No surprise here.
As many, if not most of us, have probably guessed, the driver in Tuesday’s North Hollywood massacre, 61-year-old Ihor Demianenko, was arrested yesterday on suspicion of driving under the influence, and was allegedly speeding as he drove down Lankershim Blvd.
Demianenko also faces three counts of murder after jumping the curb on the opposite side of the street, and plowing into food vendor stands outside the North Hollywood Metro station.
He is currently being held on $6 million bail, which will likely keep him behind bars until his case goes to trial.
The murder counts suggest this is not Demianenko’s first offense, and that he has previously received a Watson advisement informing him he could be charged with murder if he killed someone while driving under the influence anytime in the future.
Either that, or police believe the crash that killed three beloved food vendors, and injured two other people, in addition to Demianenko, was somehow intentional.
At least one of the women was known to feed local homeless residents when they couldn’t afford to buy a meal.
As for today’s photo, I really don’t give a damn how drunk you get. Just don’t get behind the fucking wheel afterwards.
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Culver City approved an overhaul of Sepulveda Blvd through the city, despite pushback from a Los Angeles city councilmember.
The plan includes 1.2 miles of physically protected bike lanes linking Culver Blvd and Ballona Creek, along with 1.8 miles of bus-only lanes. The plan will maintain two traffic lanes in each direction, with a center left turn lane and retaining parking on one side of the street. The city council also certified the project is exempt from CEQA review.
Not surprisingly, LA’s CD11 Tracy Park urged Culver City to delay a vote on the proposal by citing the usual fear tactics over traffic gridlock and cut-through drivers clogging nearby side streets in her district — even though those fears have failed to materialize on other similar projects, such as on Venice Blvd.
Park also voiced objections over potential high-density rezoning under Senate Bill 79, which allows construction projects up to nine stories within half a mile of major transit stops.
However, unlike Los Angeles where councilmembers enjoy a virtual fiefdom in their districts, Park has no power over Culver City, and the council approved the project anyway.
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Nithya Raman’s support of Measure HLA could change the way Latino workers get around the city, according to Parriva.
A 2015 national study by the Breakaway Research Group, commissioned by PeopleForBikes, found that Hispanic bicycle riders reported particularly high levels of transportation-related cycling.
Among Hispanic respondents who already rode bicycles, 58% reported using them to travel to work or school, compared with 40% of white respondents. Nearly half, 49%, reported riding to connect with public transportation, compared with 23% of white respondents.
The study also found that 65% of Hispanic respondents used bicycles for shopping or errands…
For workers who cannot afford a vehicle or live far from reliable public transportation, a bicycle can make the difference between having access to a job and spending additional time and money getting there.
Bike lanes have been accused of being tools for gentrification, under the false assumption that they will be used primarily by wealthy white bicyclists for recreation.
Yet bike lanes also serve what used to be known as Los Invisibles, or the invisible bicyclists — the students, bus boys and laborers who use bicycles as their primary means of transportation because it’s all that they can afford, and too often go unnoticed on the roads.
So when councilmembers block or delay bike lanes, that’s who they are really hurting. And who HLA will benefit as much or more than anyone else.
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Japanese bicyclist Ryo Murata finished his viral bike ride from Chicago to Los Angeles, rolling onto the Santa Monica pier on the 100th anniversary of Route 66, as well as his own 27th birthday.
Murata actually completed a two-part ride across the US that began in New York two years ago, stopping in Chicago when his bike broke down and his tourist visa expired, forcing him to return to Japan.
The LA Dodgers also surprised Murata with a custom Shohei Ohtani jersey; his last stop before the finish was at the massive mural for his idol and countryman in Little Tokyo.
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How to rent a bike in Mandarin, courtesy of a Chinese government media service.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
It took a BBC story about a bicyclist left in a coma for a section of England’s popular bikeway linking Bristol and Bath damaged by tree roots to finally get repaved, despite years of requests to get it fixed. As usual, it not only took someone getting hurt, but also national news coverage to get anything done.
A 40-year old British man was convicted of the road-rage murder of a 50-year old father of three, after he deliberately swerved his car into the victim’s bicycle following a brief argument in which the victim had knocked the wing mirror off the driver’s car; the driver had been drinking before picking his kids up from school, who were undoubtedly traumatized by watching dad use his car as a weapon to murder another man.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
Police in Philadelphia are looking for the shmuck man who smacked a 60-year old woman in the face, for no apparent reason, as he was riding by on the sidewalk.
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Local
Los Angeles voters have apparently approved Charter Amendment EE, which would allow the City Council to hold a full meeting just once per week, as opposed to the current three, with the measure leading with 52.76 percent support in the latest vote drop; other amendments leading in the vote count would switch the city to a two-year budgeting plan, and increase the required signatures to put citizen amendments on the ballot from 10% to 15% of the mayoral vote in the last election.
The LAPD’s Pacific Division issued a theft-prevention advisory warning about the dangers of cable locks, after 100 ebikes were stolen in the division in the last six months.
Yet another reminder about Sunday’s 2.7-mile Pasadena CicLAvia, the final one of the year.
State
The Regulatory Review reviews California’s efforts to regulate ebikes.
Mountain View is replacing a traffic signal at a busy downtown intersection with a traffic circle, as well as protected bikeways.
Palo Alto is planning a series of upgrades to the nation’s first bicycle boulevard, including traffic circles, curb extensions and other improvements.
National
Velo ranks the best bike helmets, skipping over the one rated highest by Virginia Tech, and rates the best bike lights for added measure.
A fifth-generation “preacher’s kid” and grandnephew of the late, great civil rights activist and musical legend Nina Simone is undertaking a 3,300-mile bicycle religious pilgrimage retracing routes slaves traveled to freedom on the historic Underground Railroad.
Bikepacking questions whether the current spike in gas prices will spark the second great American bike boom, following the boom of the 1970s. Even though the most recent bike boom sparked by the Covid pandemic has already come and gone, and even though high gas prices haven’t even made Americans trade in their massive trucks and SUVs yet.
Speaking of bikepacking, a local writer spent five days and 400 miles riding around Washington’s “breathtaking” Olympic Peninsula, riding past black bears and my brother’s new home in Port Angeles.
Mexico’s Bike Guy has given away over 400 bicycles this year, and plans to give away another 200 to children in need for Christmas. No, the other Mexico, in Missouri.
A mystery in Massachusetts, after top Boston cardiologist left his home for a bike ride Saturday morning, and was found dead in a cow pasture Sunday afternoon, although police don’t suspect foul play.
New York Streetsblog says Brooklyn’s new bike boulevards will benefit the 90% of residents who don’t drive to work, despite “lazy” reporting that they will divide the neighborhood.
Evidently, Hoboken, New Jersey has decided that ten years without a traffic death is long enough, and will modify a protected bike lane to restore 20 parking spaces.
Philadelphia groups are planning dueling pro and anti-Israel bike rides for this Sunday.
A Baltimore man was stabbed to death while riding in a local park; police were treating his death as a homicide, after apparently concluding he had not repeatedly fallen on a random sharp object.
An Atlanta man drove six hours to install a ghost bike on the North Carolina country road where 63-year old Patrick Turner was killed when an alleged DUI driver plowed into the members of a bike club, injuring 22 other riders in addition to Turner; it was the 217th ghost bike installed by Dave Matthews in the past 15 years. And no, not the musician.
International
Garmin and Waze are teaming up to alert drivers to the location of bicyclists via the Waze app — but only if you’re using a Garmin device on your bike.
Another one bites the dust, as 12-year old English bikemaker Temple Cycles announced it’s going out of business.
A 20-year old British man was jailed for six and a half years for a series of violent bike thefts on a Leeds canal towpath, which left two older bike riders “deeply fearful” of riding their bikes.
The best places to ride a bike on your next trip to Abu Dhabi.
American mountain biker Hannah Otto became the first woman to ride up and down Tanzania’s Mt. Kilimanjaro in a single day, finishing the ride in 10 hours, 18 minutes and 51 seconds, despite breaking her leg two miles from the finish line; following a 30-hour trip to return to the US, she was diagnosed with multiple tibia fractures, a blood clot and an ACL that had pulled off her knee, taking a section of the bone with it.
Competitive Cycling
Sixty-nine-year old Gulf War veteran Ellie Kennedy is training for the Los Angeles Paralympic Games on her three-wheeled bike; Kennedy suffers from ataxia, a neurological condition that affects her balance, and didn’t start racing until her 60s.
Escape Collective describes what it’s like to have Remco Evenepoel accidentally steal your KOM.
Finally…
You, too, could have bought the very same Colnago V5Rs Tadej Pogačar rode to victory in last year’s Liège-Bastogne-Liège for half price. Who among us can honestly say we haven’t taken part in a late night ‘cross event dressed as a duck?
And bad enough we have to deal with distracted drivers without having to worry about sewer equipment, too.
Especially when riding to Bible study.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin.
