Day 219 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025.
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They’re finally going to fix it.
LA County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath announced a $4.2 million project to repair the beachfront Marvin Braude Bike Trail, which was washed out at the Santa Monica Canyon Channel outlet along Will Rogers Beach during heavy rains in February of last year.
The work will be paid for using FEMA funds, according to the Santa Monica Daily Press.
The project qualifies for Federal Emergency Management Agency funding due to the federal disaster declaration. LA County Public Works will oversee the restoration work aimed at making the trail “stronger, safer, and more resilient,” according to Horvath’s office.
The paper reports the separate bike and pedestrian paths will remain open during the six-month construction project, though some beach access points may close temporarily.
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Meanwhile, a few miles further south, a new wall is blocking a popular short cut to the Marvin Braude Trail in Marina del Rey.
According the Westside Current, the wall replaced a door-sized gap in a fence between Yvonne Burke Park and a Ralph’s supermarket parking lot late last month, angering local residents, bike riders and pedestrians accustomed to using it to get to the bike path.
Instead, bike riders now have to use dangerous Lincoln Blvd, where drivers routinely ignore the 35 mph speed limit, to reach the trail at Admiralty and Bali Way.
A petition calling for restoring the access currently stands at over 760 signatures. Correction: That petition is actually for local condo residents angry over losing their exclusive private access to the park, and has nothing to do with the wall blocking access to the bike path. Here’s a link to the actual petition calling to reopen the gate.
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The family of retired Bell, California Police Chief Andreas “Andy” Probst have filed suit against the company that made the stolen car used to intentionally run him down in Las Vegas two years ago.
Allegedly.
According to the lawsuit, the Hyundai was sold without anti-theft protection, allowing the two teenage suspects to steal the car using the “TikTok method” shared on social media.
The two suspects are not scheduled to face trial for Probst’s murder until next year. No word yet on when the civil suit will be heard.
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No bias here.
Readers of the London Daily Mail respond with hate after a video went viral of a dog walker pushing a woman on a bicycle into a Manchester, England canal, saying it’s a pity she didn’t drown.
A bicycle advocate argues that this didn’t happen in a vacuum, and was a direct result of the anti-bike rhetoric spewed by the paper.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
New York bike riders are feeling dangerously squeezed between parked and moving cars after the mayor fulfilled his promise to rip out a protected bike lane.
Halifax, Nova Scotia residents were overwhelmingly in favor of a plan to convert a street to one way to make room for bike lanes, even though the bike lane-hating provincial premier wants to reverse the decision.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
An 83-year old New York man was sucker punched directly in the face by a man on a bikeshare bike, for no apparent reason.
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Local
The West Hollywood City Council will consider design options for deadly Fountain Ave at the September 15th council meeting, after the City Manager recommended interim improvements; that will follow the August 19th Fountain Avenue Streetscape Project public meeting at the Plummer Park Community Center.
State
San Diego’s public television station wants to know if you or your kid, or anyone you know, has been involved in an ebike crash.
Tragic news from Oregon, where Cypress, California resident Justin Jay Little was killed by a driver while reportedly riding his bicycle in the fast lane on Interstate 5 near Sutherlin.
Caltrans released a new bike plan for state roadways in the Bay Area, including expanding the bike lanes on the Bay Bridge that currently come to an ignominious end halfway across.
More tragic news, this time from Sacramento, where two families are in mourning because a pair of 17-year old girls were killed by a hit-and-run driver while riding their bikes home after visiting the uncle of one of the girls; police arrested a 71-year old Fair Oaks man, accusing him of being drunk and driving a stolen car at the time of the crash.
National
Your next cargo bike could come from Target and sell for less than $500. Or maybe a lot less.
People For Bikes considers the role local bike shops play in creating great places to ride.
Note to Hays, Kansas Post — If a shooting victim collapses and dies after riding his bike away from the scene of the crime, “escaped” may not be the appropriate word.
Surveillance video shows the moments leading up to a crash where a Florida sheriff’s deputy killed a 79-year old bicyclist, but fortunately, not the crash itself.
International
Seriously? A prolific bike thief in the UK walked without a day behind bars, despite hitting a man with a wheel after he tracked his stolen bike to the thief’s bicycle chop shop, and “inflicting grievous bodily harm without intent.” Although whacking someone with a bike wheel would seem to suggest intent, but what the hell do I know?
That’s more like it. A British appeals court increased the sentence for a South London bus driver who killed an eight-year old girl riding a bicycle on the sidewalk, while driving with three-times the legal limit for weed in his system; the man was resentenced to six years and eight months behind bars after the prosecutor argued the original four-year sentence was too lenient. And yes, they can do that there.
No surprise here. The Italian Cycling Federation blamed a jump in bicycling deaths on impatient drivers who can’t stand to slow down for bicyclists.
The Financial Times examines how Italy’s Colnago became the Ferrari of bicycling.
A South African newspaper says road cycling is dying, and roadies as endangered as the rhino.
A Kiwi coroner concluded that a 19-year old woman on a bicycle was killed because authorities put cars first during road repair work.
Competitive Cycling
Once again, a cyclist crashed and burned while celebrating his victory before crossing the finish line, this time a junior rider at the Iraqi Clubs Cycling Championship; needless to say, he didn’t win.
Finally…
Buzzards and badgers and bats, oh my! Sorry I ran over your arm, mate.
And that feeling when your ultra cycling event is unexpectedly cut short by 100 mph winds.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin.
