Tag Archive for Los Angeles

Hollywood hit-and-run injures bike rider, LA bus lane boom benefits bike riders, and regs needed for throttle-controlled ebikes

October 20, 2023 / / 3 comments

A heartless hit-and-run driver left a man riding a bicycle lying in the roadway on North Cahuenga Blvd just north of the Hollywood Bowl early yesterday.

The victim was reportedly hospitalized in serious but stable condition after he was spotted in the street by a Metro bus driver.

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay.

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The Los Angeles Times applauds the recent boom in LA bus lane building, but neglects to mention that bike riders can legally use them, too.

Drivers, not so much. But they do, anyway.

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Bicycling reports the Consumer Product Safety Commission may soon jump in to regulate lithium-ion ebike batteries to prevent fires.

Meanwhile, bike industry officials question whether regulations are needed distinguishing between ped-assist and throttle-controlled ebikes.

Which is exactly what I’ve been calling for lately, as the rising ebike panic fails to distinguish between ped-assist bikes that give the rider a boost, and high speed throttle-controlled ebikes that are virtual mini-motorcycles, too often in the hands of kids too young to safely ride them.

As usual, read it on Yahoo if the magazine blocks you.

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Nope. Nothing to see here.

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Mountain biker Andreu Lacondeguy decided to skip the Red Bull Rampage this year, in favor of taking his act to Chile and finding the best freeride spots from the Atacama desert to the Araucaria forests in Patagonia

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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

No bias here. A New York ambulance driver argues that bicyclists are responsible for their own safety, complaining about “two-wheeled demons…running red lights and stop signs, going the wrong way, riding at night with no lights or reflective equipment…” She might have a better argument if she seemed to care a little more about those “demons.”

You’ve got to be kidding. A road-raging Charlottesville, Virginia driver walked without a day behind bars for running an a bicyclist off the road and damaging his ebike, after agreeing to a restorative justice program so super secret program officials couldn’t even tell the judge about it.

But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.

Life is cheap in New York, where the e-bikeshare rider who killed a beloved 69-year old preschool teacher as she crossed the street last month walked without a day behind bars, escaping with a lousy ticket for running a red light.

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Local 

Long Beach officials plan to spend over half a million dollars to improve safety on Orange Ave with the Orange Avenue Backbone Bikeway and Complete Street project connecting North Long Beach with downtown.

 

State

The Portland husband and wide killed when shifting lumber on a passing truck struck them as they rode their bikes in Napa County were described as “Humble, generous, thoughtful, loving and hardworking,” and “the most inspirational couple we knew;” the couple both worked for Nike, and had been married 20 years.

 

National

Speaking of Bicycling, senior test editor Matt Phillips picks his favorite road, gravel and maintain bike gear of the year. Unfortunately, this one doesn’t seem to be available from other sources, so you’re on your own if the magazine blocks you. 

Seattle is finishing work on a pair of bike lanes leading to and from the famed Pike Place Fish Market.

Bike Portland’s Jonathan Maus explores Manhattan by bicycle, and likes it.

A New York man faces charges after crashing a stolen moped into a bike rider. leaving the victim with head injuries, then dumping a gun as he fled from the scene.

A former US Capitol Police officer faces up to ten years behind bars after pleading guilty to attempting to cover up his involvement in a reckless, unauthorized pursuit of two people riding motorized bicycles, along with the crash that left one of the riders with minor injuries — and a $5 million lawsuit.

A Louisiana man built his own DIY dog carrier on the front of his bicycle, using bungie cords and a kid’s toy truck.

Mobile, Alabama is finally moving forward with a 6.5-mile bike path along Three Mile Creek from West Mobile to downtown that has been in the works for 35 years.

Police in Alabama are looking for the “vehicle” that fled the scene after hitting and killing a bike rider, as if the person behind the wheel didn’t have anything to do with it.

 

International

Financial site Barrons recommends a handful of ebikes, including one that’s a relative bargain at just under a grand.

British Columbia officials demolished an unsanctioned, DIY mountain bike park after the group that built the rogue park violated an agreement not to expand it and to secure liability insurance.

Over one hundred people turned out for a protest ride to demand safer streets in the London borough of Hackney, where three people have been killed riding bicycles in the past six weeks.

London’s Metropolitan Police admitted knocking a 13-year old boy off his bicycle, surrounding him with submachine guns and handcuffing the boy, after somehow being unable to distinguish his blue water pistol from a real gun.

Evidently, people who ride bikes are good for the community. A new German study shows that bicycling, rather than driving, was the only “significant positive predictor for all facets of orientation towards the common good.” Thanks to Todd Munson for the heads-up.

 

Competitive Cycling

USA Cycling has seriously complicated the question of trans cyclists competing in women’s races, requiring trans women competing in non-UCI sanctioned events in the Elite, Cat 1 and Cat 2 levels to complete an “elite athlete fairness evaluation application” proving they’ve maintained low testosterone levels, while both trans men and women competing in the Cat 3, 4, 5 and novice levels must have a self-identity verification request reviewed by the USA Cycling Technical Director. Got that? I didn’t think so.

 

Finally…

Now you, too, can have your very own reversible Rapha/L39ION of Los Angeles jersey, with one side for racing and one for training. Traveling from Germany to ride down the left coast from Seattle to Argentina is one thing, trying a Taco Bell burrito for the first time is another.

And that feeling when the pedestrian who apparently wasn’t involved in the crash is more seriously injured than the bike rider who was.

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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin

Category: Morning Links / Tags: ,

Four Pepperdine students dead thanks to official inaction on deadly PCH, and more context-free San Diego ebike panic

October 19, 2023 / / 5 comments

This is who we share the road with.

Tuesday night, four young Pepperdine University students were killed by an alleged speeding driver on Southern California’s killer highway.

The four 20-year old college seniors were standing on the side of the road in an area locals call Dead Man’s Curve when the 22-year old driver slammed into three parked cars, knocking them into the women.

And making them all collateral damage on a roadway designed and build to accommodate, if not encourage, high speeds.

The driver, Fraser Michael Bohm, was booked on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence, which will likely be upgraded to four counts once he’s arraigned.

It’s only a pity that the people who have gone out of their way to keep this killer highway dangerous and deadly won’t face charges with him.

It was nearly a decade ago that I began representing the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, now BikeLA, on the PCH Task Force.

The task force was created by the state legislators who then represented the Malibu, Pacific Palisades, Santa Monica and Ventura County areas to address safety and other concerns on the highway, with input from the various stakeholders.

The LACBC took an interest because PCH is such a popular route for bicyclists of all kinds. And claimed so many as victims.

In fact, it is the single most deadly roadway for bike riders in Los Angeles and Orange counties.

The LACBC joined with other representatives to demand safety improvements to the highway, ranging from road diets and protected bike lanes, to eliminating roadside parking and reducing speed limits.

In almost every case, we were told what we were asking for was impossible. We were told the road, Malibu’s 22-mile long main street, was necessary to funnel commuters from Ventura County and the San Fernando Valley in and out of the LA area.

The overly wide traffic lanes, high speed limits that were nearly universally exceeded, slip lane right turns and roadside parking were all necessary to prevent excessive traffic congestion, or so we were told.

Never mind they also encouraged speeding drivers weaving in and out of slower traffic 22 hours a day. And put bike riders at needless risk of right hooks and dooring.

Caltrans, which has responsibility for the roadway, could have taken steps to dramatically improve safety years ago.

They didn’t.

Malibu, Los Angeles and Santa Monica could have demanded changes that would have saved lives.

They didn’t.

Sure, minor changes were made. A painted bike lane here, widening the shoulder there. But the killer highway remained, and remains, a deadly speedway for most of the day and night.

Now four young women, who did nothing to put their lives in danger, are dead — victims of an alleged speeding driver, and the officials, engineers and bureaucrats who enabled him.

The young man behind the wheel is likely to be middle-aged before he gets out of prison, unless an overly lenient judge takes pity on him.

It’s just a pity that the others who have worked so hard to keep PCH so deadly won’t be there with him.

What a fucking waste.

A 2013 publication highlights the joys of biking sans helmets on SoCal’s deadliest highway.

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San Diego media sources were whipped into a tizzy by “startling new statistics” from the city’s Rady Children’s Hospital, which shows increasing rates of ebike and e-scooter injuries, especially among children.

Yet once again, they fail to put any of it in context.

Injuries can be expected to rise with increasing rates of any activity. If more people started playing Frisbee golf, we’d see rising rates of arm and impact injuries as a result.

What matters is whether those injuries are rising faster than the increase in ridership, or becoming more serious than a baseline of bicycling injuries.

Unless and until we have that context, reports like this are nothing more than a concerning, but anecdotal, data point.

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Frequent contributor Megan Lynch forwards news that UC Davis journalism students, not the professional press, are digging into what’s been done since a student was killed by a university employee while riding her bike.

I was lucky enough to be logged on to Mastodon at the time the MuckRock bot sent this through. Otherwise I’d never have known someone was finally making a CPRA request on this. Sadly, it was not made by UC Davis student journalists, but students in a journalism class at University of Nevada, Reno.

You may remember that (19-year old sophomore) Tris Yasay was killed by a yet-unnamed UC Davis employee driving a UC Davis sanitation truck on May 25, 2022. First responders were all UC Davis employees as well (UCDPD and UCDFD). Local press didn’t ask many questions and the few that the Davis Enterprise followed up on was because I got after the reporter about it. It still wasn’t what was needed.  UC Davis was successful in burying the questions.

Months later, its PR flacks linked the “accident” and the grant they applied for re “cyclist and pedestrian safety” that simply targets pedestrians and cyclists for re-education, not its own drivers.

So far as I know, UC Davis has not done any campaign to re-train its own drivers or at least it has not publicized one. I vaguely recall reading somewhere that the claim was that the driver could not see the cyclist in the side view mirror. In which case, the position and efficacy of these mirrors needs to be examined. Because cyclists are a regular feature of the UC Davis campus and if the side view does not accurately reflect what’s going on, drivers should be trained to crane their heads around and look for themselves BEFORE turning. “Blind” spots should be minimized on the vehicle.

But haven’t read about any of that happening.

I’m interested to see what the student journalist finds and if the MuckRock interface will let everyone see it when UC Davis responds. They also requested the City of Davis Bicycle Action Plan.

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Our Deutschland correspondent Ralph Durham forwards a newsletter from the ADFC, aka General German Bicycle Club, on the subject of licensing bicycles, and why that’s a bad idea.

Here is a link to the ADFC newsletter on the subject of bike license plates. And their list of reasons not to have them. A huge one is the cost because of bureaucracy. Something Germans know a little about.

However, you’ll either need to read German, or dump the story into a translation service like Google Translate.

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I used to ride this same route almost daily to get to Lake Hollywood when I first moved to Los Angeles about a hundred years ago.

It didn’t feel safe then, and it feels a lot less safe now.

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Bike Talk posts their latest episode, starting with questioning the effectiveness of Vision Zero on both coasts.

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LA County wants your input on proposed bike paths in the county.

https://twitter.com/streetsforall/status/1714684080581955821

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Local 

West Hollywood’s city council voted to end the city’s e-scooter trial phase and extend their contracts with Lime and Bird, although by a narrow 3 to 2 margin; the increasingly conservative WeHoVille site predictably did not approve.

 

State

Calbike claims a number of “big” legislative victories that survived the governor’s desk, along with concerns about bills creating an ebike safety study and a Caltrans bike czar.

The Kern County coroner’s office has finally identified the 39-year-old woman killed by a driver while riding her bike in Bakersfield last month; the CHP continues to blame her for crossing in front of the driver’s car.

The two people killed by shifting lumber form a passing Freightliner truck while riding their bikes on Napa County’s Silverado Trail were identified as a married couple from Portland, Oregon; no word on why they were riding in Napa. It’s questionable whether the driver gave them the required three-foot passing distance, which might have spared them from the impact. 

No one seems to like San Francisco’s new Valencia Street centerline protected bike lane, as advocates call it dangerous and counterintuitive, while merchants along the street say it’s killing their business.

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition is looking for a new executive director once again, as current ED Jannelle Wong is stepping down after just 18 months on the job.

 

National

NPR reports on the recent study that shows regular bike riding can improve mental health for middle school students. Which is one more reason for Safe Routes to Schools. 

Bicycling offers a requiem and post-mortem for the popular Surly Cross Check, which has been discontinued by the bikemaker. This one doesn’t seem to be available from other sources, so you’re on your own if the magazine blocks you. 

Friends of 32-year old BMX champ Nathan “Nate” Miller want to know why the Las Vegas driver who killed him hasn’t been charged for the September crash, after security cam video surfaced showing the speeding driver jerking between lanes before crashing into Miller’s bike, then crashing into a fence and a parked vehicle.

The wife and daughter of fallen former Bell, California police chief Andreas “Andy” Probst first realized he was injured when they got an alert of a fall from his Apple Watch, then heard police sirens and helicopters just blocks from their Las Vegas home; two teens face murder charges for intentionally running down Probst in a stolen car, apparently just for the hell of it.

A 62-year old Florida woman has been identified as the hit-and-run driver captured in a viral video crashing into an 11-year-old girl riding her bike in a school parking lot, and pushing her at least 60 feet with the car; instead of helping the girl, she just got out of her car, asked if the victim was okay, and told her to just go home and take a shower.

Once again, a cop has killed someone riding a bicycle, this time in Marion County, Florida, where a 22-year old sheriff’s deputy ran down a 63-year old man early Wednesday; investigators quickly blamed the victim for riding on a dark roadway without a helmet or reflective clothing, or using lights on his bike. Because apparently, patrol cars in Florida don’t have headlights that could have illuminated someone riding a bike.

 

International

Momentum offers 13 helpful tips for a worry-free first-time bike commuting experience.

Inside EVs says the new European Declaration on Cycling offers 36 principles aimed at advancing bicycling in the European Union, laying the groundwork for future legislation to unlock the full potential of bicycles.

An Australian woman has been seriously injured riding her bike, less than a week after warning a Victoria state parliamentary inquiry into road safety about the extreme risks bicyclists face on the country’s roads.

 

Competitive Cycling

Sad news from Arizona, where longtime bike racer John Timbers, a previous winner of the Iron Horse Classic and the Manhattan Beach Grand Prix, and founder of Arizona’s Vuelta de Bisbee stage race nearly five decades ago, was killed by a hit-and-run driver while riding his bike in Tucson early Tuesday morning; he was 78.

 

Finally…

That feeling when a trio of random tweets tells a story about traffic violence and automotive hegemony. Nothing like suffering a daily aerial assault on your bike commute.

And who says you can’t do stunts on a heavy-ass bikeshare bike?

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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Disappointing new LA bike lane totals, Angelenos suffer from car blindness, and Long Beach needs bike count volunteers

October 18, 2023 / / Comments Off on Disappointing new LA bike lane totals, Angelenos suffer from car blindness, and Long Beach needs bike count volunteers

It just keeps getting worse. 

I’m told someone was killed riding a bike yesterday on Fountain Ave in East Hollywood.

If it’s confirmed — and it comes from an unimpeachable source — this will be the ninth SoCal bike rider killed in just 12 days.

Hopefully, we’ll learn more soon. 

Today’s photo, in contrast with too much of the day’s news, is a very happy corgi enjoying a pedicab ride over the new 6th Street Bridge during Sunday’s CicLAvia. 

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Streetsblog’s Joe Linton takes his semi-annual deep dive into bike lane building, or the lack thereof, in the City of Angels.

And finds the current results underwhelming, with far too many disappointments including truncated mileage, downgraded facilities, long delayed timelines and false claims, just to name a few.

Or as we call that here in Los Angeles, Wednesday.

As noted in past posts (FY21-22, FY20-21, FY19-20), not all bikeway miles are equal. Quality protected bike lanes and bike paths serve riders aged 8 to 80, while sharrows serve almost nobody. New bikeway mileage expands the network; upgrades to existing bikeways do not. Among upgrades, some are significant (protecting unprotected lanes) and others are nearly meaningless (adding a buffer stripe to an existing lane).

In recent years, around a quarter of the city’s output consists of these less than newsworthy facilities. Among the city’s FY23 totals are about 6 miles of new sharrows and 5 miles of buffer stripes added to existing bike lanes.

The city’s FY22-23 total of 45.2 miles breaks down into 27.7 miles of newbikeways and 17.5 miles of upgrades to existing bikeways. This represents a slight improvement over last year, which saw 26.6 new bikeway miles and 12.5 upgraded miles.

That’s a far cry from the city’s commitment to build 50 miles of bike lanes a year when the current bike plan was approved. Which was quickly cut in half when the city switched to measuring by lane miles, which counts bike lanes on each side of the road separately.

Then reduced further, when they decided sharrows count, too.

Adding disappointment, on disappointment, on disappointment.

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Streets For All founder Michael Schneider writes that we suffer from car blindness in Los Angeles.

We are car blind in Los Angeles; as a City, we seem to have accepted cars as essential for society to function, and we overlook their downsides and harms they cause on our society.

Cars are the single biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions in California, and car crashes are a leading cause of death for children in Los Angeles. Our streets are so dangerous that a pedestrian is killed about once every three days — a rate that is four times the national average.

I’ve often said this city’s problem is we can’t see the cars for the traffic.

So it’s worth taking a few minutes to read the whole thing, because he’s absolutely right.

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Long Beach is still looking for volunteers for this week’s bike and pedestrian count.

https://twitter.com/GoActiveLB/status/1714350821574656418

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Metro is hosting a series of meetings beginning in Westwood next Tuesday to discuss the Traffic Reduction Study, Sepulveda Transit Corridor, and I-405 Sepulveda Pass ExpressLanes projects

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ActiveSGV will host a discussion with Strong Towns founder Chuck Marohn and current Pasadena Planning Commissioner Rick Cole at Throop Church in Pasadena tonight.

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Sounds like fun.

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SAFE offers a reminder that bike riders aren’t the only vulnerable victims of traffic violence.

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Nailed it.

https://twitter.com/fietsprofessor/status/1714276421991018981

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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

No bias here. A San Francisco restaurant owner says the Valencia Street business corridor will die if the controversial center-line bike lane on the street isn’t removed.

A Flushing, New York letter writer with a bad case of windshield bias says riding a bicycle in traffic is a horrible idea, whether or not it’s in a bike lane, and everyone but drivers deserve tickets for breaking the law.

But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.

A San Mateo bike rider was arrested for brandishing a weapon after a woman tried to pass a large group of bicyclists in the downtown area; he raised his shirt to show the weapon in his waistband when a group of riders surrounded her car and started beating on it.

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Local 

Streetsblog’s Joe Linton offers photos from Sunday’s Heart of LA CicLAvia.

A South Pasadena site looks forward to the first Arroyo Fest in 20 years, as the 110 Freeway prepares to close to motor vehicle traffic for a few hours on October 29th to welcome thousand of people walking, biking, running, scooting and rolling.

Garden Grove has received a $441,000 Caltrans grant to improve the city’s Medal of Honor Bike Trail.

 

State

The LA Times says the recent legislative session was mixed bag when it comes to fighting climate change, noting that Governor Newsom signed bills supporting electric cars and hydrogen fuels, but vetoed bills to improve bicycle safety.

A UC San Diego student asks if roads around the campus will ever be safe, years after a protected bike lane was approved for Gilman Drive, but never built.

San Bernardino’s Skypark Bike Park announced the opening of a new Black Diamond mountain bike trail.

A 34-year-old Victorville man faces narcotics and gun charges after a bike theft victim tracked his stolen bike to a city bus, where the man had taken it.

A series of new traffic diverters and islands on Santa Barbara’s Sola Street are aimed at creating a safe bicycling link between the Westside and downtown.

The San Francisco Standard examines why the city so rarely enforces illegal parking in bike lanes. You could ask the same question in Los Angeles and Santa Monica, too. 

Tragic news from Napa County, where a pair of bicyclists were killed when the load shifted on a passing lumber truck, striking the victims as they rode on the side of the roadway; the victims were identified only as a man in his 50s and a woman in her 40s.

 

National

The Guardian considers whether it’s time to ban right turns on red lights, as pedestrian deaths soar. Short answer, yes. Longer answer, oh hell yes.

Good question. Adventure Rider asks why mountain bikes cost as much as motorcycles these days.

Sports Illustrated recommends the best bike shorts for women who actually ride bikes. As opposed to the trendy bike short-style shorts for women who don’t. 

The new Portland Bicycle School is offering riders the bicycle equivalent of Driver’s Ed.

A Las Vegas high school student says he was forced to withdraw from school after he was threatened by the sister of one of the two teens charged in the vehicular murder of former Bell, California police chief Andy Probst, after she apparently suspected he was the source who turned video of the crash over to police; meanwhile, the 72-year old bike rider who was injured in the hit-and-run crime spree describe the crash that left him with road rash and knee pain.

Heartbreaking news from the Denver area, where residents of Littleton demanded safety improvements after a boy was killed in a collision while riding his bike to middle school.

Accused killer Kaitlin Armstrong’s recent failed escape attempt was apparently premeditated, as a Texas site notes that she exercised vigorously for months and wore civilian clothes in advance of a doctor’s appointment; Armstrong is accused of fatally shooting gravel cycling star Moriah “Mo” Wilson over an imagined love triangle.

A new Brooklyn book bike is fighting book bans by serving the gay and nonbinary community, bringing free LGBTQIA+ books for all ages and languages directly to them.

New York officials blamed the increase in bicycling deaths on ebikes, with 62.2% of bicyclists killed in the city this year riding one, compared to 57.9% two years ago and 47.4% last year — but failed to provide any stats putting it in context, such as the proportion of ebike riders, or who was at fault in the crashes; meanwhile, 94% of this year’s deaths occurred on streets without protected bike lanes, calling into question the mayor’s failure to fulfill his campaign promise to build more.

New York bike riders say they’re fighting over inches on the city’s crowded bridges, where narrow bikeways contribute to bike-on-bike crashes.

A New Jersey man faces a manslaughter charge for allegedly pushing a 70-year old man off his bike, for no apparent reason; the victim died after hitting his head on the pavement and initially refusing treatment. A tragic reminder to always get checked out after hitting your head, because life-threatening injuries may not show up until hours later. 

The Washington Post says forget buying another car, and get an ebike instead.

 

International

Streetsblog admires the quick build bike lanes of Lima, Peru, which enabled residents to keep active during the pandemic, and to keep riding now.

Bicycling tells the tale of a Canadian man who set off on a bikepacking tour around the world with his six-year old border collie, who was just three months old when they set off. As usual, read it on Yahoo if the magazine blocks you. 

Another Canadian man is riding his bike around the world to share lessons in physics with teachers and students.

Oxford, England will install speed cams at a dangerous roundabout where a bike-riding university researcher was killed by a coked-up dump truck driver last year, although a city counselor says a license plate reader will be required to catch scofflaw drivers, too.

A woman in the UK says she and her husband tried swapping their car for an e-cargo bike, but unwelcoming drivers forced them off the road and onto smaller hybrid bikes.

A British man will spend the next four years behind bars for killing another man with a single punch, after an argument over the sale of a bike, as he claimed the victim’s friend still owed him money for it. Yet another reminder than no bicycle is worth a human life. 

Hyderabad, India is installing solar panels over 13 miles of bike paths, fighting climate change through solar power, while providing riders with shade to combat the city’s frequent heat waves.

An Arab Israeli bike shop owner has received the equivalent of almost $168,000 in donations after his shop was torched because he donated 50 bicycles to Jewish kids forced to evacuate following the recent Hamas attack.

A new e-cargo bike premiering at the Taipei Cycle Show claims to be the first designed by women for women, with a smaller frame designed to accommodate shorter riders.

More heartbreaking news, this time from Down Under, where a 72-year old man was killed by a driver while participating in a club ride, seven years after he survived a crash that killed one man, and injured both him and another rider.

 

Competitive Cycling

Another WorldTour cyclist is walking away due to a health conditions, as Dutch pro Wesley Kreder retired at age 32 after suffering a heart attack.

Velo considers 32-year old Ethiopian pro cyclist Tsgabu Grmay and his efforts to help more of his countrymen and women enter the sport.

 

Finally…

Never trust a sat-nav device that doesn’t know you’re not a car. Maybe flipping a modern day Penny Farthing isn’t the best idea.

And how not to promote a gravel race.

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My most humble apologies for neglecting to thank Megan L for her generous donation to support this site when my eyes were out of commission last month. As always, donations are welcome and very appreciated anytime, for any reason, even if I’m too blind to properly show my gratitude.

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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Newsom approves limited speed cam pilot, Israeli bicyclists victims of Hamas violence, and DOJ sues eBay for rolling coal

October 16, 2023 / / Comments Off on Newsom approves limited speed cam pilot, Israeli bicyclists victims of Hamas violence, and DOJ sues eBay for rolling coal

Newsom signed this one, anyway.

LAist reports speed cams could be coming to Los Angeles, Long Beach and Glendale after Governor Newsom signed a bill authorizing a pilot program in the three cities, as well as three cities in Northern California.

However, the program will be limited to streets in “school zones, highway segments most prone to injuries, and areas identified by local authorities as having high volumes of speeders and street racing.”

The pilot program continues California’s insistence on reinventing the wheel, since speed cams have already proven successful in 200 communities in 21 other states, including New York City, Chicago and DC.

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You knew the recent Hamas massacre in Israel wouldn’t spare the bicycling community.

According to Marca, the heartless violence took the lives of an entire family of triathletes, and at least four mountain bikers were killed on their way to a training ride.

Another group of bike riders survived by hiding under bushes for hours to escape the attack.

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Yes, please.

The US Department of Justice is suing eBay for selling more than 343,000 illegal “rolling coal” pollution devices through the platform, illegally enabling drivers to modify emissions controls on their cars and trucks — and bury bike riders and pedestrians in a cloud of exhaust smoke.

The platform could face a well-deserved $5,580 fine for each devise sold under the Clean Air Act, for a total of nearly $2 billion.

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This is the future bike riders want.

Meanwhile, as today’s top photo demonstrates, the countless full bike racks at Sunday’s CicLAvia offered more proof that bikes mean business, with bars, restaurants and cafes jammed with happy participants.

Along with more than a few corgis.

And this one definitely won the most creative award at Sunday’s Heart of LA CicLAvia.

Although the LAPD responded to the end of Sunday’s CicLAvia with an illegal order telling bike riders to get off the street.

https://twitter.com/MobilityForWho/status/1713784208873988121

Thanks to Erik Griswold for the heads-up.

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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

No bias here. A former British city counselor accused local advocates of planning a “deeply distasteful” protest ride to demand safe streets in the wake of two recent bicycling deaths, saying it would put people off bicycling.

No bias here, either. Business owners in a UK city protested what they called a “totally crazy, ridiculous” plan to remove a whole two — yes, two — parking spaces to make room for eight bikeshare bikes.

But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.

A 73-year old man in the UK walked without a day in jail for crashing his bicycle into a pedestrian, leaving the 88-year old victim fighting for his life; the man thought he could ride safely even though he was left partially sighted after a stroke.

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Local 

This is who we share the road with. A Long Beach driver killed one woman and injured six other people when he drove into pedestrians and cars at Shoreline Drive and Aquarium Way Saturday evening.

 

State

An Orange County man was busted after completing a transportation theft trifecta, first stealing a car, followed by a bicycle, before being arrested while wearing the car owner’s shoes.

A Victorville woman was critically injured when her bicycle was struck by a motorcyclist while crossing a busy roadway Friday afternoon.

UC Santa Barbara Police recovered 18 purloined bicycles after busting an accused prolific bike thief.

A Bakersfield man suffered major injuries when he was struck by a hit-and-run driver while riding his bike, and left lying in the roadway Saturday evening.

Sad news from San Francisco, where bicyclist was killed in a collision while riding on a freeway; no word on why the rider was on the Interstate highway.

 

National

CleanTechnica calls ebikes a less-polluting option for commutes and errands as part of the new normal, while Momentum offers advice on what you need to know before buying one.

Gravel has officially gone mainstream, as CNN rates the year’s 12 best gravel bikes.

Gear Junkie offers tips on selecting the right bicycle helmet for the way you ride.

Hundreds of Las Vegas bicyclists turned out for the 10th Annual Ride to Remember, in honor of bike racer Pete Makowski, who was killed by a gravel truck driver while on a training ride in 2013, and all bike-riding victims of traffic violence.

Kindhearted Tucson, Arizona volunteers put together 1,200 bikes to donate to underserved kids.

A new Denver program is using heart rate data to identify bicycling danger zones before anyone gets hurt.

Life is cheap is Wisconsin, where a woman got just 18 months behind bars for killing a 29-year old man riding a bicycle, while driving at nearly twice the legal alcohol limit and nearly twice the posted speed limit.

Cincinnati Bengals punter Drue Christian stayed in shape by delivering meals for DoorDash on his bicycle during the off-season, then started buying meals himself and giving them to people in need.

Family members continue to call for justice two years after Pittsburgh police tased a homeless man up to ten times, even though he didn’t pose a threat to them or anyone else, just because he rode a bicycle that appeared to be abandoned around the block before returning it; the city has already paid an $8 million settlement in the case, but no officers have been charged in his death.

A South Carolina letter writer has a complaint bike riders everywhere can relate to, asking people to stop leaving yard waste and other trash in bike lanes.

 

International

Major bicycling brands, including Schwalbe, Rudy Project and Trek, are becoming more environmentally conscious and reducing their carbon footprint.

A Vancouver nonprofit calculates that switching from a car to a bicycle could save commuters over $9,000 a year.

Yes, please. A new Google Maps feature will allow London bike riders to consider current traffic conditions and the availability of high-quality cycling infrastructure in planning their route. Hopefully, that will roll out here in the US if it proves successful there. 

The Daily Mail complains that a Scottish ebike loan program has cost the country the equivalent of over $600,000, as people have purchased ebikes but failed to repay the cost.

A pair of British bike riders were the victims of a bikejacking by moped-riding muggers, who pulled up to them at a red light and ordered them off their bicycles.

A British man’s beloved bicycle was stolen outside his local pub, after it had taken him 22,500 miles around the world in just 430 days.

A Kenyon writer says it’s imperative that the country combine high-capacity buses and bicycling to “significantly reduce urban carbon emissions and foster cleaner, healthier cities for all.”

Police in South Australia said they have arrested the state’s infamous “Bicycle Bandit,” after DNA led them to a 73-year old man who allegedly robbed at least ten banks over a ten-year period beginning in 2004, using a bicycle as his primary getaway vehicle.

 

Competitive Cycling

Dutch pro Milan Vader won his first WorldTour race at China’s Tour of Guangxi, a year after a bad crash during a Basque Country race last year left him in an induced coma with his spine fractured in eleven places, and doubts of ever riding again.

French cyclist Typhaine Laurance is walking away from pro cycling, retiring at just 25 due to the sports low pay; she was forced to continue living with her parents while earning the equivalent of just over $1,000 a month.

Conservative media was up in arms after two transgender cyclists took home gold and silver at a women’s ‘cross race in Chicago.

 

Finally…

Sometimes the best approach to slowing drivers is a mangled bike and a pair of legs sticking out of the hedge. Apparently, bike shorts aren’t used for bicycling anymore, even though they still are, except when they’re not.

And just blame Google Maps if you end up riding on a highway where bikes are banned.

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Heart of LA CicLAvia Sunday, followed by Streets For All CicLAvia afterparty, and help clean up Venice Blvd Saturday

October 13, 2023 / / 2 comments

It should be an extra spooky Friday the 13th on the mean streets of LA today, coming just over two weeks before Halloween. 

While a little triskaidekaphobia never hurt anyone, it couldn’t hurt to use a little extra caution today, so your ride doesn’t turn into someone else’s bad luck.

And if you see someone in a hockey mask coming your way, maybe ride the other direction just to be safe.  

………

CicLAvia returns to its DTLA roots this weekend, nearly 13 years to the day after the first one.

However, Sunday’s Heart of LA CicLAvia follows only portions of the original route, traveling 7.8 miles through downtown with stops in Chinatown and Little Tokyo, while adding extensions to South Park, and Boyle Heights and Mariachi Plaza across the new 6th Street bridge.

That will be followed by the year’s final CicLAvia, in South LA on December 3rd, offering a route stretching from Historic South Central to Leimert Park, primarily along Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I see a side trip to Harold and Belle’s in my future.

……..

Streets For All will follow Sunday’s CicLAvia with an afterparty at a super secret location in DTLA.

……..

Get in the mood for Sunday’s CicLAvia by helping clean up the neglected Venice Blvd bike lanes.

Which could definitely use it.

………

If CicLAvia isn’t your thing, the Burbank Kiwanis club is hosting a bike rodeo on Sunday.

My favorite events are the roadie roping and ebike buck riding.

https://twitter.com/BurbankPD/status/1712552805477839231

………

The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

Police in Parma, Ohio are looking for a hit-and-run driver who used his SUV as a weapon to intentionally run down someone on a bicycle; no word on the condition of the victim or any reason for the attack.

No bias here. An Ottawa, Canada writer places tongue firmly in cheek, and announces that the country’s bike riders were mortified to learn they’re not “actually allowed to run every red light and stop sign they come across.” Just wait until someone tells him about all those entitled drivers who pick and choose what traffic laws they want to obey.

………

Local 

Streetsblog’s Joe Linton lists eight things you probably don’t know about the first Arroyo Fest in 20 years, which walks and rolls on Sunday, October 29th on the 110 Freeway — and takes place early, starting at 7 am and ending a 11 am.

El Monte-based Addmotor is introducing a $2,700, dual battery longtail e-cargo bike with an exceptional 210 mile range.

Hermosa Beach moves forward with an effort to usurp the state’s authority over traffic laws by copying other SoCal cities attempts to write their own laws regulating ebikes, such as Manhattan Beach’s illegal ban on anyone — on an ebike or otherwise — riding two abreast, which is legal under state law.

 

State

Governor Gavin Newsom signed two bike bills authored by Burbank state senator and US House candidate Anthony Portantino to require landlords to allow tenants to store and charge ebikes and e-scooters in their apartments, and require Caltrans to appoint an active transportation safety czar. Although it doesn’t require the state transportation agency to actually, you know, listen to them.

A new study from San Bernardino County’s Loma Linda University shows that middle school bicycling programs can boost students’ mental health. Which should come as a surprise to no one.

 

National

The Strategist offers suggestions for the best gifts for bicyclists. And for a change, they actually suggest some decent stuff. 

Axios maps out where bicycling is growing in the US, including San Diego and Los Angeles, based on a recent report from mobility data firm StreetLight Data.

CleanTechnica says a new calculator can help cities quantify the “environmental and economic benefits of replacing short-distance vehicle trips with ebike trips.” Maybe someone should tell those ebike-averse beach cities about it. 

A proposed class action lawsuit has been filed against Shimano, Specialized and Trek following the massive Hollowtech crankset recall, alleging that by failing to recall all Hollowtech cranksets, the companies are attempting to limit costs at the expense of consumers. Or maybe the ones they recalled were just the only ones that were defective. 

The Stranger talks with Seattle Bike Blog author Tom Fucoloro about his new book exploring the history of bicycling in the city, Biking Uphill in the Rain: The Story of Seattle from Behind the Handlebars.

An Idaho law professor explains the state’s bike-friendly traffic laws, saying it’s hard not to feel embattled riding a bicycle when confronted by drivers who don’t know the law.

Security cam video shows a bike thief riding off with a woman’s bicycle at a Denver rail station, before a Good Samaritan steps up to stop him and get her bike back.

Colorado continues its efforts to get more residents riding ebikes, offering local communities part of a $2.5 million pot of cash to provide their own ebike rebates, in addition to the state’s rebate program. Meanwhile, California’s ebike rebate program remains in limbo after more than two years, so far just a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. 

Milwaukee officials hope adding more protected bike lanes will make the city safer for bicyclists, after seven people were killed in the county last year; it may be helping, because they’ve only suffered two deaths this year. Although two is still two too many.

Brooklyn drivers complain that a new parking-protected bike lane makes it impossible to pull out of their driveways, echoing the same complaint of every driver faced with every parking-protected bike lane everywhere. And everyone else seems to get used to it, so they probably will, too.

New York announced plans for another 40 miles of protected bike lanes, with two new bikeways in Queens and one each in Brooklyn and the Bronx, as well as a 10-mile protected bike lane on Staten Island between Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge and the Goethals Bridge.

That’s more like it. A 29-year old Alabama woman was sentenced to six years behind bars for the criminally negligent, hit-and-run crash that killed a “beloved” retired veterinarian as he was riding his bicycle in 2021; the driver claimed she had hit a deer. Although there’s something wrong when negligently killing someone is just a misdemeanor, while driving away from it is a felony. 

 

International

The European Union Court of Justice has officially ruled that ebikes are bicycles, not motorcycles, because they are not exclusively motor driven and don’t require insurance to cover damages. Although that would seem to leave throttle-driven ebikes in question.

He gets it. Scotland’s new roadworks commissioner says bicyclists and pedestrians should be given priority at roadway projects, even if it delays motorist and takes up space. If he ever runs for office, I’m voting for him. Even if I have to move. 

Disturbing story from the UK, where officials knew about a deep roadway crack for months before it killed an 84-year old man whose bike tire got stuck in it, but the highway workers sent to examine it were only focused on potholes that could damage cars, not cracks that could kill bike riders.

 

Competitive Cycling

Bicycling offers all the details on L39ion of Los Angeles founder Justin Williams’ new one-day Circuit Racing International Tour, aka CRIT, championship in St. Petersburg, Florida next weekend. As usual, read it on Yahoo if the magazine blocks you. 

 

Finally…

Now you, too, can ding! ding! your little heart away as you drop hapless foes in your next crit or club beer race.

And that feeling when you try to run away from your jailers, even though you just don’t look good in stripes.

Or maybe because you don’t look good in stripes.

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Vegas teens plead not guilty to Probst murder, Mo Wilson’s accused killer makes a run for it, and Newsom digs daylighting

October 12, 2023 / / Comments Off on Vegas teens plead not guilty to Probst murder, Mo Wilson’s accused killer makes a run for it, and Newsom digs daylighting

Jesus Ayala and Jzamir Keys, the Las Vegas teenagers being tried as adults in the deliberate murder of a bike-riding former Bell, California police chief, both pled not guilty to several felony counts at their arraignment Wednesday.

The two teens, 17 and 16 at the time of their alleged August crime spree, are accused of at least three hit-and-runs while joyriding in a stolen car, including fatally running down 64-year old Andreas “Andy” Probst from behind as they laughingly filmed the attack.

Ayala and Keys are also accused of deliberately targeting another man riding a bicycle, although apparently he was not seriously injured.

They’re charged with murder, attempted murder, battery and residential burglary, as well as multiple counts of automobile grand larceny and possession of a stolen vehicle.

They each face up to life in prison if convicted on the murder charges, despite Ayala’s boast to the cops at the time of his arrest that he’d be out in 30 days.

Photo by Ekaterina Bolovtsova from Pexels.

……..

Kaitlin Armstrong, the woman accused of killing gravel cycling star Moriah “Mo” Wilson, made a run for it Wednesday, attempting to escape from sheriff’s deputies as she was being led back to a patrol car following a doctor’s appointment.

Armstrong is accused of fatally shooting Wilson last year in a jealous rage, in what she apparently perceived as a love triangle involving her then-boyfriend, pro cyclist Colin Strickland, who had been briefly involved with Wilson.

Armstrong was already considered a flight risk following her arrest in Costa Rico after a 43-day manhunt.

She had reportedly died her hair and undergone plastic surgery in an effort to change her appearance and hide her identity.

………

After wielding his veto pen to strike down bike-friendly legislation, including a bill to allow sidewalk riding throughout the state, California Governor Gavin Newsom actually signed a safety bill yesterday.

Newsom added his signature to Assembly Bill 413, known as the Daylighting Bill, which will ban parking within 20 feet of a marked crosswalk to increase visibility and improve safety for pedestrians, as well as anyone else stopped at or using the intersection.

………

Apparently, there really is an app for that.

Yesterday, I learned there’s an app to help organize bike buses to help kids get to school safely.

Which could probably be used to arrange bike commuting rides to find greater safety in numbers, as well.

………

The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

We missed this one when I was out of commission with eye problems a couple weeks back, as a driver in a massive SUV attempted to terrorize a velomobile e-recumbent rider in El Cajon, California last month, which was compounded by a lecture from a cop who didn’t know the law.

………

Local 

Streetsblog says Metro didn’t follow its own designs, let alone city-approved, CEQA-approved street standards, in providing access to the new Downtown Connector stations, implementing undefined changes focused on getting drivers onto freeways instead of providing the promised bike and walk facilities.

A letter from longtime LA-area bike advocate Kent Strumpell says Los Angeles can alter the course of the automobile’s role in climate change, and meet the pope’s call for bold climate action, with the rapid installation of a fully functional, citywide, protected bikeway network. From his keyboard to God’s ear. Or at least the mayor’s. 

 

State

The CHP has received a federal grant to support its education and enforcement efforts to improve pedestrian and bicyclist safety throughout the state. Although we’d all be better served if they used the money to train their officers in bike law, and how to investigate bike crashes without their usual windshield bias.

San Diego Magazine lists eight of the city’s best bike events to attend each year, starting with next month’s Bike and Beer San Diego.

A young Frenso girl was lucky to survive with minor injuries when she was struck by a pickup driver while riding her bike, and ended up pinned under the truck.

Manteca is just the latest California city calling for a crackdown on reckless teenage ebike riders.

San Anselmo will conduct a study of the downtown area on how to improve safety for bicyclists and pedestrians.

Sad news from Sierra County, where a Berkeley man was found dead after apparently riding his mountain bike off a trail; his body was found about a hundred yards downstream from where his bike was recovered.

 

National

AARP offers a pretty extensive tutorial on the different types of bikes for different riders and situations. And since they include balance bikes, it’s probably safe to say they’re not all aimed at their target market.

Trek has launched the industry’s first bicycle trade-in program, accepting used bikes made by the company for trade at their eponymous stores. Which makes me wonder what they’d give me for my first-gen mass production 1980 Trek roadie. For a change, read it on AOL if Bicycling blocks you. 

Bicycling introduces Bivo founder Carina Hamel, saying she’s disrupting the bicycling water bottle market one stainless steel water bottle at time. This time, you can read it on Yahoo if the magazine blocks you. 

At least one Portland hotel now approves of a recently contested downtown bike lane, insisting they want the hotel to be a welcoming space for bike riders, after the hotel’s former GM criticized the bike lane for what she termed dangerous conditions.

There’s not a pit deep enough for the bike thief who stole an adaptive tricycle from a 23-year old special needs man in Arizona.

The building that formerly housed my not-so-local Denver bike shop, which I traveled across the city to frequent, caught on fire last night, but it was quickly extinguished by firefighters; developers plan to raze the former local icon to build an 18-story mixed-use tower.

It takes a special kind of scumbag to drive off and leave a bike-riding five-year old Colorado kid bleeding in the street.

The highly anticipated movie Bike Vessel, which premiers this week at the Chicago Film Festival, tells the story of a father who took up bicycling after surviving three open-heart surgeries, and the son who joined him on a “rigorous” journey by bike from St. Louis to Chicago.

New York’s Black-owned Amsterdam News says there’s no going back, as ebikes continue to make inroads into neighborhoods of color throughout the city.

New York bike riders rallied to protest the city’s second-highest number of bicycling deaths ever, while calling out the mayor’s apparent lack of concern, even though he was considered a consistent ally when he served in the state senate.

That’s more like it. A 19-year old Richmond, Virginia man was sentenced to spend the next ten years and a month behind bars, after a judge suspended most of a 30-year sentence for plowing into a pair of bike-riding women while driving drunk and stoned, killing one and critically injuring the other.

 

International

A British man, who was placed in a medically induced coma for nearly two weeks after suffering major injuries when he was struck by a driver while riding his bike in 2017, is now planning to take part in a fundraising hill climb challenge to benefit the air ambulance service he credits with saving his life.

 

Competitive Cycling

A new report accuses pro cycling of putting profits over safety, saying elite cycling has a “profound safety problem,” with safety “taking a backseat in the pursuit of performance or profit.”

The Intermarché-Circus-Wanty cycling team abruptly pulled Madis Mihkels from China’s upcoming Tour of Guangxi, after the 20-year old pro was shown making a racist gesture on social media by pulling back his eyes in mockery of Asians.

Three-time US Pro crit champ Luke Lamperti will join L39ION of Los Angeles as a guest cyclist at the inaugural invitation-only CRIT Championship in St. Petersburg, Florida later this month.

 

Finally…

That feeling when a minor suffers minor injuries after getting hit by a deer that was hit by a driver. If you were stopped by a motorcycle officer in East Valinda, you may have gotten a fake ticket from a fake cop.

And apparently crappy bike infrastructure is a problem everywhere.

Thanks to Erik Griswold for the heads-up.

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Newsom’s veto could mean tickets for seeking sidewalk safety, and LA Times calls out California’s roadway climate fail

October 11, 2023 / / Comments Off on Newsom’s veto could mean tickets for seeking sidewalk safety, and LA Times calls out California’s roadway climate fail

No surprise here.

Both Calbike and CABO responded to Governor Gavin Newsom’s veto of a bill that would have legalized sidewalk riding on any street without adequate bike lanes.

And needless to say, they came out on opposite sides of the issue.

Calbike, aka the California Bicycle Coalition, decried the veto, arguing that sidewalk riding may not be the best choice, but it’s sometimes the only safe one.

“Is sidewalk riding ideal? No,” said Jared Sanchez, policy director for CalBike. “In a perfect world, most streets would be Complete Streets, with safe facilities for all modes of transportation. But that’s not the reality today, and it will take years to transform every dangerous roadway in California into a safe route for biking. In the meantime, people on bikes must, at times, travel on streets with fast traffic and no bike lanes. By vetoing this bill, the governor has taken an action that will lead to more deaths and injuries of people on bikes.”

While CalBike agrees with the governor’s assertion in his veto statement that building better bike infrastructure is the best way to provide safe spaces for people who ride bikes and that the state has moved in the right direction to create more protected and connected bikeways, infrastructure for safe biking remains woefully inadequate.

Meanwhile CABO — the California Association of Bicycle Organizations — applauded the governor’s veto.

An open letter from Alan Wachtel, Government Relations Director for CABO, pointed out the dangers of bicycling on sidewalks, both for bike riders and pedestrians.

While my organization and I appreciate the author’s intent to improve bicycle safety, this bill would instead have exactly the opposite effect. It would encourage dangerous bicycling habits, and it would constitute a huge step backward in the goal of routinely accommodating bicycle travel everywhere in the transportation network. Unfortunately, the author’s office has repeatedly declined to meet with us even to discuss these issues.

Under existing Vehicle Code §21650(g) (which I helped to draft), bicyclists may already ride on sidewalks everywhere, unless prohibited by the code or local ordinance. AB 825 would eliminate that local power unless the adjacent roadway includes a designated bicycle facility, except for last-minute amendments that provide complicated exceptions meant to protect pedestrians (but that are inadequate to do so).

But AB 825, despite being promoted as a bicycle safety bill, would, on the contrary, also be more dangerous for bicyclists. It relies on and actively perpetuates the misconception that the only safe places for bicycles are designated facilities and sidewalks.

This may be the rare instance where they’re both at least partly right.

CABO is correct that bikes don’t normally belong on sidewalks, where they pose a danger to pedestrians and an increased risk to bike riders, despite the perception of safety.

But it’s also true that a sidewalk can provide a refuge from dangerous roadways lacking safe infrastructure — especially the typical suburban California stroads, where riders often have to contend with speeding drivers exceeding the already high speed limits.

It’s also demanding too much to expect an inexperienced bike rider to take the lane on a busy street filled with impatient and distracted drivers.

It’s unreasonable to ticket someone for putting their own safety ahead of any local restrictions under those, or similar, circumstances.

Or to expect someone on a bicycle to always know when they’ve crossed from one city where sidewalk riding is allowed, to another where it’s prohibited, particularly when the restriction isn’t posted.

Then there’s the problem the bill was originally drafted to address, where police too often use sidewalk riding restrictions as a pretext to stop and search, or merely harass, people of color.

I always encourage people to ride their bikes in the street, both for their own safety, and that of people walking on the sidewalk.

But I understand if they choose not to, as I have myself for short distances, or when faced with dangerous situations on the street.

And penalizing them for making that choice is wrong — as was Newsom’s veto of the bill.

Besides, we all know sidewalks are really just parking spots for entitled drivers.

……..

The get it.

An editorial from the Los Angeles Times called out California’s transportation policies, arguing that the state’s highway spending doesn’t match it’s climate promises.

Then again, that’s what we’ve come to expect from the auto-centric Caltrans, despite its repeated commitments to Complete Streets and active transportation.

Two recent reports highlight the discrepancy. Regulators have warned that the state needs to slash the amount of miles people drive 25% below 2019 levels to help meet 2030 emission reduction targets. But traffic and car dependence has increased in recent years, according to a report from the progressive advocacy group NextGen Policy.

It’s no surprise why: California continues to spend the bulk of its transportation dollars to maintain and expand car-centric roads and freeways. Instead of doubling down on the existing system that makes it inconvenient and unsafe to travel by bike, foot and transit, California should be spending the bulk of its transportation funding to remake the urban landscape so people have real choices in how they get around.

But that’s not happening. Of the state’s primary transportation funding programs, just 19% of the money has gone to projects that help reduce the need to drive, such as building out bike lanes, sidewalks, rail service, electric buses and affordable housing near jobs, according to an analysis by the Natural Resources Defense Council. These programs are in such demand that the state is regularly forced to deny funding to highly rated pedestrian and bicycle projects.

It’s worth reading the whole piece, because they’re right.

Caltrans continues to flush massive amounts of funding down the highway widening toilet, addicted to the never-ending chase to fix traffic congestion while fueling induced demand.

And like any other addict, the only solution is to quit.

………

It looks like Amazon’s Prime Days, which concludes today, is the bike world’s new October Black Friday.

………

Road.cc pits a $15,000 superbike against a $430 find from Facebook Marketplace to determine how much speed money can actually buy.

And concludes that it does make a difference, but not as much as you might think.

………

The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

A Cambridge, Massachusetts newspaper says a court heard rehashed arguments in yet another lawsuit fighting the city’s separated bike lanes, after the city has already won preliminary injunctions and subsequent appeals in two similar cases.

A Streetsblog op-ed calls out a proposal supported by a majority of New councilmembers to license all ebike riders, which would create a bureaucratic nightmare and discourage ebike use, while ignoring the lackluster infrastructure and unsafe work standards at the root of the problem.

New Yorkers rode their “little bikes” last night in protest of the mayor’s derisive comments about being able to ride their “little bikes” safely thanks to him, at a time when the city’s bicycling deaths are up dramatically.

………

Local 

West Hollywood sheriff’s deputies reported three collisions involving pedestrians last month and four involving people on bicycles, while stating that enforcing the city’s restrictions on sidewalk riding is a low priority; it’s legal to ride on the sidewalk on any WeHo street without a bike lane.

 

State

Chinese ebike maker Velotric is offering discounts up to 20% to students, staff and faculty at UC San Diego, while the campus expands bike lockers and protected bike lanes.

San Marcos is getting a new eight-acre bike park, including a pump track, perimeter trail and jump lines for beginner, intermediate and advanced riders.

The campus police chief at UC Santa Cruz warns students about the growing bike theft problem at the school, while offering tips on how to keep your bike safe.

 

National

Electrek applauds Seattle’s cute little electric bike lane sweepers.

Denver drivers can’t seem to figure out how a traffic diverter works, continuing through on the wide bike lane instead of following the really big arrows on the street directing them to turn. Although the city deserves a lot of the blame for leaving enough room in the bike lane for cars to enter.

A 28-year old Denver man is nearly 8,000 miles into an effort to visit every US National Park in the Lower 48 states on one continuous bicycle trip; so far he’s made it to just 19 of the 51 parks on his itinerary.

A writer for Kansas’ Rider University student paper describes how a bright blue bicycle took him from an awkward 16-year old kid stuck at home during the pandemic, to a bike-riding man about campus.

This is why we need to ban right turns on red lights. A Kansas driver was caught on video slamming into a bike rider, who had waited until it appeared to be safe before crossing in a crosswalk with the light, and was right hooked by the driver after riding off the curb.

Road diets in Philadelphia led to a 34% decrease in fatalities on the city’s recently constructed Complete Streets.

Abandoned bikeshare bikes continue to litter a South Carolina town after the city’s provider shut down last spring.

 

International

Momentum says riding in a dress this fall is not as difficult as you might think.

A member of Britain’s Conservative Party says he will continue to call for a mandatory bike helmet law in Parliament, despite his own party repeatedly rejecting the proposal.

The mayor of Manilla’s Quezon City returned from a trip to Copenhagen, vowing to use the Danish city’s bicycle-friendly infrastructure as a role model to make her town the bicycling capital of the Philippines.

An Aussie bike advocacy group condemned video of an “entitled” SUV driver crossing the double yellow lines to pass both a bike rider and a second driver who was patiently following the bicyclist waiting for a safe opportunity to pass.

 

Competitive Cycling

Belgian pro Nathan Van Hooydonck says he immediately knew his cycling career was over when he was nearly killed in a car crash after suffering a heart problem while driving; he retired after waking from a coma and being fitted with an internal defibrillator to correct any future cardiac arrhythmia.

 

Finally…

Why settle for being a coffee roaster or a wrench when you can do both? That feeling when the heroine who defends you from bike thieves is an angry mom with a spade.

And why just ride on rubber when you can put the rubber to the rubber?

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Newsom kills bill legalizing sidewalk riding, Calbike responds to firing of Caltrans mobility expert, and bikes mean business

October 10, 2023 / / 7 comments

Governor Gavin Newsom continued his longstanding tradition of brandishing his veto pen to kill bike-friendly bills passed by the state legislature yesterday.

Including a bill that would have legalized sidewalk riding throughout the state, wherever there’s a lack of bike infrastructure.

According to California Streetsblog, 

His veto message says “most sidewalks are not designed for bicyclists to safely use them, and riding on sidewalks would significantly increase the risk of collisions with pedestrians.” But it doesn’t address the risk to someone on a bike who must ride in fast, heavy traffic except to tout the state’s recent investments in bicycle infrastructure – which are nowhere near enough to meet the need for them. And Newsom ignores the original impetus of the bill, which was to address racial discrimination in terms of who is likely to be stopped for riding on a sidewalk in the first place.

In other words, you’ll continue to run the risk of getting a ticket if you take to the sidewalk to avoid a dangerous intersection, usually with no posted warning whether or where it may be legal or banned.

Meanwhile, people of color will continue to run the risk of police harassment, when cops use it as a pretext to stop people riding on the sidewalk.

Then there’s this.

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

On the plus side, Newsom signed Burbank Senator Anthony Portantino’s bill to require hire a “Chief Advisor on Bicycling and Active Transportation,” aka a bike czar. Although it doesn’t require them to actually listen to whoever gets the job.

And local jurisdictions will now be allowed to mount cameras on city or county owned vehicles to photograph and ticket drivers blocking bike lanes, although there’s no word on whether any actually local government currently plans to do that.

At the same time, your own photos and bike cam video will continue to be legally useless when it comes to enforcing traffic laws and bike lane violations.

Governor Newsom also signed a bill to bring greater transparency to Caltrans freeway data.

Photo by Taryn Elliott from Pexels.

………

Calbike offers their response to the firing of Caltrans mobility expert and former Calbike staffer Jeanie Ward-Waller, while calling on the agency to serve all Californians, not just people in cars.

Yeah, good luck with that.

………

Dr. Grace Peng reminds us that bikes mean business, in the South Bay, and everywhere.

Meanwhile, business owners in Asheville NC took aim at their own feet by opposing plans for a lane reduction and buffered bike lanes on a pair of local streets, apparently unaware that bikes mean business, and bike lanes usually result in increased sales.

………

The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

An English bike rider complained about bicycling infrastructure that looks like it was designed by someone who’s never used one, after encountering a gate on a shared-use path that prevented bikes from entering.

………

Local 

Downtown LA News looks forward to CicLAvia’s return to the Heart of Los Angeles this Sunday.

Bike Rumor celebrates Los Angeles-based Hollywood Racks, who have been making car-mounted bike carriers for 50 years.

 

State

No news is good news, right?

 

National

Velo’s Urbanist Update reports on what we discussed recently — the conflicting studies with one showing bike commuting is down, while the other says bike riding is up.

Lifehacker offers tips on how to winterize your ebike. Some of which could actually apply here in California.

Yanko Design offers their top “clever accessories to give your bike a level up makeover,” from zip-on tire tread to an inflatable bike helmet.

No irony here. A Las Vegas Subaru dealer is now sponsoring the city’s annual Ride to Remember to mark the tenth anniversary of a man killed by a driver riding his bike.

An Albuquerque TV station suggests bypassing traffic jams by riding your bike and taking advantage of the bike valet at the city’s annual hot air ballon festival.

A Missoula, Montana writer pens a love letter to her local bike co-op.

Now you, too, can own your very own Chicago-area bike shops, as the owner prepares to shut them down after 26 years so she can retire and go on her own bike tours through Mexico and Italy.

A Minnesota writer complains about Amazon drivers parking in bike lanes, even as he admits it feels like tilting at windmills.

The wife of a fallen New York bicyclist says the city’s mayor doesn’t care if it’s safe to ride a bike in New York.

 

International

Bike Radar offers advice on how to recover mentally from a bicycling crash. My best advice, based on personal experience, is to ride the same route you had planned, which will take you directly past and through the crash site.

Life is cheap in England, where a driver walked without a single day behind bars despite leaving a bike rider with “serious and life-changing injuries,” then getting out of his car to swear at the victim; his victim remains unable to work more than six hours a week, and can’t ride a bike anymore.

A Philippine bike count showed a drop from last year’s record total, with continued demands for better bike infrastructure to serve the country’s bike riders, noting that the nearly 150,000 bicyclists helped reduce carbon emissions by 36.74 metric tons.

 

Competitive Cycling

Tragic news from North Carolina, where gifted young cyclist Zoe Clay died after crashing in a mountain bike race on Sunday; a crowdfunding campaign has already raised over $32,000 for her family.

 

Finally…

If you’re planning a couple nights of crime, maybe don’t ride a distinctive orange bike. If you’re going to steal a bicycle, leave the meth at home.

And that feeling when your daring cliff jump just results in an epic fall.

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin

Category: Morning Links / Tags: ,

Killer Make-A-Wish driver convicted, and Orange driver pleads guilty to intentionally running over bike-riding boyfriend

October 9, 2023 / / Comments Off on Killer Make-A-Wish driver convicted, and Orange driver pleads guilty to intentionally running over bike-riding boyfriend

That didn’t take long.

Mandy Benn, the Michigan driver accused of killed two men participating in a three-day Make-A-Wish fundraising ride while stoned on prescription meds, was found guilty on all 15 counts by the jury, including second-degree murder, after just three hours of deliberation.

Which works out to about 12 minutes a charge.

Benn was attempting to pass a UPS truck when she went onto the wrong side of the road and slammed head-on into a group of riders, injuring three others in addition to the two men who died at the scene.

A detective investigating the crash said she appeared disoriented, and “like she was on a different planet.”

Benn had two painkillers and an anti-anxiety drug in her system at the time of the crash, as well as bottles of prescription meds in her car. The defense tried to blame her disorientation on a concussion suffered in the collision — an excuse the jury clearly rejected.

She could now spend the rest of her life behind bars once she’s sentenced on the murder charges.

Photo by Sora Shimazaki from Pexels: 

………

Maybe she should change her relationship status to “It’s complicated.”

A 29-year old Orange woman will be sentenced later this month after pleading guilty to intentionally running over her then-boyfriend as he rode his bicycle away from her home in December, 2020.

Diana Rodriguez pled guilty to felony counts of assault with a deadly weapon and corporal injury on a spouse or cohabitant, with sentencing enhancements for causing great bodily injury in a domestic violence incident.

Prosecutors dropped a felony count of mayhem, as well as three misdemeanor counts of possession of a controlled substance, as part of her plea deal.

The victim was scorched a hot vehicle part after being pinned under her car, but survived when a neighbor used a jack to lift the car off him.

………

The family of Joshua Cervantes Drayer called for justice and closure more than a year after the 40-year old Dana Point man was killed in a hit-and-run while riding his ebike.

………

The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

The head of Brompton’s bikeshare program criticized UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s new “proudly pro-car” policies, describing Sunak’s attempt to halt the mythical “war on motorists’ as “wedge politics” and an “artificial construct” which will “hopefully blow over given time.”

But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.

A sidewalk-raging English delivery rider went over his handlebars attempting to get at a delivery driver who had called him a dick, among other less-than-friendly terms, for complaining about on the sidewalk, after pointing out that he wasn’t supposed to ride there, either. Meanwhile, the Daily Mail, apparently believing two wrongs do, in fact make a right, clearly sided with the foul-mouthed driver.

………

Local 

A letter writer in the Los Angeles Times pleads with government officials not to take away the cherished right-turn-on-red that so many SoCal drivers seem to assume is their God-given right, arguing that if drivers and pedestrians both obey the law, it’s perfectly safe. Which is about like saying guns are perfectly safe if owners use them properly, and people don’t step in front of the bullets.

The Beverly Hills Courier considers the city’s plan to add bike lanes to a third-mile section of Beverly Blvd.

 

State

San Diego’s commitment to building an actual bike lane network is paying off, after our neighbor to the south was recognized as America’s “greenest” city.

I want to be like him when I grow up. Holocaust survivor and age-group world cycling champ Leon Malmed celebrated his 86th birthday with a South Lake Tahoe bike ride.

 

National

A 53-year old woman was charged with careless driving for killing a ten-year old boy riding a bicycle in a small town near my Colorado hometown; police concluded she was driving distracted, after initially blaming the victim.

Hundreds of Houston bicyclists turned out for a memorial ride through streets lined with green ribbons to honor a 14-year old boy who was killed by a driver while riding his bike to school last week.

Bloomington, Indiana hamstrung an award-winning bikeway by installing new stop signs, slowing bike riders as well as the intended drivers.

A Cambridge, Massachusetts letter writer calls attention to a recent USDOT report that says bike lanes protected with car-ticker plastic pendy-posts reduced crashes by 50 percent when compared to bike lanes without them.

Police in New York are looking for a man who beat a 66-year old woman with a collapsable baton, knocking her off her bicycle, after the two nearly collided in Central Park.

Echoing a statement we’ve all heard too many times, North Carolina bicyclists say a 61-year old man was doing everything right when he was run down from behind and killed by a driver while attempting to make a left turn.

 

International

Insider Monkey — no, that’s not a typo — lists the world’s 20 most bike-friendly countries, and somehow includes the United States, where bikes and all other forms of transportation take a back seat to cars, at number 13, ahead of Japan, England, Spain and Italy; the Netherlands and Denmark naturally lead the rankings, with Australia — which is even more bike-unfriendly than the US — coming in third.

A Toronto college student got his stolen ebike back after launching his own investigation, and finding it for sale at a “really sketchy bike shop with no name.”

Life is cheap in Jersey, where a 51-year old driver walked without a day behind bars, as if a lousy six-month driving ban and community service is sufficient punishment for seriously injuring a bike rider in a “momentary lapse of concentration.

A stoned truck driver in Edinburgh, Scotland will have to find a new line of work after he was sentenced to two years behind bars and banned from driving for eight more, for killing an intensive care nurse who was biking to work during the pandemic.

An 85-year old Scottish woman rode her bicycle to cope with her grief over the deaths of her adult children, riding 1,000 miles around the country while raising the equivalent of nearly $88,000 for charity in the process. I have no idea how many hundreds of miles I rode to cope with my father’s death.

The leader of the Cyprus Green Party calls for an end to the country’s mandatory bike helmet law.

A writer for Taiwan News wants you to put the island on your bike bucket list.

Speaking of Australia, The Guardian says more Australian families are ditching cars for ebikes, in part because they pay for themselves. To which Californians who have waited more than two years for the state’s long-delayed ebike rebate program, respond “We wouldn’t know.”

 

Competitive Cycling

Slovenia’s Tadej Pogačar became just the third cyclist to win three consecutive editions of Italy’s Il Lombardia, after Alfredo Binda won three in 1925-1927, and the great Fausto Coppi won four in a row from 1946 to 1949.

Fellow Slovenian Matej Mohorič won his first senior world title at Sunday’s Gravel World Championships, apparently while riding an as-yet unreleased Merida gravel bike.

Australian cyclist Nathan Haas was forced to ride a bike quickly pulled from Colnago’s in-house museum at Sunday’s gravel world championships after his bike was lost by the airline.

New Zealand’s 34-year old “Flying Mullet” Shane Archbold calls it a career after a decade in the pro peloton.

Mountain bikers from 19 states and three countries set off from downtown Hot Springs, Arkansas Saturday for the 1,000-mile Arkansas High Country race.

 

Finally…

Your next bike could come wrapped in 24 karat gold and cost more than a Rolls-Royce. Nothing like riding your bike to Hell and back. No, literally.

And that’s a very good question.

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Both sides rest in fatal Michigan Make-A-Wish drugged driving trial, and Calbike calls out anti-bike bias in SoCal ebike regs

October 6, 2023 / / One comment

Once again, the Nobel Peace Prize committee failed to recognize my work for bike blogging, giving the award to an imprisoned Iranian human rights activist, instead. 

Maybe next year, right?

Photo by Sora Shimazaki from Pexels.

………

Both sides have rested in the trial of Mandy Benn, the alleged drugged driver charged with killing two men, and injuring three other people participating in a three day, 300-mile Michigan Make-A-Wish fundraising ride earlier this year.

Benn hit the victims head-on while attempting an ill-fated pass of a UPS truck, then said the crash scene “almost looks real,” while showing signs of intoxication.

The defense blamed her bizarre behavior on a concussion, rather than the two painkillers and an anti-anxiety drug in her system at the time of the crash.

………

Calbike is responding the the recent spate of anti-ebike laws by calling out the inherent anti-bike bias.

The statewide bike advocacy org is urging SoCal cities to reverse discriminatory bicycle regulations, even as more communities are calling for stricter regulation of electric bicycles, threatening the rapidly expanding ebike boom.

Nice to see the group take a stand and get in the fight.

Thanks to Malcomb Watson for the second link.

………

A photographic throwback to the good ol’ days of pre-hipster New York bike messengers.

https://twitter.com/OriginCycling/status/1709984041905037385

………

The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

Authorities in Tacoma, Washington identified the 51-year old man police believe was intentionally run down by an SUV driver as he was riding his bike late last month; police have still not found the hit-and-run driver or the suspect vehicle.

………

Local 

BikeLA introduces writer and director Shem Bitterman, co-organizer of the Writer’s Guild’s successful Bike the Strike movement.

Streets For All founder Michael Schneider applauds Beverly Hills plan to install bike lanes on a stretch of Beverly Blvd, calling it “a small, yet critical win in the right direction.”

KTLA-5’s LA Unscripted reports on bicycle explorations of the city led by Handlebar Bike Tours.

Streetsblog’s SGV Connect podcast looks forward to the coming ArroyoFest on the 110 Freeway, aka the Arroyo Seco Parkway, at the end of this month.

Palmdale is hosting a Halloween-themed bicycle parade on the 28th to promote bicycle safety and gather public opinion on city’s cycling infrastructure.

 

State

Parents in Palo Alto call on the city and school system to better protect students biking and riding scooters to and from school.

San Francisco is finally moving forward with protected bike lanes on Arguello Blvd between Golden Gate Park and the Presidio after securing $1.2 million in state funding; the long-delayed project follows the April death of cycling champ Ethan Boyes on the street, although just what kind of protection will be offered remains to be determined.

Momentum looks at San Francisco’s proposal to ban right turns on red lights, saying it could really keep bicyclists safe.

The parents of a fallen four-year old girl say Oakland leaders have been very responsive to their demands to improve bike safety, after she was doored while riding in a child’s seat on her father’s bike.

A Sacramento man is starting a bike ride to raise funds and awareness to fight breast cancer, following the death of his wife from the disease 22 years ago.

 

National

Bicycling recommends places around the US to do a little gravel grinding, asking of it’s just them, or if this gravel biking thing is really catching on. As usual, read it on Yahoo if the magazine blocks you. 

A Seattle public radio station introduces listeners to the guerrilla gardener of the city’s 520 bike path, who spends his spare time keeping the pathway safe and clear because the local government isn’t doing it.

A Salt Lake City op-ed says the area’s the state-of-the-art wide, green bike lanes look nice but put bike riders on dangerous streets, with the writer calling for physically separated pathways instead. Hint: If it isn’t completely protected, it ain’t state-of-the-art.  

Wisconsin Republicans are responding to a photo suggesting a child may have participated in Madison’s edition of the World Naked Bike Ride by introducing a pair of bills banning public nudity, as well as another banning children from any event featuring nudity.

He gets it. A longtime London and New York bike commuter says between problems like cars parked in bike lanes and a lack of secure bike parking, it’s no wonder people don’t want to bike to work.

New York has a box truck problem, after a 56-year old man riding a bicycle was killed by a truck driver in Brooklyn yesterday, and a man riding a moped was killed in a collision with a truck driver on the Upper East Side less than seven hours earlier.

New York’s 26 bicycling deaths this year is the most since the city adopted Vision Zero nearly ten years ago.

A Lancaster, Pennsylvania man faces multiple felony counts for the hit-and-run crash that killed a man riding his bicycle to his family’s farm to tend to their animals last month; the victim’s brother discovered his body and what was left of his bike in a cornfield when he went searching for him. Thanks to Mike Bike for the heads-up, who quite appropriately calls the driver a scumbag.

 

International

Momentum asks if North America can follow Europe’s example, after the EU issued an official declaration in support of bicycling.

Life is cheap in Edinburgh, where a stoned driver was sentenced to just two years behind bars for killing an intensive care nurse as he rode his bike to work during the pandemic.

A new French company is introducing a low-tech foldie with full-sized wheels, designed to fit under your desk.

An Indian city is responding to the death of a bike-riding dentist at the hands of a speeding autorickshaw driver with a proposal to build a dedicated cycle track.

Two men were killed, and four others suffered minor injuries, when a speeding hit-and-run driver slammed into a group of Thai bicyclists, strewing bike parts all over the roadway.

 

Competitive Cycling

Tadej Pogačar goes on a revenge ride to reclaim his KOM after noticing his 2021 Lombardia ride had been flagged.

Velo credits Strava and Twitter with saving Dutch cyclist Steven de Jongh’s life after he was knocked unconscious on a training ride, helping to find him before it was too late.

 

Finally…

Streets get road diets, bike lanes go on sign diets. That feeling when you gently shoo a driver out of a protected bike lane, complete with a bike rack on the back of their car.

And anyone who wins the women’s Tour de France earns the right to train with anyone they want on their back.

 

………

Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.

Oh, and fuck Putin

Category: Morning Links / Tags: ,
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