Tag Archive for Eric Garcetti

Two teens killed in crash where Vista Del Mar road diet removed, and elderly driver plows through a dozen French school kids

June 6, 2024 / / 2 comments
Just 208 days left until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
Stop what you’re doing and sign this petition demanding Mayor Bass hold a public meeting to listen to the dangers we all face on the city’s mean streets.

Then share it — and keep sharing it — with everyone you know, on every platform you can.

We’re up to 1,190 signatures, so don’t stop now! Let’s get it up to 1,200 before I send it to the mayor’s office!

Photo by Artyom Kulakov from Pexels.

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This is why people keep dying on our streets.

Back in 2019, a four-year old girl was tragically killed by a driver as she crossed the street in Koreatown, while holding hands with her mother.

In a crosswalk. With the light.

Alessa Fajardo and her mom did everything right as they crossed Olympic at Normandie that October day, yet she died anyway. Even though Los Angeles officials knew long before about the dangers of that area and intersection.

In fact, the school they were going to was ranked the city’s 13th most dangerous campus just six years earlier, while Koreatown as a whole was rated LA’s fourth most dangerous neighborhood for bike riders and pedestrians.

That’s pedestrians, like little kids crossing the street with their mothers.

It took four-and-a-half years, and a $9.6 million dollar settlement before anything was done about it.

Los Angeles Times reporter Ryan Fonseca took a deep dive into why.

Starting with the problem of each city councilmember acting like little kings in their own districts, responsible for identifying and approving any improvements before they are made.

Or not.

Neither former District 10 Councilmember Herb Wesson, who represented the district when Alessa was killed, nor his successor, Mark Ridley-Thomas, secured that funding. Ridley-Thomas was indicted on federal corruption charges, suspended from the council and later convicted and removed from his seat in late March 2022. Nobody represented the district until Heather Hutt was appointed that September.

Hutt identified and allocated $530,000 for the new signals in June 2023, but the installation work did not begin until April 2024, four months after the family’s suit against the city was settled.

District 10 staff would not comment on the record about why they could not secure the funds in 2020, 2021, 2022 and early 2023.

No surprise there.

Then again, even on the rare occasions when councilmembers really do try to do something, angry motorists too often rush for their torches and pitchforks — and threats of recall elections.

Tuesday night, two teenagers were killed, and three people seriously injured, in a head-on collision on Vista Del Mar in Playa del Rey.

And if that sounds familiar, it should.

Two years before little Alessa was killed in Koreatown, the city agreed to another $9.6 million settlement, this time with the family of a 16-year old girl killed crossing — wait for it — Vista Del Mar to get to her car after leaving Dockweiler Beach.

The same beach where the kids were killed on Tuesday.

Then-CD11 Councilmember Mike Bonin responded by ordering long-delayed safety improvements on Vista Del Mar, and a handful of other streets in Playa del Rey. Both because too many lives had already been lost on the deadly roadway, and because the next settlement, for the next inevitable death, would be exponentially higher.

Yet the resulting lane reductions and bike lanes were unceremoniously ripped out weeks later on the orders of then-Mayor Eric Garcetti, after angry residents and pass-through drivers from Manhattan Beach rose up in anger — aided by angry rants from conservative KFI shock jocks John and Ken.

Hence that failed recall, as well as a lawsuit from anti-urbanist group Fix the City.

It only took another four years before there was blood on Garcetti’s hands, and all those who chose their own convenience over the lives of others.

Now just three years after that, two more people have needlessly lost their lives on that same bloody stretch of road. And despite a breathless report from Fox-11, police reports said there was no indication either driver was under the influence.

Never mind that the settlement for this one will likely be exponentially higher than the last one, since Los Angeles installed, then removed, safety improvements that might have prevented it.

Yet despite at least four deaths on the same section of roadway in just nine years, some people still seem to think they should have the unfettered, God-given right to go zoom zoom whenever and wherever they want, innocent lives be damned.

If you want to know why we can’t manage to do anything about the ever-rising rate of needless deaths on our streets, that’s it.

And it would be nice if our current mayor and council would somehow show they actually gave a damn, since the previous ones clearly didn’t.

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Once again, a car was a weapon of mass destruction, when an elderly driver plowed through a group of 12 schoolchildren at a French resort.

Three of the kids were critically injured when the 83-year old driver hit them head-on as they rode single file, leaving the children screaming in terror and pain amid their mangled bikes.

She was arrested at the scene, then released and taken to a hospital after police concluded she wasn’t in a “fit state” for questioning.

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Speaking of deadly roadways, here’s your chance to fight for bike lanes on PCH in Long Beach.

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No surprise that a town known for wealthy, entitled NIMBYs would choose to prioritize their convenience over the lives of bike riders.

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Bike Culver City offers a full schedule of bike events this month, including a screening of mobility justice leader Yolanda Davis-Overstreet two short film docuseries on Biking While Black on the 13th.

https://twitter.com/BikeCulverCity/status/1798102948452651350

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It’s now 168 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And three full years since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.

For a change, though, California wasn’t the only state whose competency was question, after Minnesota’s planned ebike rebate program was called off for now when the website crashed within minutes of launching.

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

Police in Surrey, England released video of a violent attack on a bike rider, who was knocked off his bike by two “masked thugs” on a motorbike while riding on a bike path.

One of the UK’s leading young women’s cyclists is out of this year’s Tour of Britain after she was struck by a hit-and-run driver; Kate Richardson was on a training ride when she was knocked off her bike by the impatient driver, who came back to verbally abuse her before driving off again.

 

A man in Cork, Ireland was irate after a driver pulled over directly in front of him in a bike lane to chat with a friend on the sidewalk, while he was riding uphill with two kids on his cargo bike.

Campaigning for the European Parliament, a Dublin, Ireland politician went on a “jaw dropping,” “reactionary” anti-bike lane rant, in which she compare them to a Berlin Wall dividing the city in two.

A bike rider in Brussels, Belgium is lucky to be alive after he was knocked off his bike by a driver who tried to pass him and his companion while driving in a clearly marked bike lane, then the enraged motorist got out and slashed the victim’s throat with a knife; the victim managed to escape with just six stitches when the driver barely missed his jugular.

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

A New York rabbi suffered a broken leg when he was struck by a rogue, salmon-riding hit-and-run ebiker as he was crossing a bike lane.

Residents of Glasgow, Scotland called for food delivery ebike riders to be required to wear identifiable numbers on their backs, as a result of a number of collisions and near misses. You know, sort of like prison inmates, but without having to be convicted of anything.

A couple of teen ebike riders naturally got the blame after they quarreled with a “crew of cranky elderly” Aussies — even though the reporter admitted he had no idea what the discussion was about or who caused it.

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Local 

Streets For All urges support for a proposed 28-mile The Hill to Sea transit corridor traversing 13 cities and unincorporated communities from Pasadena to Long Beach, which would “aggressively reduce car dependency by prioritizing high quality bus service, safe protected bike paths, and improved sidewalks for walking and businesses.”

Streetsblog’s Joe Linton asks what’s next for Measure HLA as Los Angeles continues to slow walk new bus and bike lanes.

Urbanize LA has more details on the planned Complete Streets makeover of Hollywood Blvd, with bike lanes scheduled to be on the ground next year.

Los Angeles is building more than four miles of bike and pedestrian corridors in South LA west of the USC campus.

Glendale is delaying a planned Complete Streets makeover of La Crescenta Ave to search for additional funding, after initial estimates came in over budget.

 

State

Orange County supervisors voted to crackdown on ebikes, including restrictions on sidewalk riding, imposing speed limits and reclassifying bikes that generate more than 750 watts through their motors — even though the latter two could put them in direct conflict with existing state law.

Police in Cathedral City released a description of the suspect vehicle in the hit-and-run death of a bike rider last month; they’re looking for a dark-colored 2014-2019 Nissan Versa with major front-end damage, as well as missing parts.

A 52-year old bike rider in Apple Valley was airlifted for treatment after suffering major injuries when the victim was rear-ended by a driver on Monday.

A Heyward man was sentenced to nine years behind bars after pleading no contest to vehicular manslaughter and hit and run in the death of a 52-year old man riding a bicycle while driving a stolen car.

 

National

CleanTechnica sings the praises of Bike Index for registering your bike, which you can do right here for free, for life.

Bloomberg talks with University of Colorado-Denver professor Wesley Marshall about his new book, Killed by a Traffic Engineer: Shattering the Delusion that Science Underlies Our Transportation System; he’s the one who did a study several years back showing drivers and bicyclists break the law at the same rate — but bike riders do it for perceived safety, while drivers do it for their convenience.

Colorado took a step forward by creating a dedicated $7 million funding stream for “proven small infrastructure projects that improve safety for vulnerable road users,” such as bike lanes, sidewalks and other pedestrian improvements. While that’s far too little — even for a relatively small state — it’s a hell of a lot more than most are willing to commit to.

A Tulsa, Oklahoma man faces charges after he led police on a chase while driving on a bike and pedestrian pathway.

Police in Missouri are continuing to look for the SUV driver who nearly hit a man riding his bike, causing him to fall over a guardrail and down an embankment, where he lay in pain yelling for help for 13 hours.

Lawmakers in Michigan want to increase the penalties for drivers who strike vulnerable road users, while tightening the rules for who is considered one.

Vampire Diaries actress Nina Dobrev underwent successful surgery to repair an undisclosed issue resulting from an electric motorbike crash last week, as media sources continued to misidentify it as an ebike.

The Washington Post belatedly discovers bike buses can provide a viable alternative to the standard SUV school run.

Sad news from DC, where a 34-year old White House staffer was killed while riding his bike when he crossed the center line on a sharp curve during a fundraising ride, and was struck head-on by an oncoming motorist; Jacob Thomas Brewer was the husband of Fox News contributor Mary Katharine Ham.

 

International

Momentum explains why bicycles are the perfect vehicle for the 15-minute city, while offering policies to help your city go Dutch.

A writer for Cycling Weekly says forget talk about the “golden age” of bicycling, when there were ten times the number of bicyclists killed in the UK in 1950 compared to now.

A group of Queensland, Australia researchers consider what can be done about the bad weather, hills and dark nights that keep people from bicycling, particularly women. Ebikes can easily flatten the hills, but can’t help with the dark or bad weather.

 

Competitive Cycling

Bicycling reports the annual Red Bull Rampage freeride mountain bike competition will finally welcome women as something other than spectators. As usual, read it on Yahoo if the magazine blocks you.

People Magazine wants to catch you up on what’s happening with America’s best-known ex-Tour de France winner. But fails to explain why anyone should give a damn. 

Huh? Twenty-five-year old Australian cyclist Robert Stannard received a four-year ban for “abnormalities” in his biological passport, with the ban backdated to 2018. Which is pretty much the same as no ban at all.

Former pro Peter Sagan takes the party on the water in a new beer ad.

 

Finally…

Why spend thousands on a gravel bike, when you can do the Gravel Unbound on a Walmart cruiser? Who the hell would steal a Penny Farthing?

And Hitch was one of us.

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

Oh, and fuck Putin

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

Happy National Bike & Roll to School Day, and the LA Times calls for genuine action on city’s moribund Green New Deal

May 8, 2024 / / 2 comments
Just 237 days until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
So stop what you’re doing and sign this petition to demand Mayor Bass hold a public meeting to listen to the dangers we all face on the mean streets of LA.

Then share it — and keep sharing it — with everyone you know, on every platform you can.

We’re up to 1,131 signatures, so keep it going! Urge everyone you know to sign the petition, until she meets with us! 

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Happy National Bike & Roll to School Day!

Or as it’s known here in Los Angeles, Wednesday.

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They get it.

The Los Angeles Times writes that Los Angeles needs to take genuine action on the city’s moribund Green New Deal — there’s that word again — to reach its climate goals, not more excuses.

According to the paper, former mayor and current ambassador Eric Garcetti had the easy job of setting ambitious goals for the city, leaving it to his successor to actually carry them out.

You can guess how that worked out.

Plans for more than $40 billion in rail, highway and mobility projects that were supposed to be finished in time for the 2028 Olympics have been scaled back dramatically after Metro was unable to line up even half of the funds needed. A City Controller’s report last fall found that Garcetti’s Green New Deal plan has not accomplished much, lacks meaningful metrics of progress and doesn’t amount to a “comprehensive and actionable set of steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

It’s disappointing that these lofty efforts to make Los Angeles an environmental and transit model have yielded so little.

In the latest instance of lowered expectations, Metro’s staff has for the second time in a year tried to delay the transit agency’s 2030 deadline to convert its entire 2,000-bus fleet to emissions-free electric models, without so much as a vote. In the seven years since Metro adopted the zero-emission policy, it has managed to order only 145 battery-electric buses and get just 50 of them delivered.

A big part of what’s been forgotten in the brief 3+ years since Garcetti breathed the program into life has been any commitment to expanding the city’s bicycle network.

After Garcetti initially left bicycles out of his first draft of the Green New Deal, he followed up a month later by signing a new executive order calling for a “comprehensive citywide network of active transportation corridors, including protected bike lanes, paths along regional waterways and low-stress neighborhood bike improvements,” along with a host of other transportation and energy goals.

In fact, the city committed to expanding the percentage of all trips made by walking, biking and micro-mobility to at least 35% by next year, climbing up to 50% by 2035.

But Los Angeles won’t come close to meeting that goal, after failing to build more than a tiny fraction of the city’s ambitious mobility plan. And it’s not likely to meet the goal for 2035 unless someone lights a fire under city leaders, who so far have shown more interest in delaying, if not halting, any action on building out the plan.

Which is exactly what led to Measure HLA, committing them to building out the mobility plan as streets get resurfaced.

Yet Mayor Bass and the city council have responded to HLA by proposing a cut in transportation funding and a hiring freeze for the already understaffed LADOT and LA Street Services. And slow walking the street resurfacing program to delay implementing the measure.

Ensuring that the city will fail to meet its Vision Zero and Green New Deal commitments for next year, and likely for years, if not decades, to come.

So if you ask me why I’m angry, and why we need to meet with the mayor, there’s your answer.

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A hard-hitting Scottish traffic safety PSA tells drivers to give bike riders a 1.5 meter passing distance — the equivalent of nearly five feet —  “Because it’s not just a bike. It’s a person.”

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It’s now 140 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And 35 months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.

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

No bias here. After a man riding in a London bike lane was filmed being cut off by a driver turning into a No Entry roadway to make a U-turn, UK pro-driving traffic lawyer Mr. Loophole blamed the victim, insisting the bike rider should be prosecuted for the crash, while bike-riding BBC presenter Jeremy Vine said anyone who thinks the bike rider was at fault “should have their driving license rescinded” — a comment that got Vine labelled as “arrogant.”

No bias here, either. Local residents say the UK’s biggest bike lane is a waste of money because not enough bicyclists use it, and the space should be given back to motorists because “they’re the majority.” Meanwhile, bike riders say they don’t use it because it’s covered in twigs and stones, making it too dangerous to ride.

Welsh drivers claim that a new bike lane and walkway that gives more space for bicyclists and pedestrians than to drivers is “an attack on your right to drive a car,” and part of an “anti-car agenda.”

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

Police in Singapore busted a group of 20 bicyclists for violating the country’s draconian limit of no more than five people riding single file, or groups up to 10 riding two abreast; they were also charged with using “non-compliant active mobility devices,” whatever that means.

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Local 

A Next City podcast discusses LA’s “mobility wallet,” which it describes as the biggest Universal Basic Mobility experiment ever attempted in the US; the program provides 1,000 South LA residents with $150 per month to spend on any form of transportation, from transit and micro-transit to bikeshare and ebikes.

West Hollywood will hold an informational open house in Plummer Park on Tuesday, May 21st, to discuss the planned bike-friendly Complete Streets makeover of Willoughby Ave, and Vista/Gardner and Kings streets.

LA County has approved a nearly $3.4 million settlement in the killing of Dijon Kizzee, who was shot by sheriff’s deputies as he tried to flee from a traffic stop for riding his bike on the wrong side of the road, in the Westmont neighborhood of South LA in 2020.

 

State

Calbike reports on what they hope is the last workgroup meeting for the California E-Bike Incentive Project before it finally launches. They hope.

Twenty-six-year old Christian Joshua Howard pled not guilty to a felony count of hit-and-run causing death for the St. Patrick’s Day death of 51-year old Oceanside postal worker Tracey Gross as she rode her bike home from work.

Sad news from San Jose, where a male bike rider was killed in front of a local high school when a speeding driver ran a red light, and slammed into the victim. But sure, tell me again about that bike rider you saw roll a stop sign.

 

National

Bicycling considers how long it takes to ride a century. Read it on AOL this time if the magazine blocks you. 

Electrify News says ebikes are the greatest form of green transportation, and now is the best time ever to buy one. Thanks to Malcomb Watson for the links.

Outside recommends the best bike accessories and tools for road and gravel riding.

A writer for Streetsblog says ebikes are the key for creating financially sustainable bikeshare programs.

Strong Towns considers five ways the National Bike to Work Day can miss the mark.

The White Line Foundation, which was founded in response to 17-year old US National Team cyclist Magnus White’s tragic death, will host the memorial “Ride for Magnus: Ride for Your Life” this August along the same Colorado road where he was killed last July.

California isn’t the only state considering requiring speed limiting devices; a New York state bill would require the devices on vehicles belonging to serial speeders, limiting them to no more than 5 mph over the limit, unlike the California bill, which would require the devices on all new vehicles while allowing a maximum of 10 mph over the posted speed limit. The New York approach sounds like a great complement to the California bill, which will take decades to replace every car now on the road. 

New York plans to permanently reroute the city’s First Avenue protected bike lane through an existing underground tunnel in time for September’s meeting of the UN General Assembly.

A Baltimore woman started selling ice cream from her bicycle ten years ago, founding a company that now brings in a quarter-million dollars a year.

 

International

Cycling News lists the best Giro d’Italia inspired bicycling bargains in both the US and the UK.

Momentum says bicyclists will have an unprecedented opportunity to ride through the iconic streets of Paris to the giant Grand Picnic des Champs on the Champs-Elysées at the end of this month.

An ex-pro paracycling champ has made the unusual transition from the New Zealand national team to owning the leading fence painting firm in Waikato, a district of half a million people.

An Australian study shows replacing parking spaces with bike lanes could improve city accessibility and livability without affecting business revenue, calling it a Robin Hood planning tactic

 

Competitive Cycling

Twenty-two-year old New York native Magnus Sheffield is making his Grand Tour debut in the Giro, as the youngest rider on the Ineos Grenadiers, he’s already won the 2022 De Brabantse Pijl, as well as finishing second overall in the Tours of Norway and Denmark.

Italian sprinter Jonathan Milan claimed stage four of the Giro with a “monstrous” effort in the final 200 yards; there was no change among the top three riders in the general classification.

Jonas Vingegaard took his first ride in over a month following a horrific mass crash in the Tour of the Basque Country, and said he’s aiming to make the start line for this summers Tour de France to compete for a third straight yellow jersey.

This year’s edition of America’s top international bike race, the Maryland Cycling Classic, has been sunk by complications from the Baltimore bridge collapse, after the city’s Francis Scott Key Bridge fell when it was struck by a massive freighter.

 

Finally…

That feeling when a triple Tour de France stage winner stops to fix your flat. Or when a four-year old girl pedals the bike while her dad rides in the basket.

And we may have to worry about a near miss with LA drivers, but at least we don’t often brake for a “deer miss.”

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

Oh, and fuck Putin

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

Video highlights LA Vision Zero fail, missing OK bike riders murdered, and Times endorses Soto-Martínez in DC13

October 18, 2022 / / One comment

It’s been seven years since Eric Garcetti signed the Vision Zero declaration, which committed Los Angeles to ending traffic deaths by 2025.

Okay, you can stop laughing now.

It wasn’t long before the city realized just how hard that would be, and how much change it would require, before quickly shoving it far back on the shelf where they hoped no one would notice.

Funny thing is, though, we told them that. The city held a series of public meetings and solicited comments from the public — without bothering to enlist the advocates who had fought for it.

But we showed up anyway.

One of the biggest things people stressed in these meetings was that it would require wholesale changes in how we get around. Something that somehow didn’t make it into the final Vision Zero Action Plan, which instead proposed a policy of nibbling at the edges of the city’s most dangerous corridors, in hopes the combined incremental changes might somehow make a difference.

You can see how well that worked out.

Another thing we stressed was the need for a change in attitude among LA drivers, assuring the city the program would fail unless there was a large scale reeducation campaign informing motorists that they don’t, in fact, own the road, and that even the best drivers are capable of killing and maiming innocent people unless they learned to drive carefully around vulnerable road users.

And to use the long-abused and misused term, to share the road with people on bikes and on foot, making room and giving them a wide berth, rather than running them off the road.

That, too, was ignored.

I mention this because of this video posted by father and Streets For All founder Michael Schneider, as a driver on what should have been a quiet side street threatened to call the police because Schneider had the audacity to ride a cargo bike in the street with his four-year old kid.

I share it, not because it’s uncommon, but because this sort of crap is all too common.

There are few of us brave enough to mix it up with motor vehicles that haven’t run into drivers like this at one time or another. Sometime literally.

The attitude persists among too many drivers that streets are for cars, and too dangerous for people walking or on bicycles, without grasping the irony that they are the very people who keep that way.

Until that changes — or rather, until our elected leaders care enough about saving human lives to actually do something to make it change — Vision Zero will continue to fail.

And people will keep dying needlessly on our streets.

Photo from LA Streetsblog. 

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Speaking of Vision Zero, a pair of NACTO executives argue that cities urgently need to fix dangerous arterial streets, which make up just 15 percent of all roads but are responsible for a whopping 67 percent of pedestrian deaths.

And Streets For All is urging you to support a proposal for a pedestrian plaza on deadly Sawtelle Blvd at tonight’s Zoom meeting of the West LA Sawtelle Neighborhood Council’s Planning and Land Use Management Committee.

Because clearly, it’s up to us to keep pushing for a safer, more livable city for all Angelenos.

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It never seemed like the story of the missing Okmulgee, Oklahoma bike riders was going to end well.

But the real story is so much worse than anything we imagined.

The four friends inexplicably disappeared after setting out for a bike ride Sunday evening. A massive search turned up nothing, until their bodies were found Friday — shot, dismembered and dumped in a local river.

To complicate matters, it turns out the men were killed while committing, or at least planning, a crime. Although just what that crime might have been is unknown at this time.

Cellphone records show they traveled to a pair of salvage yards, five and eleven miles from where their bodies were found. One of which showed “evidence of a violent event” nearby.

Police are looking for a person of interest in the case, who also disappeared Sunday night, and reportedly may be suicidal.

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No, it’s not.

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This effectively makes the case for why slower speeds save lives, showing the difference between roughly 50 mph and 20 mph.

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Inspiring video demonstrating that bikes aren’t just for the able-bodied, as British pro mountain biker James Anderson competes despite suffering from Monoplegia, an acute form of Cerebral Palsy.

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

Police in New York are looking for the bike-riding man accused of two sexual assaults in the East Side and West Village neighborhoods. There’s not a pit in hell deep enough. 

A British mother of four claims she was forced to sell drugs after failing in debt to a drug gang, after she was busted for peddling heroin and coke by bike.

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Local

The Los Angeles Times makes a surprising endorsement, picking challenger Hugo Soto-Martínez over incumbent CD13 Councilmember and acting council president Mitch O’Farrell.

Councilmembers Kevin de León and “Roadkill” Gil Cedillo have been stripped of their committee assignments, as pressure mounts for them to resign in the wake of a racist taped conversation that was leaked last week.

People for Mobility Justice is teaming with Metro to host a free bike tour of East LA taco vendors and bike infrastructure this evening, starting at Mariachi Plaza.

WeHoVille gets the candidates for West Hollywood City Council — or most of them, anyway — on the record for their support, or the lack thereof, for proposed protected bike lanes on deadly Fountain Ave. Too many of whom insist on seeing it from a windshield perspective, preferring to protect parking and high-speed traffic over human lives. 

Metro is hosting a webinar meeting tonight to discuss bike and pedestrian improvements near the planned Sepulveda Blvd G Line — aka Orange Line — station.

Metro has released an interactive map of its Draft Prioritized Active Transportation Network, showing where in LA County the agency thinks it should make multimodal improvements

 

State 

No surprise here, as pedestrians made up 25% of all traffic traffic fatalities in California in 2020, with pedestrian deaths climbing 4% over the previous year.

Carlsbad’s Handel’s Homemade Ice Cream is hosting a fundraiser today for a local firefighter and his 16-month old daughter, after their wife and mother were killed by a driver while riding her ebike with the girl in August.

Sad news from Kern County, where a Bakersfield man was killed riding a bicycle in the city early Saturday morning.

San Francisco is headed for its worst year for traffic deaths and injuries in 15 years, making its goal of zero traffic deaths by 2024 increasingly unlikely; researchers blame inadequate and misdirected police enforcement.

More sad news, as the CHP is searching for the hit-and-run driver who killed a man who was riding a bike in Sacramento just after midnight Sunday; the victim wasn’t carrying ID and hasn’t been identified. Meanwhile, a CHP officer is in critical condition after he was struck by a drunk driver while investigating the crash.

 

National

He gets it. CNN’s Chris Cillizza uses Black Panther’s African utopia of Wakanda as a model to illustrate why it’s time to move our cities beyond the failed and destructive age of car culture.

A mom of twins offers a rave review of her first thousand miles on an e-cargo bike.

Cycling Weekly shares some of the best custom and yet-to-be-released handmade bikes from Portland’s seventh annual Chris King Open House, while Cycling News highlights five bikes from London’s recent Bespoked custom bike show.

The Las Vegas Raiders are adding additional bike racks and planning to stripe bike lanes outside their stadium, in response to demand from fans riding bikes to the games.

Horrible story from Michigan, where a bike rider was killed when he was dragged several blocks underneath a car by a hit-and-run driver.

The New York Civil Liberties Union is arguing a case before the state Supreme Court, demanding that cops and courts treat search and seizure of people on bicycles the same as they do people in cars.

 

International

A new international study shows a bike rider in New York is 25 times more likely to be killed than a similar rider in Vancouver, and faces roughly the same risk as a bicyclist in Auckland or Buenos Aires. Unfortunately, Los Angeles wasn’t included in the study.

This is who we share the road with. A Welsh driver was allegedly using Facebook and Instagram behind the wheel, moments before killing an off-duty police sergeant as she was riding a bicycle; he claims it was his 13-month old son using his phone at the time of the crash.  Sure, let’s go with that.

 

Competitive Cycling

An Irish columnist marks the 10th anniversary of Lance Armstrong’s downfall by arguing that his punishment was “draconian and probably excessive,” but caused by the same “bloody-mindedness” that led to his seven Tour de France wins.

Former Italian great Mario Cipollini was sentenced to three years and a fine of 85,000 euros — the equivalent of nearly $83,750 — after being convicted of domestic abuse and threats against his ex-wife and her current partner.

US national road race champ Kyle Murphy has signed with L39ion of Los Angeles, as the LA-based cycling team apparently looks to compete as a Continental team next year, after dominating the American crit scene.

Zwift is sponsoring the first physical location for the LA Bicycle Academy, a cycling team founded and led by people of color to help young people from underserved communities enter the sport.

 

Finally…

That feeling when the internet has misses the point entirely. Or when your only race fan is a monkey. No, a real one.

And apparently, bicycling fashion has changed just a tad over the years.

https://twitter.com/may_gun/status/1582184306453061633

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

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

Roadkill Gil supports bikes off the road, Metro teaches group rides, and always pay cash before you kill someone

March 17, 2022 / / 3 comments

One quick note before we get started. 

I’m scheduled to have arm and hand surgery at the end of the month. 

As you may recall, I had surgery on the right side last year, and was down for about 10 days before I was able to get back to work, however, that was a more extensive surgery than we’re expecting this time. 

So I’m not sure how long I’ll be out; hopefully, it will only be a few days. 

But if you’ve been thinking about writing a guest post, this would be a great time to send something to me. 

Standard rules apply. Write as much or as little as you want, about anything you want, as long as it’s about bicycling. Feel free to include photos (just send them separately from the text, please).

The only restrictions are to avoid insults and personal attacks, or being needlessly offensive. But I’m pretty damn hard to offend, so that should give you a lot of leeway.

No, this is not an invitation to SEO marketers, so no extraneous links unrelated to the topic at hand. 

And I’ll be the judge of what’s related. 

………

More proof Roadkill Gil supports bike infrastructure, as long as it doesn’t offend NIMBYs or inconvenience motorists just a tad.

https://twitter.com/gilcedillo/status/1504154264284778499

LA’s future ambassador to India seems pretty darn pleased, too, apparently taking pride in the new bike/ped bridge.

Even though his Vision Zero program has failed, and his Green New Deal is already gathering dust.

………

Metro wants to teach you how to survive group rides.

https://twitter.com/MaverickMPA/status/1504279453605646338

………

If you’re going to murder a couple riding their bikes, remember to pay cash — and try not to be too memorable.

The man who allegedly stabbed a Daytona, Florida couple to death as they rode their bikes back home was caught when a waitress recognized his photo, and police tracked him down from the credit card he used.

Thirty-two-year old accused killer Jean Macean has been extradited from Orlando, where he was arrested.

……….

This is the kind of note you write when Costco places a bench blocking the bike racks.

If you’re more polite than I am, that is.

https://twitter.com/may_gun/status/1504248818069504000

……….

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

It’s bad enough when a driver passes too close and ignores the painted bike lane, but even worse when it’s a cop.

………

Local

The Sheriff’s Department has declared zero tolerance for speeding and crosswalk violations on PCH in Malibu in the wake of several recent pedestrian deaths. Good luck with that. If they really want to slow drivers on LA killer highway, they need to remake PCH so the Malibu’s Main Street isn’t just a speedway for pass-through drivers.

Rancho Palos Verdes will lift a 28-year ban on bicycles and skating at three local parks, in a six-month trial starting at some yet-to-be-determined date; residents have complained that they don’t have safe place to teach their kids how to ride a bike.

 

State 

San Jose announces a $6 million plan to reduce last year’s near-record number of traffic deaths, which continue to rise even though it was one of the first US cities to adopt Vision Zero. Once again demonstrating that Vision Zero doesn’t work if you don’t actually do something.

San Francisco moved a step closer to permanently banning cars from JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park. Parks are for people, not cars.

Davis is working to reduce traffic congestion on the city’s Mace Boulevard, including installing a new protected intersection.

 

National

As Colorado expands its power transmission network with hundreds of miles of new power lines, the state’s bike advocates see a unique opportunity to build bike paths along the new power line routes.

Texas Monthly remembers the state’s own Mr. Rogers, who fixed bikes for all the neighborhood kids until his death at 93 years old in 2004, and says some of those bikes are still being ridden today.

A Michigan man faces a minimum of 25 year behind bars as a habitual offender after following a man on a bicycle in his car, then intentionally jumping a curb and swerving into him to steal his wallet.

Research shows more Tennessee drivers are obeying the state’s three-foot passing law, and passing bike riders at a safe distance.

Tampa, Florida is the latest city to adopt Vision Zero, in an effort to confront the city’s average of 44 traffic deaths each year.

It’s not just a SoCal problem. A Florida family wants answers after a 50-year old man was killed riding his bike home from work; his brother found his body after retracing his route a full two days after the crash that killed him.

 

International

Garmin has patented a new rear-view bike cam radar system, which automatically begins recording when it senses danger from behind.

Ouch. Someone broke into a shed on a Scottish property, and made off with five mountain bikes worth nearly $33,000.

After an English woman was confronted by a gang of young men while riding her bike home, she didn’t realize how close she came to being robbed — or worse — until she later watched an attacker lunge at her on her rear-facing bike cam.

Former Australian Olympic track cyclist Dean Woods brought mourners to tears by delivering his own pre-recorded eulogy at his funeral, after dying of lung cancer at 55.

 

Competitive Cycling

Mark Cavendish overcame a lingering cold to continue his winning ways from last year with a victory in the one-day Milano-Torino race.

Tragic news, as 28-year old Belgian cyclist Cedric Baekeland died of a heart attack while training in Spain.

 

Finally…

That feeling when Chick-fil-A becomes a traffic hazard. And when your pedal is no longer on speaking terms with the rest of your bike.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

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

18 Los Angeles bike riders killed in 2021 Vision Zero fail, speed cams improve safety, and Sidney Poitier was one of us

January 10, 2022 / / Comments Off on 18 Los Angeles bike riders killed in 2021 Vision Zero fail, speed cams improve safety, and Sidney Poitier was one of us

It’s worse than we thought.

A lot worse.

Tracking bicycling deaths in Los Angeles last year, it became clear that what I was seeing was clearly a major undercount.

Because the numbers I was seeing were too good to be true, as if LA’s Vision Zero has suddenly started showing results, despite years of just nibbling at the edges of traffic safety.

It’s a problem that has developed over the past few years, as local newspapers and TV stations stopped reporting many bike crashes after the pandemic forced major cutbacks in the newsrooms.

At the same time, the LAPD has taken to telling the public about bike and pedestrian deaths only when there’s a crime involved — and even then too often waiting weeks, if not months, to issue a press release in some parts of the city, particularly in the case of hit-and-runs.

And LADOT has backtracked from their promises to track bike and pedestrian deaths under the Vision Zero program, which has receded to where it seems more like an inconvenience than a priority for the city’s transportation agency.

As a result, I counted just eight people killed riding bicycles in the city last year, a fraction of the 15 to 20 or more deaths that would have been expected in pre-pandemic days.

Sadly, I was right.

According to the Los Angeles Times, that was less than half of the actual total of 18 people killed riding their bikes in the City of Angels in 2021 — a 20% increase over the 15 people killed on bikes in the first year of the pandemic.

The paper points out the ongoing failure of Mayor Eric Garcetti’s underfunded Vision Zero pledge to cut traffic deaths by 20% by 2017 — a target the city didn’t come close to meeting. And the virtual impossibility meeting his commitment to ending traffic deaths in the city entirely by 2025.

According to Los Angeles Police Department data through Dec. 25, 289 people were killed in traffic collisions last year, 21% more than the same period in 2020 and 19% over the same period in 2019. A total of 1,465 people were severely injured, a 30% increase over the same period in 2020. The LAPD defines severely injured as needing to be transported from the collision.

The city’s streets are increasingly dangerous for pedestrians in particular, with 486 being severely injured by motorists — a 35% increase over 2020. Pedestrian deaths rose 6% to 128.

The numbers frustrate transportation advocates, who’ve long argued that Vision Zero — a program to end traffic deaths unveiled in 2015 by Garcetti — is underfunded and given a low priority by the mayor and City Hall leaders.

Then again, that’s what can be expected when our elected leaders quake in fear of getting recalled by angry drivers, and lack the courage to make the hard choices and changes necessary to save lives.

But Garcetti isn’t one to take such criticism lying down.

Garcetti cited the distraction of cellphones as a cause of collisions and said the city has added bike lanes during the pandemic, studied the city’s most dangerous intersections to come up with solutions, and supported a new state law designed to help cities have more control over speed limits.

“But it shows how tough it is,” Garcetti said Thursday.

He pushed back against criticism that he doesn’t mention Vision Zero as frequently as he touts other initiatives. “I speak out all the time,” Garcetti said. “I do on panels, I go out there, internationally, to kind of be part of this movement to make sure that we have more walkable, livable cities.”

So it’s nice to see Garcetti has done what he seems to do best.

Talk and attend conferences.

To be honest, I’ve wracked my brain in recent months, but can’t recall any elected official I’ve voted for and actively supported who has been a greater disappointment than Eric Garcetti. 

He started out great in his first term, before apparently setting his sights on higher office — including the presidency — and appearing to lose interest in the daily work of being the mayor of Los Angeles.

But I can tell you this.

I will not vote for anyone for mayor this year who does not fully commit to making Vision Zero a top priority, and funding it at levels necessary to result in real change. And commit to making the difficult choices and changes we need on our streets to actually reduce deaths and make our streets survivable.

And I won’t support anyone for city council who doesn’t, either.

It’s clear that homelessness will be the primary issue in this year’s campaign. We need to fight to raise traffic safety to a top priority, as well.

Because our lives literally depend on it.

………

A new Chicago study shows speed cams really do work. And they really do save lives.

A review of the city’s 162 automated speed cams, which state law allows to be installed only within one-eighth of a mile of a park or school, showed that serious crashes went up in those areas.

But not as much as they did in the city as a whole.

According to Chicago Streetsblog,

  • Fatal or serious injury crashes increased only 2 percent near speed cameras between 2012-13 and 2018-19, as compared to a 21 percent increase citywide. This is similar to the 1 percent and 19 percent findings of last year’s study, which compared 2012-13 with 2017-18.
  • Between 2012-13 and 2018-19, overall crash totals increased 1 percent in the cam locations, compared to a 25 percent increase in all crashes citywide. The figures from last year’s study were 4 percent and 26 percent.
  • Speed-related crashes increased 18 near speed cams between 2012-13 and 2018-19, compared to a 64 percent spike city-wide. Those are smaller increases than were seen in last year’s study: 25 percent and 75 percent.

Two bills under consideration in the state legislature during the past session would have established pilot programs for speed cams here in California.

But both died on the vine, apparently because they would have inconvenienced speeding drivers, which tend to make them mad.

Fortunately, Calbike and SAFE — aka Streets Are For Everyone — say they’ll make getting a bill through the legislature one of their top priorities.

So there may be hope yet.

………

Los Angeles Bureau of Streets Services Assistant Director & Chief Sustainability Officer Greg Spotts is one of us.

Which should inspire confidence that he’ll get the job done right.

https://twitter.com/Spottnik/status/1479884374053056515

………

Now if all cars were just made like this.

Thanks to Ted Faber for the heads-up. 

………

The immortal Sidney Poitier was one of us. So was his friend and fellow 1940s alum of Harlem’s American Negro Theatre.

………

I want to be like him when I grow up.

………

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

No bias here. Instead of complaining about the one rude bike rider they encountered, a New Jersey father addresses his complaints to “all the arrogant jerks who ride on New Jersey trails and roadways.” On the other hand, if you’re not an arrogant jerk, his message apparently doesn’t apply to you.

No bias here, either. Two cops were disciplined after Irish officials allowed a dangerous driver to remain on the streets until he killed a man riding a bike, despite 42 — yes, 42 — previous convictions, and being out on bail from three separate courts. But the police commissioner quashed their fines and sanctions.

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

A Montreal bike rider responds to being told to stay in the bike lane by smashing his bike against the driver’s car. Which probably hurt his bike more than it does the car. Seriously, violence is never the answer, as tempting as it is sometimes.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CYcErfYoi8V/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=310f8a6c-bbd3-4df9-8baa-2b82c601f84b

………

Local

Metro Bike is offering a one-month bikeshare pass for just $1.

The director of the LA chapter of the Sierra Club complains that there are no programs in place to encourage customers to ride their bikes to local businesses.

 

State

A California inventor is working on a bike lane sweeper you can pull behind your bike.

Encinitas residents turned out for the city’s Cyclovia open streets event on Sunday, which shut down four letters worth of the Coast Highway to cars, and opened them to people for four hours from D Street to J Street.

Police in Temecula are looking for a pair of burglars who broke into a local bike shop and stole a pair of high-end mountain bikes.

Riverside’s SMART Tire Company has released the second-generation of their airless metal tire prototype, developed in conjunction with NASA in an effort to reduce weight — and the $2,000 price tag — before it goes to market later this year. Although the investors on Shark Tank didn’t approve.

San Luis Obispo kicked a homeless encampment off a local bike path before closing it for the next eight weeks to make improvements along the route.

A San Francisco writer says he won’t be renewing his membership in the de Young Museum and Legion of Honor, thanks to their demands to return “car-free JFK Drive…to a dangerous highway used mostly by shortcut-takers zipping between destinations outside the park.”

 

National

They get it. Wired says if the US is serious about climate change — which remains to be seen — our leaders need to start treating bicycles like replacements for cars, and not toys.

Mashable considers all the ebikes and scooters presented at last week’s CES in Las Vegas — including one with treads and no pedals to get through the snow.

A series of reports about the “the uneasy coexistence of grizzly bears and humans” recounts the horrific tale of a Montana mountain biker who rounded a blind curve and ran directly into a massive grizzly, who did not take to it kindly.

Once again, an ebike battery spontaneously combusted, sparking a four alarm fire in a Bronx apartment building early Saturday. Thankfully, there were no serious injuries, unlike Sunday’s apartment fire sparked by a space heater that killed at least 19 people.

Nearly 40 injured vets took part in the Wounded Warrior Project’s annual ride through the Florida Keys.

 

International

He gets it, too. A British Columbia columnist says yes, he always wears a bike helmet, but bike lanes will do a lot more to improve safety.

A British automotive website looks forward to the upcoming ebikes that are revving their engines.

UK residents laugh at the idea that people could carry their trash to drop-off sites on their bicycles during a garbage strike. Apparently, no one has ever told them about cargo bikes. Or racks. Or baskets. 

National Geographic examines what makes the Isle of Man one of Great Britain’s best places to ride a bike.

Milan is getting serious about bicycling, unveiling a $272 million plan to build an entire 466-mile network of concentric and radial bike paths connecting 80% of the city.

NPR visits Iraq, where women riding bicycles are often seen as promiscuous, though the women see themselves as activists.

A man from Kazakhstan plans to ride 500 miles from Busan to Seoul, South Korea to mark the 30th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

 

Competitive Cycling

Four-time Tour de France winner Chris Froome is targeting a record-tying number five this year, insisting that he’s fully recovered from a near fatal crash two years ago. Even though He Who Must Not Be Named won seven, before he didn’t.

Cycling Weekly considers who has this year’s best looking pro cycling kit.

 

Finally…

Anyone can hold a naked bike ride in the middle of summer, but a January ride takes balls, uh, guts. If you have to steal an ebike, probably not the best idea to take one marked “evidence” from the police impound yard.

And someone get me some ice and a skate, quick.

………

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

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

Prosecutors throw book at killer Show Low AZ driver, Streets For All blasts Garcetti, and Culver City to open mobility lane

November 3, 2021 / / Comments Off on Prosecutors throw book at killer Show Low AZ driver, Streets For All blasts Garcetti, and Culver City to open mobility lane

My apologies for yesterday’s server outage that knocked us offline all day. You can catch up on everything you missed here. 

………

More mass casualty bike crashes in the news, as an Arizona website offers an update on the case against Shawn Michael Chock.

Chock is accused of deliberately slamming his massive pickup into a group of up to 50 competitors in a master’s bike race in Show Low, Arizona last June.

He ended up killing one man and injuring six other people when he smashed into the group, then backed his truck up and attempted to make another pass.

Prosecutors allege Chock huffed computer cleaning fluid before getting behind the wheel, whether that motivated the attack or simply gave him the courage to carry it out.

He was shot by police after fleeing the scene and engaging in a standoff with cops behind a local hardware store, and was arrested on his release from the hospital.

He continues to be held on a half million dollars bond, facing decades behind bars on charges including 2nd degree murder, aggravated assault against a peace officer and eight other counts of aggravated assault, leaving the scene of a collision involving death or serious injury, and unlawful flight from a law enforcement vehicle.

His next court hearing is on the 29th of this month. Hopefully in a courtroom full of bike riders.

The website adds that Chock is presumed by court to be innocent until proven guilty.

Thankfully, we’re under no such obligation.

Photo by Sora Shimazaki from Pexels.

………

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Garcetti spoke with Spectrum News 1 about his climate goals following COP26. Although as we’ve seen too many times, the mayor is great at talking, not so good at following through.

Meanwhile, bike scribe and historian Carlton Reid takes the COP26 climate conference to task for inexplicably ignoring the quickest and most efficient way to decarbonize.

Bicycles.

That was the same message contained in a letter from over 80 bicycle organizations around the world, who argued that “government leaders must commit to boosting cycling levels to reduce carbon emissions and reach global climate goals quickly and effectively.”

Cycling represents one of humanity’s greatest hopes for a shift towards a zero-carbon future. New research shows that life-cycle CO₂ emissions drop by 14% per additional cycling trip and by 62% for each avoided car trip. Switching from a car to a bicycle saves 150g of CO₂ per kilometre. E-cargo bikes cut carbon emissions by 90%compared with diesel vans. Swapping the car in cities for walking and cycling even just one day a week can reduce your carbon footprint by about half a tonne of CO₂ over a year. Building synergies with other travel modes such as public transport can critically enhance this potential.

Our world is on fire. We must urgently leverage the solutions that cycling offers by radically scaling up its use. What we need now is for governments to politically and financially commit to more, safer and integrated cycling that is equitable for everyone living in our countries, cities and regions…

………

Culver City is opening the city’s first mobility lane designed for scooters, bikes and ebikes on November 20th.

https://twitter.com/CulverCityBus/status/1455594901454741504

………

Both San Diego and San Jose are celebrating open streets events this Sunday, with San Jose hosting Viva CalleSJ.

And the San Diego Bike Coalition co-hosting CicloSDias on the streets of Pacific Beach.

Thanks to Robert Leone for the heads-up. 

………

Leone also reminds us to take extra precautions as Daylight Savings ends this Sunday.

Make sure you have lights on your bike if you’ll be riding after dark, with the sun setting around 5 pm next week; I also carry lights with me anytime I ride in the late afternoon, in case a flat or mechanical problem delays my return.

And ride defensively, especially for the first few days next week, because the initial days after Daylight Savings ends are always among the worst days for traffic collisions.

………

Damn, that really is a close call. If the guy on the bike hadn’t been a cop, the driver probably would have gotten away with it.

………

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

San Diego police are looking for a man riding a blue mountain bike with black rims and silver spokes, who is described as a person of interest after a woman was sexually assaulted in a Mission Bay restroom.

………

Local

LADOT is planning to extend the bike lanes on Riverside Drive in Los Feliz from Glendale Blvd to Los Feliz Drive, after the street is resurfaced over the next year; the work will also include upgraded paint and crosswalks.

A writer for the Financial Times laments LA’s unrealized potential as a bicycling city. As do we all.

Santa Monica-based Bird is planning to go public despite a history of financial losses, merging with a Dallas-based special purpose acquisition company in hopes of raising $384 million in capital.

Opening arguments began in the civil trial against a Metro contractor for the 2017 death of 13-year old Ciara Smith on PCH in Redondo Beach; her attorney blamed poor training of the driver, while the defense placed the blame on bad road design.

A 31-year old man was fatally shot while riding a bike in Long Beach on Friday.

 

State

Santa Barbara County will take its ebike demo to Santa Maria for five days this month, allowing people to try them out and even take one home overnight.

Sad news from Oakland, where an e-scooter rider was killed by a wrong-way driver who allegedly ran a red light; Streetsblog argues that the paint on the street was insufficient to protect her, or anyone else.

More in the Santa Rosa woman who was seriously injured in Saturday’s mass casualty bike collision in Liberty County, Texas; 59-year-old Barbara Anne Ferrell was one of three bicyclists struck by the driver while on a cross-country ride.

 

National

They get it. Fast Company compares the $12,500 tax incentive to buy an electric car contained in the stalled Build Back Better bill with the relatively paltry $1,500 tax break for buying an ebike, charging that the bill continues the harmful automotive dominance in our cities.

This is who we share the road with. Las Vegas Raiders wide receiver Henry Ruggs III faces up to 20 years behind bars for the fiery, high-speed crash that killed an innocent woman and her equally innocent dog; he was released from the team hours after his arrest on felony DUI and reckless driving charges. You know you’re toxic when even the Raiders won’t touch you.

The bike theft scourge has infected the entire country, even in small Midwestern towns like Iowa City.

Hundreds of people turned out to honor a fallen Chicago man at a ghost bike ceremony yesterday, while a crowdfunding campaign for the popular amateur cyclist has raised more tha $164,000 in just four days.

 

International

Canadian mountain biker Magnus Manson has started the Conquer Your Challenge crowdfunding campaign to raise funds for aspiring Canadian cyclists, as he battles stage 3 Hodgkin’s Lymphoma; he’s already topped the $10,000 goal bu raising over twelve grand.

A Toronto op-ed accuses the city of falling short on efforts to stop pedestrian traffic deaths, despite its Vision Zero program.

A Scottish legal columnist explains the defense of automatism — where someone isn’t in control of their actions through no fault of their own and have no knowledge of what happened — after a driver was acquitted of killing a man on a bike because she claimed she had no memory of the crash.

A website in Scotland recommends banning cars from schools and building a walking culture in kids to improve safety and cut climate-damaging emissions. Although they should also add riding their bikes to school to that.

A South African musician is scaling up the country’s first ebike delivery service.

 

Competitive Cycling

British cyclist Alex Dowsett is in Mexico City, attempting to retake the hour record he first set in 2015.

 

Finally…

If you’re going to steal a bike, at least have the decency to leave your old one in its place. Who needs carbon fiber when you can build your own bike out of wood?

And why carry a tent on your bike when you can build your very own self-powered wooden e-camper van bike?

………

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

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

Blood on Garcetti’s hands as hit-and-run driver murders mom on Vista Del Mar, and big pickups blind drivers to little kids

September 13, 2021 / / One comment

We knew it was going to happen.

Just four years after a road diet was unceremoniously ripped out on deadly Vista Del Mar, a mother was killed by a hit-and-run driver while carrying her three-year old son.

And immediately, local residents jumped in to demand that something be done to stop the street’s speeding drivers.

Like this man who was quoted by KCBS-2.

A day after the tragic incident, some neighbors are saying that something needs to be done about people speeding down Vista Del Mar.

“Nobody respects the speed limit here,” said a neighbor Adolfo Navarro. “I mean, you’ll see the cops on motorcycles here during the day enforcing it, but at night, it’s…you can hardly see because the lights don’t even gloom right and then you can only see as far as you can using your headlights.”

Except something was done.

And Playa del Rey residents and Manhattan Beach commuters immediately got out the torches and pitchforks demanding its removal, until our weak-kneed mayor cut the legs out from under the local councilmember to force its removal.

Now every damn one of them have this woman’s blood on their hands.

CD11 Councilmember Mike Bonin had ordered the road diet when the city was forced to settle a lawsuit for $9.5 million, two years after 16-year-old Naomi Larsen was killed while crossing the road at Dockweiler Beach.

Just like 33-year old Wendy Galdamez Palma on Saturday night.

Bonin understood that, without quick action, people would continue to die on the killer street.

And the next settlement would make that $9.5 million look like peanuts.

So he ordered LADOT to implement a long planned, and long delayed, road diet on Vista Del Mar, along with a handful of other local streets.

Unfortunately, the work was done over a weekend, without warning or public announcements, resulting in massive traffic backups and the inevitable hot tempers.

And somehow, everyone blamed bike lanes — and bike riders in general — for the road diet, even though LADOT used diagonal parking to narrow the street, rather than bike lanes, so speeding drivers wouldn’t keep killing people.

So in the face of demands from angry cut-through commuters, as well as lawsuits and threats of recalls — that was back in the day, before recalls were an everyday thing — Garcetti ordered all the road diets and bike lanes that had been installed on other streets removed.

Making Bonin look like a hapless fool.

And making more deaths inevitable.

As an added bonus, the actions of the future ambassador to India undercut virtually every road diet that had been planned anywhere in the City of Angels, as councilmembers ran scared, and quickly concluded they’d rather see more needless deaths than have those angry drivers come after them.

Most notably on LA’s Temple Street, where both CD1’s Gil Cedillo and CD13’s Mitch O’Farrell quickly backed out of a desperately needed, shovel-ready lane reduction.

Which was soon followed by CD2 Councilmember Paul Krekorian cancelling plans for similar safety improvements on Lankershim Blvd in North Hollywood.

That’s how we ended up with bike riders and pedestrians continuing to die on our streets, six years after the city adopted Vision Zero, and just four years until traffic deaths were supposed to be a thing of the past.

Yeah, right.

Never mind an ever rising epidemic of hit-and-runs, as drivers recognized just how unlikely they are to be caught. And just how likely they are to get away with a slap on the wrist if they are.

All of which brings us to the needless death of a mother cradling her child in her arms, who reportedly turned away from the oncoming car to sacrifice her life in order to save his.

I honestly don’t know what to say anymore.

Wendy Palma did not need to die. Steps were taken to tame high speed drivers on deadly Vista Del Mar. And spineless cowards took them out.

Which means the next legal settlement won’t by $9.6 million, but significantly higher. Because the city knew there was a problem there, and not only didn’t fix it, they actually removed the fix.

And the one after that will be higher still.

And the one after that.

And people will keep dying, because the cowards in City Hall don’t have the courage to do anything about it.

Photo shows the road diet that was removed from Vista Del Mar.

………

If a driver can’t see what’s on the road directly in front of them, they shouldn’t be allowed on the road.

Period.

………

Everyone knows you can’t carry stuff home from the market or hardware store on a bicycle.

Let alone a dozen kegs.

Right?

………

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

This is who we share the road with. A British driver somehow seems to find humor in seeing an injured bike rider on the side of the road. Schmuck.

https://twitter.com/ldnparks/status/1435872982610612224?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1435930878392274949%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es3_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cyclingweekly.com%2Fnews%2Fgrim-viewing-as-video-emerges-of-driver-mocking-injured-cyclist-in-richmond-park

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

London police “nicked” a teenage fake food delivery rider who was dispensing cannabis instead of food, catching him with nine bags of weed and the equivalent of more than $700 in cash.

It takes a major schmuck to punch a British man walking his dog and kick him in the head, just because the man asked a passing bike rider to slow down.

………

Local

Speaking of Mike Bonin, the councilmember announced improved bollard-protected bike lanes on Airport Blvd in Westchester (scroll down), even if half the riding area is in the gutter.

The LA County Sheriff’s Department’s Fugitive Task Force busted a man riding a bicycle in West Hollywood who was wanted for a New York murder, after his barber gave away his location by posting a photo of him getting a haircut on Instagram.

Fifty South Bay bike riders honored bicycling advocate Julian Katz with a ride in his memory, three years after Katz passed away at the age of 88.

They get it. The Long Beach Business Journal makes the case that a $20 million reconstruction plan for Artesia Blvd through Compton, Long Beach, Cerritos and Paramount, including an upgraded bike lane, will be good for business growth along the corridor.

 

State

San Diego will be the first US city to get the Bird, as the Santa Monica-based company deploys a fleet of their new ebikes in the city.

Twenty-eight-year old ex-con Martin Valdez Arias has been charged with randomly attacking a woman while riding his bike on a Ventura bike path; he faces charges of false imprisonment by violence and attempted sexual battery.

A travel website offers tips on how to ride your bike across San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge.

 

National

They get it, too. Vox says US cities must be designed to encourage much more biking, walking and transit use to end America’s obsession with driving and fight climate change.

A Denver PBS station looks at the local chapter of Black Girls Do Bike, a nationwide group dedicated getting more Black women to ride bikes. And dispelling the myth that they don’t.

Authorities are looking for a man who went missing not far from my Colorado hometown after he set out for bike ride on Friday, and never came home.

A Missouri construction crew devised a brilliant solution to keep the 287-mile Katy trail open during a bridge replacement project, using shipping containers to form a makeshift tunnel to protect riders from falling debris.

A Chicago group gave away 75 refurbished bicycles to kids from two to ten years old, as well as giving them basic safety training.

This is who we share the road with. A three-month old Brooklyn baby is dead, and her mother clinging to life, after a wrong way driver slammed into another car, and both vehicles spun out onto the sidewalk; the driver, who had an incredible 160 traffic violations in the past four years, attempted — and failed — to jack another car to flee following the crash. Just one more example of authorities keeping dangerous drivers on the road until it’s too late.

Don’t hold your breath. New York’s mayor promises answers after the NYPD turned a new bike lane into their own parking lot.

A New Yorker gets his stolen bike back two months later, after spotting it in a photo of abandoned bikes recovered by the police.

Camila Cabello is one of us, riding her bike with a friend on the streets of New York.

An Atlantic City paper is surprised to learn that county officials have been building a bike network for the past decade, but they support the effort, saying rising bike deaths make it a necessity.

No surprise here. A Pottsville PA cop wasn’t charged for killing a 31-year old man who reportedly was struck when he rode his bike into an intersection; no word on who actually had the right-of-way, or whether the officer was using lights and siren. Unfortunately, police have a well-deserved reputation for blaming the victim in any crash involving a cop.

 

International

If you think traffic is driving you nuts, you may be right. A new study shows exposure to traffic and railroad noise increases the risk of dementia in general, and Alzheimer’s in particular.

A Canadian man is looking for the Good Samaritans who came to his rescue after he did a face plant when a brake cable snapped on a steep descent, while visiting family in Vancouver.

A Toronto columnist says the future of the city’s downtown is not car-friendly. And that’s a good thing.

A man in the UK will spend the next six months behind bars for violating his probation, after being caught in possession of a bicycle that wasn’t registered with police, which was a condition of his suspended sentence for selling weed; he had been allowed back on the streets despite 13 previous convictions.

An Irish paper says carfree housing developments don’t have to be a utopian ideal, and that removing cars from homes can eliminate the risk they pose to children.

A new Netherlands study show bicycling injuries in the country are eight times higher than what has been reported by the police.

United Arab Emirates VP Sheikh Mohammed is one of us, taking to his bike to explore Dubai’s World Expo site ahead of its opening next month. Although he doesn’t look very happy about it, at least in the top photo.

September is the most dangerous month to ride a bike in South Korea, with August second.

More confirmation that Russell Crowe is one of us, as he took his mountain bike out for a spin around Sidney, Australia with his girlfriend.

 

Competitive Cycling

Dutch cyclist Pascal Eenkhoorn was the star of Saturday’s 7th stage of the Tour of Britain for handing his water bottle to a young fan who pedaled furiously along the sidewalk to keep up with the lead breakaway.

 

Finally…

Let’s be honest, it would probably be worth the $6.51 fine to ride with a jet engine on your bike. That feeling when you’re tired of horseshit bike lanes — no, literally. Or get attacked by a pair of naked and mostly naked men.

And who says you need a surfboard to ride the waves?

………

On a personal note, yesterday marked the 14th anniversary of the Infamous Beachfront Bee Incident. But I’m still here, and the bees aren’t.

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

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

Garcetti forgets bikes in Green New Deal, a better take on how to ride a bike, and remembering West’s first collegiate cyclist

January 5, 2021 / / 10 comments

Infuriating, perhaps.

But not surprising.

Spectrum News 1 talks with Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti about the current status of LA’s Green New Deal, but he doesn’t have a word to say about transportation beyond transitioning to electric cars.

L.A.’s Green New Deal is pursuing four basic pillars, to reduce emissions from energy generation, transportation, and buildings, and to reduce waste to zero. What have been the easiest and most difficult pieces to tackle?

It’s easy to say the goals of our Green New Deal, but they’re all incredible stretch goals. The one that is the most challenging is to create an electricity grid that has no carbon emissions and that in the middle of the night or in the face of an earthquake or disaster can still be dependable. It’s easy to turn on a coal or natural gas plant and have it churn out the electricity we need. Our solar project that we’re building in the high desert is cheaper than a natural gas plant. It can store maybe one to two days of power. If there’s an earthquake, we may need six months of power. We’re proudly moving off coal at our biggest power plant in Utah with a turbine plant that can be hydrogen. We believe we’ll be the first big utility to run partly on hydrogen.

Second is transportation. Everybody in this car culture of L.A. expects to go to a gas station, fill up your car, and keep going. It’s just as easy to have an electric car. You can just charge it at night, and it takes two seconds to plug it in, but that draw on our grid will be immense. We have to double the amount of electricity we generate and make sure that it’s renewable.

Which pretty much confirms suspicions that he’s abandoned once ambitious plans to reshape how we get around the city, from adding a network of safer bike lanes to installing bus-only lanes throughout the city, in the face of the usual opposition to virtually any non-car transportation project.

Because in Los Angeles, when the going gets tough, we just give up and call it an incredible stretch goal.

Today’s photo is by Adrien Olichon from Pexels, depicting the kind of projects that should be built under LA’s Green New Deal, but probably won’t, because it’s hard.

………

Every now and then, someone says it exactly right.

Like this opinion piece from Road.cc.

Ride your bike as much as you like, as far as you like, but don’t judge yourself or your riding success by volume of miles. Measure all of this by what happened along the way, the stories you can tell, the places you visited, the views you paused in front of, and the people and characters you met.

………

Nice piece from Cal Lutheran, as a woman remembers her late husband, who passed away from cancer after a lifetime of bicycling.

The couple met as students at the Thousand Oaks university in the ’60s, after he competed for the school as one of the first college bike racers on the West Coast.

Yet he continued to work on his bike collection even after the disease robbed him of his ability to ride in his 70s — including the Pinarello that Alexi Grewal rode to gold in the ’84 Los Angeles Olympics.

………

Mark your calendar for Streets For All’s next Zoom happy hour next week.

………

Nothing like making little kids dodge parked cars where there used to be a bike lane just a week before.

But if you don’t see anyone using a regular traffic lane, that means it’s not needed.

Right?

………

Sometimes you don’t have to speak the language to get the idea.

………

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

No bias here. It turns out the incident where a group of teenaged bike riders attacked a pair of New York drivers began when a BMW driver brake-checked one of the kids — intentionally or otherwise. But naturally, it was the kid on the bike who got the blame for crashing into it. On the other hand, violence is never the answer, regardless of the reason.

No bias here, either, as a British bike rider on a Penny Farthing gets the blame for crashing into a delivery van, even though the driver clearly cut him off.

Life is cheap in the UK, where a 20-year old British man walked with a suspended sentence for reaching out of a car and pulling a man off his bicycle, leaving the victim lying in agony on the side of the road with a broken elbow and fractured hands.

………

Local

Criminal proceedings have been suspended in the case of an ex-con who ran down a Glendale bike rider with a stolen car before crashing into a pair of cars last month, after questions arose about parolee Sean Slade’s mental fitness and his ability to understand the case against him.

 

State

A Seal Beach police lieutenant says yes, anyone under 18 has to wear a helmet when riding a bicycle in California, and you have to have reflectors on your bike after dark. Although you’d think he might have mentioned that you’re required to have a light, too.

San Diego police are looking for the hit-and-run driver who left a 70-year old man with a broken leg after slamming into him while he was riding his bike in a crosswalk.

 

National

The woman who starred as the much-maligned Peloton wife says she has a sense of humor about it a year later, and rides the stationary bike the company sent her virtually every day.

A coalition of Las Vegas-area advocacy groups is holding a competition to design a memorial jersey and bibs to honor the five bicyclists killed by a truck driver last month, to raise money for the Las Vegas Cyclist Memorial Fund.

The accused meth-using driver in that Las Vegas crash continues to be held without bond as a flight risk, as he faces a possible 100 years behind bars if he’s convicted on all 14 charges.

Kindhearted Indiana cops teamed with the local Walmart to replace the bike a young girl got for Christmas, after a thief cut the lock and stole it off her porch.

An Ohio city is looking to improve pedestrian safety, but only after a seven-year old was killed by a driver while riding his bike. As usual, city leaders were only spurred to action after it was too late for an innocent victim.

‘Tis still the season. Bike donations continue to make the news, as 135 kids got new bikes in a contactless, drive-through bicycle giveaway in upstate New York. So were kids out of luck if their parents don’t have a car?

VeloNews talks with a member of New York’s Major Taylor Iron Riders bicycle club about what it means to be a Black bike rider in the US bicycling scene.

The New York Times examines why emptier streets led to a jump in New York traffic fatalities, as deaths climbed to their highest level since the city adopted Vision Zero in 2014.

 

International

Greenpeace highlights eleven places that put people over cars, including a bike-friendly cities and countries around the world.

Your next ebike could be a 102-pound, 30 mph electric motorcycle with pedals.

Another one bites the dust, as the annual London Bike Show is cancelled after the owner goes belly up due to the pandemic.

Here’s another one for your bike bucket list. An off-road gravel path winds a 125 miles through the Pyrenees, connecting the French Basque Country to Basque villages in Spain.

Singapore bike riders support a call to require fixies to have at least one working brake.

 

Competitive Cycling

Cycling Weekly plays fashion cop, judging this year’s kits for WorldTour cycling teams.

Pro cyclists give their tips on how to keep riding through the winter.

 

Finally…

That feeling when you find yourself sharing the bike path with a Giant Galapagos Tortoise. If you’re going to write about how to avoid bike crashes to show your law firm’s expertise, get it right, already.

And those damn cyclists always insist on riding on the sidewalk.

Right?

………

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

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

Rule change could ban bikes from streets, Garcetti distracted by shiny flying object, and $25k reward in Specialized bike thefts

December 18, 2020 / / One comment

Just six days left in the 6th Annual BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive!

Thanks to everyone who’s given so far for their generous donations to help keep all the best bike news and advocacy coming your way every day. 

For everyone else, what are you waiting for?

Time’s running out! Give to the BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive today!

And come back after 10:30 this morning for a guest post by Phillip Young that could improve your chances of being seen on the road.

………

Unbelievable.

If a proposed Federal Highway Administration rule change goes into effect, you could be banned from riding on any street without bike lanes or signage.

Jonathan Maus of Bike Portland writes that a phrase explicitly stating that the absence of bike infrastructure doesn’t mean bikes aren’t allowed is in danger of being changed to say just the opposite.

Image from FHWA website via bikeportland.org

He writes that the change is buried in a major update to the massive Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices published by the Federal Highway Administration on Friday and posted to the Federal Register on Monday.

This change, which has proposed under the Trump administration but will be finalized in the Biden administration — has set off shockwaves in the bicycle advocacy world. It was first pointed out on Twitter this afternoon by League of American Bicyclists Policy Director Ken McLeod.

Reached on the phone from his office in Washington D.C. a few minutes ago, McLeod said the change is so surprising it “seems like a mistake”. “But at same time,” he added, “Why we you trust that it’s a typo? I think we need to treat this seriously and as real.”

Even if it were a mistake, if it wasn’t caught by McLeod it would have likely ended up as binding federal law. The MUTCD is supposed to be updated every 3-4 years, but it’s taken 10 years for this update to happen. That led McLeod to say, if this was done in error, “It could take a long time to fix.”

Let’s hope it really is a mistake.

And not one more last-minute rule change slipped in by the outgoing Trump administration.

………

It’s going to be a long two years.

That’s how much time is left in LA Mayor Eric Garcetti’s final term, after the mayor was apparently snubbed by the Biden administration, despite rumors he was a prime candidate for a cabinet-level position.

Because instead refocusing on the city’s long forgotten Mobility Plan, the failed Vision Zero program or the mayor’s own Green New Deal that promised to change how Angelenos get around, he’s shifted his attention to this shiny object — a proposed flying taxi service, which will benefit only those rich enough to use it.

And allow the wealthy to zoom over LA’s clogged and deadly streets, while the rest of us are forced to slog it out down here on the ground.

………

Mike Wilkinson forward news that Lakewood is taking comments on a new master plan that would impact Rynerson Park, an important access point for the San Gabriel River Trail.

………

Specialized is offering a $25,000 reward to recover the bicycles, many of them one of a kind, that were stolen from their Morgan Hill CA headquarters over the weekend.

The thieves made off with $160,000 dollars worth of prototypes, race-winning bikes and personal bicycles belonging to employees that were on display in the building.

Anyone with information can call Morgan Hill Police Department Cpl. Mindy Zen at 669/253-4917 or the department’s anonymous tip line at 408/947-7867.

………

A virtual memorial ride will be held on Zwift tomorrow to honor the five Las Vegas bicyclists killed by an alleged meth-addled truck driver.

The ride is being hosted by a former Vegas police officer who was on the ride at the time of the crash.

You can read the story on Yahoo if Bicycling blocks you out.

………

This is why you should register your bike with Bike Index.

It’s free. It lasts a lifetime. It’s transferable. It’s used by the LAPD.

And it works.

………

Everyone needs a bike day every now and then.

Even him.

………

………

Local

No news is good news, right? 

 

State

Streetsblog explains what to do if you’ve been victimized by the driver of an illegally modified pickup rolling coal.

A San Jacinto bike rider suffered major trauma to both legs when he was struck by an alleged drunk driver early Thursday morning; he was hospitalized in serious but stable condition.

San Francisco considers dropping the speed limit to 20 mph in the city’s deadly Tenderloin District. Or better yet, why not the entire city?

Bay Area advocates complain that a new $6 million bike and pedestrian access tube in Alameda would be just as useless as the one it’s supposed to replace.

A planned Ripon bike path is being threatened by habitat for a rare threatened species of beetle.

 

National

Yes, there is haircare hope for Black bike riders. Again, read it on Yahoo if Bicycling blocks you out.

The Verge tries out Harley Davidson’s new ebikes, and likes just about everything but the price. Meanwhile, New Atlas looks at ebike makers who did things differently this year.

Moving piece from Singletracks, as an Idaho man takes to his mountain bike to ride through grief over the death of his sister. I did the same thing on my roadie after my dad’s death, and again with my mother and both my in-laws; there’s something about riding that allows you to process loss in ways you can’t otherwise. Or I couldn’t, anyway.

They get it. Missoula, Montana is considering a plan to reduce speed limits on residential streets to 20 mph to prevent crashes and reduce their severity. Meanwhile, Los Angeles and other California cities continue to let drivers push speed limits ever higher thanks to the deadly 85th Percentile Law.

Texas Monthly talks with Austin bespoke bikemaker Nao Tomli.

‘Tis the season. A Texas investigative reporter helps out a family in need with nearly $2,000 in gifts, including bikes for all the kids.

‘Tis the season too. An Ohio group donates 24 bicycles to boys victimized by domestic violence, despite being shut down most of this year.

New York bike advocates complain that many of the city’s bike lanes are too wide, inviting people to drive or park in them; the city’s sanitation department wants the wide widths to accommodate their garbage trucks and snow plows.

Streetsblog New York says the NYPD’s bike safety tweets would make a pretty good comedy routine. Except they’re not funny.

New York continues to experience Vision Zero in reverse, as the city’s streets keep getting deadlier, despite earlier progress.

The family of a Florida bike rider call for lights to be installed on a Jacksonville bridge after an 18-year old boy hit a wall when the sidewalk ended, flipping him over; sadly, his body wasn’t found until a week later.

 

International

This year’s bicycle shortage could just be foreshadowing even worse supply problems next year.

A writer for Treehugger says her only regret in trading the family car for a cargo bike was not doing it sooner.

The founder of British bikeshare firm Beryl writes that bikeshare can help drive gender parity in bicycling.

A UK bike nonprofit urges local councils to be brave in the face of angry opposition to active transportation projects.

A fact-checking site says not so fast about that survey showing Brits ready to dump the Conservatives in anger over bike lanes.

The British manufacturer of the illegally overpowered electric trail motorcycle Simon Cowell was riding when he broke his back says it’s not their fault he cranked the throttle too far.

 

Competitive Cycling

Belgium’s Woot van Aert won the Crystal Bicycle award as the country’s best cyclist.

 

Finally…

You gotta love a new high-end aero bike inspired by The Clash. Where to catch a draft in a bike race.

And that feeling when your latest object of lust was built in the ’90s.

No, the 1890s.

………

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

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

Chief Lunes cyclist dies in Vegas car crash, removing cops from traffic enforcement, and no 15-minute city in LA

September 28, 2020 / / 5 comments

My apologies for Friday’s unexcused absence. 

Between my diabetes, neuropathy and whatever the hell else was going on, Thursday was one of the worst nights I’ve had in recent memory.

Just one more reminder that I’m not in charge of my own body any more.

Which is a very hard thing for a formerly dedicated bicyclist to face.

And another reminder to see your doctor, improve your diet, and do whatever it takes to keep your blood sugar under control. 

Because you really don’t want this shit. Especially now. 

Photo by Sabine van Erp from Pixabay.

………

Let’s start with some heartbreaking news.

Many of us got to know Spencer Sims, either directly or through sites like this, following the hit-and-run death of bike rider Frederick “Woon” Frazier in South LA two years ago.

Like Woon, Sims was a member of the Chief Lunes cycling group, and was one of the leaders in the fight for justice for Frazier, as well as his mother and infant child, who was born after his death.

For well over a year afterwards, I got emails from Sims about the status of the case and the next moves in their battle for justice.

Sadly, I won’t be getting any more.

It took awhile to confirm, but Spencer Sims was killed, along with another man, in a single-car collision outside Las Vegas last week, when 19-year old driver lost control and the car they were riding in left the road.

Neither man was wearing a seat belt.

There were apparently no witnesses to the crash; a passerby reported finding the wreckage sometime later. Just a couple more sacrifices to the motor vehicle gods.

Now Woon’s mother will be even more alone and isolated without Sims looking in on her.

And he leaves this world without ever seeing justice for his friend and fellow rider. After a retracted confession and countless delays, Mariah Candice Banks, the woman accused of killing Woon in her high-end SUV, has yet to set foot in a courtroom for anything other than her arraignment.

Her long-delayed prelim is now scheduled for November 4th.

Sims won’t be there; let’s hope he and Woon are riding together somewhere. But maybe some of us can take his place.

………

LAist makes the case for why we may not really need police to enforce traffic laws and curb traffic violence, suggesting there are effective alternatives like automated enforcement and self-enforcing street design.

This summer, a group of L.A. City Council members filed a motion calling on the city’s Department of Transportation and legislative officials to work with community members and report back on alternative methods of traffic enforcement, collision investigations and other traffic safety duties currently handled by the Los Angeles Police Department.

Some potential changes that will be explored: replacing LAPD officers with a “transit ambassador program” staffed by unarmed LADOT personnel and/or automated technology to monitor and cite drivers for speeding, illegal turns and other moving violations.

“Such a move would virtually eliminate the LAPD’s role in traffic stops, one of the leading forms of interaction between police and the public,” states the motion, which was filed by L.A. City Councilmembers Marqueece Harris-Dawson, Mike Bonin, Curren Price and Herb Wesson.Breonna

It’s a challenging and thought-provoking read, well worth a few minutes of your time.

Because the current system really isn’t working for anyone.

………

The C40 Cities — a group of 96 cities dedicated to taking action to fight climate change — says the concept of a 15-minute city is rapidly spreading around the world.

That’s the idea that you should be able to walk, bike or take transit to anything you need within 15 minutes of your home or office.

Except here in Los Angeles, of course.

Where the car continues to be king, nothing even slightly resembling a bike network exists anywhere outside of Downtown, and Metro just locked in major service cuts for at least the next year.

Never mind that LA Mayor Eric Garcetti is the current chair of the Metro board. Not to mention chair of C-40 Cities.

Or are we not supposed to notice that?

Thanks to Erik Griswold for the heads-up.

………

This is who we share the roads with, protest edition.

A truck driver floored it after encountering a Breonna Taylor protest in Hollywood, plowing through the crowd and seriously injuring a woman who was standing directly in front of his pickup.

https://twitter.com/jessicarayerog1/status/1309347382308401153?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1309347382308401153%7Ctwgr%5Eshare_3&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.latimes.com%2Fcalifornia%2Fstory%2F2020-09-24%2Fbreonna-taylor-hollywood-protest

That was followed by the driver of a Prius who forced his way through the crowd before being stopped and attacked with skateboards and bicycles.

A person was injured when a pickup driver plowed through a racial justice protest in Eureka, appearing to strike several people; the regional Coalition for Responsible Transportation condemned the attack.

A Milwaukee woman was injured when a driver accidentally hit her bike as she was riding on the wrong side of the road during a protest.

A Buffalo, New York woman faces charges for intentionally driving through a Bronna Taylor protest, seriously injuring a woman working as a bike marshal,

However, an Orange County woman flipped the script, seriously injuring two people by driving through a conservative, pro-Trump rally; 40-year old Long Beach resident Tatiana Turner was arrested.

………

In a truly sickening action, a Seattle bike cop deliberately rolled his police bicycle over the head of a protestor lying prone in the street.

He was immediately placed on leave after the video surfaced, pending an investigation., while the victim decried the apparent disregard for human life.

Let’s hope this is the last time that cop wears blue.

A little further south in Portland, police threw an Uber delivery rider off his bike and hogtied him, even as he insisted he was just doing his job and had nothing to do with the protests.

………

VeloNews follows along as five riders and a camera crew hope to inspire others with a 1,114-mile journey bikepacking tour exploring the Underground Railroad.

………

Gravel Bike California goes riding in Puerco Canyon, as well as Latino Canyon and the iconic Rock Store.

For those Español challenged like me, that translates to Pig Canyon.

Just so you know.

………

Slow Streets comes to Altadena, where most streets are, anyway.

………

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

A New York woman recounts her recent hit-and-run, describing a deliberate attack by a driver who knew he could get away with it.

Police are looking for a man who jumped off some rocks to attack two bicyclists with a bat as they rode on a paved trail through a Philadelphia park.

A Scottish cyclist reports an elderly “gentleman” tried to run him and another rider off the road, slowing down and swerving into them just after they completed a 31-hour, 560-mile ride. Although that pretty much defies any definition of gentleman I’m familiar with.

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

Long Beach police are looking for a bike-riding gunman who killed another man in an early morning bike-by shooting.

A defense lawyer in Canada’s Northwest Territories argues that his client was too drunk to form the intent necessary for murder, after killing another man following a day of bicycling in a drunken stupor.

………

Local

Metro Bike is shutting down operations on LA’s Westside for a couple months starting today, as the system expands and unifies the Westside and Central bikeshare networks, as well as bringing in the popular ebike service.

Despite the budget cuts, Metro’s new long-range budget included plans to close the long-standing eight-mile gap in the LA River bike path, and provide better bike access to DTLA. Because evidently, those must be the only places anyone would ever want to go on a bicycle.

 

State

SoCal ebike maker Electric Bike Company has opened their first showroom in Huntington Beach.

A San Diego nonprofit is working with local small businesses to train young adults to work in the bicycle industry.

A Ventura man celebrated his miraculous recovery from a near-fatal mountain bike crash by paddle boarding 14 miles back to Channel Islands Harbor Marina from Anacapa Island.

Bay Area bike riders dropped Bike to Work Day and celebrated Bike to Wherever Day last week, instead.

San Francisco finally gets around to opening a carfree route through Golden Gate Park.

Seriously? A woman who was injured riding a Jump scooter in San Francisco has filed a class action suit against several e-scooter companies, including Uber and Segway, because…wait for it…no one warned consumers that scooters don’t have turn signals. No one tell her about bicycles.

 

National

How to access bicycling directions in the latest version of Apple Maps.

The former head of the League of American Bicyclists says it’s time to stop relying on commuter data as the primary measure to make traffic planning decisions, because there’s a lot more to transportation.

America’s only remaining Tour de France winner is back in the bike business with a small line of carbon ebikes that are a far cry from the road bikes he used to be known for.

Minneapolis’ Black-led Major Taylor bike club has been working for two decades to get more people of color on bicycles.

How to navigate your next bike vacation in the Big Apple.

 

International

An op-ed from The Guardian calls for media reporting guidelines for traffic safety, arguing that how stories are reported and the language used contribute to the dangers on our roads and how the law is applied.

He gets it. Another writer for The Guardian says denying a child the joys of riding a bicycle is an abdication of parental responsibility, adding “No video game, Covid-19 lockdown or computer simulation can replace the childhood liberation of being alone on a bicycle.”

E-cargo bikes are already replacing trucks in cities around the world.

Chances are, a 13-year old dog may have visited more countries by bike than you have, traveling through 26 countries on a two-year bike tour of Europe and South America.

Cycling Weekly directs your attention to the best eco-conscious bikewear brands.

Needless to say, Vancouver bike riders aren’t happy about the closure of a popup bike lane through a park, because drivers somehow insisted they needed two lanes each way for their cars. Yes, choosing cars over people in a park.

A bighearted Cambridge University academic replaced a speech therapist’s stolen bike, because they’d helped him so much when he was diagnosed with a severe speech impediment as a child.

An 11-year old English girl rode a tandem 70 miles with her dad to visit all 12 cricket clubs in the North Staffordshire area, raising more than four times her original goal of £500 for cardiac risk assessments for young people; she’s raised the equivalent of over $2,800.

I want to be like him when I grow up. A 93-year old British man raced competitively until he was 80, and still rides 150 miles a week.

A bike rider in the UK recorded 14 drivers traveling through a popup bike lane in just 35 minutes. Kind of makes you wonder how many went through it the other 23 hours and 25 minutes.

Forget CicLAvia. The entire city of Paris left their cars at home for one day for the city’s annual carfree day.

Parisian pedestrians find themselves competing for space with bike riders on the city’s busy streets.

France is introducing a new victim-blaming bike safety campaign as bicycling injuries go up with more people taking to the streets on two wheels.

Once again, a bike rider is a hero. An Indian family is alive today because an anonymous bike rider was in the right place at the right time, leaping into action to pull them to safety after their car went off the road and into a natural drain before simply riding away afterwards; sadly, though, he wasn’t able to save the family’s three-year old girl.

Bicycling violations are up as in Japan as bicycling booms during the pandemic.

Malaysian bike riders take issue with a call from the country’s road safety institute to license bicyclists and require numbered plates, saying it would not improve traffic safety.

 

Competitive Cycling

Julian Alaphilippe won the world road championships with a late attack, becoming the first Frenchman to wear the rainbow jersey in over two decades.

Anna van der Breggen continued the Dutch dominance of the women’s road worlds, as the country placed three of the four top finishers; cyclists from the Netherlands have won the event four years in a row. Van de Breggen claimed the time trial title, too.

Last week we mentioned defending champ Chloe Dygert was injured after wiping out during the women’s time trial world championships. Turns out that injury was more gruesome than any of us probably imagined.

 

Finally…

If he really was Lucifer, why would he need to steal a bike? Two hundred miles in 32 hours is pretty good — especially when you’re doing it on your daughter’s little pink girl’s bike.

And evidently, moose don’t like cars any more than people on bikes do.

………

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

G’mar Chatima Tovah!

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