The family of fallen cyclist Duane Darling calls on the public’s help in tracking down the hit-and-run driver who left him to die on the side of a Riverside County road.
Investigators are looking for a Ford F-150 pickup with damage to the passenger-side headlight. Anyone with information is urged to call the CHP at 951/637-8000; there’s a $1,000 reward in the case.
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Just in time for Sunday’s CicLAvia, the Militant Angeleno offers his guide to the iconic, if truncated, route, which has been shortened due to construction on the Purple Line subway.
The co-founder and CEO of the Lyft car-sharing service once biked 350 miles from LA to Mono Lake, and helped raised funds for a campus bike line as a student at UC Santa Barbara.
A new Nebraska law gives bike riders the same crosswalk right-of-way enjoyed by pedestrians, as well as repealing the outdated mandatory side path rule.
Evidently, cycling is an obscure sport, at least as far as a Boston writer is concerned as he ranks the greatest sports movies. American Flyers over Breaking Away? Seriously?
DC is installing pocket lanes to help bike riders navigate through intersections to avoid right hooks.
Tragic story from South Carolina, as a 77-year old bike rider died after riding into a ravine; he left a voice mail for his wife saying he’d crashed into a creek bed and needed help, and hung his shirt on a tree branch to signal rescuers, but wasn’t found until it was too late.
A Louisiana cyclist made it about a mile onto the 26-mile Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, which prohibits bicyclists. I threatened to try riding it myself more than once when I live down there, since it would cut the ride to New Orleans down to a few scenic hours.
After a Brit bike rider was knocked cold by a hit-and-run driver, paramedics leave him on the side of the road, despite a neck injury and a broken shoulder, telling him to find his own way home.
A BBC TV reporter discusses his long road to recovery after a near-fatal bicycling collision; when he woke from a two-week coma, he thought he was an American race car driver in 1952.
Bike the Vote LA unveiled their endorsements for the upcoming June primary, when you’ll have a chance to vote against the presidential candidate(s) of your choice and have it actually mean something for a change.
And as long as you’re in the voting booth, you can Bike the Vote by casting a ballot for these bike-friendly candidates for state Senate and Assembly from the LA area.
A couple names on that list jump out at me.
A long-time cyclist, Steven Bradford was the father of the state’s three-foot passing law when he was in the state Assembly, and has long worked to make our streets safer for everyone. Which is why he had my endorsement the minute he announced his candidacy for state Senate.
Former Glendale Mayor Laura Friedman has been one of the most consistent voices for safer bicycling in any city government, and would make the ideal replacement for outgoing Assemblyman Mike Gatto — who will also have my support for any office he runs for in the future.
And Richard Bloom, my own state Senator now that I live in Hollywood, is up for a well-deserved third and final term.
I can’t say I’m familiar with the others on the list.
But knowing the people who make up the Bike the Vote LA team, I trust their judgment. They’re one of the few organizations whose recommendation could get me to mark my ballot.
I need to get one for the Corgi, who, like most redheads, looks good in black.
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Surprisingly, the 19-year old Belgian motor doper gets just a six year suspension and a $20,000 fine; most observers predicted she’d get a lifetime ban for cheating. As usual, though, it’s unlikely she was the only one cheating; just the only one who got caught.
A year after a key report on reforming bike racing’s governing body was submitted, not enough has been done to make it an “independent, self-governing and more economically-sustainable premier league sport.”
British Cycling suspends the technical director who told a track cyclist to go have babies instead of competing for the Rio Olympics.
The Amgen Tour of California will continue to be the Amgen Tour of California, as the race’s title sponsor renews its sponsorship, along with co-sponsors Coke and United Healthcare. Good thing, since it’s now America’s only UCI Men’s WorldTour race.
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Local
Streetsblog looks at how Mayor Garcetti’s ambitious sustainability plan has done after the first year. They’ll have to step up bikeway installation in a big way to meet the goal of 35% active transportation and transit by 2025.
CiclaValley edges his way around Strawberry Peak, wearing a Raspberry Beret. Okay, maybe not the last part; I may have been hearing too much Prince lately.
State
Calbike says the state Assembly Transportation Committee let us down by choosing bigger, faster, wider roads and highways over the needs of underserved Californians who have no choice but to ride the bus, walk and bike. Except making those roads bigger and wider seldom makes them any faster. Or safer.
Once again, a killer drunk driver gets off with a slap on the wrist, as a Bakersfield man gets one year in jail, with six years suspended, for the drunken hit-and-run death of a bike rider in 2014. People will continue to die on our streets as long as judges refuse to take traffic crime seriously.
San Francisco’s People Behaving Badly looks at badly behaving people in the bike lane who don’t belong there.
Napa Valley bike riders complain about dangerous road conditions around the tracks for the Napa Valley Wine Train.
National
The bikeshare director for NACTO says we’ll know we’re getting bike equity right when bikeshare systems, and bikeways, adequately serve low income neighborhoods and create jobs. See state Assembly fail above.
HuffPo says making cities less dangerous and more livable for women makes them better for everyone. That includes making our streets safe and welcoming for women riding their bikes alone, day or night.
As usual, LA expat Bikeyface nails it, saying it’s not about bicycling, it’s about creating neighborhoods where people will stop bicycling and stay awhile.
Jeffrey Tanenhaus — the guy who rode a New York Citi Bike across the US — explains why riding one was the best way to see the US.
A year later, police identify two suspect vehicles, but still no suspect, in a series of random roadway shootings that began with the murder of a cyclist near my hometown.
A Charleston SC columnist investigates complaints that a trial bike and pedestrian path over a key bridge is creating massive traffic tie-ups, and finds not a single congestion in sight.
The US Department of Justice says Tampa Bay’s policy of ticketing black bike riders to reduce crime and improve safety only succeeded in unduly burdening black bicyclists; eight out of every ten bicycling tickets went to black riders. But despite the findings, the city insists it wasn’t discriminating. Of course not.
International
Momentum Magazine asks if banning biking under the influence is really the right answer. Both are dangerous, but I’d much rather see a drunk on a bicycle than behind the wheel.
A writer for the Guardian says don’t assume people with disabilities aren’t interested in riding their bikes, and won’t benefit from quick, safe bicycle routes.
Paris will now ban motor vehicles from the famed Champs-Élysées the first Sunday of every month. Maybe we can see their bet and shut down Hollywood Blvd once a month, as well.
Amsterdam will select the world’s first bike mayor in June, but plans to export the position to cities around the world. If they get around to LA, I’m available. Just saying.
A Swiss laboratory uses a full-body model to study why your head gets hot when you wear a bike helmet; they estimate better ventilation could encourage more helmet use, potentially reducing over 1000 avoidable head injuries per year.
Finally…
If you’re going to wear a hoody to ride your bike on a chilly night, you might want to throw some pants on, too. If you’re going to get loaded and ride your bike, try not to crash into a loaded school bus.
Although someone should tell the Daily News that the brakeless bike they refer to is called a fixie, not a “fix-it.”
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Congratulations to Santa Monica Spoke’s Cynthia Rose, who won the award for the nation’s most inspirational bike advocate from the Alliance for Biking & Walking at the National Bike Summit.
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Nineteen-year old Dutch ‘cross rider Femke Van den Driessche could face a lifetime ban for the first confirmed case of motor-doping. It’s not that the penalty is too stiff; it’s just sad that she’s thrown away her entire racing career at such a young age.
Meanwhile, aptly named Jelly Belly rider Joshua Berry became the latest in a rash of pro cyclists who have been injured in collisions, as he was hit by a car while training in San Diego; he credits his helmet with preventing more serious injuries.
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Thanks to James for discovering this great poetic Brit PSA warning people not let their broken glass endanger the war effort by puncturing the bike tires of battleship builders.
The new album by the LA band Dunes was inspired by a hit-and-run collision that seriously injured the band’s bike-riding guitarist. Note to the LA Weekly, as well as KPCC for the above item — Repeat after me: wrecks aren’t accidents, and hit-and-run is a crime, not an oopsie.
The family of fallen 14-year old Ventura bicyclist Jonathan Hernandez, the victim of last month’s double hit-and-run, calls on the city to offer a reward to find the still-unidentified second driver; the city’s deputy mayor says that would be “unprecedented.” So maybe it’s time they set a new precedence by taking hit-and-run seriously.
Hats off to police in Des Moines IA, who arrested what may be the nation’s most obnoxiously motor-addled woman for driving up behind an eight-year old kid riding his bike, and revving her engine to frighten him B.cause those damn little bike-riding kids never get out of her way. Yes, eight-years old. Which is at least how long she should lose her license.
Chicago cyclists complain about drivers parking in bike lanes and using them for turn lanes. If someone can park or drive in a protected bike lane, maybe it’s not protected enough.
Tennessee proposes fining drivers $50 for swerving into a bike lane unless it’s an emergency. It should rise to $500 if there’s someone riding in it at the time. Or $5,000 if they hit them.
New Hampshire police discover two abandoned bicycles, and trace one back to a ten-year old boy whose bike was stolen a year earlier. In Oregon.
New York police shoot a man suffering from mental illness following a bloody rampage that began when he slashed a woman for looking at him as he rode past on his bike.
The 30-mile Tammany Trace trail allows riders to leisurely explore the north shore of Louisiana’s Lake Pontchartrain; New Orleans is on the other side of the lakes massive causeway. I used to take my life in my hands by riding through that same area on the narrow high-speed roadways before the trail was built, but the scenery was worth it.
International
Co.Exist looks at Milan’s plans to pay people to ride their bikes to work. That could be more effective, and less coercive, than congestion pricing in a spread-out city like Los Angeles; the challenge would be verifying that people are actually riding rather than driving, which could be overcome with a tracking app similar to Strava.
A British cyclist wins a bike race, then suffers a broken leg when a delivery driver turns into her path on the way home. Then gets screwed again when the driver is fined a lousy £145 — the equivalent of just $206.
A UK man is convicted of stealing a $700 bicycle, then selling it for $28 worth of heroin; he’s been prohibited from even touching any bicycle he doesn’t own pending his sentencing. Although he’s the exception; Brit bike thieves get away with it at least 75% of the time.
A HuffPo writer says London’s next mayor must “go Dutch” on bicycling. Meanwhile, British actor Tom Conti displays more than a touch of paranoia, claiming a planned London bikeway is just the first step in a “some kind of Soviet idea” to ban all vehicular traffic from the city. Um, sure. Now calm down and take your meds.
Norway is investing over $900 million to build ten bicycle superhighways around the country’s nine largest cities.
March 4, 2016 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Morning Links: LACBC & SaMo Spoke up for national honors, CHP looks for driver in East LA bike hit-and-run
Congratulations are in order for the Los Angeles Bicycle Coalition and Santa Monica Spoke.
The LACBC and its local chapter Santa Monica Spoke received national recognition as they dominated the nominations for next week’s Alliance for Biking & Walking’s annual Advocacy Awards.
The nominations include:
LACBC for Advocacy Organization of the Year
LACBC Executive Director Tamika Butler for Advocate of the Year
LACBC Planning & Policy Director Eric Bruins for Advocate of the Year
Santa Monica Spoke’s Cynthia Rose for the Susie Stephens Joyful Enthusiasm Award
LACBC work on LA’s Mobility Plan 2035 for Winning Campaign of the Year
No other organization received more than two nominations. The winners will be announced at the National Bike Summit in Washington DC.
The victim was hit by a white pickup just before 10 p.m. near the intersection of West Whittier Blvd and South Eastern Ave; no other description of the suspect vehicle or the driver is available.
No word on the condition of the victim, who was taken to a nearby hospital.
UCLA’s Daily Bruin calls for a free shuttle along Westwood Blvd connecting the campus with the new Expo Line station, since bicycling is unlikely to be a safe option. That’s thanks to Councilmember Paul Koretz unreasonable and unconscionable blocking of a long-planned bike lane along the Blvd.
A bike rider just barely avoids being run down during a police chase that started in Boyle Heights and ended in a Pasadena HoneyBaked Ham store.
Streetsblog looks at Calbike’s legislative agenda for the coming session; one bill under consideration would require traffic lights to be timed to create a green wave, ensuring that riders traveling at 12 – 15 mph would see nothing but green lights.
The inevitable bikelash has begun. Shortly after San Diego announces plans to make the city core safer for cyclists and pedestrians, business leaders in the city’s Little Italy district say they’d rather have parking than bike-borne customers.
Candidates for mayor of Sacramento promise to make the city friendlier for bicyclists and pedestrians, while making it a vibrant place people can navigate without a car.
National
Good cyclists steer with their bodies, bad cyclists steer with their handlebars. And in other news, water is wet. No, really.
Two cyclists were killed, and two injured, after an allegedly drunk driverplowed into a group of ten riders while they were stopped at a red light in Tucson AZ; they were all waiting in the bike lane when they were struck. If you’ve ever wondered why some bike riders go through red lights, this is it; while I don’t condone it, many bicyclists believe they are safer going through a light than waiting patiently and risking something like this.
A bighearted New Mexico man searched for two weeks to find a homeless man whose bicycle was falling apart just to give him a new one. It’s people like that who make this world a better place.
A Boulder CO program uses adult-sized balance bikes to help teens and adults with disabilities gain confidence and discover what they’re capable of achieving.
Minnesota’s StarTribune offers a look at the innovations in the bike world on display at this year’s Frostbike, saying there’s great stuff, but nothing revolutionary.
A Massachusetts man is ruled a danger to society after deliberately mowing down a boy as he rode his bike on the sidewalk; the driver was allegedly enraged that the victim had talked trash about his sister.
International
Vancouver tripled bike rack installations last year, and is still scrambling to keep up with demand. That’s a great problem to have, evidence that the city’s recent completion of a protected bikeway network is boosting ridership.
A Canadian mountain bike trail was sabotaged with wooden stakes and a wire strung at neck height in an apparent attempt to injure, or possibly kill, bike riders. Let’s hope the charges reflect that when they find whoever is responsible.
Caught on video: It’s not always bike riders who are the scofflaws. A London cycling hits the pavement trying to avoid pedestrians crossing against the light.
More on that UK survey that shows the overwhelming majority of Brits support bikeways; nearly 80% support bike lanes if they don’t significantly affect their commute, while more than half said they’d still support bike lanes even if it made their commutes five minutes longer.
The head of Britain’s equivalent of the AAA gets it. He says bike lanes that start and stop are one of the worst things for both bike riders and drivers, lulling both into a false sense of security.
You might as well give up on riding the LA River bike path anytime soon.
LADOT reports the Army Corps of Engineers plans to keep the flood control closure in place through the Griffith Park, Silverlake and Atwater Village areas at least through Memorial Day. And possibly longer if El Niño persists.
The Alliance for Biking & Walking says both are on the increase.
According to Bicycle Retailer, the organization’s nearly 200-page 2016 biannual report says bicycling is up 71% in large cities since 2007, and 50% overall, even though men continue to outnumber women riders, who make up just 29% of all bicyclists.
The report also shows protected bike lanes encourage bicycling, increasing riding levels anywhere from 21% to 171%.
And eight out of the ten Complete Streets projects studied resulted in increased property values for the surrounding area. Which means that when home and business owners argue against bikeways, they’re fighting against their own financial self-interest.
Although surprisingly, Los Angeles leads the nation in miles of bikeways. Too bad so few of them connect into a useful network, or those commuting levels might be higher.
The Valley’s Vineland Ave bike lanes get a coat of green paint in conflict areas in an attempt to keep cars out, since nothing else has seemed to work.
Caught on video: Michael Eisenberg forwards news of a stuck-and-run driver who somehow managed to travel more than 300 feet along a separated bike path on an Oregon bridge before getting wedged in, then simply went home for the night. leaving her truck where it was. Police let her off, saying totaling her truck was punishment enough.
Caught on video 2: A road raging Chicago driver chases down and beats the crap out of a bicyclist, all because the rider softly said “You’re in the bike lane bro” as he rode past the man’s car.
New DC bike ramps will make it easier to bike near the White House.
A member of the Manitoba Hell’s Angels faces assault charges for pummeling a 14-year old boy for riding his bicycle past the biker’s yard.
A London bike loan program is helping to get underrepresented groups out on bikes; people get a bike, lock and helmet for a month, along with bicycle training, for the equivalent of just $14. Something like that could be very effective in increasing ridership in underserved areas right here in LA.
Despite vocal opposition, London’s network of segregated cycle tracks enjoys exceptionally strong support, with 71% of Londoners saying they’d like to see protected bike lanes on main roads in their own neighborhoods.
Okay, so maybe 3 pm on a Friday isn’t the best time to pull a 200-yard wheelie in front of a cop on a busy British street.
More stupid criminal tricks, as a New Zealand man left his bike helmet and lock behind after gunning down two people; DNA from the helmet identified him as the suspect.
Speaking in Taipei, Trek’s CEO challenges bike makers to do more to support bike advocacy. Which shouldn’t be hard, since they currently do almost nothing.
Finally…
When you have a $1.2 million bet on the line for your first bike ride in 18 years, clearly, the first thing to do is shave your legs; although a bicycle powered by 4,500 PSI of compressed air might help, too. If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it a hundred times — if you’re going to ride with meth and drug paraphernalia on your bike, put a damn light on it. Thanks to Bryan Dotson for the heads-up.
CiclaValley offers part one of his CicLAvia preview, including a mural for the Day the Music Died, commemorating the day when Pacoima’s favorite son Ritchie Valens went down in a plane crash that also took the life of Buddy Holly and The Big Bopper. If you don’t know who they are, you’re missing a big chunk of music history.
And CD 7 Councilmember Felipe Fuentes offers a video preview of Sunday’s event.
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As we mentioned last week, Bike SGV will be bringing the Cycling Without Age program to the El Monte Senior Center on the 15th to let older people enjoy the thrill of bicycling once more on specially modified rickshaws — often for the first time in years.
And talk about a bad fall. A German pro cyclist survives a 39-foot fall off a bridge into a frozen lake; he swam to safety despite suffering a broken hip.
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Gizmag calls Calfree Design’s new bamboo e-bike a real car killer, which only seems appropriate, since that’s the name of the bike. Or maybe you’d rather build your own bamboo bike, minus the “e”.
And this non-bamboo yet decidedly bizarre looking bike is built to adjust to your exact fit.
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Local
The LA Times looks at the morning-long conversation they hosted Monday about the future of transportation in LA, where the word bicycle apparently went unmentioned.
LA Magazine says LADOT traffic maven Seleta Reynolds is tackling the dangers of traffic safety, quoting her as saying we have to “bust myths about who a street’s for.”
New traffic lights in Downtown LA give pedestrians a head start on motorized traffic to improve safety. But why not include bike riders, as well?
Nice piece from the LACBC talks with local cyclist Victor Boyce, whose mother was one of the original students who broke the color barrier in 1956.
Take a look at the Facebook rantings of the group dedicated to keeping Temple City’s Las Tunas Drive ugly, dangerous and bike-free. Thanks to Vesley Reutimann for the tip.
Mark your calendar for April 10th, when you can ride through Northeast LA with the LAPD’s senior lead officers for the area.
State
Calbike lists their legislative goals for this year, primarily preserving active transportation funding and clarifying cyclists right to ride side-by-side.
A Berkeley bike rider makes an urgent call for better bikeways for him and his family, in a city that was once a leader in bicycling infrastructure. Thanks to Megan Lynch for the heads-up.
A Sacramento bar takes security a step further by installing cameras above the bike racks outside. Meanwhile, residents of South Sacramento are concerned that the SPD’s bait bike program could turn the neighborhood’s young people into criminals. Um, only if they try to steal one.
Treehugger explores whether cars are the most socialized form of transportation. Despite what many drivers would say about freeloading cyclists who don’t pay gas/road taxes, the answer is a resounding yes.
An Anchorage cyclist rides a fat bike 350 miles in just under two days along Alaska’s famed dog sled trail to win the Iditarod Trail Invitational 350.
The LA Times recommends an easy, traffic-free five-day rail-to-trail bike tour through the Cascades in Washington state. Although you could do it yourself a lot cheaper.
Denver’s leading bike advocacy group is looking for a new executive director to lead the fight for a bikeable Mile High City.
A thoughtful driver in my hometown evidently stopped to move a cyclist’s bike and backpack to the curb before fleeing the scene, while leaving the rider he hit lying injured in the street.
Oklahoma considers legislation allowing cyclists to treat stop signs as yields, and ride through red lights that don’t change.
A bill under consideration in Tennessee could make it difficult to build bike and pedestrian projects by prohibiting the use of gas taxes to fund them.
The Wall Street Journal reviews Janette Sadik-Khan’s new bookStreetfight. And the Journal’s bike-riding Jason Gay looks at Evelyn Steven’s hour record, Tim Johnson’s fat bike winter ride up New Hampshire’s Mt. Washington, and wonders if Peter Sagan will get around to shaving his legs.
Vancouver’s Chris and Melissa Bruntlett argue it’s hard to claim no one uses the city’s bike lanes when you have a bike counter with six zeros staring back at you.
Auto-centric Milan proposes paying people to leave their cars at home and ride to work. Which is something LA should take a serious look at if we’re serious about getting cars off the roads.
CNN looks at how men with monster thighs seduced Germany with the Berlin Six Day track event.
Despite public fears, Australian police haven’t seen a jump in Lycra-wearing cyclists speeding down sidewalks at 25 mph after riders were allowed on sidewalks in Adelaide last year.
No bias here. An Aussie paper reports a cyclist smashed through the back window of a taxi, whose driver apparently did absolutely nothing to contribute to the crash.
This is the fourth traffic fatality on the street in the last six months, with three pedestrians and a cyclist losing their lives on a street that was supposed to have been made safer by now.
And would have been, if Councilmember Gil Cedillo hadn’t unilaterally killed a fully funded, shovel ready road diet for reasons he has yet to fully explain, instead bizarrely claiming he was halting the safety project in the name of safety. Yet as yesterday’s tragedy clearly shows, his inaction has merely helped keep a dangerous street deadly.
Unfortunately, we live in a city where councilmembers oversee virtual fiefdoms, thanks to the reluctance of their fellow councilmembers or the mayor to challenge them for fear of retaliation against projects in their own districts.
This has to change.
If Cedillo is unwilling to admit his mistake, someone in city leadership or LADOT has to find the courage to stand up to him to protect the lives of our fellow Angelenos.
Otherwise, people will continue to die needlessly.
And our much-vaunted and fought-for Vision Zero will be nothing more than a very unfunny joke.
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Today’s theme is bizarre court cases involving allegedly traffic-blocking bike riders.
A Louisville KY bike and pedestrian advocate rejected a plea deal on charges of blocking traffic and running a red light, insisting that bicyclists aren’t required to use bike lanes. Or stop at red lights, for that matter.
A Pennsylvania bike rider faces charges for repeatedly obstructing traffic by slowly riding his bike in the middle of the road; a prosecutor hints he may be trying to get hit after receiving a settlement from a drunk driver for a 2007 collision. Or he could just be taking the lane on a narrow street, like bike riders are instructed to do.
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Help keep LA’s best source for bike news and advocacy coming to you every morning.
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‘Tis the season.
For the seventh year, the Burbank Bike Angels will donate over 120 refurbished bikes to children of local low-income families.
A Rochester NY bike shop donated 20 bikes to an organization serving children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, for the second year in a row.
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Local
Democratic legislators ask Obama for funding to start planning and design work for the restoration of the LA River, which could include extensions of the LA River bike path.
The family of a Portland driver accused of fleeing the scene after killing a cyclist while driving stoned says it was just an accident and he’s really an awesome person. Except when running down bike riders while too high to drive, evidently.
A New Mexico man is arrested for his seventh DUI, just three months after being released from prison for killing a bike rider in 2005 while driving at three times the legal limit. Yet somehow, despite repeatedly proving he’s incapable of resisting the temptation to drink and drive, he’s still allowed behind the wheel.
Forget skiing. If you’re looking for a little winter adventure, try fat tire cycling through the Minnesota snow.
The Wall Street Journal says New York safety advocates say more needs to be done even though traffic deaths are declining. After all, it’s Vision Zero, not Vision Slightly Better.
A Savannah writer nails it. “A legion of scofflaw cyclists cannot inflict the amount of pain, suffering and death as one young man driving a Dodge Durango.”
International
Unbelievable. A Costa Rican cab driver denies doing anything wrong after pulling out from the curb and hitting three lead riders of a bike race after police had cleared the route; fortunately, no one was badly hurt.
A road raging bus driver deals with a confrontation with a London cyclist by running over his bike.
A candidate for London mayor offers a six-point plan to make the city a “byword for cycling around the world.”
Brisbane, Australia’s Green Party proposes a network of protected bike lanes, which would allow cyclists to ride in safety to within two blocks of any location in the downtown area.
First up is a moving piece about a legally blind photographer experiencing his first CicLAvia. Bruce Hall not only rode a bike, accompanied by professional cyclist Damon Roberson, but captured the day in a series of beautiful photos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rfWGTo7s6g
Which brings up this this short film that captures the magic of the Culver City Meets Venice CicLAvia earlier this year.
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If you ever wondered why some people think cyclists are crazy, semi-suicidal scofflaws, this should answer the question.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Padm05-xHVM
Of course, the problem comes when they witness the actions of one rider, or even a few, and decide that all people on bikes are like that.
Which is a pretty good metaphor for a lot of what’s going on in the world these days.
While that may not seem like something that would affect cyclists, many riders use the VA grounds as a safe alternative to virtually unridable Wilshire Blvd; for decades, it was my preferred passageway on the way to the coast.
And as others havepointed out, safety could be dramatically improved for both bicyclists and pedestrians by reopening the gates to the Los Angeles National Cemetery just across the street, and allowing non-motorized traffic to use the roadway that passes between Westwood and the VA, just as they did prior to 9/11.
The collective madness continues in Coronado, where a letter writer somehow manages to tie the San Diego County Bicycle Coalition, KPBS public radio and the Late, Late Show’s James Corden into a single grand conspiracy to besmirch their isthmus with bike lanes.
Note to Coronado: It doesn’t take a conspiracy to make you look like fools; you’re doing a damn good job of it on your own.
Santa Monica’s Cynergy Cycles will teach you how to fix a flat at 11 am today. Seriously, If you’re going to ride a bike, you need to know how to keep air in your tires.
The LACBC joins with local chapter West Hollywood Bicycle Coalition this month’s edition of their popular Sunday Funday Ride tomorrow, with the 14-mile family friendly We Go WeHo Ride.
Figueroa for All invites you to join their crew for the 2015 NELA Holiday Parade on Sunday, whether you choose to ride, walk or roll.
Join pro cyclist Phil Gaimon, the LACBC and Councilmember David Ryu’s office in cleaning up a stretch of Mulholland between Cahuenga and Runyon Canyon on the 12th.
In non-breaking news, Metro has officially adopted the fare structure for the still-unnamed bikeshare system, which is pretty much what it was before.
CiclaValley looks at bicycling and pedestrian equity in South LA, or the lack thereof. As he puts it, “A bike network is only as good as your weakest link. It’s about time someone at least bought a chain.”
LA Times’ architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne calls for a series of parks and bikeways along the planned corridor for the un-built 710 Freeway extension through Pasadena and South Pas.
It takes a real schmuck to hit a bike-riding kid and leave him lying in the street like this Moreno Valley hit-and-run driver; fortunately, his victim wasn’t badly hurt.
We all fall off our bikes sooner or later; slashing the neck of a Vacaville kid who laughed at another boy for doing probably wasn’t the best response.
National
It looks like that folding cargo bike collaboration between Tern and Xtracycle is a thing now.
Nice thought from a writer from my hometown, who says we all share the same roads and face the same issues, and need to stand together as one, no matter how you ride.
To improve safety on New York streets, focus on the cars, trucks and SUVs that cause 97.6% of deaths and injuries, not the bikes that cause the rest.
Crash into a cyclist, attack him and throw his tire into the woods before fleeing the scene, and a Maryland judge will let you walk with just 16 lousy hours of community service. Nice to see they take road rage seriously there. And yes, that’s sarcasm of the dripping variety.
Eighteen months after controversial bike lanes were installed in Alexandria VA, they’ve calmed traffic, reduced collisions and increased the number of bike riders on the street, despite the fears of local residents.
That’s the sentence given to Teresa Owens in San Diego on Thursday, for the meth-fueled wrong way collision that injured a dozen cyclists on Fiesta Island last year, leaving one paralyzed from the chest down.
Owens, 50, was at Fiesta Island to try to catch her boyfriend cheating on her. She admitted doing “a small line of methamphetamine” 12 hours beforehand. She was also driving on a suspended license, and she was fresh off a previous DUI arrest.
She drove the wrong way on the one-way road around the island and slammed into a group of cyclists on a training ride coming around a corner. Several flew onto her car or smashed into her windshield.
While making a legal left turn on the yellow, bike rider Wes High was nearly hit by a Santa Monica driver who swerved into the bike lane to get around a stopped car and blow through the light long after it had turned red.
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A new study is quick to blame the victims after 40% of teenagers report being hit or nearly hit by cars while walking. Never mind that careless or distracted drivers may have had something to do with it. And no, walking after dark is not an unsafe habit; that’s what human beings have done since we first stood upright.
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Nice project from CicLAvia, as they want to give back to the community — as if they don’t already give enough — by donating 30 new bikes, helmets and lights to LA County kids who can’t afford them. They want your help to nominate a kid who deserves one; nominations close on December 2nd.
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We’ve got a long list of bike events coming up in the next few weeks.
Today: Walk Bike Burbank will offer free bike valet at the annual Holiday in the Park festival sponsored by the Magnolia Park Merchants Association.
Saturday: The LACBC will participate in Path Hack at the Spoke Café on the Elysian Valley Pedestrian and Bike Path, a series of free art workshops designed to create a slow zone on the pathway.
Saturday: Join CICLE and Equitas Academy for a family friendly Bikes and Batidos Ride around the MacArthur Park neighborhood, sponsored by Metro’s Safe Routes to Schools Pilot Program.
Saturday & Sunday: Professional cyclocross comes to El Dorado Park in Long Beach this Saturday and Sunday with the UCI CXLA Weekend.
Sunday: Celebrate the UCI CXLA cyclocross race by joining the Palms to Pines Ride along the San Gabriel River Trail, or take a shorter ride along the beach; proceeds benefit the LACBC and Bike SGV.
Some of the biggest names in international, national, and local cyclocross racing are coming to Long Beach’s El Dorado Park on November 21st and 22nd. As part of this weekend of racing, SoCalCross is offering a Palms to Pines community ride (Ride with GPS route is can be found here.) The ride, along the San Gabriel River Trail, will take riders from the palm trees and sand in Seal Beach all the way north to the pine trees at Azusa River Wilderness Park at the start of the San Gabriel Mountains, before returning to El Dorado Park in plenty of time to watch an afternoon of exciting racing action, enjoy food and beverages at the races, and visit the event’s sponsor Expo. The ride is 77 miles long, but you can ride as much or as little as you like. A shorter Ocean Breeze ride goes to the beach and back. Both are 100 percent on protected bike paths with no car traffic (only 3 street crossings). Registration is $45 ($55 day-of), less for the short ride, and includes an event t-shirt, lunch, pit stops, and a donation to LACBC and other local bicycle advocacy groups.
For more information and to register, go to SoCalCross.com
December 3rd: The LACBC hosts their annual open house, with drinks from Angel City Brewery; admission is free for LACBC members, so consider joining at the door.
December 3rd: Stan’s Bike Shop invites you to dress up in a holiday theme and join them as they ride in the Monrovia Christmas Parade.
December 3rd – 15th: Metro will be holding a second round of workshops to discuss their Active Transportation Strategic Plan, starting with North Hollywood and ending in Santa Clarita.
December 4th: The highly praised documentary Bikes vs Cars opens at the Laemmle NoHo 7.
December 5th: Ride your bike down to Long Beach for the Belmont Shore Christmas Parade, featuring hundreds of festively dressed marching Corgis.
December 12th: Calbike is hosting a special Bikeways to Everywhere donor party in Los Angeles.
December 27th: Finish the Ride comes to the San Fernando Valley for the first time to combat hit-and-run and help create safer streets for everyone.
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Local
A USC student marketing group conducts guerilla marketing campaigns to promote bike safety and security, along with alcohol awareness and combating sexual assault.
The Eastsider reports a one-mile stretch of the LA River bike path along Griffith Park has temporarily reopened after being closed for three days in advance of a projected year-long closure; Zoo Drive and Western Heritage Way are reportedly being “enhanced” in anticipation of the detour.
A Saratoga driver is being sought by police for intentionally swerving into a bike lane in an attempt to hit a bicyclist. Somehow, that doesn’t merit more than a couple lines in the police blotter, though.
Menlo Park plans to add buffers to an existing bike lane, along with pedestrian-activated crossing lights, to improve safety along a preferred school route.
Napa police arrest a man claiming to be a wolf who speaks 13 languages for stealing a bike at knifepoint. No word on whether one of the languages is Lupine.
There’s a special place in hell for someone who would steal a custom–made bike from a Texas girl with cerebral palsy; fortunately, a kindhearted stranger has offered to replace it.
The Guardian looks at how Oklahoma City has overturned car culture and what can happen when cities kick the car habit.
A South Dakota business owner and bike advocate says forcing everyone into cars isn’t the solution to bike safety.
A New York radio station explores six things they’ve learned about biking in the city by studying over 3,000 photos of blocked bike lanes.
Forget all those cars, evidently the greatest danger New york bicyclists face comes from other riders. Seriously, that’s what she said; you can stop laughing now.
Not only is Pennsylvania’s Genesis Bicycles planning to close for Black Friday, the shop’s employees will donate that day’s salaries to a local charity.
Evidently, it’s legal to kill a cyclist in your sleep in Maryland, as a dozing Bethesda driver got off with just $690 in fines for negligent driving.
Caught on video: London’s mayor Boris is greeted with angry words and gestures as he opens the city’s first segregated cycle superhighway. The best part is his friendly wave in response to a one-fingered salute from a bike rider. Thanks to Sam Kurutz for the tip.
A London exhibition will display nine of the Cannibal’s racing jerseys; the jerseys, worn by five-time Tour de France winner and multiple world champion Eddy Merckx, are worth an estimated $304,000.
A coldhearted Brit writer says he only feels sympathy for the “poor car driver who will have the death of the blithering idiot on their conscience” if a ninja cyclist is killed.
Caught on video: A British bike rider stands his ground while demanding that a driver who violated his right-of-way back up instead of going around him.
A new UK company has developed a circular bike parking garage that stores bikes vertically, above or below ground. Can we have a few of those here? Or maybe a few dozen?
Emirates and Dubai royalty join in the mourning the death of a champion cyclist and triathlete just a week before his wedding.
Islamic State, the group behind last week’s Paris terrorist attacks, has claimed responsibility for shooting a bike-riding Italian priest in Bangladesh.
An Aussie driver with a provisional license apologizes on social media after the cyclist she nearly killed leaves a very polite note saying she looks too nice for prison.
And caught on video: Chinese cyclists crash head-on at the end of a Gran Fondo when the lead group somehow takes a wrong turn and sprints to the finish from the wrong direction.
I’m told that his name won’t be officially released until his parents can arrive here from Mexico to identify the body.
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Last week, our Orange County correspondent mentioned in passing that she’d spotted what looked like the initial markings for a bike lane near the Santa Ana courthouse.
Now Mike Wilkinson sends confirmation that the lanes are going in. Along with signs telling salmon cyclists to turn around.
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A reader writes to share her post-CicLAvia experience with an aggressive driver.
CicLAvia was its usually flurry of fantasticness that was over too soon. By 3pm, I was already commiserating with a friend about jonesing until the next one! You know the feeling, kind of like late Christmas morning.
But. But then. CicLAvia was over. And the road closures had created hordes of people operating vehicles under the influence of rage which doesn’t subside immediately when those barricades come down.
I was mashing westbound on 3rd Street, approaching Olive and minding the countdown timer. Despite what I, as a slowpokey old woman, consider a scary amount of speed, there’d be no time for me to clear the green. I braked at the yellow. The sedan behind me did not. Instead, the driver passed me on the left and shot into the Third Street Tunnel. How he didn’t sideswipe the vehicle in the designated left turn lane, I will never know.
Technically, the driver didn’t hit me; he hit the cardboard Militant Angeleno crossbucks protruding from under the flap of my Chrome bag. There was a single, loud THWIP as the cardboard bent and smacked my left flank. I knew immediately that my art project had been damaged, but didn’t feel the welt forming until I’d cleared the tunnel, and couldn’t pull off my dress to verify until I got home. The wound can barely even be called that; it’s just superficial, no broken skin and it won’t scar.
If I hadn’t already had a bad feeling about this driver, I would have been in the middle of the lane, exactly where I was supposed to be. I’d be writing this from the hospital, or not at all.
And no, I didn’t report it. I was hot and sweaty and tired, and had no information to give the police. I’m not even certain of the driver’s gender. “Mid-sized silver-grey sedan, last seen heading west.” Yeah, that’s helpful. Besides, the LAPD has made it crystal clear that hit and runs are too difficult to investigate, and an incident so minor that it doesn’t warrant reporting will serve only to divert resources away from solvable crimes. Also, I didn’t feel like explaining to an officer who should already know that it’s 100% legal for a cyclist to be in the left lane at that location. I was on a one way street and fixing to turn left onto Flower, and even in a car it’s fucking suicide to try to get over into the left lane. In the tunnel it’s impossible, and upon emerging, the two lanes immediately split into five.
Earlier in the day, I’d gotten rear-ended at the Mandatory Dismount Zone, and that collision was merely hilarious. It would’ve been awesome to have a rear-facing camera to have recorded the expression on the apologetic perpetrator’s face! But alas.
The Times also seems shocked that white people would support the Black Lives Matter movement at CicLAvia. Wait. Who says CicLAvia is a liberal event? Or do they suppose that conservatives would never set foot on a bike, let alone set foot on foot?
CiclaValley offers a good summation of Sunday’s CicLAvia. Seriously, does anyone realize just how hard it is keeping all those damned internal caps straight?
In non-CicLAvia-related news, KPCC looks at LA’s ban on locking bikes to parking meters, which is largely ignored by riders and cops alike, and how the ban could be lifted in Westwood to address the area’s acute shortage of safe bike racks.
State
A San Diego salmon cyclist is lucky to survive a head-on collision with just a broken arm after reportedly veering out into traffic; police suspect she may have been drinking.
Unbelievable. A driver flees the scene after killing a Utah handcyclist, and will have charges dismissed in just 36 months if he pays a measly $2500 in court fees and writes an apology to the victim’s family. Evidently, life is really cheap in the Beehive State.
A pair of mountain bikers ride into a dispute over overuse of wild trails in their attempt to ride all the rideable Colorado mountains over 14,000 feet elevation.
A Kansas letter writer insists that highways are meant for cars, and there’s nowhere to pass groups on cyclists who take the lane on the one he drives, even though it has both a right lane and a left lane.
A Houston bike rider gets screwed twice; once by a deputy constable who hit him while responding to a call, and again by a law that limits his compensation to just $100,000, forcing him to pay his medical expenses out of pocket.
A Texas bike rider called both 911 and his wife before passing out after suffering five fractured ribs, a broken left fibula, a partially collapsed lung and some nasty road rash when he was struck by a hit-and-run driver.
Congratulations to Anderson IN, which just conducted a road diet to give the city its first bike lanes. Although that’s got to be the widest damn center turn lane I’ve ever seen.
A Massachusetts driver is charged with fleeing the scene after killing a motorized bike rider he described as a dear friend; he reportedly got out and looked at his friend before driving off, promising a witness he’d be right back.
International
Six large international cycling events team together to form the World Association of Cycling Events. Yet somehow, they leave out CicLAvia, which should serve as proof to the Times that it isn’t a just bike event.
A 12-year old Australian boy is the latest bike rider to suffer a slashed neck because some asshole — and I use the term advisedly — strung a rope across a trail. Note to The Age: Attempting to decapitate someone by stringing a rope between two trees may be a lot of things, but a prank, it ain’t.
An Aussie developer rejects claims that an improved bikeway will encourage investment along the corridor. After all, that’s only been shown to work around the world, so why would anyone expect it to work there?
An Australian writer insists the Dutch don’t go far enough to make cities bike friendly, and that urban centers should be redesigned to make bikes the default mode of transportation.
An 18-year old British bike rider passes through Thailand four months after leaving London on an around the world journey.