Riverside County sheriff’s deputies shot and killed a knife-wielding parolee after spotting the man riding salmon in Cabazon Saturday afternoon.
The victim was killed when he pulled a knife, which was found at the scene, while attempting to flee from the cops.
However, if the description is accurate, it’s questionable whether the victim actually posed a risk to the officers as he tried to escape.
Thanks to Phillip Young for the heads-up.
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She gets it.
Los Angeles Times columnist Robin Abcarian calls for following Berkeley’s lead in banning right turns on red lights to protect pedestrians and people on bicycles.
“Permitting right turns on red has always been a dangerous idea, which is why, when the first traffic lights and traffic laws rolled out, it was not allowed,” Jessie Singer told me in an email Thursday. Singer literally wrote the book on how “accidents” happen in America. “It is no coincidence,” she continued, “that in New York City, the most pedestrian-dense city in the U.S., right on red has long and largely been disallowed.”
The practice is inherently dangerous to pedestrians because, as Singer puts it, it “leaves the sanctity of the crosswalk and the life of a pedestrian in the hands of a fallible driver.”
Drivers can wait a few extra seconds to make their turn. Even if they’d likely think its the end of the world.
Read it on Yahoo if the paper blocks you.
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A reminder that Metro is hosting a virtual open meeting this evening to discuss a new “simplified” fare structure that could result in a dramatic increase for many users.
The new fare structure would eliminate weekly and monthly passes, instead charging a flat $2 per ride — a 25¢ increase over the current $1.75 fare.
It would also eliminate the current free transfers by charging the full fare for every ride, with a daily cap of $6.
So if your typical roundtrip involves a single transfer in each direction, you’d pay $2 for each outbound leg, for a total of $4, and $2 for both return legs after hitting the daily cap.
That compares to the current $1.75 each way with free transfers, for a total of $3.50 a day — an increase of $2.50, which would represent a steep jump for many users.
It would also have a weekly cap of $20, which would only benefit daily riders with at least one transfer.
To make matters worse, it would also automatically adjust for inflation every four years, further increasing the already too-high fares.
In other words, the “simplified” fare structure is little more than a dramatic fare increase — exactly the wrong decision at a time when we need to encourage more transit use to get people out of their cars.
Let alone the opposite of the free fare system they promised to study.
Streets For All says Metro should reconsider the proposed fare structure, while it’s also opposed by the Alliance for Community Transit, aka ACT-LA, and Strategic Actions for a Just Economy.
I couldn’t agree more.
You can email Metro through this link. And click here to attend the Public Hearing at 5pm today.
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Walk Bike Glendale sends an alert that a highly flawed plan for a bike and walk path along the Verdugo Wash is headed to the city council for approval tomorrow.
The organization reports the current proposal doesn’t include plans to connect to Crescenta Valley Park north of the basin, because of a “small but loud group of opponents who don’t want to see ‘others’ coming into their neighborhood.”
Nope, nothing offensive about that.
The knee-jerk NIMBY reaction is reminiscent of the Trousdale Gap in the Expo Line bike path, which skipped the section along the railway behind the Cheviot Hills neighborhood after residents expressed fears ne’er-do-wells would ride their bikes up to peer in their windows and make off with their flatscreen TVs.
Because people in cars never, ever just drive up and burgle homes, apparently.
Now the gap is finally scheduled to be closed in 2025, at a cost of tens of millions of dollars more than if it had been built along with the rest of the pathway.
The same thing is likely to happen with the Verdugo Wash, as city leaders slowly discover the mistake they’re about to make.
And the highcost to fix it.
The group recommends attending the meeting if possible, or if not, emailing anajarian@glendaleca.gov, pdevine@glendaleca.gov, dbrotman@glendaleca.gov, easatryan@glendaleca.gov, akassakhian@glendaleca.gov.
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The Ballona Creek bike path was closed at Sepulveda following last week’s rains.
Hopefully it’s dried out and open again now.
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‘Tis the season.
An Aurora, Colorado man’s family plans to continue his life’s mission to fix up and donate used bikes after he passed away unexpectedly last week; the nonprofit Second Chance Bicycle Shop has donated over 4,500 bicycles to disadvantaged youth, veterans and people experiencing homelessness.
A Pittsburgh PA father is teaming with his two young kids to collect and refurbish unwanted bikes, and donate them to children in need.
A youth development program in Pennsylvania gave 40 bicycles to kids in need, with hopes of giving a similar number in the spring.
A kindhearted Alabama brother and sister gave their $3,000 ebike to a 51-year old Applebees worker with Asperger’s syndrome, after reading that he had to ride his bicycle two hours each way to get to and from work.
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Maybe this remote controlled bike-riding skeleton and his ghostly canine companion would have gotten your attention on Halloween.
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A “real-life Mowgli” who fled his Sudanese village to live in the jungle after being bullied over his microcephaly can now ride a bicycle for the first time, after a documentary about him went viral.
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It only makes sense that Aaron Copeland, the dean of American composers and the author of Appalachian Spring and Fanfare for the Common Man, was one one of us.
Born on this day, November 14:
Aaron Copland, composer (1900-1990), shown here with harpist Djina Ostrowska in 1921.
Happy #bicyclebirthday, Aaron!#botd pic.twitter.com/OV12uL2cBQ— Cool Bike Art (@CoolBikeArt1) November 14, 2021
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Too bad we can’t actually ride on clouds, where all we’d have to duck is birds, planes and alien spaceships.
https://twitter.com/OriginCycling/status/1591826975383076864
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
No bias here, as a New York councilmember says the best way to encourage bike commuting is to discourage it by taxing, licensing and regulating riders.
Yes. If cycling is going to go from a hobby to a major part of our transit portfolio as a loud group of influential activists insist it should, then it only stands to reason it be regulated, licensed, and taxed as any other mode of transport. It’s the equitable thing to do. https://t.co/2T6ZlotVZb
— Councilwoman Vickie Paladino (@VickieforNYC) November 12, 2022
No bias here, either. British bicyclists are urged to stop riding two-abreast and let drivers overtake them because nearly two-thirds of drivers don’t understand recent bike safety changes to the country’s Highway Code. Once again putting all the responsibility for safety solely on the people on two wheels, because of the ignorance of motorists.
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Local
The New York Times takes a deep dive into plans to remake the concrete-lined Los Angeles River, including starchitect Frank Gehry’s misguided plan to cap the river and hide it under a series of overhead parks, rather than return the channel to it’s natural state.
This is who we share the road with. Six people were hospitalized when a man trying to escape from police drove through a street carnival in South LA before fleeing the scene; a 23-year old man was arrested on Sunday.
Congratulations to Santa Monica College on being renamed a Silver-level Bicycle Friendly University by the Bike League.
State
A San Diego program that has provided 400 low-income residents with a free ebike is now going statewide; participants need to provide their own bike insurance, and will own their bikes after just two years.
Once again, parking protected bike lanes confuse easily disoriented drivers, this time in downtown San Luis Obispo.
Visalia plans to improve safety by upgrading existing bike lanes to Class IV buffered lanes, as well as improving intersections.
UC Davis students are calling for improvements after a massive 46% increase in bicycling crashes on campus this year — a problem UC grad student Megan Lynch has repeatedly called to our attention.
National
Your next ebike could have a sidecar.
Cycling Savvy offers a tutorial on how to choose the right bicycle lights.
Singletrack says these are the gifts mountain bikers really want; the magazine also posts a gallery of “drool worthy” custom bikes.
A new study concludes over 11,000 Americans were injured riding their bikes under the influence of drugs over a two-year period, with 36.4% on meth, 30.7% on weed and 18.5% using opioids, while close to a quarter also had alcohol in their system. Although that’s less than 5% of the estimated 260,000 bicycling injuries over the same period, never mind that drunk and stoned drivers are a much bigger problem.
USA Today says ebikes are affordable, practical and good for the planet, even if America may not be ready for them.
The man and woman killed by a driver in a drunken, serial hit-and-run while riding mountain bikes in Las Vegas were a couple from Kansas, who had just moved to Vegas four months earlier after ten years together.
Kansas City celebrates its commitment to build a relatively modest 15 miles of bike lanes in each of the next two years. Which is still more than Los Angeles has built in some years.
A small Vermont company has introduced a plastic-free stainless steel water bottle, which they insist will deliver an adequate flow of water even if you can’t squeeze it.
The New York Times examines the problem of bike theft by focusing on the sometimes violent thieves of Burlington, Vermont.
International
Momentum considers some of the world’s worst bike lanes. Remarkably, without stopping in Los Angeles.
Who enforces the law against dooring a bike rider, when the offending driver is a cop? A Victoria, British Columbia police officer in a marked patrol car apparently opened his door without looking, sending a passing bicyclist to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
Bicycling continues to be a risky activity in Trinidad and Tobago, where pleas for safer infrastructure go unanswered.
An Israeli man on an around-the-world bike tour became just the latest long-distance rider to have their bike stolen in the UK.
Dublin, Ireland’s oldest bike shop is shutting down due to rising costs after 105 years.
Yanko Design says the app-controlled Keyless O-Lock from Copenhagen-based LAAS is the smartest and easiest way to keep your bike safe. Even though it only disables the rear wheel, but does nothing to keep someone from carrying your bike off.
The AP recommends adding the Col de la Colombière in the French Alps to your bike bucket list, saying the picturesque towns and stunning scenery make it worth the effort.
A Munich museum is displaying 70 stand-out bicycle designs from two centuries of bicycling.
A 72-year old woman rode her bike from Sweden to Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt to protest climate change at the COP27 climate conference underway now.
Women on bicycles are “greasing the wheels of change” on the streets of Khartoum, where women riding bikes violate the norms of the Sudanese city.
Australia will require sensors on large trucks to detect bike riders and pedestrians starting next year, eight years after a coroner investigating the death of a woman riding a bike recommended their use.
Competitive Cycling
A sports site ranks the world’s top professional men’s cyclists, with Tadej Pogačar unsurprisingly taking the top spot.
Finally…
Tossing a bicycle onto train tracks is not among the recommended uses for it. That feeling when a car fares worse than the bike it hit.
And you know you’re a NIMBY when a “giant ugly” bike hanger is more distressing than the big, ugly cars it replaced.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin, too.
