have no negative environmental impact.

Because apparently, induced demand isn’t a thing anymore.

The 605/Valley Blvd project was environmentally cleared via a negative declaration (asserting the project has no adverse environmental impacts) approved by Caltrans in May 2021. The environmental documents use discredited Level of Service metrics to show that widening roadways would “reduce congestion on Valley Boulevard” and “alleviate mobility constraints.” The project would widen roads, increasing car congestion and concomitant pollution burdens on the surrounding communities.

Equally bizarre, though, is Metro’s attempts at greenwashing the project by touting its extremely limited benefits to alternative transpiration.

Again, from Linton’s Streetsblog piece —

Caltrans and Metro tout the project as benefiting alternative transportation. The environmental documents assert that the project would “enhance bicyclist and pedestrian safety” and “help reduce GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions” by supporting alternative modes of transportation: biking and walking.

All of the non-car features of the project are:

  • Adding a sidewalk where it is currently missing on the north side of Valley Boulevard – including ADA-mandated features such as wheelchair ramps.
  • Adding “a widened shoulder to provide a future bike lane along Eastbound Valley Boulevard up to the northbound loop on-ramp.” Installing this 1,400-feet length of bike lanes does not appear to be actually included in the project, but the margin for potential future bike lanes is nonetheless noted as helping reduce GHG emissions.
  • Reducing the curve radius of the northbound loop on-ramp from eastbound Valley Boulevard; this “would be reduced to slow entering traffic to enhance safety for bicyclists and pedestrians and support use of these alternative modes.” Note that the reason the turning radius is being narrowed is to accommodate a second lane on the current one-lane on-ramp (without taking out the business next door). Caltrans asserts that an upcoming curve radius would slow Southern California drivers entering the on-ramp, and that this would encourage bicycling. Really.

All the extra bike riding this project would inspire wouldn’t begin to offset the environmental and climate damage it would cause.

Then again, it’s hard to offset anything when the bike and pedestrian side of the equation is virtually nil.

Unless you think a possible, noncommittal quarter-mile bike lane that may never be built is enough to offset what would undoubtedly be a major increase in traffic and emissions.

Or that safety for people on foot and bicycles can really be enhanced by adding a second onramp lane.

Admittedly, I’m not lawyer. But it seems like it wouldn’t take a very big cannon to shoot holes in the environmental report for this project.

Or a water pistol, for that matter.

So let’s be honest.

Every member of the Planning Committee who voted in favor of this project — which is all of them — should be ashamed.

Because whatever benefits this freeway widening project may or may not offer, their efforts to bikewash it with negligible benefits to bike riders and pedestrians stinks every bit as much as the duck farm did.

And it will take years to wash that stench off them, too.

………

Nice to see an effort by LA Councilmembers Mike Bonin, Paul Krekorian and Paul Koretz to use newly signed state laws to improve safety on our streets.

Then again, Koretz has always been in favor of safety improvements, as long as they’re in someone else’s district.

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CicLAvia has released details on December’s 5.3 mile open streets festival in South LA, connecting the neighborhoods of South Central, Exposition Park, Leimert Park and Crenshaw.

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Today’s must read comes from an Associated Press story that only tangentially involves bicycles.

Instead, it’s about kids as young as six years old being handcuffed and arrested by police — including brutal use-of-force incidents — the overwhelming majority of whom are Black, brown or other people of color.

Here’s just one example they cite.

About 165 miles due south, in the rural hamlet of Paris, Illinois, 15-year-old Skyler Davis was riding his bike near his house when he ran afoul of a local ordinance that prohibited biking and skateboarding in the business district — a law that was rarely enforced, if ever.

But on that day, according to Skyler’s father, Aaron Davis, police officers followed his mentally disabled son in their squad car and chased his bike up over a curb and across the grass.

Officers pursued Skyler into his house and threw him to the floor, handcuffing him and slamming him against a wall, his father said. Davis arrived to see police pulling Skyler — 5 feet tall and barely 80 pounds, with a “pure look of terror” on his face — toward the squad car.

“He’s just a happy kid, riding his bike down the road,” Davis said, “And 30 to 45 seconds later, you see him basically pedaling for his life.”

Seriously, there’s no damn excuse for targeting kids like this, unless they somehow pose a direct threat.

And that’s pretty hard to imagine for a six-year old.

Or an unarmed 15-year old just out for a bike ride.

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More evidence that motor vehicle exhaust lowers intelligence, as a Texas driver rolls coal into a Whataburger dining room.

https://www.tiktok.com/@jaysonmanzanares0/video/7018329798951046447

While it may seem like an obnoxious prank, it should be treated as an assault with a deadly weapon, which could have severe consequences for anyone with allergies or breathing problems.

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Who needs a bike car in the train when you’ve got one in front of it?

https://twitter.com/grescoe/status/1450864913396781063

Thanks to Keith Johnson for the forward.

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

No bias here. Instead of improving safety, Korea’s leading steel maker is banning bicycles from its mills.

Singapore is banning bicyclists from riding in groups of more than ten people riding abreast, or five riding single file.

 

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

Calabasas sheriff’s deputies are looking for a bike-riding cosmetics shoplifter who raided the local Sephora and Ulta Beauty stores on at least four separate occasions.

Police in my Colorado hometown are looking for a peeping Tom who fled by bicycle after he was spotted, firing several shots at a group of people who tried to confront him.

A bike-riding Florida teenager says he was trying to kill himself to avoid going back to jail when he fatally shot a cop he was wrestling with, who was trying to arrest him for attempting to break into several cars.

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Local

No news is good news, right?

 

State

The New York Times explains why Newsom vetoed a handful of bills, including California’s proposed Stop As Yield law and one legalizing jaywalking. Meanwhile, SF Gate questions why Newsom vetoed the jaywalking bill, since everyone does it.

Here’s a chance to make some money while you ride your bike. Caltrans wants to pay you up to $250 a day to clean up trash along California highways.

Santa Barbara is hosting a pair of public meetings, virtual and otherwise, to discuss a possible bike/ped bridge over the 101 Freeway.

A Santa Cruz charity ride raised over $200,000 for local nonprofits. And no, it’s not named for conservative KFI shock jocks Jon and Ken.

Good news and bad news. Bay Area bike riders are happy to learn the hard-won bike lane on the Richmond-San Raphael Bridge won’t have to be closed for construction of a proposed water pipeline. But the approach leading to the bridge will be.

 

National

Seriously, who doesn’t need a limited edition Ozzy Osbourne bike jersey?

A climate website looks at the delivery riders on the front lines of the shakeup in sustainable transportation, and the price they pay with their own lives and bodies. Thanks to Megan Lynch for the link.

Outside offers advice on how to avoid low bone density, which has been linked to extensive bicycling.

Road Bike Action offers tips on how to be your own wrench.

Consumer Reports provides advice on how to keep your ebike running longer, while warning about the dangers of ebike battery fires.

A trio of Seattle physicians call on officials to reconsider a proposal to revoke the county’s mandatory bike helmet law, which has been used to unfairly target people of color.

Kindhearted Texas residents pitched in to buy a new ebike for a formerly homeless vet, after his homemade shoeshine cart and the jury-rigged ebike he built were stolen; he recovered the shoeshine cart, but his bike remains missing.

Hats off to a group of Rhode Island mountain bikers, who pitched in to scrub Nazi graffiti off state lands.

A former mountain biker from Seattle is in New York, replicating the Shadowman figures of 1980s street artist Richard Hambleton.

An op-ed from three New York teens calls on the city to develop The NYC Tube, a proposed inter-borough bicycle highway. We need something like that here in Los Angeles to connect at least some of the 88 cities in LA County. Let alone one crossing the City of LA itself.

Momentum Magazine talks with a stunt rider who calls himself Obloxkz, or O, about the Red Bull documentary NYC Bike Life and the ride-outs that continue to traumatize Long Island drivers.

Florida police are checking an abandoned bike for fingerprints, which may or may not have been the bike ridden by someone who may or may not have been Brian Laundrie, who may or may not be suspected in the death of Gabby Petito. Meanwhile, investigators are examining human remains found in a Florida nature reserve, which may or may not be Laundrie’s.

 

International

Intenet users teamed up to find a handicapped Vancouver man’s stolen handcycle, just 17 minutes after he posted a notice of the theft online.

An Italian ultracyclist is riding over 1,200 miles from Milan to Glasgow for the COP26 climate conference to spread the word about bicycling.

Once again, bike riders are heroes, as India’s Relief Riders earn a nomination for next year’s Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to deliver food and medicine to elderly, disabled and people isolating during the worst of the country’s pandemic.

An Indian man insists he loves his wife, despite running her down with his car as she rode her bicycle to work, then hacking her to death before attempting to cut her head off. Which makes you wonder what he would have done if he didn’t love her.

Malaysia threatens to jail people for up to three months for the crime of riding an e-scooter on public streets.

 

Competitive Cycling

Seems appropriate. Rising Belgian pro Remco Evenepoel will take part in the Kansas edition of the Belgian Waffle Ride, along with his Deceueninck-QuickStep teammate Mattia Cattaneo.

Seventeen top women’s teams have confirmed for next week’s inaugural Lion’s Den race in Sacramento, with a star-studded field including US Olympians Lily Williams and SoCal’s own Coryn Labecki, who was formerly known as Coryn Rivera before her recent marriage.

Cyclist looks forward to next year’s women’s Tour de France, calling it a week of brutal climbs and gravel.

A diabetes website talks with former Team Novo Nordisk cyclist Ezra Ward-Packard about the joys of competing with Type 1 diabetes. Thanks again to Keith Johnson. 

Cannondale is teaming with travel and language company EF Education First to sponsor new college cycling teams at one HBCU and two tribal colleges, with enough funding for three years.

Forty-seven-year old Natalie van Gogh is calling it a career after 15 years in the pro peloton, insisting she’s just Natalie, “not Natalie the transgender cyclist.”

 

Finally…

Probably not the best idea to ride your e-scooter on a highway, weaving in and out of traffic at up to 60 mph. Now you, too, can get your next bike from a haunted REI co-op.

And maybe it’s time we demanded a mandatory helmet law for deer.

Pretty impressive handspring as it tumbles offscreen, too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioS-CcgddHU

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

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

Bike riders Gavined by governor’s veto pen, rude writer confronts rude rider, and bad Claremont proposal threatens bikes

October 11, 2021 / / Comments Off on Bike riders Gavined by governor’s veto pen, rude writer confronts rude rider, and bad Claremont proposal threatens bikes

We’ve been Gavined.

We’re only a few years removed from when Jerry Brown became a verb meaning a too close pass, after he vetoed legislation establishing a three-foot passing law.

Twice.

It took a third try, and a vastly weakened law, to get it past Brown’s overactive veto pen.

Now Gavin Newsom is trying to take his place by irrationally vetoing bike and pedestrian safety laws.

Consider this statement that accompanied his veto of the Safety Stop Bill, otherwise known as the Idaho Stop or Stop as Yield, which has gone into effect in several other states without an accompanying jump in carnage.

And note, there’s no bike in carnage, but there’s sure all hell a car.

While I share the author’s intent to increase bicyclist safety, I am concerned this bill will have the opposite effect. The approach in AB 122 may be especially concerning for children, who may not know how to judge vehicle speeds or exercise the necessary caution to yield to traffic when appropriate.

Fatalities and serious injuries have been on the rise on the state’s roads since 2010. The Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System shows that, since 2015, there were 3,059 crashes involving bicycles at an intersection in which the primary collision factor was failure to stop at a stop sign. The data indicates bicyclists were determined to be at fault for 88 percent of the collisions resulting in fatalities and 63 percent of those involving injuries.

So let’s be clear.

Few, if any, legitimate sources use that 88% figure; most researchers find fault either evenly divided, or drivers at fault for most crashes involving bike riders.

While it’s a useful tool, the Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System, better knows as SWITRS, is hardly the most reliable source. SWITRS depends on voluntary self-reporting by law enforcement agencies, which results in most, but not all, serious collisions being reported.

It is also dependent on the CHP and other law enforcement agencies with their infamous windshield bias and lack of adequate training in bike law.

And never mind that of those 3,059 collisions at intersections where someone failed to stop at a stop sign, it wasn’t necessarily the person on the bike who failed to stop.

Drivers blow through stop signs at least as frequently as people on bikes, and with far more deadly results.

And as we’ve said many times before, even the most reckless bike rider is primarily a danger to him or herself, while a reckless driver is a danger to everyone around them.

Not to mention Gavin also killed a very good law decriminalizing crossing the damn street, for similarly specious reasons — despite clear evidence that it has resulted in biased police enforcement against people of color.

Although to his credit, he did sign a bill that allows the first small steps towards weakening the deadly 85th Percentile Rule and lowering speed limits.

So maybe Gavined should be the new term for irrationally rejecting bike and pedestrian safety rules.

Or maybe that’s what we’ll call it when someone gets a ticket for otherwise safely rolling a stop sign or crossing the street mid-block, which would have been legal under the laws he rejected.

Or both.

Because we had high hopes that California would finally take a long-delayed rational step forward to make it safer and easier to get around without a car.

But instead, we got Gavined.

In today’s photo, a family takes a break on the front plaza of LAPD headquarters during yesterday’s CicLAvia in Downtown Los Angeles.

And my apologies for the lack of attribution for the people who sent me links for today’s post. Too be honest, it’s nearly 5:30 am as I finish this, and I’m just too damn tired to go back and see who sent what. But I thank you, and truly appreciate the help!

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A worker with a homeless organization complains about a rude bike rider on the LA River bike path, in an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times.

He was standing on the pathway, comforting a homeless man who’s longtime partner had just died, when a man on a bike yelled at them to get out of the path.

These were the circumstances when you, spandex-clad and biking south along the river, yelled at the three of us to get out of the path, to which I responded with a predictable vulgarity.

I was surprised when you returned to insist that I apologize for my foul language and for forcing you to shift lanes. You seemed genuinely certain you were the injured party, and I imagined you carrying that for the rest of the day — telling your friends about the confrontation, using it as an example of our ongoing civilizational decline…

Things shouldn’t be like this. I took your behavior as evidence that you, like many of my neighbors, view unhoused people exclusively as nuisances, similar to bad traffic on the 5 or our most recent oat milk shortage.

As usual, though, we’re only hearing one side of the story.

Undoubtedly, the man on the bicycle would see things differently; he had no way of knowing about the death of the homeless man’s partner.

But based on what we’ve been told by the author of the piece, it would seem like they were both wrong.

He could, and should, have moved the homeless man off the pathway to avoid blocking a path used by countless people every day. It’s likely that the two people comforting a homeless man blocked more of the path than he realized.

The bike rider could have also held his tongue as he rode past, assuming there was enough room to get by. Yes, it’s annoying when people stand on a bike path. But that’s what people do.

And sometimes, as in this case, there’s a reason for it.

The author also could have responded without swearing at the bike rider, which seems uncalled for under the circumstances.

So what we’re left with is two people behaving badly, and one whining about it in the pages of the Times.

Neither of whom seem very sympathetic in the retelling.

………

Eric Griswold calls our attention to a very badly worded motion before the Claremont city council that could ban bikes from one or more surface streets, in violation of state law.

So just to be clear, under California state law, bike riders have all the rights and responsibilities of motorists, and must be allowed on any public street where cars are allowed, with the exception of some limited access highways.

While some cities have tried to ban bikes from certain roadways, it’s questionable whether it can be legally enforced. Although fighting it could mean taking it to the state appeals courts, which is a slow and costly process.

So let’s hope Claremont takes another look at this wording, and sends it back for a rewrite.

And maybe gets a new law firm for the next draft.

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Sunday marked the return of CicLAvia to DTLA, exactly 11 years to the day after the first one.

And yes, a good time was had by all.

Even our very own BikinginLA intern, who not only experienced her first CicLAvia, but also took her first pedicab ride.

Not to mention her second. And loved every minute of it, thanks to our very kind and friendly driver.

We also had a chance to talk corgis, bikes and city finances with the man who may just be LA’s next city controller.

Maybe he could put his own corgis to work sniffing out financial irregularities at city hall.

https://twitter.com/kennethmejiaLA/status/1447365863363923969

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Show this tweet the next time someone complains about bike lanes in front of businesses.

Then wait for the inevitable “Yeah, but this isn’t Madrid.”

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

An editor with Esquire wants us to feel sorry for him for getting his first traffic ticket in 30 years for right-hooking a bike rider who came off the sidewalk “out of nowhere.” Evidently, though, the cops understood that no one ever comes out of nowhere if drivers are paying attention, even if he doesn’t.

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

There’s a special place in hell for the man who brutally attacked an 18-year old woman in South Los Angeles as she was walking with her young brother, stealing about 30 bucks before making off on a bicycle.

New York police are looking for a bike-riding man who shouted a racist comment at an Asian woman before bumping her with his bike.

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Local

All five candidates to replace pseudo-environmentalist, bike lane-blocking, thankfully termed out CD5 City Councilmember Paul Koretz will participate in an online debate on mobility on October 25th, sponsored by Streets for All.

Congratulations to LA’s Silver Lake neighborhood, which is officially the world’s 14th coolest neighborhood.

This is who we share the road with. A man was beaten to death by bystanders after using his car as a weapon to intentionally crash into several people on a sidewalk when he was tossed from a Hawthorne business, then crashed into a building as he tried to get away, only to be pulled from his car and killed by members of the crowd he attacked

Not everyone turned out for CicLAvia on Sunday, as some people took part in the return of the bike ride on the course of the Long Beach Marathon. Although I suspect some people did both.

 

State

An Orange County woman got her stolen bike back a day later, after cruising the neighborhood with her dog until she spotted a man riding it, and the police in Santa Ana recovered it for her.

Cycling Tips looks at Day Two of this year’s Sea Otter Classic.

Moving piece from a Berkeley publicly funded paper about the 81-year old retired firefighter who died of a heart attack while riding his bike last week.

The San Francisco Chronicle examines the lack of equity for two San Francisco drivers who killed two bike-riding women in separate crashes on the same night; one driver got a lousy 16 days behind bars, while the other has been held in county jail for five years on $10 million bail, without ever getting a hearing.

 

National

Treehugger says US ebike sales are up a whopping 240%.

How to repurpose old wheelbarrows to build your own DIY bike trailer.

Chicago residents petition to restore a Slow Street, after the city continues its campaign to remove them.

In a major traffic collision, an eight-year old Ohio girl was riding her bicycle when she was struck by a 10-year old boy and 8-year old girl in a pony cart, spilling them all.

Two hundred Massachusetts bike riders turned out turned out to honor the sacrifices of police and firefighters who gave their lives to protect the public.

Bicycling rates continue to rise in the Big Apple, with a 33% jump in weekday ridership.

Jersey City NJ bike riders are getting the secure bike parking we all need with a Black and Brown-owned Brooklyn-based startup that provides customizable bike storage pods that can fit in a single parking space. Let’s hope they come here to SoCal soon.

Woody Harrelson is one of us, riding a bike around DC shortly after punching a drunk man at the Watergate Hotel, who allegedly lunged at him when Harrelson asked him to delete photos of him and his daughter. .

 

International

Birmingham, England announced a transformative plan to cut motor vehicle use by requiring drivers to use a ring road, rather than allowing them to drive across the city, while introducing a fleet of zero-emission cross-city buses and additional protected bike lanes.

Oh, bother. Local residents agree on protecting England’s Hundred Acre Wood, made famous by Winnie-the-Pooh, Eeyore and Piglet et al, though there’s less agreement on whether to allow bicycles. Although something tells me Pooh would welcome bikes.

Nice story from the UK, where YouTube BMX star Zak Jones gave a young boy with autism a new bike after meeting him at a skate park, when the boy, who had never ridden a bicycle, decided to become a cycling star like Jones.

It takes a major schmuck to borrow a Kenyan boy’s bicycle, then turn around and sell it.

Life is really cheap in Malaysia, where an appeals court confirmed that a driver got a walk for killing eight — yes, eight — teenagers on the customized bikes known as basikal lajak. And she got her driver’s license back, too. I don’t care who you are, it takes major recklessness to crash into eight people on bicycles with enough force to kill them all.

Covid is delaying construction of a Sydney, Australia bikeway, as “snobbish” and “narrow minded” residents work to stop it.

Australian actor Samuel Johnson is one of us, possibly to his regret, after permanently losing his sense of smell when he was struck by a driver while riding his bike.

 

Competitive Cycling

Slovenian cyclist Tadej Pogacar won the Il Lombardia classic, in the final race on this year’s WorldTour calendar.

Pink Bike offers a photo essay from the Red Bull Rampage, calling it the greatest show on earth.

British sprinting star Mark Cavendish turned up at the women’s Tour of Britain to speak out in support of women’s cycling.

Congratulations to SoCal’s own Coryn Rivera, who is now Coryn Labecki, after getting married and moving to a new team.

American BMX cyclist Connor Fields crash in the Tokyo Olympics left him with a serious traumatic brain injury and memory loss, raising questions about whether he can recover enough to compete again.

 

Finally…

That feeling when your new low-end e-mountain bike is okay for everything, except riding mountains. Who needs the Batmobile when you’ve got a turbo-charged bicycle?

And clearly, dooring is nothing new.

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

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

Murder charge for Oxnard hit-and-run, bike lane funds stalled in infrastructure bill, and take Metro to Sunday’s CicLAvia

October 6, 2021 / / Comments Off on Murder charge for Oxnard hit-and-run, bike lane funds stalled in infrastructure bill, and take Metro to Sunday’s CicLAvia

Ventura County prosecutors threw the book at the alleged hit-and-run driver who killed a bike-riding boy last week.

Thirty-nine-year old Oxnard resident Julio Sanchez was arrested at his home last Friday, a day after 16-year old Port Hueneme resident Andres Hernandes was run down from behind on an Oxnard street.

Police had found Sanchez’ abandoned car a few hours after the crash.

Sanchez pled not guilty to charges of second-degree murder, gross vehicular manslaughter with prior DUI convictions, leaving the scene of an accident, and vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence.

At last report, he was being held on a half-million dollars bail.

Photo by Sora Shimazaki from Pexels.

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This is what we have to look forward to in the unlikely event Congress ever gets its shit together.

More bike lanes that are clearly separated from streets. More pedestrian-friendly street designs. And more safety features on cars

California and other states are in line for a lot more money to implement such plans, thanks to the $1 trillion infrastructure bill the House is considering.

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The Source reminds us about this Sunday’s Heart of LA CicLAvia. And encourages you to leave the car at home and take Metro, instead.

With your bike, of course. Or your feet, if you plan to walk it.

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A series of free online bicycling symposiums will lead into next year’s California Bicycling Summit in Oakland, with leading bike researchers Ralph Buehler and John Pucher discussing Cycling for Sustainable Cities next Tuesday.

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You may have follow a detour if you’re riding the Ballona Creek bike path for the next several days.

But that’s better than the Higuera Street bridge, which will be closed for more than a year.

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When is a bike lane not a bike lane?

When it’s free protected car parking in DTLA.

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Call it a desire line, as the Department of DIY strikes along PCH in Orange County.

https://twitter.com/jake_gotta/status/1445110045276917766

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If you want to ride a bike badly enough, you can usually find a way.

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

No bias here. Enraged New York drivers see an “extraordinary” plot between Uber and Lyft, and a “militant local bike lane group” to deprive them of their God-given right to free parking by building a protected bike lane. Never mind that the ride-hailing companies support the city’s leading bike advocacy group Transportation Alternatives because bike lanes and safe streets are good for their e-scooter and dockless bikeshare businesses. Or that Lyft manages New York’s Citi Bike docked bikeshare, as well. 

Bizarre story from Ontario, Canada, where a woman allegedly threatened two bike-riding teens with a knife after accusing them of being on her property — even though they were on the sidewalk — then apparently ran them down with her car after they tried to leave.

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

Police in New York are looking for a black-clad bike rider who punched a pedestrian in the face as he rode by, then calmly took $100 out of the man’s wallet before riding off.

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Local

Ride Metro buses and trains for free today, as well get free Metro Bike bikeshare rides, to celebrate California Clean Air Day.

LA’s cool pavement project expands to NoHo, promising to reduce temperatures on the streets we ride, which can rise to as high as 140°.

The annual Bike It! Walk It! week returned to Santa Monica schools this week to encourage students to get out of their cars, or their parent’s cars, and walk or ride to class.

Long Beach will hold a virtual meeting tomorrow to discuss a $3.7 million infrastructure improvement project on Santa Fe Avenue in West Long Beach, which includes a new bike route.

 

State

The San Diego Reader considers whether OfferUp and Facebook Marketplace could be behind the city’s soaring rate of bike thefts.

A woman who’s been hit by drivers twice while riding on Sunnyside’s 39th Street says stop signs and speed bumps aren’t enough to tame the city’s drivers, which is why a bike boulevard is needed. Needless to say, some of her fellow residents disagree.

Tragic news from Stockton, where a 13-year old girl was “struck and killed by a vehicle.” Judging by the article, the driver of said vehicle was apparently only coincidently involved.

Life is cheap in San Ramon, where a distracted driver walked with no charges for running down popular NFL assistant coach Greg Knapp as he was riding his bike, despite admitting to looking at his hands-free cellphone.

 

National

Seriously? The US Consumer Product Safety Commission warns about the dangers of micromobility, with e-scooter, ebike and hoverboard injuries up 70% in the last four years, and 71 deaths over the same period. Just wait until someone tells them how many bike riders and pedestrians were killed in the same four years. And it only makes sense that injuries went up since micromobility use has skyrocketed.

Smart Cities says smart cities are beefing up their bike infrastructure in response to the pandemic bike boom. Then again, no one has accused Los Angeles of being a smart city in recent years.

Once again, a science website has concluded that bicycling is better for your overall health than walking. Even if walking ain’t bad.

United Airlines becomes the latest major airline to drop fees to fly with a bicycle, joining American and Delta in making the move.

Electrek examines why ebike sales are increasing 16 times faster than general bicycling. Hint: They’re fun, easy to ride and anyone can do it.

Ford is applying for a patent on a new kind of automated electronic derailleur.

This is the cost of traffic violence. A Las Vegas 4th grade teacher and baton coach was killed while riding her bike to school when a driver blew through a stop sign.

A Denver nonprofit is encouraging bicycling by paying people between 15 and 30 cents per mile to ride a bike this month, for a maximum of $75

Colorado’s legislature has finally figured out the obvious problem with the state’s ridiculous opt-in Idaho Stop, aka Stop as Yield, Law, which allows local jurisdictions to decide whether to adopt it. And leads to confusion when bike riders have no idea when they’ve crossed from one city to another, and whether or not they have to come to a full stop.

A Chicago attorney is offering a reward to find the driver who pulled into a bike lane, where his passenger was caught on camera dooring a passing bike rider.

A Nashville walking and bike advocacy group says a recent deadly scooter crash calls out the need for more bike lanes in the downtown area to meet expanding demand.

Speaking of Nashville, country music star Chris Stapleton is one of us, finding balance by riding a mountain bike during the pandemic.

A seven-year old Long Island boy raised over $4,000 for the heroes of 9/11 by riding his bike 20 miles. And insisted on finishing despite crashing his bike into a thorny fence, saying he wasn’t in as much pain as people on 9/11.

A new study reveals what they describe as the “harrowing safety risks” faced by New York’s app-based delivery riders, with half of riders reporting they’ve been involved in a crash or some other incident.

New York police busted a 14-year old boy for randomly attacking several older Brooklyn residents, including an 81-year old man and a man riding a bicycle.

DC is now requiring e-scooter users to lock their scooters to a bike rack when they’re done, which isn’t likely to improve safety or reduce clutter, while blocking parking access to bike riders who need it.

No bias here, either. After initially fleeing the scene, a Florida hit-and-run driver returned to blame the victim, insisting he didn’t know “why that person was in the road;” fortunately, he was arrested anyway.

 

International

Where to rent a bike on your next trip to Tobago.

Ontario, Canada’s equivalent of the Motor City used to be a bicycling paradise — if you go back 130 years.

After England suffers major flooding, a London cabbie somehow blames bike lanes for causing it. Which doesn’t explain why the streets without them flooded, too.

A man from Jersey spent his pandemic lockdown filming bike rides on routes throughout the British island, allowing bike riders around the world to share his rides from the comfort of their own homes.

Britain’s ongoing gas shortage has led to a 119% jump in bike sales, with sales of commuter bikes up 194%.

British advocates argue that bicycle infrastructure has to extend to rural areas, as well as cities, after a 43% jump in bike deaths on country roads last year.

A writer for the UK version of GQ accepts a challenge to ride the full length of the country, and shares what it was like to cover 970 miles in a week and a half riding from Land’s End to John O’Groats.

More proof life is cheap in Great Britain, where a hit-and-run driver gets a lousy 12 months behind bars for killing the 31-year old daughter of a member of Parliament as she was riding her bike.

Dutch neurologists call on people in the bicycle-riding country to wear bike helmets, despite — or maybe because — virtually no one does, even though Dutch riders suffer roughly 16,500 bicycling brain injuries each year.

France is offering drivers the equivalent of $2,975 to trade in their old smog-belching cars for clean new ebikes.

High-end Italian bikemaker Colnago says their blockchain cryptosecurity is the solution to bike theft, but you’ll just have to trust them on that. But at least you can trust Yahoo to let you read it if Bicycling won’t.

A trio of Aussie researchers analyzed bikeshare data from 40 international cities to determine where bike riders are most likely to brave the rain and snow, with Dublin, Ireland and Seville and Valencia, Spain taking the lead.

 

Competitive Cycling

Cycling Weekly offers a cyclist’s-eye view of last weekend’s Paris-Roubaix.

Longtime Irish cyclist Nicolas Roche is calling it a career after 17 years in the pro peloton.

There’s more than one way to stop when you don’t trust your disk brakes.

 

Finally…

This may just be the best bike name ever. Who needs rain gear when you can carry a roof with you?

And that feeling when you try to steal the same bait bike twice.

………

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

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

Arraignment set for pickup driver charged with murder, Culver City opens Jackson gate, and San Diego debates bike safety

August 24, 2021 / / Comments Off on Arraignment set for pickup driver charged with murder, Culver City opens Jackson gate, and San Diego debates bike safety

My News LA reports Sergio Reynaldo Gutierrez is scheduled to be arraigned on September 2nd for using his truck as a weapon to murder a bike rider last month.

As we reported over the weekend, Gutierrez allegedly made a U-turn in his massive Ford pickup and deliberately slammed into Benedicto Solanga on July 29th, in an apparent road rage attack.

Solanga died three days later, while it took nearly three weeks for authorities to conclude Gutierrez had been behind the wheel, after finding his truck hours after the crash.

Gutierrez is expected to be charged with murder, along with a sentencing enhancement for using his truck as a deadly weapon.

He remains in custody on $1 million bail.

………

Chalk this one up as a win for people on two wheels or feet.

For anyone who’s wondered why one of the easiest and most convenient entrances to Ballona Creek has long been closed to everyone but maintenance workers, the Culver City Council just voted to change that last night.

And better yet, to keep it open.

Meanwhile, the city also voted to support extending the Ballona Creek bike path the full length of the creek from where it emerges from underground.

………

The San Diego Union-Tribune explores the ongoing debate over bike lanes in a series of op-eds, saying the city is experiencing unintended consequences in the quest to get more people on bicycles.

Not everyone is in favor of the city’s move to expand bike lanes and get more people on bicycles, however.

Just wait until someone tells that last guy what it costs to keep building more traffic lanes.

………

CicLAvia has officially unveiled the route for October’s return to the Heart of LA, running from MacArthur Park to Chinatown, and east to Mariachi Plaza.

Thanks to Keith Johnson for the heads-up.

………

 

The perfect bike for when you’re ready to live your dream to chuck your job and become the neighborhood fruit vendor.

https://twitter.com/may_gun/status/1430060121514676224

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Today’s mountain biking break is a first-person view of a “beyond black diamond” bike trail from Canadian mountain biker Dave Herr.

Unless maybe you’d prefer a first impression of the new Killington, Vermont Bike Park.

………

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

Heartbreaking news from the UK, where a Black teenage taekwondo star was killed when a driver slammed into his bicycle as he was trying to escape a group of alleged drug dealers armed with large knives.

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

A Washington man faces charges for allegedly chucking rocks at a road crew when they asked him to move his bicycle, before he escalated to shooting arrows at them.

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Local

The New York Times takes a look at the effect of pandemic era street dining and Slow Streets in the Los Angeles area, saying it’s chipping away at Southern California’s notorious deference to cars.

Speaking of which, hundreds turned out for Santa Monica’s first carfree weekend on Main Street this year, with two more planned for September and October.

 

State

A homeless man has been convicted of second degree murder for fatally stabbing another homeless man outside an Escondido Burger King, because he thought the man was trying to steal his bicycle.

Fremont is using plastic pylons to buck the trend of rising bike and pedestrian deaths, with a 45% reduction in major traffic crashes involving death or severe injury in the three years since they adopted Vision Zero, and a 23% drop in major crashes involving bike riders.

 

National

After concluding that Amazon was a driving force behind the problem, a company in the Pacific Northwest pulled their bike parts off the platform, taking a hit in sales to directly supply bike shops affected by the pandemic-driven shortage of bikes and parts.

Reno bike riders are staying inside as smoke from the massive California wildfires forces them off the streets.

Phoenix officials shoot down longstanding plans to install bike lanes on a major street, instead telling bike riders to be happy they’ll get new sharrows on an existing bike boulevard.

A writer for Singletracks tries racing a then top-of-the-line 1990’s mountain bike, surprisingly finding that it held its own against more modern bikes. And ends up selling it to a collector who promised to give it a good home.

A Pittsburgh children’s charity is devoted to letting kids be kids, while giving them more independence by providing them with adaptive bicycles. Thanks to Megan Lynch for the tip.

 

International

Treehugger offers a review of the new longtail e-cargo bike from Blix, which sells for a relatively reasonable $1,999 for the twin battery version.

A Canadian man is finishing his summer-long bike tour to visit all 18 of the country’s residential schools in an effort to reconcile with Indigenous students.

Another Canadian man rode 745 miles on his recumbent bike, despite a broken collarbone, to benefit a nine-year old Alabama boy suffering from an aggressive brain tumor, four decades after beating the disease himself.

Officials in Dorset, England are defending a road makeover that narrowed traffic lanes while installing a spacious 11-foot bike lane, saying the bike lane has to accommodate wobbly riders traveling in both directions, while the traffic lanes are more than wide enough if drivers just obey the speed limit.

Forget the Hound of the Baskervilles. An English mountain biker encountered the apocryphal big cat of Cornwall.

In a bizarre tragedy, a British search and rescue team stumbled on the body of a mountain biker who had apparently crashed his bike while they were on an unrelated call to rescue a teenaged old boy suffering from hypothermia.

A UK driver got three years and four months behind bars for the speeding, hit-and-run death of a 15-year old boy riding a bicycle.

 

Competitive Cycling

Cycling News peers into its crystal ball, and predicts the Vuelta is Primož Roglič’s to lose.

VeloNews credit’s Jennifer Valente’s physical and intellectual gifts for her gold medal in the women’s Omnium at the Tokyo Olympics, along with a lifelong background in track cycling.

World ‘cross champ Mathieu van der Poel pulled out of this week’s mountain bike worlds due to lingering back pain stemming from a crash in the Tokyo Olympics, though he still hopes to ride in next month’s road championships.

 

Finally…

That feeling when proper bike lanes are too “ideological” for LEGO. Who needs gas when you can buy a cool used bike for the same price?

And when building a shed for your bike would create to much “visual clutter.”

………

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

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

Are bikes green enough to change the world; KTown Block Party and CicLAvia; and firefighters stranded on 9/11 tour

August 13, 2021 / / One comment

Yes, your bike is green, whatever color bike you ride.

But the question is whether it’s green enough.

A writer for Bike Radar took a deep dive into the climate impact of different modes of transportation, concluding that a bicycle is by far the best choice, even when compared to walking.

And yes, even if it’s an ebike.

Here are their key conclusions.

  • Cycling has a carbon footprint of about 21g of CO2 per kilometre. That’s less than walking or getting the bus and less than a tenth the emissions of driving
  • About three-quarters of cycling’s greenhouse gas emissions occur when producing the extra food required to “fuel” cycling, while the rest comes from manufacturing the bicycle
  • Electric bikes have an even lower carbon footprint than conventional bikes because fewer calories are burned per kilometre, despite the emissions from battery manufacturing and electricity use
  • If cycling’s popularity in Britain increased six-fold (equivalent to returning to 1940s levels) and all this pedalling replaced driving, this could make a net reduction of 7.7-million tons of CO2 annually, equivalent to 6% of the UK’s transport emissions

That’s a big drop. But as they admit, going back to that rate of riding, from a time when many post-war Brits couldn’t afford a car or the gas to drive it, is a big lift.

More achievable would be replacing cars with bicycles and ebikes for half of all trips of five miles or less, which would result in a much lower but still significant reduction in greenhouse gasses.

By these calculations, cycling has the lowest carbon footprint of any mode of personal transport, even when compared to walking.

From a climate perspective, it makes sense for as many journeys as possible to be made by bike.

On an individual level, cycling instead of driving (or any other method of travelling) can make a positive impact on your carbon footprint.

But on a national scale, cycling has a limited role in addressing climate change. Because cycling is restricted to short journeys for most people, it can only replace a small fraction of the kilometres covered by cars.

Even if half of all sub-5-mile car journeys were replaced with cycling (a deliberately optimistic scenario) this would save around 7.7-million tons CO2e in the UK, equivalent to 2 per cent of UK domestic emissions in 2016. Not to be sniffed at, but not a silver bullet.

If that same 2% figure were applied to the US, it would save 102 million tons of CO2, based on 2017 figures.

That’s nothing to be sniffed at, either.

But it will take a better analytical mind than mine to calculate whether replacing half of all trips of less than five miles with bicycles, electric and otherwise, would be more or less than the UK’s 2%,

But even that would be a challenge in a country where cars are king, and even adequate bike networks are few and far between.

It’s not an insurmountable problem. But it’s not likely to change without leaders with the political will and courage to make it happen.

And right now, that’s the problem.

………

Then again, bikes are pretty efficient, too.

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It’s a busy bike weekend.

First up is tomorrow’s carfree 6th Street KTown Block Party.

That will be followed on Sunday by the first post-pandemic CicLAvia on a 2.2-mile course through Wilmington.

Even if the pandemic is once again rearing its ugly head.

Also on Sunday, ride and dine with celebrity chefs Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger with a bike ride through their favorite neighborhoods, followed by brunch at their Socalo restaurant in Santa Monica.

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The Bay Area firefighters and EMTs who set out recently on a cross-country bike ride to New York for the 20th anniversary of 9/11 are stuck in Jackson, Wyoming after the new Chevy Tahoe they were using as a support van broke down, leaving them stranded.

And General Motors put the lie to their promises of great quality and service, by saying it will be another six weeks before it can be repaired.

Which would mean they’d be starting back out on their trip two weeks after they were supposed to get there.

Hopefully GM will decide to avoid the bad publicity and figure out a way to do something sooner.

………

Streets For All has been kind enough to post video of Wednesday’s virtual happy hour with California Assembly Transportation Committee Chair Laura Friedman, for those of us who missed it.

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Great to see the Cutters are still together after all those years after Breaking Away first hit the screens.

But they’re not going to get very far without any rubber on that bike.

Thanks to Ted Faber for the heads-up.

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

No bias here. A Flagstaff AZ paper offers advice on how to ride around the city safety, “without pissing anyone off.” Actually, the advice isn’t bad, even if the headline sucks.

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

Stockton police are looking for a man on a bicycle who allegedly set a Mexican restaurant on fire when they refused to give him a free drink.

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Local

Streetsblog’s Joe Linton says Metro didn’t exactly make the new and improved Willowbrook/Rosa Parks Station bike and pedestrian friendly, skipping a promised bike lane in favor of more parking for cars.

Whittier business owners want to keep the city’s Greenleaf Ave closed to motor vehicles, and make permanent the Greenleaf Promenade that took its place for over a year.

A donation from Metro will allow Long Beach to double the number of bikeshare docks in the city.

 

State

Newport Beach ebike maker Electric Bike Company isn’t anymore, after city officials insisted their workspace wasn’t zoned for making bicycles; they’re now in a larger Costa Mesa facility with an expanded product line.

San Diego bike riders continue to call for change following a rash of bicycling deaths this year.

 

National

Men’s Journal recommends the best used bikes to buy now.

A safety startup wants you to pay 300 bucks for a cellphone-sized device to go on your bike, which promises to alert both you and drivers of any dangers they may pose. But only if their cars have the system installed, which they probably won’t.

A Texas driver faces a pair of manslaughter charges for an alleged drunken two-part crash in which he first killed a man riding a bike, then crossed onto the wrong side of the road a few miles later and killed a man driving a pickup.

Bicycling and pedestrian deaths continued to rise in Texas last year, continuing a five-year trend.

Life is cheap in Michigan, where a man will spend just ten lousy days behind bars for killing a bike-riding teenage boy, if he behaves while wearing an ankle bracelet after they let him out.

He gets it. An op-ed in the New York Times argues that electric cars may be a big improvement over gas engines, but any mode of transportation that sits idle 95% of the time is still a problem.

Actor Justin Theroux is one of us, riding his flat-barred roadie through his New York neighborhood.

That’s more like it. A 67-year old Maryland man was sentenced to 20 years behind bars for killing one man and injuring six others when he slammed his car into a group of bicyclists while under the influence of a controlled substance.

 

International

The Verge likes the second-generation Hummingbird, the world’s lightest folding ebike. But they’re not so crazy about the $6,200 price tag.

British police were following an alleged terrorist when he stabbed a woman walking a bicycle, as well as another man, before officers shot and killed him; 20-year old Sudesh Amman had been released from prison on a terrorism charge just ten days earlier.

There isn’t a pit in hell deep enough for the apparent vegan troll who has been tormenting a Welsh farmer online after the farmer killed his three-year old son by backing over the bike he was riding.

One man was killed, and several others injured, when a South African driver attempted to pass several cars on a blind hill, and slammed into eleven people on their bicycles.

 

Competitive Cycling

Post-Olympic bike racing is back with the five-stage Tour of Denmark. And so is Remco Evanepoel, who claimed his first stage win since a horrific crash in last year’s Il Lombardia.

Cycling Weekly looks forward to the first week of the Vuelta, which kicks off tomorrow.

Outside profiles a team of Latin American immigrants who are shaking up New York bike racing.

Olympic gold medalist Jennifer Valente says if you want to succeed in cycling, have fun along the way.

A groundbreaking Aussie cyclist now has permanent brain damage after she suffered over 60 concussions during her racing career.

 

Finally…

Two thousand years after Jesus rode a donkey into Jerusalem, he could now use bikeshare, instead. Win gold in the Olympics, ride a gold bike in the Vuelta.

And don’t reach in and ride off with a driver’s car keys after an argument at an intersection

As much as we’d all like to sometimes.

………

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

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

Keeping dangerous drivers driving until it’s too late, Metro neighborhood bike guides, and Brompton guests on Ted Lasso

August 12, 2021 / / Comments Off on Keeping dangerous drivers driving until it’s too late, Metro neighborhood bike guides, and Brompton guests on Ted Lasso

Once again, authorities have managed to keep a dangerous driver on the road and behind the wheel until it’s too late.

A 90-year Chico old man faces up to one year behind bars after pleading no contest to killing a 75-year old doctor in a dangerous pass, sideswiping his bicycle after failing to give a safe passing distance.

Shockingly, the crash came just three years after the then 84-year old man hit another bike rider on the same damn road.

Which is exactly when he should have been forced to give up his keys.

Permanently.

Admittedly, it’s difficult to know when an older person can no longer drive safely. And I know from experience just how hard it is to take the keys from a loved one.

But it’s the state’s job to do exactly that. And before they kill someone.

Which makes the DMV, police, and any prosecutors and judges who may have been involved in the earlier case just as responsible for this doctor’s death as the man who actually killed him.

And who shouldn’t have been allowed to drive in the first place.

Photo by cottonbro from Pexels.

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CicLAvia wants to remind you that Metro has lots of recommendations of where to ride in transit-accessible neighborhoods throughout the city.

Meanwhile, CicLAvia returns this Sunday with a short 2.25-mile route in Wilmington.

Which makes this a great one to try if you want to walk or skate the route instead of riding.

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SCAG’s award-winning Go Human campaign is hosting an online conversation next Wednesday to discuss what works for advocacy work.

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You’re invited to join the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition’s free virtual bike summit today and tomorrow.

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The subtitles are Spanish, but the audio is in English.

As is the Brompton that’s becoming a featured character in the Apple TV+ series.

Spotted in Ted Lasso S2.E02
byu/ovejoperdido inBrompton

The link above is in case the embedded Reddit video doesn’t work. Which happens a lot.

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GCN offers a beginner’s guide to riding a bike.

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

The battle over whether bicyclists should ride abreast is bursting into open verbal warfare in the UK, as the founder of a motoring group warned against “fueling a war between drivers and cyclists,” even though his group fired the first shot by accusing the government of focusing transportation policy on “the privileged cycling few.”

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

The recent rash of bike-riding gropers has reared its ugly head in Palo Alto, where two women were assaulted by the same man in separate incidents.

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Local

The Easy Reader says now you can stop in for a hot burger or pancakes at Oceans Café & Grill at Dockweiler Beach the next time you ride the South Bay stretch of the beachfront Marvin Bruade Bike Trail.

 

State

Once again, a bike rider is a hero, after a Solano Beach man saved the life of another bike rider who collapsed on a bike path from a sudden, massive heart attack, performing CPR, without training, for five minutes until paramedics arrived.

A San Clemente man rode his bike across the country to attend his 50th high school reunion, while raising roughly $30,000 for the Challenged Athletes Foundation.

A Bay Area panel considers whether the quick build bike and pedestrian projects that popped up in cities surrounding the San Francisco Bay will survive the pandemic. Meanwhile, a former San Francisco realtor worries about added traffic surrounding the city’s Slow Streets, even though the people who live on the streets love them.

 

National

He gets it. A writer for City Observatory says yes, we need electric cars — but with a lot less driving.

CleanTechnica offers advice on commuting by ebike in a bike lane-free suburb.

Salt Lake Magazine says there’s no bust built into Utah’s pandemic bike boom. Although a Portland weekly isn’t so sure, especially when it comes to ebikes.

Sad news from my Colorado hometown, where longtime bicycle industry veteran George Parry died at the all-too-young age of 58 earlier this month. He spent stints as a designer and engineer with GT Bicycles and Schwinn/GT, Cannondale and Niner bikes, after getting his start as a mechanic at my favorite LBS back in the day.

Must be a small company. An Oklahoma City bikeshare provider says someone stole a full third of their bicycles, then listed serial numbers for the five missing bikes. Yes, five.

They get it. A Chicago panel says the disability and bicycle communities should join forces to promote their common interests, while a Pennsylvania TV station reminds us that an adaptive bike can be life-changing for a disabled child. Or adult, for that matter.

A Minnesota art installation features 857 pinwheels and butterflies to honor John Egbers, who was killed by a distracted driver while participating in the 2018 Trans Am cross-country bike race, along with the 856 other people whose lives were stolen by traffic violence while riding their bikes that year. As usual, you can read it on Yahoo if Bicycling blocks you.

The nonprofit 9/11 National Memorial Trail Alliance is hosting its 3rd annual Tour de Trail, a 24-mile ride to the Pennsylvania memorial for the victims of Flight 93 in honor of the 20th anniversary of America’s worst terrorist attack.

A Florida man will spend the next six years behind bars for stealing a $3,000 bicycle from a bike shop floor, then turning around and pawning it for $500.

 

International

British royal-in-law James Middleton introduces his new role as a bike riding, blogging dog whisperer.

No irony here. A Scottish rock band is offering free tickets and other swag to anyone who can help recover the stolen bicycle that was taken from the band’s guitarist for the group that calls itself Mark Sharp & The Bicycle Thieves.

 

Competitive Cycling

Say it ain’t so, Joe. The legendary Katie F’n Compton was banned for four years after testing positive for an undisclosed anabolic agent in an out-of-competition drug test last fall; the 42-year old, 15-time national ‘cross champ won’t be eligible to compete again until late 2024, after her suspension was backdated to the date of the failed test. But the doping era is over, right? I mean, that’s what they keep telling us.

The Los Angeles-based LA Sweat women’s cycling team is working to identify and encourage the next generation with their Junior Development Program. Once again, read it on Yahoo if Bicycling blocks you out.

American Olympic BMX cyclist Connor Fields says he’s on the road to recovery after suffering a brain hemorrhage in a massive crash in Tokyo, but has no memory of several days, including the crash itself.

FloBikes looks forward to the upcoming mountain bike world championships in Trentino, Italy at the end of this month.

 

Finally…

Probably not the best idea to do bike stunts on the front entrance to the local DOT office — in full view of the security cams, no less.

And that feeling when no one recognizes the random, 4-time Tour de France-winning “bicycle hiker” who rode into the shot.

Thanks to David Huntsman for forwarding the video.

………

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

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

Streets For All shares virtual drinks with Friedman, CicLAvia returns on Sunday, and Brits battle over riding abreast

August 10, 2021 / / Comments Off on Streets For All shares virtual drinks with Friedman, CicLAvia returns on Sunday, and Brits battle over riding abreast

Let’s start with a couple of events this week.

Streets For All is back tomorrow with another virtual happy hour, this time featuring California State Assembly Transportation Committee Chair Laura Friedman.

Meanwhile, Fox11’s Good Day LA looks forward to the return of CicLAvia in Wilmington this Sunday. The short 2.2-mile route could see a big turnout from a full year’s worth of pent-up demand.

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Britain’s Jeremy Vine takes the contrarian view to all those drivers who insist people on bikes should ride single file all the time.

Needless to say, not everyone took the lesson well. And some of the responses were brutal.

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GCN explains how to choose the right bike pump.

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Norm Bradwell forwards the best pro bike helmet commercial of all time.

Yes, you may have seen it before, but it’s more than worth seeing again. Or for the first time, if you haven’t.

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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 Diego letter writers insist no one uses bike lanes because they don’t see them filled with bikes at the exact moment they happen to pass by, and that bike riders have to obey the law. Never mind that studies show safe infrastructure improves adherence to the law, and that bike riders break the law at about the same rate as people in the big, dangerous machines, but for much better reasons. Hint: Drivers cheat for convenience, bike riders to stay safe.

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

There’s a special place in hell for the bike-riding man who groped a woman in her 60’s as she walked on a Palo Alto sidewalk.

With any luck, the British Columbia perv who allegedly exposed himself to several woman while riding his mountain bike will be there waiting for him.

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Local

Glendale has hired the architecture firm behind New York’s highly successful High Line Park to reimagine the Verdugo Wash, reclaiming the concrete-lined channel while potentially adding bikeways and walkways.

 

State

For the second time in a week, a Santa Barbara driver has been busted for running down a teenage bike rider, as a driver is being held on $100,000 bond on DUI and hit-and-run charges after rear-ending a 14-year old boy on a bicycle; the victim was hospitalized with moderate injuries.

The pandemic bike boom continues to strain the bike industry, as the bicycle division of Scotts Valley’s Fox Factory is over a year from catching up to demand, despite — or maybe because — record sales for the past year and a half.

Now that’s more like it. Sacramento responds to one of the city’s dangerous streets by shutting it down entirely to make it more bicycle and pedestrian friendly.

 

National

Utah is now home to five new US Bicycle Routes, adding 550 miles to the 410 it already enjoyed; that’s part of a nationwide expansion with 18 new routes in five states, adding nearly 3,000 miles to the US Bicycle Route System.

Great idea. A Colorado town is trying to boost local bike shops while encouraging alternatives to driving by considering a $200 rebate for every ebike bought in town.

A Colorado man is charged with murdering his missing wife, who disappeared on a Mother’s Day bike ride last year. Sheriff’s deputies found Suzanne Morphew’s abandoned bicycle later that day, and discovered her undamaged helmet days later over eight miles away; however, her body has never been found.

Group rides are booming in popularity in Houston during the pandemic, like  800 people on bikes rapper Slim Thug lead to the home of a young man with Downs Syndrome, who wanted to meet him.

Is anyone really surprised that Illinois cops rushed to blame the victim when one of their own right hooked a 71-year old man riding his bike on the sidewalk?

Interesting idea from Michigan, where learning to ride a bicycle is used as a springboard to help kids get ready for kindergarten.

Adweek says you need the skills of an Olympian just to get around New York.

The New York Times questions whether the city’s pandemic-inspired carfree streets can survive the pushback to proposals to make them permanent.

No surprise here, either, as Florida and Louisiana lead the way with the most bicycling deaths per capita in the US.

The Miami Herald seems surprised that a man was run down by a hit-and-run driver while riding in a bike lane, as if the thin strip of paint was somehow supposed to repel cars.

 

International

The latest Copenhagenize Index ranks the world’s top 20 bike cities, with the usual suspects — Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Utrecht — taking the lead. Guess how many American cities made the list? That’s right, none.

A Dutch bicycle brand reminds Londoners that riding a bike is forever, not just for during the pandemic lockdown.

A kindhearted Indian cop dug into his own pocket to buy a new bicycle for a 14-year old boy after his was destroyed in a collision while riding home from his job.

 

Competitive Cycling

The racing world goes on in the wake of the Olympics, with stage one of the seven stage Tour of Poland.

Malaysians are geeking out over the $80,000 track bike their countryman Azizulhasni Awang rode to a silver medal in the men’s keirin in Tokyo.

Sad news from New Zealand, where 24-year-old cyclist Olivia Podmore died unexpectedly, five years after she represented the country at the Rio Olympics.

Cyclist remembers the Tour de France win 23 years ago that made the late Marco Pantani a legend.

 

Finally…

If a driver asks for your help with a flat tire, maybe just keep on riding. Now you can own the gas-powered moped Steve McQueen rode on the track at Le Mans for a mere 50 grand.

And forget elevation gain. Try riding a bicycle a thousand feet in the air.

………

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

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

First-ever CicLAvia could be coming to Beverly Hills next year, and bizarre Santa Monica bar rage vehicular murder

August 6, 2021 / / Comments Off on First-ever CicLAvia could be coming to Beverly Hills next year, and bizarre Santa Monica bar rage vehicular murder

We may be burning in California, but hell has officially frozen over.

The former Biking Black Hole of Beverly Hills continues to burnish its new-found bike friendly image, with plans to co-host a CicLAvia with West Hollywood and Los Angeles sometime next year.

The proposal would reprise the 2019 route that ran along Hollywood Blvd to Highland Ave, and south to Santa Monica Blvd. If Beverly Hills can work out the details, it would then extend west to Beverly Drive.

Even more surprising, Beverly Hills is the driving force behind this effort, rather than the other way around.

And no, I never would have imagined it when we were butting heads with less enlightened city officials back in the day.

………

This is who we share the road with.

A Culver City man faces charges for intentionally running down a man standing outside a Santa Monica restaurant on Monday.

Except he ran down the wrong man.

We’ll let the Santa Monica Daily Press try to explain the bizarre attack.

According to SMPD, Sloan was asked by restaurant staff to leave Busby’s on Santa Monica Blvd. before the incident. Sloan, angered by this demand, exited the establishment, and retrieved his vehicle. He then drove through the parking lot in an aggressive manner before attempting to intentionally hit a customer standing in front of the business. However, Sloan only ran over the foot of his intended target and instead struck the victim.

Oops.

To make matters worse, he knew the guy he actually killed, and had been drinking with him before he went berserk behind the wheel.

The driver, Nicholas Ralph Sloan, was arrested 15 miles away in the San Fernando Valley when the CHP stopped his Porsche Panamera for speeding.

He was booked on suspicion of murder, assault with a deadly weapon and DUI.

………

This, too, is who we share the road with.

A Rhode Island woman was pulled from her car and brutally beaten by a group of ATV and dirt bike motorcycle riders when she had the audacity to honk after they sat through two green light cycles.

To make matters worse, they did it in full view of her friend’s eight-year old daughter, who was inside the car along with the girl’s mother.

Needless to say, the victim was “shaken and injured” in the aftermath of the attack, but didn’t need to be hospitalized.

There’s just no fucking excuse. Ever.

Period.

………

And you thought things were bad on this side of the Atlantic.

https://twitter.com/philsturgeon/status/1394708129166802947

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

No bias here. A San Luis Obispo letter writer calls plans for a recently approved bike boulevard “racist, ableist, ageist, elitist, and plain mean, nasty, and rotten to neighborhood residents…” But seriously, how does he really feel?

No bias here, either. A local British paper spends a few paragraphs reporting the death of a man riding a bicycle, then devotes another 17 paragraphs to how much the locals hate people on bikes.

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

New York police are looking for a pair of men sharing an ebike who stabbed two men in a car in an apparent road rage attack following an argument.

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Local

If you’ve been waiting for the long promised bike lanes on the North Spring Street Bridge, you can keep holding your breath. Streetsblog reports work still hasn’t begun on the the bike lanes, which were expected to be completed three years ago; local advocate point the finger at CD1 Councilmember Gil Cedillo, who has fought bike lanes and other safety projects in the district since taking office.

Good news from San Pedro, where a 19-year old man who disappeared while riding his bike has been found; no word on his condition or where he’s been for the past two weeks.

 

State

Sacramento Magazine considers the most useful bicycling apps.

 

National

Forbes shares their picks for the best ebikes. And for once, the choices make sense.

A Portland lawyer is suing aerosol makers and companies that sell them in an effort to halt “driving zombies,” after woman was killed while riding in a bike lane, by a driver who was caught on security cam huffing a computer keyboard dusting spray outside a Home Depot. Interesting approach, but good luck with that.

A Minnesota paper offers tips on basic fit and maintenance to keep your bike rolling.

Tragic news from Detroit, where an 18-year old nursing student was killed in a shootout as she was riding her bicycle in front of a friend’s duplex a couple weeks ago; police now say she was an innocent victim caught in the crossfire.

A 68-year old man has come forward, claiming to be the only witness to the crash that killed a companion to heiress Doris Duke when he was a 13-year old paperboy riding his Schwinn ten speed; it has long been rumored that the Rhode Island crash was murder, along with the earlier “accidental” death of Duke’s husband.

New York’s popular TD Five Boro Bike Tour returns this Sunday; the 40-mile ride through the city’s five boroughs, which Forbes calls America’s biggest bike ride, expects to draw a pandemic-restricted 20,000 riders instead of the usual 32,000. Although CicLAvia usually draws more than that on a bad day.

A newly signed bill will now require New Jersey drivers to change lanes to pass someone on a bicycle.

 

International

Your new ebike could be a Harley. But only if you’re willing to go to Europe to buy it.

British bikemaker Hope Technology unveiled a road bike prototype of the innovative Olympic track bike they developed in collaboration with Lotus Engineering. Although it’s allegedly based on a stolen design. 

Heartbreaking news from the UK, where a three-year old boy was killed when his own father backed over his bicycle while he was riding on their Welsh farm.

A British trucking trade group apparently wants defend their right to keep killing people, complaining that a proposed rewrite of the country’s Highway Code to protect vulnerable road users is “inherently unjust.”

RM, one of the masterminds behind K-pop stars BTS, is one of us, sharing his love of bicycles with a fan site.

 

Finally…

If you insist on riding your bike drunk, try to stick with roads where bikes are allowed — and to just one lane at a time. A gun site says always wear a bike helmet when carrying a concealed weapon on your bike.

And yes, bike riders have to pull over for emergency vehicles.

Just like most drivers don’t anymore.

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Thanks to Mark J for his generous donation — and kind words — to help keep this site going; as always, any donation, no matter how large or small, truly helps and is deeply appreciated. 

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

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

CicLAvia returns with 3 dates this year, a first-hand view of traffic violence, and bike rider shoots driver in self-defense

July 6, 2021 / / Comments Off on CicLAvia returns with 3 dates this year, a first-hand view of traffic violence, and bike rider shoots driver in self-defense

We all have something to look forward to this year, with the return of America’s largest and most successful open streets festival.

In the best news we’ve had in a pandemic plagued year and a half, CicLAvia will return next month in Wilmington on August 10th.

That’s followed by the traditional Heart of LA route in Downtown Los Angeles on October 10th — the same date as the first CicLAvia, also in DTLA, eleven years earlier.

And last but far from least, a long-awaited return to South Los Angeles on October 5th.

Here’s what our bike-riding friend at KCBS2/KCAL9 have to say on the subject.

https://twitter.com/JeffVaughn/status/1411175401552896004

Photo of an earlier CicLAvia in DTLA by yours truly.

………

Every day as I search through the news, I find heartbreaking stories about fatal and near fatal crashes from across the US.

For every one I link to, there may be a dozen or more I don’t.

Just more collateral damage in our incessant obsession with getting from here to there as quickly and inefficiently as possible

Like this story from the very tip of the Pacific Northwest, a stone’s throw from Canada, about a 76-year-old man struck by a trailer pulled by a pickup driver while riding his bike.

Normally I’d read it, maybe mutter a quick prayer, and move on. Just another every day tragic occurrence.

Except this time, the details dovetailed with an email I received yesterday, in the form of a script, from fellow bike rider and corgi aficionado Mike Burk, who moved from SoCal to the cooler and cloudier clime a few years ago.

Fade in:

Late morning, driver’s POV.

Coming home from town this morning when we’re diverted off the highway to a side road because of a road block. At the intersection, noticed a truck towing a poorly loaded trailer carrying an old backhoe. The truck was stopped, the driver getting a ticket by a couple of sheriff’s deputies.

Finally back on the highway and two or three miles down the road. Flashing lights ahead. As we inched along I noticed a bicycle on its side and no rider around. Whatever happened is over (it had been only 90 minutes since we came that way into town).

Seeing the bike and the emergency vehicles, I got a picture.

Photo by Mike Burk

Dissolve to:

Early afternoon, POV over shoulder, sitting at computer.

Me, during a Zoom meeting with our homeowner’s association Publications Committee. Going over articles for our next month’s Kala Pointer Newsletter. One of the committee members asked, “Did you hear about Stan Cummings this morning? He was riding his bike…”

You can guess the rest. Yes, that was Stan’s bike. He was medivacced (sp) to Harborview Hospital in Seattle (40 miles… if you’re a crow). He’s in their TBI unit, not expected to recover well, if at all.

It didn’t take too long for someone following to dial 911 — and then for the sheriffs, local police, and state police to locate and stop the truck.

Stan is active in the community and on his bike. We’ll see what happens.

Fade to black.

Burk adds this final thought.

I forget that this can happen anywhere. We’re in a REALLY small town. Even after all the miles I’ve put on my bike, the thought of getting out on that highway (WA19 and WA20) up here just terrifies me. I keep to the back roads.

Sadly, that’s exactly the case.

The news stories I see come from everywhere English is spoken, and many places it’s not.

From big cities and tiny towns in every state throughout the US, as well as Canada, Mexico and Central America, the Caribbean, the UK, Europe, India, Africa, New Zealand and Australia. And virtually everywhere else, on every kind of roadway.

Yet somehow, the onus for safety inevitably rests on our narrow, unprotected shoulders, rather than the people in the big, dangerous machines who pose the danger to people on bikes, and everyone else.

It’s like living in a village where monsters roam the streets, dragging people off at random. And instead of doing something about them, we merely tell the villagers to be careful and lock their doors at night.

Like this rabidly auto-centric anti-Vision Zero diatribe, in other words.

Which is kind of like telling gunshot victims to dodge the bullets, rather than suggesting that maybe gun owners shouldn’t shoot them.

Frankly, I don’t have the answers anymore.

I just know I’m so damn tired of reading every day about still more innocent people dragged off by the monsters.

And worrying that one day they’ll grab me, too.

………

Bike Talk talks protected bike lanes, from every angle.

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Speaking of which, the protected bike lane on Oakland’s Telegraph Ave has been so successful, the city wants to tear it out.

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Apparently, Minnesota’s annual Freedom From Pants Ride went off without a…well, you get the idea.

Thanks to Tim Rutt for the heads-up.

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Megan Lynch forwards this piece about a man seven years into a diagnosis of dementia, yet still riding his bike across Nova Scotia to fight the disease.

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Evidently, the Dutch city of Groningen was been a bicycle city for awhile.

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British bike scribe and historian Carlton Reid explores England’s old Great North Road from London to Newcastle, traveling in style in a classic Morgan sports car, accompanied by a Brompton foldie in the passenger seat.

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

In a truly bizarre case, a man on a bike shot a road raging Houston driver in self-defense when the male driver told a bike-riding couple they couldn’t ride in that neighborhood, then deliberately knocked the woman off her bike; her pistol-packing partner was let go, while the driver was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon.

No bias here. After a driver intentionally knocks a British man off his bike, she claims to be an ex-cop, and the current cops don’t hesitate to blame the victim. And a driving instructor uses the incident for a training video.

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

A man on a bicycle remains at large after shooting an Arleta man following an argument Sunday night.

Seriously? There’s not a pit in hell deep enough for a 23-year old English man who was caught masturbating on his bicycle, riding one-handed as he pursued women and young girls. Yet the bike-riding perv somehow avoided jail despite doing it not once, not twice or even thrice, but four times, apparently because the judge thought he’s a “promising student.”

A Singapore bicyclist was criticized for leaving a painted bike lane to draft behind a trio of dump trucks. Although that would be perfectly legal in the US, though not necessarily smart, where most, if not all, states allow bike riders to take the lane if they’re riding the speed of traffic.

………

Local

The Gateway Cities Council of Governments will discuss the ill-advised plan to widen the 710 Freeway, displacing homeowners and fouling the air to create more induced demand. A much better option would be to spend the same amount on transit, bikeways and pedestrian improvements so people don’t have to drive the damn thing.

Brooklyn Beckham is one of us, as soccer great David Beckham’s grownup son goes for a Beverly Hills bike ride with a friend.

 

State

Just days after a woman was killed riding her bike on North Torrey Pines Road in La Jolla near UC San Diego, another bike rider was injured when a suspected drunk driver drifted into the bike lane he was riding in, less than half a mile from where the first woman was run down.

The San Diego Union-Tribune considers how North Park’s new 30th Street protected bike lane will affect the community.

A Santa Barbara librarian says her new ebike was the best thing to come out of 2020.

San Jose police busted an alleged fence who specialized in high-end bicycles and construction equipment, while paying thieves a fraction of their actual value; he was caught with an estimated $100,000 of hot merch at the time of his arrest. If you’re missing an expensive bike anywhere in the Bay Area, give ’em a call, just in case.

Tragic news from South Sacramento, where a 76-year old man riding a bike was killed by a hit-and-run driver who briefly stopped following the collision, then ran over the victim to make her getaway.

For anyone up in the Sacramento area, the Davis Bicycling, Street Safety and Transportation Commission will meet on Thursday to discuss a number of proposals, including a newly funded plan to widen the I-80 corridor (bad), while possibly adding bicycling improvements (good). Thanks again to Megan Lynch.

 

National

Seriously? Women’s Health asks if outdoor bike riding is good for weight loss. Hint: A resounding yes!

Once again, a bike rider is a hero, after a California man raised $13,000 to provide running water to families in the impoverished Navajo Nation by riding his bike from California to New Mexico.

A Santa Fe, New Mexico school is tapping into federal funds to get more kids to bike and walk to school. Which is something every school should be working on.

Boulder CO police say there’s a nationwide bike shortage, so use a damn U-lock, already. Although they may not have said it quite that way.

More proof that collisions with pedestrians are just as dangerous for the person on the bike, as a 28-year old New York woman was left clinging to life after she crashed into a pedestrian walking in a Prospect Park crosswalk while she was riding in the bike lane. Seriously, ride carefully around pedestrians, who are just as unpredictable as people on bikes. And in cars.

An Atlanta bike rider flagged down paramedics after an 18-year old backup quarterback at Kennesaw State University was fatally shot near Pensacola, Florida; his 19-year old passenger suffered multiple gunshot wounds when their attackers fired over 50 rounds at their car.

 

International

TechRadar rates the “super smart” Cowboy 4 as their top ebike, saying it feels like the future of bicycling.

Mashable offers tips on what to think about before entering the ebike world. But they get the first tip wrong, suggesting that ebiking is just a seasonal thing for everyone but the most extreme bicyclists.

Offroad.cc shares their thoughts on what to look for in a used mountain bike.

Um, okay. Pink Bike looks at all the things that didn’t happen in the world of bicycling last month.

Life is cheap in British Columbia, where a hit-and-run driver walked without a single day in jail for killing an 18-year old man riding a bike. But at least he called 911 before driving off.

A young Black man plans to file a complaint against the Montreal cops who roughed him up and handcuffed him for the crime of not having a reflector on his front wheel. Or maybe because he stopped to watch them question another man.

Life is cheap in the UK, too, where a truck driver walked without spending a day behind bars for killing a 73-year old ebike rider, because the judge thought he showed “genuine and enduring” remorse. Which, oddly, won’t do a damn thing to bring his victim back.

A Singapore bike rider unfairly gets the blame for riding in the traffic lane when a driver slams into him from behind, throwing him onto the windshield before landing in the roadway; the victim sat up following the crash, so hopefully he’s okay. Warning: The dashcam video of the crash is absolutely horrifying, so be sure you really want to see it before you click on it.

 

Competitive Cycling

By now, you should have had plenty of time to catch up on the Tour de France. So it shouldn’t come as a spoiler to reveal that last year’s winner Tadej Pogacar not only reclaimed the yellow jersey, but tightened his grip on it before Monday’s rest day.

Breakaway specialist Thomas De Gendt argues the level of competition is much higher at this year’s Tour de France, thanks to a rash of young riders making their presence known.

Cavendish says he may be struggling, but don’t write off four-time Tour champ Chris Froome yet.

Mathieu van der Poel pulled out of the Tour after losing the yellow jersey to focus on winning mountain bike gold at the Tokyo Olympics. Judging by the video below, he might just have a shot.

A sports physicist considers how many calories you’d have to consume to ride like a pro in the Tour de France.

Nicholas Dlamini, the first Black South African to compete in the Tour, received a round of “rapturous” applause when he crossed the finish line on Sunday’s ninth stage of the Tour, despite failing to make the cut following a crash.

 

Finally…

That feeling when you get so drunk you can’t remember stealing a $1,000 bike. That feeling when you’re glad the bear only ate your bike seat.

And John and Yoko were both one of us.

Thanks to author Richard Risemburg for the heads-up.

………

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

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

Metro to study Beautiful Blvd and 2nd plan in Eagle Rock, CicLAvia helps LA dine Al Fresco, and 250 pound SaMo ebikes

May 20, 2021 / / 2 comments

Before we start, I want to clarify Tuesday’s report on the death of cyclocross champ Laurence Malone in Lancaster CA on Monday.

As more information came in, it became clear that the initial reports that Malone was riding his bike were wrong; he was actually driving on Highway 138 when his car was hit head-on by the driver of a semi-truck.

I’ve rewritten my report on his death as a result, and am no longer counting his death among this year’s bicycling fatalities.

Today’s photo is a rendering of one section of the Beautiful Boulevard plan, from Eagle Rock Forward. 

………

Metro voted to move forward with additional studies of the resident-driven Beautiful Boulevard plan for Colorado Blvd in Eagle Rock, as well as another plan that with keep two traffic lanes and bike lanes, while reducing medians and parking.

The board followed the lead of CD14 Councilmember Kevin de León, who called for additional public input on top of the numerous meetings that have already been held, and countless comments previously submitted.

Bike Talk posted the audio for the last 12 commenters discussing the proposals at yesterday’s virtual Metro meeting.

Meanwhile, the LA Times questioned why de León is trying to stall the transit and climate friendly plan for Eagle Rock.

In theory, there’s nothing wrong with more public discussion and analysis. But activists in Eagle Rock are understandably worried that the delay is an attempt to undermine the Beautiful Boulevard concept in favor of a car-centric view of the streets. That would be disappointing, considering how De León has touted his commitment to fighting climate change and his support for transit and safer streets.

There’s a long history of L.A. leaders proclaiming their climate leadership only to abandon climate-minded street design at the first cries of opposition.

Unfortunately, Los Angeles continues to kick the climate can down the road, leaving it to others to make the hard decisions our elected leaders lack the courage to make.

We have no choice but to provide safe, clean and efficient alternatives to driving, as an ever increasing number of cars slowly grind our streets to a halt, without destroying the livability of our communities.

The Beautiful Boulevard plan does just that, enhancing the community while providing safe space for transit, walking and riding a bike.

We have no choice but to move forward with plans like this throughout LA if we hope to save our city.

And ourselves.

………

CicLAvia is leveraging its experience with open streets to guide Los Angeles in expanding the city’s COVID-19 Al Fresco outdoor dining program, and making it permanent.

“CicLAvia has been utilizing its open streets planning expertise in a new way by reaching out to smaller ‘mom and pop’ restaurants in communities most impacted by the pandemic,” said CicLAvia Executive Director Romel Pascual.

“By offering free assistance to these ‘hidden gems’ via the L.A. Al Fresco program, CicLAvia helps these restaurants accommodate more customers so they can serve their neighborhoods safely and with greater capacity, stay open and continue to prosper.”

At the same time, CicLAvia is planning the return of the country’s largest and most successful open streets event, which was halted last year due to the pandemic.

A new route and date is expected to be announced soon.

………

A Playa del Rey letter writer who identifies himself as a 63-year old cyclist complains about the presence of “250 pound E-bikes traveling at 20 mph or more” on the beachfront bike path, piloted by “clueless riders of all ages.”

He goes on to call for them to be banned from the popular pathway.

However, ebikes are already prohibited from the bike path in Santa Monica, and numerous bikes have ticketed and confiscated in the past.

Correction — Santa Monica now allows ebikes on the beach bike path; somehow I missed that. Thanks to Howard for the correction. 

And anything that can travel over 20 mph is barred by the state from being ridden on any bike path.

Never mind that even the heaviest ebikes check in at a little over 50 pounds, rather than 250, which very few riders would even be able to lift.

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This is who we share the road with.

God help us.

………

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

Campus police at Cal State Northridge are warning women to be on the lookout for a suspected serial groper; unfortunately, the only description is a man in a black hoodie on a black bicycle.

………

Local

Metro will host a virtual meeting at 6pm today to discuss first mile/last mile bike and pedestrian connections near the Expo/Crenshaw Station; another meeting will be held Tuesday afternoon.

The Beverly Hills city council will review the environmental impact report and consider plan approvals for the massive One Beverly Hills project at 7pm tonight; Better Bike calls for the newly bike friendly city to insist on bike lanes to and through the project on the site of the former Robinson’s May department store.

 

State

A San Diego councilmember voices his support for building a bike and pedestrian bridge across the San Diego River in Mission Trails Regional Park in honor of a 21-year-old student who drowned at the crossing in January.

A Bay Area writer says the recent death of local legend of Joe Shami, known as the King of Mount Diablo, is a reminder for drivers to put their phones down and watch for bicyclists.

 

National

Cycling News explains why your ebike can’t recharge while you pedal or brake.

The Colorado lawyer representing the family of fallen national master’s road champ Gwen Inglis is calling for the charges against the allegedly stoned driver to be bumped up to 1st degree murder to reflect his extreme indifference to human life.

Colorado mountain resort Steamboat Springs approved permitting the state’s Safety Stop, aka Stop As Yield, in the town; unlike other states, Colorado allows individual cities to choose whether or nor to allow bike riders to roll stops after checking for oncoming traffic. And the sky has not fallen there, or any other state that allows it.

Iowa’s popular RAGBRAI bike ride across the state returns with coronavirus safety precautions in place this year, after being cancelled last year.

The pandemic has shown the need for more bike lanes and sidewalks in Connecticut, with up to a 50% jump in bicycling, and two to three times as many pedestrians.

A New Jersey bill would ban bike licenses across the state, after white cops in Perth Amboy recently confiscated the bikes of Black and brown teens for not having one.

Speaking of New Jersey, the state is considering a new law requiring drivers to change lanes to pass someone on a bicycle or give a four-foot passing distance; however, like California, it contains the same clause allowing drivers to ignore those requirements by slowing down and being prepared to stop, making it relatively toothless.

An enterprising 12-year old Philadelphia boy responded to the shutdown of bike shops during the pandemic by starting his own bike repair service.

A Pennsylvania bike co-op marked the Ride of Silence by placing 22 ghost bikes on the steps of the state capitol, in a powerful reminder of the 22 people who lost their lives riding in the state last year.

 

International

The popup bike lanes on London’s Westminster Bridge will be made permanent  after proving their worth during the pandemic. That’s not the case in Los Angeles, though, where no popup bike lanes will be made permanent because shortsighted city officials failed to install any.

You’ve got to be kidding. An Edinburgh councilmember is being investigated by an ethical standards watchdog, after responding to a story about barbed wire strung across a bike path by calling for those fighting popup bike and pedestrian spaces to take responsibility for their behavior.

Moscow traffic control cops are taking to their bicycles to keep drivers out of the city’s bike lanes.

Motorcycling great Troy Bayliss was seriously injured in a head-on collision with another bicycle rider; the three-time World Superbike champ returned to his Australian home to recover from a fractured vertebrae and spinal damage. Been there, done that. I fractured the same vertebrae in my 20s when a jack broke and dropped the car I was working on down on me.

 

Competitive Cycling

Swiss cyclist Mauro Schmid captured yesterday’s 11th stage of the Giro for his first win as a pro.

Remco Evenepoel could have used a virtual Jens Voigt in his ear, yelling “Shut up, legs!” Instead he lost two minutes to race leader Egan Bernal on the Giro’s gravel stage yesterday, complaining that his “legs felt empty.”

VeloNews looks at the “unsung hero” working to help keep Evenepoel at the front of the pack, although he might look slightly less heroic after yesterday.

 

Finally…

Presenting the ebike for people who aren’t ready to give up their cars. That feeling when you’re collateral damage in a police chase.

And the perfect bike for anyone who still wants to be a cowboy when they grow up.

https://twitter.com/dorfman_baruch/status/1395233861391503367

………

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

And get vaccinated, already.

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