Just days after a false alarm that the LimeBike dockless bikeshare had come to LA, Chinese dockless bikeshare provider ofo has apparently invaded our city.
Despite the fact that a proposed ordinance that would permit dockless bikeshare hasn’t yet made it to a single city council committee hearing.
Ofo tweeted Sunday morning, then deleted, that they were now live in Griffith Park.
They followed that up with a tweet saying they were partnering with the LA Department of Recreation and Parks to provide an easier way to ride through the park.
Brian Nelson confirmed that his wife saw four of the ofo bikes parked near the Greek Theater.
How that conforms to Councilmember David Ryu’s motion to permit privately owned dockless bikeshare in the city remains to be seen.
Especially since other providers, including LimeBike, are waiting patiently for their opportunity to come into the city.
It’s inevitable that dockless bikeshare will come to Los Angeles. The question is how — or if — it will be managed to avoid the problems that have plagued other cities.
Thanks to Erik Griswold and Zachary Rynew for the tips.
………
The LA Weekly asks if LA’s ambitious Vision Zero plan to end traffic fatalities is already dead. And accurately quotes the very pissed off author of this site.
………
I happened to run into Beverly Hills Mayor Lili Bosse at the city’s Woofstock dog fest on Sunday, and was encouraged to hear her say that the coming bike lanes on Santa Monica Blvd are just the start.
As she tweeted later, she’s looking forward to more bike lanes and better mobility throughout the city.
Maybe there’s hope for the former Biking Black Hole yet.
At least as long as she’s in office.
………
More on last week’s New York bike path terrorist attack.
A mass was held at New York’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral to honor the victims of the attack.
Bicyclists say the new K-rail protective barriers make the bike path less safe.
A writer for Time says the terrorist’s fearmongering has failed, while Cycling Tips captures the fear and emotion brought on by the attack.
Actor Jason Biggs lets the terrorist know what he really thinks.
And radical right scumbag firebrand Milo Yiannopoulos said “he was glad the only people hit were cyclists and ‘not actual human beings.’” Thanks to F. Lehnerz for the link.
………
In Alberto Contador’s case, the N + 1 formula for how many bikes you need equals 42 or 43.
Nobody said working through the details for the Giro’s 2018 Jerusalem start would be easy.
………
Local
If you ride the Rose Bowl loop, you owe it to yourself to attend tomorrow night’s meeting of the Pasadena City Council Parks and Recreation Committee, where the future of the popular riding route will be up for discussion. Thanks to Wesley Reutimann for the heads-up. Correction: This originally said it was a City Council meeting; thanks to Bike SGV for the correction.
With the help of a Metro grant, Bike SGV has formed what could be SoCal’s first bicycle traffic school in El Monte.
Manhattan Beach officials and the Manhattan Beach-based leader of Keep LA Moving —no irony there — are unhappy with the way the reversal of the Playa del Rey road diets is going, even though they won the battle. Apparently, they won’t be satisfied until the streets are deadly again.
The Long Beach Police Department has received a grant for traffic safety enforcement over the next year, including a focus on bike and pedestrian safety.
State
The Orange County Register correctly notes that the end of daylight savings time increases the dangers to drivers and pedestrians. Wrecks go up after the time change, so make sure you use lights after dark, and ride as if everyone else on the road is driving distracted and half asleep. Which they probably are.
A Chino Hills man rides to collect recyclables, tossing them into a trailer behind his bike, while yelling out to passing people to drive safely.
Los Angeles isn’t the only city being sued by bike riders for injuries caused by bad streets; San Diego is currently facing a trio of lawsuits.
A woman in San Diego’s Mira Mesa neighborhood was seriously injured when a tow truck driver rammed her bike as he left a parking lot.
The great bike debate goes on in the pages of the San Luis Obispo newspaper, as a letter writer says encouraging bicycling provides a great value for bicyclists, as well as the drivers we share the roads with.
A San Francisco street near Golden Gate Park is being converted into a “neighborway,” diverting and calming motor vehicle traffic to improve bike and pedestrian safety. Which sounds a lot like a bike boulevard by any other name.
Instead of the usual complaints that fire engines can’t get through narrow streets with bulb outs and protected bike lanes, San Francisco buys a more compact fire truck that can.
National
A BuzzFeed writer calls for banning cars from big cities; a conservative website seems to think it’s a leftist plot.
The Felt behind Felt evidently felt it was time to leave Felt.
Funk-meister Bootsy Collins quit drugs after being told he’d never play bass again when he flipped his road bike several times while riding high in the woods. And no, that’s not a reference to altitude.
Kindhearted Washington residents pitch in to buy new Air Jordans for a teenage Canadian tourist after his were stolen by a BMX-riding man armed with bear spray.
I want to be like him when I grow up. An Iowa man rode his bike 90 miles to celebrate his upcoming 90th birthday.
Police in Stillwater, Oklahoma are repairing abandoned bicycles to be used by residents of a local mission to run errands or look for work.
Nope, nothing odd about Kentucky Senator Rand Paul being attacked in his home by his bike-riding, rice vest-inventing next door neighbor; Paul suffered five broken ribs and bruised lungs.
Grist says Pittsburgh got the bike advocate it never knew it needed in former Trojan JuJu Smith-Schuster
Life is cheap in Florida, where a driver got five years probation for a fatal hit-and-run that killed a bicyclist. Naturally, he claimed he had no idea he’d hit anyone.
International
British Columbia considers raising their paltry $81 fine for dooring a bicyclist.
Montreal’s mayor denies he used his influence to muzzle a Toronto parking officer’s popular Twitter account, which he uses to call out scofflaw drivers; the officer vows he won’t be silenced after officials suspend his account. Thanks to Norm Bradwell for the link.
The co-founder of the aforementioned ofo says London will one day reach Amsterdam-like bicycling levels. You’ll note he did not say the same thing about Los Angeles. Or anywhere else in Southern California.
A new British study says bike commuting can lower your risk of cancer and cardiovascular disease, as well as overall mortality. As much as I’ve ridden over the years, I should live forever.
A driver in Britain complains about a bike rider’s misaligned, too-bright headlamp. Evidently, no one in the country has ever been blinded by a driver’s headlights.
Evidently, they don’t take using a car as a weapon seriously in the UK, either. But they do take DUIs seriously, sentencing a drunk driver who killed a cyclist to eight years.
Bicycling helped a British teenager control his epilepsy.
The rich get richer. Bike-friendly Copenhagen asks bike riders to identify where they feel uncomfortable riding to determine where infrastructure needs to be improved.
Now you, too, can take an eight-day cooking and bicycling tour of Sicily led by celebrity chefs Traci Des Jardins and Mary Sue Milliken for a mere $4,595.
An Australian website asks if bicyclists and pedestrians should be banned from using headphones. Never mind that drivers in today’s hermetically sealed motor vehicles have a hard time hearing a siren right next to them, even with the sound system turned down.
An Aussie paper traces the anatomy of a fatal hit-and-run, and how the police tracked down the unlicensed driver who killed a bicyclist.
A rider from Down Under learns the hard way not to accept fruit juice from his friends without asking if they’d spiked it.
Finally…
Probably not the best idea to stare at a woman’s chest when there’s a Google Maps camera car driving by. You know you’ve made it when you get mentioned in the GOP tax bill.
And don’t ride your bike down an escalator without a helmet.
