August 26, 2020 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Clotheslining riders on new DTLA bike lane, public safety and Go Human town halls, and drawing Pacman by bike
Councilmember Bob Blumenfield is hosting a virtual town hall on Thursday to discuss how to reform policing in Los Angeles, which could have a major effect on traffic enforcement and criminal investigations affecting people on bicycles.
Twitter post
………
Talk with the Southern California Association of Governments, aka SCAG, about their newly revived Go Human campaign tomorrow.
Twitter post
………
Nothing like penning a 380-mile Pacman by bike.
Instagram post
………
Salsa Cycles presents a moving video as a Canadian woman attempts to ride all ten bikepacking routes pioneered by her late husband in a single year.
Thanks to Victor Bale, who suggests watching this one full screen, for forwarding the link.
Some people can’t see the traffic for the cars. A writer for London’s Daily Mail blames the city’s bike lanes for causing traffic congestion, while failing to recognize that it’s really just too many people like him in cars.
Twitter post
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
August 5, 2020 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on LA bike crashes plummet during pandemic while deaths don’t, and fight for safe streets on your neighborhood council
Yes, collisions involving bike riders really are down in Los Angeles.
According to a Crosstown analysis of LAPD crash data, the lighter traffic resulting from the coronavirus lockdown led to a nearly 71% drop during the 11-week period starting March 15th.
That’s just four days before the shutdown orders in Los Angeles and California.
Surprisingly, despite the return of motor vehicle traffic and the recent jump in SoCal bicycling fatalities, bicycle crashes remained significantly below last year as of the middle of last month.
More surprising is that LADOT is actually moving forward with bike projects outside the Downtown area.
It seems LADOT is paying attention. Despite facing a shortfall of nearly $31 million due to the coronavirus pandemic, the department has expedited multiple bike lanes and safety projects since the “Safer at Home” order was issued on March 19. According to Colin Sweeney, LADOT’s public information director, there have been nearly 28 miles of bike lanes installed or upgraded, and an additional 5.5 lane miles are under construction in the city…
In addition to Downtown, Sweeney said LADOT also implemented more than 12 miles of new bike lanes to Avalon Boulevard in South Los Angeles since May.
“In South Los Angeles, the Manchester-Broadway, Our Way project has just begun construction and will add new parking-protected bike lanes from Manchester to Century on Broadway,” he said.
So maybe there’s hope, after all.
At least if you live or ride in those areas, because there are large swaths of LA where the city doesn’t appear to be doing anything.
Thanks to Ethan Ward for the heads-up.
Illustration by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay.
………
On a related subject, the dramatic drop in SoCal bicycling deaths in March, April and May during the coronavirus shutdown, followed by a big jump in June and July as people started back to work, is a reminder that bikes aren’t dangerous.
Cars — and the people in them — are.
And streets are safer with fewer cars on them.
Twitter post
………
Maybe the most effective way to counter LA’s legendary NIMBYs and fight for safer streets is on the neighborhood level.
And the best way to do that is by serving on your local neighborhood council, with openings available right now throughout the LA area.
Twitter post
………
Maybe with more bike riders on LA’s neighborhood councils, we might see less of this crap.
Waterloo, Wisconsin-based Trek is gearing up to meet the booming demand for bicycles, after initially preparing for the bike industry to implode as a result of Covid-19. Although one of the best ways to bankrupt any business is by chasing boom and bust cycles.
An Indiana hit-and-run driver was sentenced to a whopping 48 years behind bars for killing a local a local coach and teacher who was riding his bike; the sentence included an additional 20 years for being an habitual offender. Even I think that might be just a tad extreme; the judge could have ordered the sentences to run concurrently, rather than consecutively.
There’s a special place in hell for the woman who drove off after running down a couple nine and twelve year old boys riding their bikes on a Long Island service road; the 31-year old driver was busted ten hours later, which could have given her plenty of time to sober up if she was under the influence.
Road.cc gets it, recommending the best road bikes under the equivalent of $650. And yes, there are good bikes in that range these days. Although whether you’ll be able to find any at your local bike shop after the coronavirus bike boom is another matter.
Once again, a man has died following a violent hit-and-run while riding his bike in South Los Angeles.
And once again, the LAPD doesn’t seem to think the public needed to know about it.
According to KCBS-2/KCAL-9, 37-year old South LA resident Jorge Guerra was struck by a hit-and-run driver while riding home from the park with his two young children on July 8th.
Fortunately, his two-year old son Nathan and four-year old daughter Madelyn weren’t seriously injured; their father wasn’t so lucky.
Guerra was rushed to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, but lapsed into a coma after arriving; he died of organ failure on July 16th.
The driver continued north on Wadsworth, crashing into several parked cars before stopping just south of Manchester Blvd. He ran off, leaving the damaged car behind.
Police are still looking for the suspect, who hasn’t been identified; unsurprisingly, the car he was driving was stolen. As always, there is a standing $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the driver.
Now Guerra’s wife is faced with raising her kids as a grieving single mother while in the middle of a pandemic.
Unfortunately, like the death of Melvin “Peanut” Frye last month, the LAPD apparently failed to inform the public at the time of the crash — or alert them to a dangerous car thief hiding in their midst. Even though both Los Angeles and California have Yellow Alert systems to get the word out as quickly as possible.
There’s no explanation for why the LAPD continually refuses to use them; evidently, they’d rather wait until the trail goes cold and people have forgotten key details before asking for their help. Which could be one reason why hit-and-run drivers continue to get away with it here.
This is at least the 35th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the seventh that I’m aware of in Los Angeles County. Over half of those deaths in the county have been hit-and-runs.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for Jorge Guerra and all his family and loved ones.
Frye was run down by an unknown motorist as he was crossing Main Street at 103rd Street in the Broadway-Manchester neighborhood; he was riding west across Main while the driver was headed south.
He died at he scene.
The driver kept going, without stopping or identifying themself as required by law. Authorities are looking for a black or dark-colored Dodge Durango; no description was given for the driver.
No announcement appears to have been made at the time.
Then again, Frye’s family wasn’t even notified until more than a week later, after frantically calling hospitals and checking jail bookings before they were finally contacted by the coroner’s office.
The press conference was held to request the public’s help in solving the crime. The city offers a standing $50,000 award for information leading to an arrest and conviction for any fatal hit-and-run, regardless of whether the reward has been announced by the police.
Mishy Frye said people have called her to relay information about the type of car involved, “and then nobody can give the detectives no information.”
“I’m just shocked, because you guys know him,” she said. “Everybody know him in this area. Everyone. It’s not right…”
“I want justice for him, not through you calling me, but call the detectives,” she said. “Holding onto a secret makes you no better than the person that hit him.”
In addition to LA’s citywide hit-and-run alert system, California has approved a statewide Yellow Alert system to notify the public in the event of a hit-and-run. Both are intended to alert the public as quickly as possible to watch for the suspect vehicle in the event of a hit-and-run, and encourage witnesses to come forward while the event is still fresh in their minds.
Not a month later.
Had the police released information about the crash at the time, along with announcing the standing reward, someone might have come forward by now.
And maybe Frye’s family could have been spared the pain of not knowing what had happened to him for ten long days after the crash. Let alone knowing that the heartless coward who killed him is still out there.
Anyone with information is urged to call LAPD Detective Keith Gonzales at 323/421-2500, or 323/421-2577 after normal business hours.
This is at least the 34th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the sixth that I’m aware of in Los Angeles County.
Half of those deaths in LA County have been hit-and-runs.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for Melvin “Peanut” Frye and all his loved ones.
March 26, 2020 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on LA not ticketing stay-at-home violations, but SaMo might; Dockweiler quarantine zone; and dropped by bionic runners
Authorities recommend avoiding the area entirely, for reasons that should be obvious.
………
You could get dropped by a runner in the not-too-distant future.
A new paper published in the journal Science Advances suggests a mechanical exoskeleton based on bicycle mechanics could propel a runner as fast as 46 mph, just a hair below the speed where bike riders max out.
And no, I can’t ride that on my best day.
Which is long behind me, anyway.
Now if they can figure out how to apply that to a bike rider’s legs, we might be on to something.
………
Here’s your chance to weigh in on first mile-last mile connections to the coming L Line station, for the train formerly known as the Gold Line.
As promised, Uber has filed suit against Los Angeles over the requirement to provide realtime user data for their Jump dockless ebikes and e-scooters. The only surprise is that they managed to find a court that’s still open.
Tahoe’s 29th annual America’s Most Beautiful Bike Ride has been pushed from this June to September, on the hope this crap will be over by then. Let’s hope so, but don’t hold your breath.
Maybe keep it to yourself next time. A South Carolina man interrupted his bike ride to take a phone call from someone who wanted to know where he was. After telling him, the acquaintance drove up and shot him in the leg.
A Florida woman was busted for a hit-and-run that left a bike rider with minor injuries when she stopped to buy a couple beers, with a BAC nearly twice the legal limit; she was already on probation for ripping off an 81-year old patient at the rehab facility where she worked.
Pro cyclist Alex Pavon is on the front lines of the coronavirus crisis, working as a Tucson, Arizona EMT when she’s not racing. Unfortunately, though, it’s a reminder of the inequity in the pro cycling world, where women cyclists have to hold a full-time job in addition to racing.
But I have a lot to be grateful for, starting with a self-made job I truly love. And the readers who make it possible.
Because without you, all this would just be empty words in cyberspace.
So thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
Have a warm and loving Thanksgiving, whether you spend it with family, friends or on your own this year. And ride safely, because I want to see you back here when we return next week.
Although whether it will become another parking magnet for movie production trucks and delivery vans, like the lanes on Spring Street, remains to be determined.
KNX radio reporter Margaret Carrero offered a brief look at the new lane.
Twitter post
Although not everyone was pleased, as our anonymous correspondent makes clear.
A couple thoughts on the bike lane.
On Saturday, before the Art Crash ride, I gave the new lanes a spin, heading north.
First. The signals. The #¢&ing signals. The bike signals are short, and you will sit there, staring agog at a green pedestrian signal, while the red bike signal mocks you. The fury will be interrupted only by the terror of close left turns by motorists.
Just north of 6th Street, I paused to reflect upon my unplanned nap (and accompanying skull fracture) at the exact location that is now the buffered zone of the new bike lane.
In the northbound Main Street lane at 5th Street, as I sat at an unnecessarily long red, thinking unkind thoughts about our traffic engineers, a left-turning motorist rolled by within inches of my front wheel. Had there been a bollard there, I imagine she would’ve scraped it, and then blamed me.
Halfway to 4th Street, I parked at the curb to drag a scooter away from its repose in the northbound bike lane. The heavy, ungrateful thing beeped angrily for having its slumber disturbed.
Upon reaching 3rd Street, I whipped left, and hit the brakes, because there’s only one bike lane, and it’s contraflow! There’s no warning about this. No “NO LEFT TURN” or bike-lane specific “ONE WAY ONLY” signage. How does design this dangerous pass review?
So, once you reach 3rd, and you wish to continue westbound, you have to either share the westbound #1 lane with cars, or cross over to the #3 lane, which has a sharrow.
AAAAUUUUGHHHH. It’s like LADOT gave their interns a couple gallons of paint, a couple gallons of whiskey, and free rein.
The Zero Emissions 2028 Roadmap 2.0 aims to drastically cut emissions and traffic in time for the 2028 LA Olympics, through a shift to electric cars and buses, micromobility, and yes, bicycles.
L.A. has a reputation as a car-dependent city. But the city also now has the country’s most ambitious plan for cutting emissions from transportation. In less than a decade, it wants the majority of new cars to be electric and all city buses to be electric—and it wants 20% of trips that currently happen in single-occupancy cars to shift to public transportation or active transportation like biking.
Good luck with that.
According to the plan, in just nine years, Los Angeles will have a complete fleet of electric buses, and 30% of the cars on the street will be electric.
Then there’s this.
Expanding micromobility can also help; a recent report in Santa Monica found that 49% of the trips that people were taking on electric scooters and shared bikes were replacing short trips that otherwise would have happened in cars. Some projects now are working to expand access to micromobility in neighborhoods that don’t have many options. Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator, for example, is running a pilot with a nonprofit building a solar-powered e-bike share project in the community of Huntington Park. (Other pilot projects are expanding access to electric car sharing in low-income neighborhoods; if residents use that option instead of owning cars themselves, they also may be likely to drive less.) Designing streets to make it safer to ride a bike—such as a two-way protected bike lane that was installed in downtown L.A. earlier this year—is also a key part of helping people shift away from cars.
As usual, the question is whether there will be any follow through this time.
Unlike, say, the city’s stagnant Vision Zero plan. Or the dust-ridden 2010 bike plan, or the equally ignored Mobility Plan 2035 it was subsumed into.
Or any number of other plans that were announced with great fanfare, and quickly forgotten because our elected leaders lacked the political will to actually implement them.
So we’ll see.
But considering they only have nine years to accomplish this massive transformation of the city’s streets, they’d damn well better get started.
We desperately need these in California, where the view from a bike seat makes it seem like every other driver is holding their phones.
I was briefly in touch with the company behind these cameras, before losing their emails during my drug-addled post-surgical state earlier this year, who said they’re working to bring them to the state.
And even though drivers or their passengers are usually at fault for dooring anyone, because they’re required to only open a car door when it’s safe to do so and doesn’t interfere anyone, and only leave it open as long as necessary to exit the vehicle.
Which this driver clearly failed to do.
………
Yes, handicapped people can ride bikes. Despite what angry NIMBYs insist at bike lane public meetings.
Business owners on a Montreal street complain about a bike lane pilot project that replaced 275 parking spaces over the summer, saying their business was down $5,000 a month, although they don’t say if that was an average of all the businesses or collectively. Instead of complaining, maybe they should do something to entice the 800 riders who pass by on the bike lanes each day to stop and come in.
No trademark issues here. An Aussie startup wants to get delivery workers out of their cars and onto the company’s Bolt Bikes rental ebikes. Not to be confused with Usain Bolt’s bright yellow Bolt scooters, which got here first.
I’m told the victim may be a homeless man who lives in the area.
Police suspect the hit-and-run driver may live in the neighborhood; they’re looking for a late model red Mini Cooper with a white roof and sunroof, with probable damage to the front-end and windshield.
Anyone with information is urged to call LAPD Detective Juan Campos at 213/833-3713. As always, there is a standing $25,000 reward for any hit-and-run resulting in serious injury to the victim.
Let’s find the jerk.
………
A surprising number of chefs in the Los Angeles area ride bikes.
This is a tragic reminder that while bicycling provides exceptional cardio-pulmonary benefits, it can also trigger underlying medical conditions.
It’s vital to see your doctor on a regular basis to make sure you’re up to the stresses you put on your body, especially those of us who like to ride hard.
It’s natural to think you’re bulletproof and avoid seeing a physician when you’re strong on a bike.
It’s also a mistake.
For nearly two decades after I started riding, the only time I saw a doctor was in the ER when they were patching me up after my latest two-wheeled wipeout.
If I had, it’s possible someone may have caught my diabetes before it did so much damage.
If you see a doctor regularly, good for you. Just push him or her to look a little harder and make sure everything’s okay under that muscular physique.
Well, muscular from the waist down, anyway.
If you don’t, what the hell are you waiting for? Stop reading, pick up the phone and make an appointment.
Studies have shown that business owners consistently overestimate the percentage of their business that comes from motorists, and underestimate how much comes from bicyclists, pedestrians and transit users — let alone how much more would if customers had more complete, livable streets.
Those same studies show that bike lanes are good for business, increasing sales, reducing vacancy rates and increasing property values in the surrounding area.
But who would want that?
As for the climate, we have to start somewhere.
And the best place to start is reducing the number of motor vehicles on the streets. Which means creating walkable, bikeable, transit-rich communities so people don’t have to drive.
If that also benefits businesses and residents, everyone wins.
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes is all too real.
A Victorville man faces charges for pistol whipping a 16-year old boy with a semi-automatic handgun for the crime of simply riding a bicycle in the area. Apparently he did it with the gun loaded and the safety off — and it went off while he was beating the boy with it. Let’s hope they find a very deep pit to drop him in.
This is why people keep dying on our streets. A Berkeley woman walks without a single day behind bars after she left crossed a 69-year old man on a bike, dragging him under her car for several seconds, then got out, yanked his bike out from underneath her car, and drove off as the victim and a witness tried to stop her. Thanks to Megan Lynch for the heads-up.
New York’s senior senator, the Democratic leader in the US Senate, calls for a plan to replace all gas-powered motor vehicles with electric ones by 2040. Great idea, except that until the US achieves 100% renewable power, it just exchanges one form of carbon-burning power for another, and doesn’t take a single car or truck off the road.
New York City considers adopting a three-foot passing law to pre-empt the state’s requirement for a safe passing distance. But will only fine drivers a lousy fifty bucks for breaking it.
The DC City Council responds to bike and pedestrian deaths with proposals to lower speed limits, ban right turns on red lights and allow private citizens to ticket drivers blocking crosswalks and bike lanes, as well as require protected bike lanes anytime a street in the bike plan gets overhauled. Maybe we could get them to come teach their LA peers what to do to make Vision Zero work.
Tampa FL police say they’re getting a handle on the problem of biking while black, saying they’re stopping and ticketing fewer African American bike riders, though black riders are still more likely to get a ticket or warning than a white person.
This is who we share the roads with. Five people are dead and nine injured after a Shanghai driver went on a hit-and-run rampage, starting by hitting a taxi and an ebike rider, followed by crashing into an SUV after running a red light, and wrapping it all up by slamming into three non-motorized vehicles and several pedestrians. And yet, Xinhua still calls it an accident. Let’s hope that’s just a bad translation.
October 21, 2019 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Morning Links: Uber & Lyft blamed for traffic deaths, file LAPD theft and hit-and-run reports online, and lots of bike videos
Curbed’s Alissa Walker calls for emulating San Francisco’s closure of Market Street to private motor vehicles, and suggests seven LA-area streets that should be closed to cars and opened to people. It would be hard to make a case for closing Sunset, Santa Monica and Wilshire boulevards, as she suggests, since they represent three major parallel crosstown routes; a better case could be made for closing Wilshire and Hollywood to cars.
Surprisingly, Yahoo says you can’t power an entire city with your bike. It’s not surprising you can’t generate that much power with your bike; it’s surprising that Yahoo is still around.
The best laid plans of mice and bike thieves. A pair of Aussie thieves steal the security cameras from a Sydney parking garage, then come back the next night to steal a bicycle — unaware they were being recorded by dash cam.
Thanks to John L for his generous donation to support this site.
As we noted before, it would take just $10 from everyone who visits BikinginLA today to fund it for an entire year; John says he says he gave extra to make up for a couple people who didn’t.
The British study showed that use of a bike helmet was associated with a “reduction in severe traumatic brain injury, death within 30 days of the injury, the need for intensive care, and ‘neurosurgical intervention,'” as well as a reduction in traumatic brain injuries and facial injuries.
Although as I’ve been reminded many times, correlation does not equal causation.
Bad news from Burbank, where a bike rider suffered major injuries in a collision; unfortunately, there’s no further information at this time.
Twitter post
Thanks to Bean for the heads-up.
………
Michael Kim sends word that someone has been booby trapping mountain bike trails in the West San Fernando Valley.
As we’ve said before, when they catch the jerk — or jerks — responsible, they should face attempted murder charges at the very least, if terrorism charges, because this is a blatant attempt to frighten bicyclists off the trails.
Thanks to Michael Kim for the news.
………
I’m told that Alana Ealy, the road-raging driver who intentionally slammed her car into bike rider Quatrell Stallings as he blocked the intersection where Frederick “Woon” Frazier was killed in a hit-and-run the day before, has been sentenced to a well-deserved five years behind bars.
Ealy had quarreled with several other protesters, left the scene and returned prior to the exceptionally violent assault captured in the video below.
A pair of bighearted LAPD officers dug into their own pockets to buy a new bicycle for a hit-and-run victim whose bike was destroyed in a head-on collision.
Curbedlooks forward to next year’s Arroyo Fest, which will shut down a seven-mile stretch of the historic Arroyo Seco Parkway, aka the 110 Freeway, to cars and open it up to people for the first time in 16 years.
Go hogs! The University of Arkansas is offering a free bike valet to cut vehicular traffic to their stadium for Saturday’s football game. Maybe UCLA and USC should consider doing the same. Except maybe not maybe.
Horrible news from Kentucky, where a little girl was killed when she fell off her bike, and her neck was impaled by the hand brakes on her handlebars; even worse, it happened on her ninth birthday. Unfortunately, tragedies like that happen several times a year, yet bike makers continue to sell kids bikes with dangerous brake levers. And the government continues to look the other way.
London, Ontario police and officials are coming under fire for a traffic safety crackdown that also targets pedestrians and people on bicycles. Just like all the ones frequently held in California. Although that’s required under California law, which prohibits targeting any specific group. Like drivers, for instance.
Why they waited so long to release the news is known only to them.
Especially when both the city and the state have adopted a yellow alert system intended to alert residents to hit-and-runs within hours, when there’s a far better chance of actually catching the driver.
Not two weeks later, after the driver has had his or her car fixed or hidden. And any potential witnesses may have forgotten exactly what they saw.
Instead, the LAPD waited until Friday to release news of the crash, when they asked for the public’s help finding the driver who fled the scene of the Sunland crash after killing a bike rider on Friday, August 23rd.
According to the Daily News, the victim, publicly identified only as a 55-year old Tujunga man, was riding west on Foothill Boulevard at Oro Vista Avenue at 2:15 am when he was rear-ended by driver and thrown into a parked car.
He died at a nearby hospital.
His killer continued without stopping.
Police are looking for what is believed to be a late model Prius with likely damage to the front passenger side. No description of the driver is available.
Anyone with information is urged to call Valley Traffic Division Officer J. Takishita at 818/644-8116, or anonymously at 1-800-222-TIPS. As always, there is a $50,000 reward for any fatal hit-and-run in the City of Los Angeles.
This is at least the 47th bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the 20th that I’m aware of in Los Angeles County; it’s also the tenth in the City of LA.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for the victim and his loved ones.
