Tag Archive for Los Angeles

Arizona toll rises to 19 including two dead, how to protect yourself on two wheels, and Ballona Creek path could be extended

February 28, 2023 / / 2 comments

Make that 19.

The number of victims in Saturday’s bicycling massacre in Phoenix suburb Goodyear, Arizona has risen to two dead and 17 injured.

NPR reports the victims of the crash have been identified as a woman from Goodyear and a man visiting from Michigan, both 61-years old. Eight people remain hospitalized, with one in critical condition.

According to the AZ Central website,

Goodyear Mayor Joe Pizzillo also offered his condolences to those whom the fatal collision had impacted.

“We have a tight-knit cycling community, so this has deeply affected many across the West Valley,” Pizzillo said at a news conference at the city’s police station. “But a tragedy like this affects the entire community of Goodyear.”

Twenty-six-year old driver Pedro Quintana-Lujan reportedly told police his steering had locked before the truck drifted right and ran down the riders, likely one and two at a time. One victim said he wasn’t actually struck by the truck, but by the bodies of victims piled on its grill.

Police report there is currently no indication that the crash was intentional. The results of a blood test to determine if the driver was under the influence are still pending; however, as Arizona Bike Law points out, police would have needed evidence of intoxication in order to get a warrant for the blood test.

According to AZ Central, court documents show Quintana-Lujan told police he had smoked marijuana with his wife the previous evening, roughly 11 hours before the collision.

There’s no report on whether police are looking at distraction as a possible cause, or have examined Quintana-Lujan’s phone.

The victims were participating in a regular weekly ride sponsored by the West Valley Cycle bike club. They were among 20 riders in the second of three groups taking part in the ride when the driver mowed them down, spewing bodies in every direction.

Which means only one person on a bike managed to avoid becoming a victim. Chillingly, no one was likely aware of the driver before he plowed through the entire group.

“No one really saw the truck because he pretty much hit the back of the group and came all the way through the group,” (club founder David) Herzog told NPR.

The driver was in a massive Ford F-250 pickup, designed with a flat front grill that would have acted as a sledge hammer when driven at speed; a trailer being pulled by the truck would have added mass while limiting maneuverability.

Quintana-Lujan faces a raft of charges after prosecutors threw the book at him, including two counts of manslaughter and three counts of aggravated assault; at last report, he was still being held on $250,000 bond.

A crowdfunding campaign for the victims has raised nearly $80,000 of the $120,000 goal.

On a personal note, I’m having a hard time coping with this one, and all the emotions it brings up. Like mass shootings, mass casualty crashes like this just shouldn’t happen. 

Photo from Pexels.

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BikinginLA sponsor Richard Duquette emailed to say the 65-year old bike shop worker seriously injured in the Goodyear crash that we mentioned yesterday had just helped him with his bike last month.

He also reminds all of us of something we have discussed here before, that one of the best ways to protect yourself is to max out the coverage on your own automotive insurance, which also covers you on your bicycle.

Buy the maximum Auto Uninsured/Under insured motorist ($500k min.) & excess Umbrella ($2M) coverage with a UM/UIM “rider” (not just liability) because YOU then control the amount of coverage, instead of relying on the defendant drivers insurance limit, if any, or if in the “course & scope of employers coverage”.

Mass crashes like this may prove difficult getting full compensation, as there will be multiple victims to apportion damages. So spending the money on strong insurance coverage is a critical family & financial planning investment as a bicyclist.

He explains more in this blog post from 2016.

Frequent contributor and San Diego bike advocate Phillip Young also offered his thoughts on how to avoid being a victim of a motorist.

A brightly colored bicycling kit especially with bio movement (bight color with movement) and a rear view mirror may save a trip to the emergency room (ER) or morgue. Easily seeing cars from behind with a mirror is essential situation awareness.

Wear brightly colored bicycling kit [Yellow Chartreuse (best), White (2nd Best) or Orange (3rd Best)]:

  1. Jersey
  2. Helmet
  3. Reflective vest
  4. Shoes, shoe covers, or socks and pants (bio movement)
  5. Front and back blinky lights. (lights with bio movement are the best on arms and legs)
  6. Spoke reflectors, front and rear reflectors, and other reflectors
  7. Rear view mirror (Third Eye bar end mirror is the best)

I can’t argue with any of his advice, although my personal take is to wear colors that contrast with the environment you’ll be riding in. Dark colors can be effective in bright daylight, while light or hi-viz colors are a must at night; we’ve all seen Ninja cyclists decked out entirely in black.

Or maybe we haven’t, which is exactly the problem.

I also believe in using multiple bright running lights, day or night, with a steady white light and flashing white light in front, and three flashers in back.

That’s based on the advice of bike crash survivor Mark Goodley, who researched the optimal approach to lights following the collision that nearly killed him.

I’ve never felt the need for a mirror, since I could usually sense a car coming up from behind before they got close enough to pose a danger. But now that I’m older, I find I get surprised more often, making a mirror a valuable safety tool.

And Young is absolutely right about wearing something attention-getting on your legs. I wear reflective ankle bands at night, and should probably up my shoe and sock game during the day, to ensure drivers see them pumping up and down.

I’ve been known to strap a light to my ankle, though that’s not always easy or comfortable.

I also advise adding front and rear facing bike cams, which could be the only way to provide your side of the story in a serious crash, because the cops will talk to the driver while you’re being hustled away by paramedics.

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Today’s must read comes in the form of an op-ed from Streets For All Founder Michael Schneider.

Writing for the Los Angeles Times, Schneider bemoans the days when kids could walk and bike in their own neighborhoods.

Half a century ago, it was very common for kids to disappear into their neighborhood and play with other kids, often arriving by bike. This included the school commute. In 1969, 48% of children 5 to 14 walked or biked themselves to school. By 2009, this was down to 13%.

The result has been an enormous increase in children arriving by car. Anyone with school-age children is likely familiar with long and chaotic car dropoff lines in front of schools all over Los Angeles. The same applies to kids’ playdates, activities, sporting events, etc. — usually, children arrive and depart by car.

A large part of the problem — pun intentional — is the ever increasing size of motor vehicles, crowded into streets and lanes that remain the same size they were decades earlier.

The 1973 Honda Civic was 140 inches long and 59 inches high. Today, a Honda Civic is 168 inches long and 70 inches high. A 2015 Ford Mustang is 63% larger than its 1964 predecessor. A 2018 Mini Cooper is 61% larger than its 1950 counterpart. A 2013 Land Rover is 43% larger than a 1981 model. And a modern-day pickup truck or SUV is larger than a World War II-era Sherman tank.

As cars get larger, they squeeze space in existing roads, leaving even less room for pedestrians and cyclists. Where a kid on a bike might have been able to fit comfortably between parked cars and moving cars before, they are now more likely to be perilously sandwiched between them. Even just crossing the street has become harder because of the awful blind spots for drivers of modern,massive SUVs.

It’s more than worth a few minutes of your day to read the whole thing.

Because there’s no clearer sign that our cities have failed us than the way they’ve failed our children.

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Speaking of Michael Schneider, it looks like he won a major victory in the effort to extend the popular Ballona Creek Bike Path to near where the creek rises to the surface at its eastern end.

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An effort is underway at the state legislature to ban bans on sidewalk riding, in the absence of safe bikeways.

As the tweet suggests, allowing people to ride their bikes on the sidewalk when there’s no bike infrastructure present enables them to decide what is safest and most comfortable way to ride in that situation, without fear of getting a ticket for trying to protect your own life

However, it’s important to remember that pedestrians have the right-of-way, and we all have to ride safely and courteously around them.

Another bill sponsored by Streets For All would eliminate jail terms for transit fare evasion.

Now if we could just get someone to introduce a bill to permanently revoke drivers licenses from hit-and-run drivers.

Finally, the transportation and safety PAC is hosting their next virtual happy hour a week from tomorrow, with Culver City Vice Mayor Yasmine-Imani McMorrin.

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The winds of political reform are finally blowing in Los Angeles County, as Supervisors Lindsey Horvath and Holly Mitchell are proposing an expansion of the five-member Board of Supervisors, traditionally known as the five little kings for the power they’ve enjoyed over the years.

With the two sponsors on board, they just need one more vote to pass the motion.

And yes, that’s a good thing.

https://twitter.com/LindseyPHorvath/status/1630282154113650689

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Pasadena’s Municipal Services Committee will receive a report at this afternoon’s meeting recommending the city reject a proposed ebike incentive program; ActiveSGV calls for comments calling for rejecting the rejection.

https://twitter.com/ActiveSGV/status/1630311877296427008

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Has it really been that long?

Culver City-based street safety and bicycle education nonprofit advocacy group Walk ‘N Rollers is celebrating their 11th anniversary next month.

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Gravel Bike California rode up to the snow that fell over the weekend above the San Fernando Valley.

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This is what a city does when it’s serious about fighting climate change.

https://twitter.com/Anne_Hidalgo/status/1630460341678112769

That tweet translates to:

Fighting pollution also means supporting Parisians in their transition to other means of transport.

This is what we do by offering numerous financial aids for the purchase of bicycles.

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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 writer for City Watch with a severe case of windshield bias calls for free transit use while rejecting bicycling out of hand, suggesting that “bike lanes and other traffic-“calming” measures are probably the worst approach since these practices constrict traffic flow creating more congestion, increasing engine idling, and in many areas exacerbating the inability for trucks to make deliveries, moms to drop off kids, or even to back into a parking space if that rara avis should become available.” You can read her full misguided take, if you can navigate the site’s seemingly interminable popups. 

A Kiwi man says local officials laughed at him when he requested separate bike paths and underpasses for bicyclists at a new roundabout that’s under construction, warning that the dangerous design could result in a bike rider being killed in the first year.

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Local 

Streetsblog offers a wrap-up on Sunday’s successful CicLAvia in the San Fernando Valley, along with a schedule of upcoming CicLAvias; the next one will be Mid City meets Pico-Union the day before April’s Tax Day. Get your taxes done early so you’re not stuck at home with a pile of receipts, when you could be out enjoying the carfree streets.

The long-awaited Mark Bixby Memorial Bicycle and Pedestrian Path on the new $1.5 billion Long Beach International Gateway Bridge is slated to open in May, following the completion of demolition work on the former Gerald Desmond Bridge; the path is named for longtime local bike advocate Mark Bixby, who was killed in a Long Beach plane crash along with four other community leaders.

If you need a cop to come out to a relatively minor crash in Long Beach, better tell the dispatcher you think the driver is drunk or stoned or you won’t see one.

 

State

California is offering $33 million to underserved communities to launch and support new and existing shared mobility projects, including bikeshare.

San Luis Obispo is considering allowing bike riders onto the sidewalk.

 

National

A Honolulu TV station considers bicycling as part of their Multimodal Mondays.

Hiking advocates question proposals in the Montana legislature that would allow ebikes anywhere that bicycles are allowed, including off-road trails. One thing that often gets lost in that debate is that ebikes provide backcountry access to countless people who would not be able to enjoy it otherwise. 

Dallas has combined 39 miles of existing bike trails with 11 miles of newly built bikeways to create a 50-mile loop around the city.

Oops. WWI flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker almost didn’t become one of the most decorated aviators in American history, after cracking his skull attempting to fly his bicycle off a Columbus, Ohio shed in an attempt to imitate the Wright Brothers flight.

The family of a fallen New York bicyclist is suing the city for $100 million, alleging that nothing was done to fix the corridor she was riding on despite five previous deaths in less than two decades. They may have a case, since they can prove the city was aware of the problem, but didn’t correct it. Although the eventual settlement will be far lower than what they’re asking.

A Central Pennsylvania public radio station shares a poem about the intersection of bicycling and Alzheimer’s from Pennsylvania poet Henry Israeli.

Florida’s Highway Patrol is wrapping up their hit-and-run awareness month by telling drivers to stay at the scene after a crash, after Tampa Bay saw over 300 drivers flee this month.

 

International

Bike Radar examines how to prevent hand and wrist pain when you ride. A good padded handlebar tape and padded bike gloves help. So does relaxing your death grip on them in stressful situations.

A South London bike shop owner surprisingly argues that expanding the city’s Ultra Low Emission Zone will just cause chaos. Although the fact that he owns nine cars, and it would cost him the equivalent of nearly $100,000 to make just three of them compliant with the new rules, might have something to do with it.

It only took 18 months, but a London truck driver has finally been charged with killing a pediatrician who was biking to work after taking it up during the pandemic. But whoever designed the city’s Holborn gyratory, where eight bike riders have been killed in the last 15 years, should face charges, too.

A new dockless bikeshare service named Fredo aims to provide last-mile connectivity in suburban France. Although things did not end well for Fredo in The Godfather II. 

Austria gets serious about multimodal commuting by offering a subsidy of up to the equivalent of $636 on the purchase of a folding bike, but only for people with an annual transit pass; the country is also offering a subsidy of half off the price of an ebike, up to a little over $1,000.

Fatal car crashes surged in Germany last year; not surprisingly, bike riders and pedestrians remained among the most vulnerable victims, with death rates rising for both groups.

Spanish newspaper El Pais reports on the new study showing stolen Dutch bicycles usually remain in the city where they were taken, continuing to contribute to the local economy. Even if the original owners are screwed.

Arevo says they’ve fulfilled 96% of the more than 2,800 Indiegogo orders for their new Superstrata custom carbon bikes and ebikes, which are being 3D printed and assembled in Vietnam.

Tragic news from the Philippines, where a 14-year old boy was killed when he failed to round a corner on his bicycle, and rode off a 33-foot cliff; family members blamed the crash on a broken brake.

 

Competitive Cycling

Cycling Weekly says the opening weekend of the bike racing season has seen a shift from Jumbo-Visma to Soudal-Quick Step as the classics team to beat. And no, I didn’t know they have earthquakes in the UK.

Cycling Weekly’s point was driven home by the remarkable feat of Jumbo-Visma rider and Tour de France champ Jonas Vingegaard winning all four stages of the O Gran Camiño.

 

Finally…

Now you, too, can have your picture taken on a giant bicycle with Mexican conchas for wheels. That feeling when selling your bicycle means a more than 13 hour, 43-mile walk home.

And bbenfulton reminds us that reggae legend Peter Tosh was…uh, half of us, too.

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

 

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

AZ driver plows into club ride killing 2 and injuring 11, a successful CicLAvia, and a more walkable bikeable Eagle Rock

February 27, 2023 / / 2 comments

It’s happened again.

Just 18 months after a driver plowed through a master’s bike race in Show Low, Arizona, killing one man and injuring seven others, another driver has done virtually the same thing just 200 miles away.

According to multiple sources, a pickup driver towing a trailer plowed through a group of bicyclists with the West Valley Cycling club in the Phoenix suburb of Goodyear, Arizona Saturday morning, killing two people and leaving eleven others with “very serious injuries.”

One woman died at the scene, the other victim died after being taken to a local hospital. At least one of the injured bike riders was still in critical condition a day later.

The driver, 26-year old Pedro Quintana-Lujan, was booked on charges including two counts of manslaughter, three counts of aggravated assault, 18 counts of endangerment, and two counts of causing serious injury or death by a moving violation.

CNN reports that Maricopa County jail records show Quintana-Lujan was being held on $250,000 bond.

The owner of a Phoenix Trek bike shop said one his employees was among the injured, saying it will be a long time the 65-year old man will be able to work again.

Another bike shop owner said a recently retired friend and customer had already undergone two surgeries to stabilize his cerebral spine, with more in his future.

No word yet on whether Quintana-Lujan was distracted or under the influence. Or why he was apparently unable to see a couple dozen people on bicycles directly ahead of his truck.

Thanks to Victor Bale and Phillip Young for the heads-up.

Photo by Artyom Kulakov from Pexels.

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By all accounts, the year’s first CicLAvia was a success, even if the cold and cloudy weather may have dampened turnout.

Spirits clearly weren’t dampened, however.

Even one of California’s newly elected state senators was among the people enjoying the carfree street.

And for one day, at least, the San Fernando Valley looked a lot like Paris and Guadalajara.

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You have just two more weeks to voice your support for a bikeable, walkable and livable Colorado Blvd through Eagle Rock.

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The bizarre 15-minute city conspiracy theory continues to gain ground, as proponents argue that the benign urban planning philosophy is somehow “a plot by ‘tyrannical bureaucrats’ to take our cars and control our lives, which could lead to a real-life Hunger Games scenario.”

Um, okay.

Meanwhile, CNN reports an Oxford, England politician received death threats — many from outside the country — for proposing a plan to filter traffic using traffic cams to limit drivers from cutting through a neighborhood at peak times.

As we’ve discussed before, nothing in the 15-minute city concept prevents motorists from leaving their own neighborhoods, or driving through the city. It merely means that everything you need for daily life should be found within 15 minutes of your home.

According to CNN, the conspiracy theory originally gained traction among Q-Anon theorists and climate change deniers. And Fox News and other conservative media were only happy to fan the flames.

Which led to this —

In December, Canadian clinical psychologist and climate skeptic Jordan Peterson posted a tweet attacking 15-minute cities: “The idea that neighborhoods should be walkable is lovely. The idea that idiot tyrannical bureaucrats can decide by fiat where you’re ‘allowed’ to drive is perhaps the worst imaginable perversion of that idea.”

In early February, UK politician Nick Fletcher raised the conspiracy in Parliament, calling 15-minute cities an “international socialist concept” and claimed they “will cost us our personal freedom.”

And last weekend, online theories spilled into real life protests, as thousands of people, many from outside the area, took to the streets of Oxford to protest the traffic filtering and 15-minute city proposals.

Let’s hope the world regains its sanity. Because walkable, bikeable 15-minute cities are the solution.

Not the problem.

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Legendary jazz saxophonist Dexter Gordon was one of us.

https://twitter.com/CoolBikeArt1/status/1630070221812944896

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A young Elizabeth Taylor was one of us, too.

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A backwards Penny Farthing was apparently the BMX of its day.

More proof you can carry anything on two wheels.

Or one, even.

And nothing actually says your unicycle has to have a wheel.

Click on the photo to see the full image. Trust me, it’s worth it. 

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

A Cleveland website says an Ohio legislator needs to explain his overreach on bike lanes, which would have banned a planned center lane cycle track in Cleveland.

Apparently having no grasp of physics, and little on reality, nearly two-thirds of British drivers believe aggressive bicyclists are a threat to their safety, and a bigger danger than they were just three years earlier.

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

An Ontario, Canada man faces charges for getting off his bicycle, and using it to assault a woman pedestrian after demanding money from her.

A lawsuit by a Taipei ebike rider backfired after a judge ruled he was at fault for riding into the back of a double parked car, saying he had plenty of room to go around it.

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Local 

He gets it. Paul Thornton, the Letters Editor for the Los Angeles Times, asks if LA drivers have suddenly become more okay with endangering lives, arguing that “sitting behind a steering wheel can turn a reasonable person into a borderline psychopath, willing to threaten the life of anyone in the way.” Which was one of the many reasons I quit driving, because I didn’t like who I became behind the wheel.

A letter writer in the Times argues that the best way to protect yourself is to ride with a camera facing in every direction, and get a good lawyer.

Pomona has received a $11.3 million grant to build a 3.5-mile trail along the San Jose Creek that will take pedestrians and cyclists from Cal Poly Pomona to the LA County Fairplex.

 

State

California Walks and UC Berkeley’s Safe Transportation Research and Education Center, aka SafeTREC, are offering free training on how to assess current conditions and identify ways to improve safety for bicyclists and pedestrians.

Costa Mesa quietly revoked its bike licensing requirement last week, after similar licensing laws were banned as part of last year’s Omnibus Bike Bill passed by the state legislature; two Costa Mesa safe streets advocates were instrumental in getting the ban included in the bill, after discovering the city’s licensing requirement had been used primarily to target the homeless and people of color.

Ebike collisions continue to rise in San Diego’s coastal North County area. Although a rise in injuries could simply be attributable to an increase in ebike ridership.

Melissa Gonzalez, the San Diego driver facing a slap on the wrist for killing Matthew Keenan in a wrong way, head-on crash as he rode his bike in Mission Valley two years ago, defied expectations by pleading not guilty, and will face trial in May, as his widow demands more accountability for the crash.

That’s more like it. A 35-year old man was sentenced to 16 years and 4 months to life behind bars for the drunken Palm Springs motor vehicle crash that killed a 56-year old man. Although as Victor Bale suggested in forwarding this, if the victim had been on a bicycle, he probably would have gotten a slap on the wrist, too.

Troubled pop star Britney Spears received a warning from Ventura County animal control after her two-year old doberman escaped her Thousand Oaks compound, and bit a 71-year old man riding his bicycle nearby.

Up to a thousand people are expected to turn out for Saturday’s Solvang Century Bike Ride through Santa Barbara County

Berkeley is inviting low-income residents to apply for a lottery to get an ebike for long-term use as part of a city-funded program. Although they define low-income a lot differently than I do, with incomes up to $74,000 for an individual, or $106,000 for a family of four. 

 

National

A writer for the Competitive Enterprise Institute says we won’t need more lithium and other rare minerals for EV batteries if we just ban cars and suburbs. Except he somehow seems to think that’s a bad thing.

The president of a Colorado trucking association calls on Denver to rethink its Vision Zero program, arguing that deaths will continue to soar without an increased emphasis on enforcement of traffic laws.

A Texas driver accepted a plea for seven-years behind bars for killing a well-known 67-year old Galveston physician as she was riding her bike last March.

An “activist” bicycling group in Rochester, New York is riding to protest police violence and fight for a more inclusive society.

That’s more like it. After a Manhattan taxi driver jumped the curbed after hitting a bike rider, trapping two people under the cab, New York’s mayor announced that a three block section of Broadway where the crash occurred will be closed to motor vehicles between 8 am and 11 pm. Then again, the street was already a bicyclist’s paradise in the 1890s.

Life is cheap in New York, where a US Postal Service driver faces just one month behind bars and a lousy $250 fine after being convicted of misdemeanor failure to yield for killing a 71-year old man riding a bicycle in a right hook crash; his attorney tried to blame the victim for his own death, insisting he could have braked to avoid the impact. Spoken like someone who has never been right hooked on a bike. As usual, read it on Yahoo if Bicycling blocks you. 

A quick-thinking Atlanta cop is credited with saving the life of a bike-riding man, who collapsed unexpectedly moments after the officer waved him through an intersection.

The Tampa Bay Times says a 40-year old woman riding a bike has been killed by Florida Highway Patrol car. Which was apparently driving itself, since the story doesn’t mention a human being, let alone a sworn officer, having anything to do with the crash.

 

International

Move Electric examines how common ebike theft is, and what you can do to prevent it.

They get it, too. A Canadian website says Toronto’s Vision Zero plan is all that stands between bike riders and total road anarchy, with “lot more fear, anger and impatience on the roads, and the veneer of civil behavior badly eroded.”

An American woman was left with a nearly $17,000 hospital bill after hitting a pothole while riding her bike on a Scottish roadway.

A day after we mentioned a British woman on trial for pushing a 77-year old woman off her bike, she was convicted of manslaughter, and will be sentenced on Thursday; she claimed she was just gesturing wildly as she complained about the woman riding on the sidewalk, and may have inadvertently hit her. The jury clearly didn’t believe her, either.

Road.cc considers why former BBC host Dan Walker’s call to wear a helmet is controversial, after he credited his with saving his life.

Stockholm, Sweden is getting its first bicycle street, where bicycles will receive priority over other forms of traffic. Which has no known equivalent in Southern California, let alone Los Angeles. 

They get it. A South African website says bicycling could solve transportation problems in Cape Town, calling for an integrated transportation network with bicycling at its heart.

A new documentary looks at the two decade old case of a disabled Japanese man who died in custody, after fleeing from police on his bicycle when they tried to stop him for “acting suspiciously.”

Bicycling Australia chooses their gear of the year, noting the bicycling products that captured their attention. Many, if not most, of which should be available here in the US. 

 

Competitive Cycling

The New York Times offers a deep dive profile on 33-year old individual pursuit world champ and record holder Ashton Lambie, who was working at a bike shop and randonneuring before he took his first ride on a grass velodrome in Kansas, on a borrowed bike, less than seven years ago. And won, of course.

Twenty-three-year old world champ Remco Evenepoel added another notch on his belt with a victory in the UAE Tour.

Colombian Egan Bernal will not be racing in this week’s Paris-Nice after being sidelined by a knee injury, as he returns to racing after last year’s near fatal training crash.

USA Cycling could be looking for you, as the national cycling body set off a “new talent-identification program aimed at underrepresented and more diverse communities” for its track cycling program. Once again, read it on Yahoo if Bicycling blocks you. 

 

Finally…

We may have to deal with feral LA drivers, but at least we don’t have to use our ebike’s turbo boost to outrun a pack of hungry wolves; thanks again to Phillip Young. Thankfully, we don’t have to worry about being trampled to death by elephants, either.

And unlike most bike-riding dogs, cats don’t need a basket.

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

 

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

Advice for riding in the rain — just don’t, CicLAvia rolls Sunday rain or shine, and psych exam for confessed Mammone killer

February 24, 2023 / / 2 comments

Let’s start with what’s anticipated to be a freakishly heavy winter storm, which is just beginning to pelt Southern California with rain as I write this.

BikeLA, nee LACBC, dug deep into its archives to pull out some good tips for riding in the rain, like making sure you can be seen in low visibility, and avoiding puddles since you have no way of knowing what’s underneath.

Even if it is a lot more fun to coast through them.

But if the storm turns out to be as bad as they’re predicting, with two to four inches of rain at the coast, and more in higher areas, and snow levels down to 2,000 feet, you’re probably better off just sitting this one out.

So unless you absolutely have to ride your bike, just stay safe and leave it at home for a couple days.

Then bring it out for Sunday’s CicLAvia on Sherman Way through Canoga Park,  Winnetka and Reseda in the San Fernando Valley, when the city is supposed to briefly dry out before another series of storms rolls in on Monday.

You can even visit the Metro Art Bus at CicLAvia, and get a baby popup art bus of your very own.

And yes, CicLAvia is scheduled to take place, rain or shine.

Photo by Tetyana Kovyrina from Pexels.

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Speaking of which, BikeLA has canceled this weekend’s planned Griffith Park Mountain Madness Ride due to hazardous weather conditions.

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The judge overseeing the murder case against Vanroy Evan Smith has appointed a pair of mental health experts to examine the 39-year old Long Beach man, after his attorney questioned whether Smith is competent to stand trial.

No shit, considering he claims to be both God and Jesus, all rolled into one, and therefore entitled to kill anyone he wants.

Assuming the court rules he’s unable to understand or participate in the case against him for the alleged murder of Dr. Michael Mammone as he rode his bike in Dana Point — which is a pretty safe bet at this point — Smith would be sent to a state mental hospital for treatment.

The case could then resume when and if he’s ever found competent to stand trial.

As heinous as this crime was, Smith is a clearly a victim of our country’s failed mental health system, and should have had treatment for his mental illness long before he became a danger to Mammone, or anyone else.

Unfortunately, though, we can’t put America’s mental health system on trial.

And from all appearances, it will be a long time before Smith ever sees a courtroom for murdering Mammone with his car and knife, if he ever does.

Or before Mammone ever sees justice.

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She gets it.

Climate advocate Rebecca Tiffany makes the case for why 16 is too young to get a driver’s license.

Then again, I know some people a hell of a lot older who shouldn’t have one, either.

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Gravel Bike California calls Ventura County’s Rock Cobbler one of gravel’s hardest and most beloved events, asking if sheer survival has ever been so much fun.

Although it’s a sad commentary about our world when such a joyful cycling film has to start with an “in memoriam” panel.

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

Talk about not getting it. Less than a month after People For Bikes named a fully separated Bloomington, Indiana bike lane the 5th best new bike project in the US, a local mayoral candidate wants to redesign it to make it safer for other road users. Because apparently, bikeways are there to protect buses and emergency vehicles, too. Thanks to Ben Fulton for the heads-up.

No bias here. After a bike rider leaves a sign pleading for vandals to stop slashing bike tires at a Vancouver bikeshare dock, someone responded with their own sign reading “Too bad, so sad. Us motorists want our parking spots back.”

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

There’s almost a special place in hell for the lightless, masked bike rider who almost knocked over 89-year old TV legend Joan Collins as she got out of a cab on a street closed to traffic. And probably almost stepped out in front of him.

………

Local 

A columnist for the LA Times takes a ride in a self-driving Waymo robotaxi, and envisions a world where Jevons Paradox — which argues that making something easier or more plentiful induces people to use it more — will lead to even more paralyzing traffic congestion on the city’s streets.

Metro is accepting applications from community-based organization and other nonprofits to redistribute the roughly 5,000 unclaimed bikes left on the transit system to people in need, including resource-challenged communities and people experiencing homelessness. Although from what I’ve seen, some homeless people already have more bikes than the rest of us.

 

State

This is who we share the road with. A 39-year old man faces charges for deliberately trying to run over pedestrians at Santa Ana’s MacArthur Intermediate School; fortunately, the attack came after school hours, and he doesn’t appear to have succeeded in hitting anyone.

Bakersfield approves a new traffic calming program, after 80 fatal collisions involving pedestrians or bicyclists in just the last three years.

A Berkeley website examines how a proposed bike lane project fell victim to the city’s culture wars.

San Francisco public radio station KQED takes a deep dive into the nation’s first Critical Mass ride in July, 1997, when thousands of bicyclists took over the streets of San Francisco to demand safer streets, calling it the “night that changed San Francisco cycling forever.” And they have a point; in the quarter century since, the city has gone from near zero to over 463 miles of bike lanes, paths and trails. Thanks to Ravener for the link. 

Sebastopol moves forward with plans to build dangerously unsafe bike lanes on a road that advocates say is too busy, too steep and too narrow, because any changes now would jeopardize the entire road project. Which is certainly worth needlessly killing or maiming a few people down the road, right?

A Santa Rosa man says he wouldn’t still be here if his companions on a bike club ride didn’t know CPR.

 

National

Cycling Savvy offers advice on how to protect yourself by briefly controlling the roadway to prevent unsafe passes — like when you’re riding an ebike 20 mph uphill.

Consumer Reports offers advice on how to prevent ebike battery fires.

Hawaii could take a different approach to ebike rebates, offering anyone over the age of 16 up to $500 in rebates every year.

He gets it. New Seattle DOT Director Greg Spotts, until recently LA’s Director of Street Services, ordered a top-to-bottom review of the city’s Vision Zero program to halt a recent trend in the wrong direction. Which is exactly what LA needs to do, once Mayor Karen Bass decides who will run LADOT, now that former GM Seleta Reynolds is working for Metro. 

I don’t think they’re going to make it. According to a Colorado public radio station, my bike friendly hometown aims to end traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2023. Although further into the story, it seems the real date is actually ten years off. Which is good, since they already had two people killed riding bikes just last week.

Cleveland bike advocates were in a celebratory mood after a state legislator pulled an amendment that would have banned bikeway projects in the middle of a street in any large city, which would have killed a planned centerline separated bike path.

The father of convicted Manhattan bike path terrorist Sayfullo Saipov testified in an effort to save his son from the death penalty, saying he hadn’t seen him in 13 years, and didn’t expect to ever see him again.

Construction is set to begin next year on a planned 175-mile bike path stretching from Manhattan to Montauk on the far end of Long Island.

A West Virginia TV station makes the case for why the state should be ranked higher than 18th in the US for mountain biking.

Virginia bizarrely responds to a near-record rise in traffic deaths by cutting funding for transportation projects. But a clause in the new federal infrastructure bill could require the state to spend 15% of traffic safety dollars on bike and pedestrian projects.

In a truly bizarre case, a Florida driver faces charges for driving away after right hooking a 61-year old man riding a bike but not before getting out to look at the victim — and leaving his passenger behind.

Once again, a bike rider is a hero, after a Florida man interrupted his bike ride to pull an 85-year old man out of his wrecked car — then turns out to be the victim’s physical therapist in the hospital.

 

International

London bike thieves use an angle grinder to steal a cargo bike from a bike hanger on a public street in broad daylight

The UK’s troubled British Cycling is responding to recent controversies and a dramatic decline in bike sales by scrapping the group’s ambitious goal to increase its current 150,000 membership to a quarter million before next year’s Paris Olympics.

A British woman says she may have “unintentionally” put her hand out to protect herself, even though witnesses say she was heard yelling “get off the [expletive] pavement” before knocking a 77-year old woman off her bike and into the path of an oncoming car, where she was killed.

A new Swiss report says ABS brakes really do improve safety, maneuverability and stability for ebikes and cargo bikes.

Forget batteries. Because your next Chinese-made foldie could be hydrogen powered.

An Australian jury acquitted a man on murder charges after he fatally stabbed a fellow boarding house tenet who he thought was stealing his bike to sell for drugs.

 

Competitive Cycling

Bicycling reports that former Los Angeles-based women’s cycling team LA Sweat will not participate in the new National Cycling League, citing concerns about a lack of transparency from NCL organizers. As usual, read it on Yahoo if the magazine blocks you.

Twenty-three-year old British cyclist Tom Pidcock defended his breathtaking descent filmed in LA’s Tuna Canyon against accusations he was being reckless and putting his racing season at risk. Although it’s no different than what he would do in a race.

 

Finally…

That feeling when you wish you, too, could roar down the mountain with a bike-riding lion, unicorn or dinosaur on your jersey. Or you still want the most wildly impractical, tantalizingly rare and defiantly weird bike Trek ever made.

And who needs a nightclub when you have a bicycle-based Irish disco on wheels?

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

 

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

Repeat drunk driver kills OC pedestrian, support Culver City mobility lanes, and bike-riding French Resistance fighter dies

February 23, 2023 / / 2 comments

You might want to rethink plans to ride your bike for the next few days. 

The forecast for LA County is calling for dangerously heavy rains and high winds, with flooding in low-lying areas and blizzard warnings for higher elevations. 

So even with the best rain gear, the smart money is on staying home if possible, or finding some other way to get around. 

Hopefully, it will clear up before Sunday’s Valley CicLAvia. 

Photo by energepic.com from Pexels.

………

This is why people continue to die on our streets.

A repeat drunk driver is on trial for murder and DUI for killing a pedestrian while speeding through an Orange crosswalk in 2021; 40-year old Sitani Pinomi still had a BAC of .10 several hours after the crash.

Pinomi was convicted on two previous DUI charges, and had signed a Watson advisement acknowledging that he could be charged with murder if he ever drove drunk again and killed someone.

Which he allegedly did.

Just one more example of authorities keeping a dangerous driver on the road until it’s too late.

………

This past weekend, my wife and I visited Culver City for the first time since those heady pre-pandemic days, and were struck by how pleasant the city’s Mobility Lane Project made walking in the downtown area.

And how restricting car traffic made other modes more inviting than driving, which is kind of the point.

Now the city is conducting a survey to gauge support for the project, which could be little more than a fig leaf for the city council’s newly empowered conservative majority to rip the entire thing out.

So take a few minutes, and share your love for the city’s safer and more welcoming streets, so maybe they’ll think twice before removing them.

………

The Washington Post remembers World War II’s Girl Partisan of Chartres, after the death of heroic French freedom fighter Simone Segouin,

Her battlefield experience began when she was just 14, recruited by the resistance commander she later married as he hid out on her father’s farm.

The teenager helped him exchange messages with other resistance members on a bicycle she had stolen from a German patrol outside a hotel in Chartres after slashing the tires of their other bikes.

She repainted her bike and, in the guise of a sweet-faced farmer’s daughter carrying baguettes in a basket, moved around the German-occupied countryside without suspicion. Her bike, she said, was her “reconnaissance vehicle.”

She later learned to use handguns, rifles and submachine guns, as well as becoming an expert in explosives and guerrilla tactics. Yet was still just 18 when she captured 25 German soldiers as Allied troops rolled into Chartres, then fought with them to liberate Paris.

She was 97-years old when she died Tuesday.

………

BikeLA, the former LACBC, is teaming with CD4 Councilmember Nithya Raman to host a feeder ride to Sunday’s CicLAvia, beginning 9 am at the Balboa Orange Line Station, RSVP requested.

………

Sycamore Canyon riders are being told you can’t get there from here, at least for the next week.

………

The self-proclaimed Lock Picking Lawyer demonstrates why saving a few bucks on a cheap lock isn’t worth it.

………

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

Once again, someone has sabotaged a British bike trail, as a 41-year old bicyclist suffered a concussion, broken collarbone and three broken ribs after hitting a wire strung across the trail, in what witnesses said was an apparent attempt to steal his bike.

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

Seriously? The local paper takes up the charge after a single UK pedestrian complains about bicyclists riding at “breakneck speeds” in Sheffield’s pedestrianized town center.

………

Local 

Sad news from North Hollywood, where a man in his 20s was killed when a driver rear-ended the e-scooter he was riding on Vineland Ave near Riverside Drive early Wednesday.

Streets For All is hosting an information session March 1st for anyone considering running for their local neighborhood council. And yes, they want you to.

The Los Angeles Times says distrust of politicians is running high in the CD6 special election, following the resignation of former Councilmember Nury Martinez after she was heard making racist remarks on a leaked recording.

Pasadena Now considers plans to close several miles of the Pasadena Freeway to motor vehicles for a few hours, and open it up to bike riders, skaters and walkers for October’s ArroyoFest.

Streetsblog reports Pomona will build a bike path along San Jose Creek from near Ganesha Park to Cal Poly Pomona, providing a safer route to several local elementary schools.

New Congressman Robert Garcia, former mayor of Long Beach, announced a $30 million grant for the Shoreline Drive Gateway project, which will demolish the northbound half of the existing Shoreline Drive to create new park space, including a new bike path.

 

State

The NRCDC says it’s time to cut polluting projects from the state transportation budget, and realign spending with the state’s climate priorities.

The California YIMBY website — that’s Yes In My Back Yard — examines how NIMBYs have hijacked the state’s CEQA anti-pollution laws to block housing and other needed developments.

Ventura County’s Carpinteria Creek Bike Path has reopened, following repairs due to January’s rains. And just in time for this weekend’s coming deluge.

An “avid” Bakersfield bicyclist for the past four decades calls out the poor quality of the city’s bike lanes, saying biking the streets of Bakersfield just isn’t safe anymore. There’s a Buck Owens joke in there somewhere, but it’s escaping me at the moment.

For a change, a bikelash works in our favor, as Palo Alto agrees to rethink a proposal to ban ebikes from local preserves after residents complained about the plan

 

National

House Beautiful offers “ingenious bike storage racks that won’t cramp your style,” many of which actually aren’t. Unless you consider a barn or storage closet a bike rack.

It turns out that one of the two people killed riding bikes in my bike-friendly Colorado hometown was a 76-year old retired FBI special agent and Vietnam vet, who was riding the bike his wife gave him for Christmas.

A Colorado artist and frame painter describes how riding her bike made her fall in love with the state again, saying her bike feels like a drawing tool.

This is who we share the road with, too. A Chicago FedEx driver played the universal Get Out of Jail Free card, claiming he just didn’t see a little old lady crossing the street with her walker before he slammed into her with his truck, killing her.

A Minneapolis news site deflates internet conspiracy theories over why protected bike lanes get plowed faster than traffic lanes when it snows; the answer is simply that there are no parked cars blocking bike lanes. Or at least, there shouldn’t be.

A bikelash worked in our favor in Ohio, too, where an outcry from bike riders defeated a proposal to strip local control over bike lanes from the Ohio budget.

New York Streetsblog proposes a lithium battery trade-in program to reduce the number of dangerous old ebike and e-scooter batteries at risk of fires, with newer, safer models.

Life is cheap in New York, where a USPS driver faces a lousy misdemeanor charge and summons for failing to yield and exercise due care for killing a man riding a bicycle two years ago, despite a long record of reckless driving both before and after he was hired.

The Washington Post seems shocked that older Americans are participating in extreme sports like Ironman triathlons and the Iditarod Trail Invitational, tackling the Alaskan backcountry in subzero temperatures by bicycle, foot or skis. My own brother was in his 60s when he ran his sled dog team in the Iditarod four times, and his 70s when he tackled his first major cross-country bike tour.

 

International

Momentum Magazine offers advice on what to do if bike riding is a literal pain in the back.

The British bike boom has officially gone bust, as bike sales in the UK have dropped to their lowest level in two decades.

British news anchor Dan Walker was unconscious for 20 minutes after he was struck by a driver while riding his bike, which suggests that his bike helmet may have kept his skull intact, but didn’t prevent a traumatic brain injury, aka TBI. Meanwhile, drivers complain that he was wearing dark clothing and wasn’t riding in the glass-strewn bike lane.

After bike-riding Brit broadcaster Jeremy Vine blasted a “maniac” van driver for a right cross turn directly across his path, drivers slam him for not dressing like a hi-viz clown.

Life is cheap in the UK, where a truck driver walked without a single day behind bars for a “perilous maneuver” that resulted in the death of a bike-riding man; a judge imposed community service and a lousy 15 month license suspension.

The self-governing island of Jersey is introducing what they call the world’s first smart cycling scheme, which will use smart bike lights to collect data from individual bike rides, including routes and destinations, as well as road conditions, busy spots and conflicts.

Fans of Dutch bikes can now get an e-Gazelle, starting at the equivalent of four grand.

Your next ebike could have no chain or belt, or any other kind of direct propulsion system, thanks to a new German ride-by-wire drivetrain.

 

Competitive Cycling

Yes, British cyclist Tom Pidcock can descend faster than you. Or me, anyway.

 

Finally…

The right seat could keep gravel riding from being a pain in the butt. When you’re riding your bike at 1 am, with eight — count ’em, eight — active warrants and carrying meth, put a damn light on it, already.

The bike, that is, not the meth.

And not only is Jimmy Carter one of us, so is his wife Roselyn.

https://twitter.com/paulvaldezsf/status/1627818357272592386

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

 

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

California ebike rebate plan takes shape, sentencing for killer San Diego driver, and 15-minute city conspiracy theories

February 21, 2023 / / One comment

This is who we share the road with.

A nice three day weekend with my wife was, if not ruined, at least darkened by a road raging woman who nearly ran us down making a left turn as we crossed the street, less than a block from our home.

She somehow took offense when I objected to the way my wife, dog and I nearly became roadkill, screaming that it was our fault because we hadn’t been paying attention.

Which was true for the dog, anyway.

Never mind that a) we had the right-of-way, b) she started her turn after we were already crossing the street, and c) she neglected to use her turn signal, which might have tipped us off.

But in her mind, we were 100% at fault.

Just another reminder that cars can turn people into monsters.

And that we’ll never have safe streets until our elected leaders have the courage and political will to actually do something about it. 

Ebike photo by Alex from Pexels.

………

Calbike updated the latest outlines of California’s long-delayed ebike rebate program, which is currently slated to begin sometime in the second quarter of this year.

Which means no sooner than April.

  • To qualify, participants can make no more than 300% of the federal poverty level (FPL).
  • The base incentive will be $1,000.
  • Participants can get an additional $750 toward the purchase of a cargo bike or adaptive bike.
  • People whose income is below 225% of FPL or who live in a disadvantaged community can qualify for an additional $250, so the maximum incentive amount is $2,000.
  • Incentives can be applied toward sales tax, as well as the purchase price.
  • Incentives will be applied at the point of sale.
  • All three classes of e-bikes can qualify for incentives.
  • Used bikes will not be eligible.
  • Incentives can be used to buy e-bikes from local bike shops or online retailers with a business location in California.
  • Adaptive bikes can include tricycles. CARB plans to keep the definition of adaptive e-bikes as broad as possible.

As far as I can tell, it looks like the Federal Poverty Limits are calculated using the adjusted gross income on your latest tax return, with certain items added back in.

………

The San Diego Bike Coalition is calling for bike riders to turn out for Friday’s sentencing of the wrong-way driver who killed Matt Keenan in September, 2021.

Keenan was riding his bike to the movies in Mission Valley when the driver, who hasn’t been publicly named, let alone shamed, rounded a corner on the wrong side of the road and hit him head-on.

His confessed killer is copping a plea to misdemeanor Vehicular Manslaughter with Gross Negligence, with a three-year license suspension and not one day behind bars.

Let me repeat.

A lousy license suspension — not even revocation — and no jail time at all. For needlessly killing another human being, while likely driving distracted.

According to the organization, Keenan’s wife Laura has become one of the leading voices for safer streets in the nearly year and a half since his death, and deserves the support of the entire bicycling community in calling for the judge to add additional penalties, like community service and probation, at the sentencing hearing.

If you can’t attend the hearing, they recommend emailing the judge.

Thanks to Phillip Young for the heads-up.

………

Thousands of apparently very confused yet virulent protesters turned out in Oxford, England to protest Low Traffic Neighborhoods, aka LTNs, as well as plans for 15-minute cities.

According to the BBC, the protestors based their LTN complaints on the difficulties they could pose for motorists who could be unable to drive directly through the city. Not to mention some major climate change denial, as well as baseless claims that it would result in a “climate lockdown,” with residents required to stay at home to protect the environment.

Meanwhile, 15-minute city proposals were bizarrely accused of being a front for a dystopian concentration camp-like lockdown, with gates locking residents inside their zone, allowed to leave just 100 days a year. Along with the creation of an Orwellian surveillance state to enforce climate goals.

Not to mention that Neo-Nazis turned out in support of the protests. Or maybe were behind it.

Consider, for instance, this speech by a 12-year old anti-Greta Thuneburg, which has been circulating in rightwing circles for the past few days. Even if it, like the rest of the opposition, is based almost entirely on baseless conspiracy theories.

https://twitter.com/ChildrensHD/status/1627050833706905600

And none of which actually have a damn thing to do with it, of course.

A 15-minute city simply means that everything you need for daily life should be located within 15 minutes of your home — preferably by walking, biking or taking transit.

Meanwhile, LTNs are simply designed to discourage driving through a neighborhood, to increase the safety and livability of the community.

Neither one is intended to force anyone out of their cars. And they certainly have nothing to do with a dystopian surveillance state.

Here’s how British bike scribe and historian Carlton Reid debunks the conspiracies in under a minute.

………

Call this ad the anti-anti-15-minute city ad, asking if we can put a man on the moon, why can’t a kid safely ride a bike?

Then again, we haven’t set foot on the moon in over 50 years, either.

………

A new French traffic safety campaign calls out the dangers of toxic masculinity behind the wheel.

Unfortunately for us monolingual types, though, it’s in French.

………

The legendary Nina Simone was one of us.

………

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

No bias here. A 79-year old Missouri man is dead because a driver’s van struck the victim’s bike. Not, say, the driver. Because apparently, the van somehow did it all on its own. 

No bias here, either. A Florida letter writer says bicyclists are a danger to themselves and others on the road because it’s a fact that we can’t keep up with traffic flow, and it’s our fault drivers get mad about it because we shouldn’t be there into first place. Then again, it’s also a fact that people on bikes are often faster than congested traffic. And we’re not responsible for how drivers, or anyone else, reacts. 

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

Life is cheap in the UK, where the courts let a 25-year old man walk with a 12-month sentence for wanton and furious biking, with all 12 months suspended; he was skitching and popping wheelies just moments before running down a 13-year old kid while blowing through a red light. Thanks to Marcello Calicchio for the link.

………

Local 

Streets For All is asking for your support for a motion at today’s City Council PLUM Committee meeting to end automatic street widening when new construction takes place, which results in those odd mid-block wide spots that too often get blamed on us.

Speaking of Streets For All, the street safety PAC is participating in the annual Climate Ride for the first time, and is looking for volunteers to ride with them, as well as sponsors for the riders.

SoCal Cycling discusses how to get back into bicycling after a long layoff. Kind of like the one I’ve gone through with one diabetes-related health problem after another, which has resulted in a bike that’s virtually unrideable at this point. And a rider who can’t either.

Unbelievable. Metro’s board Planning and Programming Committee rejected calls for pedestrian crosswalk improvements in Pasadena, as part of a package of multimodal projects using leftover funds from the cancelled 710 Freeway extension; advocates hope the full board will overturn the decision this week. Apparently they’ve forgotten the urgent need to improve walkability and bikeability in the face of a climate emergency.

This is who we share the road with. A group of pedestrians waiting for lunch outside a Sawtelle Blvd restaurant became collateral damage when two drivers collided and one careened into the crowd, sending four people to the hospital, including a 23-year old woman in critical condition.

 

State

Streets For All calls out Caltrans for misrepresenting 1,600 miles of Complete Streets, most of which are anything but. And asks you to comment on it.

San Diego’s Park Blvd will be getting dedicated bus lanes and buffered bike lanes through Balboa Park, which has proven deadly for bike and e-scooter riders in recent years. Thanks again to Phillip Young.

Woodland Hills Magazine highlights the area’s best bike riding views.

A San Francisco TV station reports East Bay bike riders are showing solidarity in the face of violent dooring attacks by teenagers in an apparent stolen car; shamefully, Oakland cops say they’re too busy to do anything about it.

Apparently having nothing better to do, the CHP is investigating several instances of juvenile bike riders on the Bay Bridge.

 

National

A Utah man pled guilty to reduced charges for killing one man and injuring another when he crashed into their bikes last July; he was on parole for multiple felonies and had amphetamine, meth, codeine and morphine in his system at the time of the crash. Not to mention belonging to a Nazi criminal gang.

Life is cheap in Texas, where a bus driver walked without a day behind bars for killing a bike rider on the UT campus in 2019; the 44-year old woman got seven years probation and 250 hours of community service, while her victim got death.

Minneapolis is staring down a more than a quarter of a million settlement for the forcible arrest of a man riding a bicycle during the 2020 protests over the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, even though the bike rider “was peacefully and lawfully exercising his constitutional right to protest.”

No bias here, either. The Ohio legislature is proposing a ban on center lane bike lanes in cities of 300,000 population, after Cleveland business owners complained they wouldn’t be able to make left turns or unload their trucks.

Tragic news from Pennsylvania, where a 75-year old man was killed when a cop responding to a traffic call rammed his bicycle from behind, while traveling without his lights or siren on; meanwhile, a woman standing in a New York bike lane was killed when she was collateral damage in a crash between a cop and another driver.

Bizarre story from South Carolina, where a John Doe was finally identified as a South Carolina man after his family reported him missing, three months after he was killed riding his bike without ID. Yet another reminder to always carry ID with you when you ride. 

A New Orleans TV station says the city’s bikeshare system is the best way to get around during today’s Mardi Gras celebrations.

 

International

National Geographic says gravel cycling is the next big trend.

CNN highlights ten of the world’s best cities to explore by bicycle; unfortunately, San Francisco is the only US city on the list. And needless to say, Los Angeles isn’t. Thanks to Steve Fujinaka for the tip. 

Canadian F1 driver Lance Stoll is one of us; the driver for Aston Martin will miss next month’s Bahrain Grand Prix after suffering an injury in a “minor” bike crash.

You’ve got to be kidding. Bath, England NIMBYs argue that new green bike parking hangers will threaten the city’s Unesco World Heritage status. Because evidently, all those cars and their parking lots must have been there since Roman times.

Police in the UK are facing justified criticism for advising a pair of bike riders  “be aware,” “keep space” and “expect to wait” after they were struck by drivers, with no suggestions for drivers to not hit people, on bikes or otherwise.

British Channel 5 news anchor Dan Walker is one of us, after he had to miss his broadcast after he was struck by a driver while riding his bike to the strain station.

Hit-and-run drivers in the UK could soon face of fines up to the equivalent of $1,200 for not stopping after hitting a cat. Which is more than many drivers get for killing someone on a bicycle.

Cycling Weekly says bicycling is growing in some parts of the Middle East, despite poor infrastructure and police harassment, while being banned in other places.

Things are looking up for bike shops in Vietnam, as more Vietnamese commuters are opting for riding a bicycle.

He gets it. A Philippine professor says riding a bike is a basic human right, and he intends to keep doing it for the rest of his life.

 

Competitive Cycling

Cyclist looks at the hard road ridden by newly crowned Esteban Chaves, who became Colombia’s national champ for the first time at the ripe old age of 33.

A 20-year old British bike rider says forget hi-viz, after his back and bike were both broken when he was struck by a driver, despite wearing a kit he says couldn’t have been brighter.

British cyclist Tom Pidcock shows off his bike handling skills at the Volta ao Algarve’s time trial on Sunday.

https://twitter.com/writebikerepeat/status/1627332215435657216

Sad news from the Netherlands, where Dutch cyclist Amy Pieters suffered a setback in her recovery from a near fatal 2021 bike crash, although she continues to ride an adaptive bike, despite suffering epileptic seizures.

Hear, hear! Kenyan-born Chris Froome says he has high hopes for African cycling.

 

Finally…

Foster a pet, get a discount on your next bike. Probably not the best idea to hit a cop who stops you for riding without a light.

And no more free bikes for Indian school kids.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

 

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

Murder victim Dr. Michael Mammone remembered as kind, adventurous; LADOT’s pretty plastic bollards criticized

February 17, 2023 / / 5 comments

More on the tragic death of Dr. Michael Mammone.

Mammone was murdered two weeks ago by a man suffering from mental illness, who first ran the emergency room physician down with his car on SoCal’s killer highway as he waited at a Dana Point traffic light on his mountain bike, then got out of his car and stabbed the injured bike rider to death.

Mammone was remembered at a memorial service at the Festival of Arts in Laguna Beach yesterday as someone who devoted his life to helping others, and always seemed calm and collected, even in the face of crisis.

His sister described him as the life of the party, calling him “intelligent, funny, adventurous, curious, easy to be with, loved card games and genuinely cared about everyone.”

Mammone leaves behind his wife and two sons; the couple was about to celebrate their 30 years of marriage with a trip to Italy.

His death was just a needless waste of a precious human life, all because his killer was allowed to fall through the cracks of America’s failed system for treating the mentally ill.

And because Vanroy Evan Smith was allowed to keep driving, despite his apparently untreated paranoid schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

Photo of ghost bike for Dr. Michael Mammones by Walt Arrrrr.

………

Ted Faber sends photographic proof the Jackson Street gate to the Ballona Creek Bike Path is now open.

………

Streets For All is clearly not a fan of flimsy plastic bollards, even when they look chunky.

………

This is the first feeder ride I’m aware of for next weekend’s San Fernando Valley CicLAvia.

https://twitter.com/CicLAvia/status/1626358787429879810

Thanks to Ravener for the heads-up.

………

The Bike League will host a webinar next month on how to write a strongly worded letter to the local paper.

………

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

A London website comes to the defense of bike-riding British broadcast personality Jeremy Vine, saying the country’s Highway Code is on his side, after he was unfairly criticized for a near collision when he was left hooked by a driver cutting across a protected bike lane.

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

After a Washington state bike rider was the victim of a hit-and-run driver, sheriff’s deputies discovered he was struck while he was loading stolen merchandise onto his bicycle.

………

Local 

They get it. LA’s new 45,000-square-foot, 1,600 seat Bellwether nightclub and concert hall will come complete with guarded rooftop bicycle parking.

A 19-year old mountain biker was helicoptered out from Mandeville Canyon, after suffering a “substantial” leg injury.

More on Liam Garner, the LA teenager who recently became the youngest person to bike from Alaska to the tip of Argentina, despite tearing off his right ear going over his handlebars along the way.

 

State

Spectrum News 1 highlights five SoCal bike paths, from Ventura’s Rincon Bike Trail to the Mount Rubidoux Trail in Riverside, and down to San Diego’s Bayshore Bikeway.

Orange County advocates are calling for greater investments in public bus operations, and pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure, despite the country transportation authority’s insistence on flushing $2 billion on an induced demand inducing project on the 405 Freeway.

Carlsbad cops teamed with city staffers to talk with elementary and middle school parents about traffic safety, as part of the state of emergency the city declared to fight a rise in bike-related injuries.

They get it, too. Santa Cruz is moving forward with a long-delayed bike lane project on Soquel Drive, calling them buffered bike lanes with flex posts. Unlike Los Angeles, which insists on calling them protected bike lanes, even though the flimsy plastic posts won’t stop anything. 

 

National

People For Bikes says local governments now have unprecedented access to billions of dollars for safe, connected bike networks and trails, thanks to a variety of federal government programs.

A new book relates the author’s journey by bike, along with two friends, following Harriet Tubman’s road to freedom on the Underground Railroad; he was inspired to take the trip because one of his ancestors was a ship’s captain in the Atlantic slave trade.

Linus has recalled their Cesta 500 ebike due to risk of a cracked front fork, posing a crash risk.

Seattle is beginning work on a new bikeway connecting Capital Hill with the iconic Pike Place Market; the work is being overseen by former LA Bureau of Streets Services head Greg Spotts, now director of the Seattle Department of Transportation.

A San Antonio, Texas bike rider used his skills as an urban planner to develop his own cohesive bike map, showing how to comfortably ride between disconnected bike lanes and paths.

Two men are dead in Garland, Texas, after a bike shop worker was murdered before the store opened, then a police SWAT team found the 58-year old suspect dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound; it turned out both victims were employees of the shop.

Grunge remembers Orville and Wilbur Wright’s younger sister Katherine, who kept their Ohio bike shop running while they were learning to fly.

Kindhearted Kentucky organizations pitched in to buy a new adaptive trike for an eight-year-old boy with a previously unheard of medical condition. The look on the kid’s face when he was given the bike is priceless.

A small Rhode Island community doesn’t want visitors to leave their dockless bikes behind, announcing plans to impound any bikeshare bikes or e-scooters that spill over the city limit from nearby Providence.

Residents of New York’s upscale Upper West Side are opposing plans for an outdoor ebike hub for food delivery workers, arguing it will increase congestion and block access to the nearby subway. Apparently confusing bicycles, which relieve congestion, with the cars that cause it.

A reminder that bike-riding women face risks that most men don’t, as a Florida woman was lucky to escape when a man attempted to force her into his van as she rode her bike.

There’s not a pit in hell deep enough for the Florida man who attacked a passing bike rider, knocking him off his bicycle while hurling antisemitic comments, apparently enraged because the victim was speaking Hebrew on his phone as he rode.

 

International

Bike Radar wants to teach you to bunny hop in five simple jumps.

Off-Road.cc explains everything you need to know to start mountain biking.

Vancouver’s Critical Mass will return at the end of the month after a three-month hiatus, to protest a decision to rip out a bike lane through the city’s Stanley Park so angry drivers can more easily use it as a cut-through route.

A Sikh woman in Ontario developed her own bike helmet so her sons could safely ride their bikes, with a special space on top to accommodate the faith’s traditional hair topknot.

Residents of Cardiff, Wales are mourning the death of a bike shop owner who ran his shop for more than 65 years — despite being told 20 years ago that he had just two weeks to live when doctors discovered cancer during an operation.

A new study from MIT concludes that most stolen bikes remain in the local area, where they are resold and remain part of the local bike fleet. At least in Amsterdam, anyway. Thanks to Tim Rutt for the link.

Japanese bicycle component maker Shimano had a record year in 2022, topping their previous best sales year by over 16% despite a slowing down of the pandemic bike boom.

Philippine bike riders and pedestrians continue to protest plans to convert a protected bike lane in Manilla to sharrows.

 

Competitive Cycling

Two-time Tour de France champ Tadej Pogacar added another double to his resume, winning the first two stages of the Vuelta a Andalucia.

The BBC remembers trailblazing women’s cyclist Eileen Sheridan, who died this week at 99-years old; she still holds five of the 21 records she set during her career.

Now you, too, can ride the famed Mont Ventoux and other French mountains with the legendary Jan Ullrich, for the low, low price of 20,000 euros — that’s $21,270 for those of us on this side of the Atlantic. As usual, you can read it on Yahoo if Bicycling blocks you. 

 

Finally…

Bad enough to return home to find someone burglarizing it, worse when they escape on your own bicycle. That feeling when you intend to set the bike world on its head by inventing the e-cargo bike, which is already a thing.

And your next bike tires could be made from your last bike tires.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

 

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

Speeding off-duty deputy faces murder charge, a bike day Sunday on Pasadena Freeway, and new LA bike lanes

February 16, 2023 / / Comments Off on Speeding off-duty deputy faces murder charge, a bike day Sunday on Pasadena Freeway, and new LA bike lanes

This is who we share the road with.

An off-duty LA County Sheriff’s deputy has been charged with murder for the high-speed crash that killed a 12-year old boy in South Gate in 2021.

Twenty-eight-year old Ricardo Castro was allegedly driving at up to 90 mph in a school zone when he T-boned the car carrying Isaiah Rodriguez and his sister.

………

ActiveSGV is proposing a return to a carfree Pasadena Freeway to mark the 20th anniversary of ArroyoFest.

The proposal would open a six-mile section of the 110 Freeway to bicyclists, skaters and pedestrians for just four hours on Sunday, October 29th.

The first ArroyoFest in 2003 also closed the freeway to cars, opening it up to bicyclists and walkers for a few short hours.

The freeway follows the route of the 1899 California Cycleway. Unfortunately, however. only two miles of the elevated wooden bikeway were built before financial problems halted construction, and cars ultimately claimed the roadway.

………

New protected bike lanes are appearing in LA’s Lake Balboa neighborhood, and painted bike lanes are coming to Fountain Ave in East Hollywood.

https://twitter.com/CD6LACity/status/1625923721176453121

Thanks to Ravener for the tip. 

………

Entitled Cycling posts video of a typical ride, just in case you wonder why our roads aren’t safe for people on two wheels.

Or any other living things, for that matter.

………

A short film looks at the volunteer heroes who maintain LA’s mountain bike trails.

………

The late Raquel Welch was one of us.

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

More on the random dooring attacks on Bay Area bike riders, as East Bay bicyclists say they’re frightened by drivers literally using their cars as weapons to assault innocent people; Streetsblog says Bay Area district attorneys are complicit in the anti-bike attacks for failing to prosecute dangerous and deadly drivers.

No bias here. A New York State senator is proposing laws requiring all bicycles to be registered, plated and insured, in an apparent attempt to keep people from riding them.

Once again, someone has boobytrapped a British singletrack trail by stringing a rusty wire between two trees, injuring a mountain biker who was thrown over his handlebars after crashing into it.

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

A California bicyclist learns the hard way not to talk back to a cop, after an entire group ride is pulled over for going through a traffic signal.

A fake bike cop was busted in Florida after he bumped a woman’s car, then tried to confiscate it claiming she used the wrong turn signal; he was arrested after the woman flagged down a real sheriff’s deputy who was driving by.

An Aussie father is justifiably complaining about a hit-and-run bicyclist who slammed into his 14-year old step-son, calling the ebike rider a coward for riding off and leaving the boy with “not insignificant” injuries.

………

Local 

The Los Angeles Times looks at Tuesday’s BikeLA report on the conditions and commonalities in last year’s 26 LA County bicycling deaths, including deadly corridors surrounding Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd and Figueroa Street, and a four-block stretch of Figueroa between 3rd and 7th in DTLA. You can read it on Yahoo if the paper blocks you.

No surprise here, as road rage continues to climb in the City of Angels, with nearly 870 incidents last year, nearly a third involving a gun.

The bicycling component of the 45th annual LA Chinatown Firecracker Run will roll through Pasadena this Saturday on a 40-mile route through the city and back.

Nonprofit news site Santa Monica Next makes a comeback, with an announcement that Santa Monica Spoke is hosting a Kidical Mass ride this Saturday.

Streetsblog says the El Monte Metro Bike Hub will be closed for most of this year after a driver slammed into it last September.

 

State

About damn time. A proposal in the state legislature would require Caltrans to appoint a Bicycle Czar “to serve as the department’s chief advisor on all issues related to bicycle transportation, safety, and infrastructure.”

The owner of San Diego’s Happy EBIKES argues that kids should be required to take a safety course and pass a test before they’re allowed to ride an ebike, a sentiment that was echoed by the head of the city’s nonprofit ebike loan-to-own program.

 

National

In yet another example of officials keeping dangerous drivers on the road until its too late, Streetsblog examines why states require insurance companies to cover drivers in an assigned risk pool when their driving record is so bad no company will insure them, rather than just taking their licenses away. After all, what could possibly go wrong?

Walkable Cities author Jeff Speck argues it may be time for a class action suit against transportation officials responsible for road design guidelines they know will lead to people getting killed in car crashes.

A Next City podcast examines how five US cities built 335 miles of bike lanes in just two years. Hint: Los Angeles was not one of them.

Four British “lads” bikepack Great Divide Mountain Bike Route between Jasper, Alberta, Canada, and Antelope Wells, New Mexico, completing the more than 3,000-mile trail in 29 days.

Tragic news from Las Vegas, where a bike rider died five months after allegedly turning left in front of an oncoming driver. Yet the death won’t be counted in traffic statistics because it came after the state’s 30-day reporting limit. Although you’d think after five months, they could at least identify the sex of the victim.

Jackson, Wyoming considers ebikes, buses and parking meters to alleviate congestion, after a study shows it would case billions of dollars to widen a highway, while causing environmental concerns for the local ecology and wildlife. Never mind that induced demand applies to roads in Rocky Mountain resorts, too. 

Residents of Pittsfield, Massachusetts argued against putting a proposal to remove a bike lane on the city ballot, and “revert back to a design that did not support a walkable, shoppable, or livable district.”

No surprise here, as New York courts order a psychiatric evaluation for the driver who plowed his U-Haul truck down a Queens sidewalk and bike lanes, injuring seven people, including at least three bicycle delivery riders, while killing one.

New York firefighters blame a massive Brooklyn blaze that left a woman in critical condition on a 50 ebike batteries stored inside a makeshift ebike repair shop.

A 56-year old man was charged with murder in the 1985 cold case death of a 13-year old West Virginia boy, whose body was dumped in a shallow grave after he was killed in a dispute over a stolen bicycle; the suspect was 18 at the time of the killing.

 

International

The New Statesman examines how the concept of the 15-minute city morphed into a rightwing conspiracy theory, with some people somehow convinced a walkable, bikeable city is nothing but an open-air prison dystopia in disguise.

Bike Radar offers advice on what you should and shouldn’t spend money on to begin bicycling on a budget.

A Canadian court has ordered a new trial for an alleged drunk driver who was acquitted of killing a ten-year old Halifax girl as she rode her bicycle.

No bias here. Britain’s Daily Mail naturally blames the victim after video shows British broadcast personality Jeremy Vine nearly crashing his bike getting left hooked by a driver.

No bias here, either. Britain’s Independent Press Standards Organization ruled the Mail on Sunday didn’t breach ethics rules by publishing a composite photo of bike riders running a red light outside Buckingham Palace, under the headline Red Light Rats. Even though the road was actually closed to cars, and cops waved them through the intersection.

Nearly half of all British drivers admitted speeding on country roads in a recent survey. And the rest lied.

It’s not usual for a bike rider to be called a hero, but saint is another matter. A Spanish man could be considered for sainthood for his role in attempting to stop terrorists in Britain’s London Bridge attack, when he got off his bike to defend others with his skateboard; the Pope recently changed the rules to allow sainthood for someone who lays down their life for others.

An Indian website says bicycling can help clean the air in Delhi, but bike riders are 40 times more likely than motorists to die on city streets.

 

Competitive Cycling

A new safety campaign founded by Australian pro Rachel Neylan encourages bike riders to use bright running lights day and night; the campaign has been endorsed by two-time Tour de France champion Tadej Pogačar, and former women’s world champ Elisa Balsamo. I found close calls and close passes dropped considerably when I started riding with at least two bright headlights and two to three bright taillights, day or night.

If you want to watch this year’s Tour de France — or any of the five that follow — you’ll have to subscribe to Peacock.

 

Finally…

Why buy a Pinarello when you can just buy Pinarello — and for the low, low price of just $268 million? There are countless smart ways to use a bicycle, but throwing it at a cop isn’t one of them.

And try not to let your beagle steal your bagel while you bike.

https://www.tiktok.com/@gappie_the_beagle/video/7194800318549445894?embed_source=121331973%2C71011723%2C120811592%2C120810756%3Bnull%3Bembed_blank&refer=embed&referer_url=www.newsweek.com%2Flaughter-beagle-steals-owners-bagel-mid-bike-ride-1781364&referer_video_id=7194800318549445894

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

 

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

BikeLA releases report on LA County bike deaths, more on Bay Area dooring attacks, and no more roadbuilding in Wales

February 15, 2023 / / Comments Off on BikeLA releases report on LA County bike deaths, more on Bay Area dooring attacks, and no more roadbuilding in Wales

Let’s start with a couple of well-deserved thank yous.

First up, thanks to Kurt G for his generous donation to help keep all the best bike news coming your way every day. Donations of any amount are always welcome and deeply appreciated.

Next, let’s all give Pocrass & De Los Reyes a round of thanks for renewing their title sponsorship of this site for another year.

The Century City law firm was our first sponsor, and  their support for the past ten years has made this site possible.

Photo of deadly East Anaheim Street from advocacy group BikeLA; the Long Beach street is one of several cited by the group as areas of concern in the report on LA County bicycling deaths below.

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Maybe LA area safety organizations are finally getting serious about fighting the effects of traffic violence.

Just weeks after the die-in at Los Angeles City Hall, and the release of a report from Streets Are For Everyone, aka SAFE, detailing LA’s record rate of traffic deaths in 2022, BikeLA released their own report on the 26 bicyclists killed on LA County streets last year.

A press release from the group, formerly known as the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, or LACBC, describes the findings of the report this way.

Most notably, the report identifies four factors that were prevalent in the vast majority of collisions. These design elements include high speed limits, excessive travel lanes, missing bike lane infrastructure, and poor street lighting. With 81% of collisions involving two or more of these factors, it suggests that infrastructure deficiencies are the main culprit behind the dangerous conditions on the county’s roads. 

The report also considers the geographic distribution of each collision and found that 61% of last year’s bicycle fatalities took place in heavily concentrated low-income, Black and Latinx neighborhoods. Tragically, many crashes were also concentrated along heavily-traveled corridors without quality bike infrastructure including Anaheim Street in Long Beach and Figueroa Street in Los Angeles.

As an organization committed to creating safe, enjoyable, and vibrant communities for cyclists, BikeLA recommends several solutions including reducing speed limits, embracing road diets, and expanding cyclist education programs. Taken together, these solutions can help governments across the county recommit to their vision for zero traffic fatalities.

A chart complied by the group demonstrates the distribution of traffic deaths in LA County; Los Angeles is responsible for over half of the deaths, despite having less than half of the county’s population.

It’s also worth noting the report’s conclusion that 85% of LA County’s bicycling deaths occurred where there are no bike lanes or other bicycling infrastructure.

Although that could have a lot to do with LA’s failure to build out the bike plan, and the slow pace of bike lane construction everywhere but Long Beach and Santa Monica.

It’s worth investing the time to take a deep dive into the report, to gain an understanding of how and why people continue to die on our streets.

You can learn more about each of the bicycling deaths in LA County, and the rest of Southern California, by clicking here.

Full disclosure: I was a board member of what was then the LACBC for over five years, and continue to be a member of the organization. 

Thanks to Phillip Young for the heads-up.

………

Bay Area media coverage of the spate of dooring attacks is snowballing.

A Berkeley site says at least two people riding bicycles were targeted in the the city in recent days, as the count rises to 20 attempts to intentionally door victims in three Bay Area cities, with nine victims struck.

According to the East Bay Bike Party, the assailants used four different cars, including one that was confirmed to have been stolen.

“In several attacks,” the group said in a statement, “a driver sped alongside people riding bikes and a passenger on the right side of the car opened their door to hit the bike riders at speed. In at least two incidents the driver also drove directly into a bike rider rather than using the side door.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pl0EdZtnY1M

An Oakland website adds more to the story, citing work by a team of volunteers to scour social media looking for more information on the attacks.

First, the group says that the four cars the suspects were driving were likely either Hyundai or Kia models, which have been recently targeted for theft due to a security loophole that has gone viral on TikTok. The EB Bike Party found that Ta’Liyah Hands, an Oakland resident, had her 2018 Silver Hyundai Elantra stolen in the Laurel Districtaround noon Friday. The car, confirmed by its license plate, was seen later that day in a video attempting to collide with bicyclists headed to the Bike East Bay Party. Several witnesses told the Oaklandside the cars the drivers used to attack them matched these models.

The group was also able to determine that the suspects were young, possibly teenagers. Several of the victims the Oaklandside spoke to for this story agreed, saying they heard laughter from the car’s occupants as they swerved at bicyclists. Most or all of the suspects were also male.

Meanwhile, the Oakland police department was unable to comment due to an ongoing cyber attack that prevented officials from accessing police files, and kept bicyclists from filing police reports.

………

That’s more like it.

The Welsh government has canceled all roadbuilding projects over environmental and safety concerns.

Any future road projects must pass strict criteria requiring that they don’t increase carbon emissions, can’t increase the number of cars on the road or lead to higher speeds and emissions, and can’t have a negative impact on the environment.

Which pretty much means no new roads will be built in the country.

Period.

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No surprise here.

The accused killer of Dr. Michael Mammone in Dana Point two weeks ago had the criminal proceedings against him temporarily suspended Tuesday.

The Los Angeles Daily News is reporting that the case against Vanroy Evan Smith will be delayed until he has a competency hearing next week.

Smith told a reporter for the Orange County Register that he was both God and Jesus Christ. Which somehow seems unlikely, raising doubts about his competency to stand trial.

He could be committed to a psychiatric facility for treatment until he is competent to face trial, which could come in a few months, or may never happen.

Meanwhile, a memorial for Dr. Mammone will be held at the Festival of Arts grounds tomorrow at 11 am; mourners were asked to make donations to Wounded Warrior Project, the Laguna Beach Food Pantry or The LA Mission in lieu of flowers.

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The candidates in the special election to replace former LA City Councilmember Nury Martinez in CD6 will take part in a candidate forum tonight.

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British broadcast personality Jeremy Vine demonstrates a driver performing a left hook across a bikeway, the UK’s equivalent of our right hook.

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

A Virginia public radio station asks if bicycles should be required to stop at intersections. Which is not the same as asking whether bike riders should be allowed to treat stop signs as yields, as new bill in the state legislature proposes.

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Local 

LA city officials broke ground on two new mini-parks along the existing Chandler walk/bike path in North Hollywood, as well as adding new trees and lighting along the pathway, and improving two access points.

LAist offers a primer on how LA’s neighborhood councils work, and how you can join one.

BikeLA, formerly the Los Angeles County Bicycle County Bicycle Coalition, will host its first bike ride of the year in Griffith Park on Saturday, February 25th. Thanks to Ravener for the link.

 

State

A new bill in the state legislature would direct the state’s Mineta Transportation Institute to study ebikes, although it’s unclear just what information legislators are looking for.

 

National

It should come as a surprise to absolutely no one that American motor vehicles are getting too big for their parking spaces.

Yahoo asks if ebikes are the unsung secret to curbing climate change. Short answer, probably.

Outside considers what kind of mountain bike you should buy this year. Which somehow assumes that you can, should, and want to buy one at all.

A new Utah state legislator is proposing a bill that would require drivers to change lanes to pass a bike rider, if there’s room to do so; the bill is personal for him, after he lost his own father when he was run down by a careless teenage driver while riding his bike. The bill is similar to a new California law that took effect this year.

Sad news from my Colorado hometown, where the county coroner’s office has identified the first of two bike riders killed there this week as an 81-year old man; police investigators are blaming him for running a stop sign, which seems unlikely at his age.

The Adventure Cycling Association calls out a five-mile section of US Highway 93 directly west of Whitefish, Montana as a particular area of safety concern due to crumbling shoulders and heavy traffic moving at high speeds.

Advocacy group BikeTexas is angling for a stop as yelled bill in the state legislature, as well as allowing ebikes in state parks.

A Streetsblog op-ed says the new and improved bike and pedestrian pathways on New York’s George Washington Bridge still aren’t good enough; a 1933 design called for cantilevered, 15-foot wide paths on both sides of the bridge.

The New York Times says bicycle delivery workers bore the brunt of Monday’s vehicular attack on Brooklyn sidewalks; a Chinese immigrant delivering food by bike was killed, and another man is lingering in a medically induced coma.  Meanwhile, the New York Post says the accused killer suffered a mental health crisis set off by “seeing” an invisible objet coming directly at him.

No surprise here, as a majority of residents in Charlottesville, Virginia say they’d like to walk, bike or take transit more often, if they just felt safe on the roads. Which is pretty much what the residents of virtually every American city would say.

A New Orleans bike club uses a fleet of eight tandem bikes to allow blind bike riders to experience the city in a new way.

The man accused of stabbing a bicycle-riding Florida couple to death during last year’s Daytona Bike Week has been found incompetent to stand trial; Jean Macean will be committed to a state facility until he understands the legal process and the case against him.

 

International

Porsche appears to be diving head-first into the ebike market by acquiring all of e-bikemaker Greyp, a subsidiary of Croatian supercar maker Rimac.

Mirroring the Aussie case we mentioned yesterday, an Ottawa, Canada man is on trial for killing his neighbor in a dispute over an alleged stolen bicycle. As we’ve said many times before, no bike is worth taking a life, let alone sacrificing your own. 

A Montreal driver was caught on video traveling an entire block in a protected bike lane.

The CEO of foldie maker Brompton blames Brexit for the problem besetting British bikemakers.

The rich get richer. Paris plans to build another 30 miles of bike lanes connecting the city center to Olympic venues in time for next year’s Summer Olympics.

A Philippine community is delaying plans to convert a protected bike lane into sharrows, in response to a massive protest by bike riders.

 

Competitive Cycling

Cycling Weekly profiles 22-year old British cyclist Harrison Wood, who’s set to make his WorldTour debut for French team Cofidis, after overcoming a brain bleed and broken collarbone suffered in a crash at the Course de la Paix.

Sad news from the UK, where record-setting bicyclist Eileen Sheridan has died at the age of 99. She rode the full nearly 900-mile length of Britain in less than two and a half days, a record that stood for 36 years.

Cyclist remembers how Fausto Coppi became the first rider to win the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France in the same year, in his rookie year of 1949.

 

Finally…

Your next car could be an e-trike. Now you, too, can move your entire household by bike.

And that feeling when your new bike parking looks artistic, but pretty damn useless.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

 

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

Man in rental truck mows down eight people on Brooklyn sidewalk, killing one; Dr. Mammone’s wife discusses her loss

February 14, 2023 / / Comments Off on Man in rental truck mows down eight people on Brooklyn sidewalk, killing one; Dr. Mammone’s wife discusses her loss

Happy Valentines Day!

Remember to give your two-wheeled loved one a little extra care and affection today, too. 

………

Once again, someone in a rental truck has mowed down pedestrians and bike riders in New York.

This time, police chased a fleeing driver in a U-Haul truck as he drove down a Brooklyn sidewalks and bike lanes through six intersections, killing one person and injuring seven others; three of the victims were on bicycles.

And like the killer of Dr. Michael Mammone in Dana Point, the driver suffers from mental illness, with a history of going off his medications, according to his son.

Which sadly seems to be no barrier to operating a motor vehicle.

Police aren’t sure yet if the attacks were deliberate, though it’s hard to imagine otherwise. However, they are confident this was not a terrorist attack.

Just someone once again using a motor vehicle as a weapon, apparently.

Meanwhile, prosecutors in the other case of a driver in a rental truck mowing down innocent people in the Big Apple say confessed terrorist Sayfullo Saipov has to die by lethal injection for the Halloween, 2017 attack on a Manhattan bike path, because he’s too dangerous to keep in prison.

………

After blaring accusations that Vanroy Evan Smith made comments about white privilege when he stabbed Dr. Michael Mammone to death, the New York Post discusses his interview with the Orange County Register. And can only manage to mention Smith’s denial of racial comments in passing near the end of the story.

Which isn’t exactly a correction. Let alone a retraction.

Meanwhile, Dr. Mammone’s wife talks with KCAL News about the loss of her husband; a celebration of his life will be held Thursday at the Festival of the Arts.

………

A former Bay Area resident visiting from Houston took a tour of rain damage in the Santa Cruz mountains from the January storms, and posted video of it as a short film he calls the Tour de Disaster.

………

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

Vancouver’s parks board voted to rip out a popular popup bike lane through a public park, because it wasn’t popular with drivers who used the road as a cut-through route.

But sometimes, its the people on two wheels behaving badly.

No bias here. A Santa Barbara letter writer says it’s not true that the State Street Promenade is safer now that cars have been banned, complaining about the risk to pedestrians posed by irresponsible bike riders, and that “No amount of new bike paths will improve public safety if cyclists ride irresponsibly.” While she has a point about irresponsible people, regardless of how they travel, she’s apparently confused about the relative risks posed by bicycles and motor vehicles. 

No bias here, either. A Republican councilwoman in Queens responds to a park bike crash by saying bike riders should be required to be licensed and carry insurance, after a “bike racer named Kevin” bailed without providing his contact information when he hit a woman on a bikeshare bike. A reminder that hit-and-run is hit-and-run, whether you’re on a bike or in a car. Although that whole registration and insurance thing hasn’t worked that well to rein in bad driver behavior, either. 

………

Local 

The Washington Post says the death of 12-year-old Molly Steinsapir in Pacific Palisades as she rode with a friend on a borrowed Rad Power ebike calls attention to the safety of ebikes, and ebike brakes in particular, and “whether the wildly popular bicycles are safe for young people to ride.”

 

State

A Santa Ana news site recommends registering your bicycle for free with Bike Index, after Irvine cops bust a bike thief — and have to let him go with a ticket because the bike was worth less than the $950 threshold for grand theft.

Encinitas appears to be getting serious about improving bike and pedestrian safety, approving an implementation plan for the city’s active transportation plan; roughly three-quarters of the 86 miles of bikeways contained in the active transportation plan remain to be built.

Police are looking for a hit-and-run driver who ran down a 71-year old man from behind as he stood in a South San Francisco bike lane after getting off his bike.

SFist reports on the brazen dooring attacks on Friday’s East Bay Bike Party that left two people seriously injured, as well as other attacks in Bay Area cities on Thursday and Saturday; Streetsblog calls the attackers sociopaths, not incorrectly.

A Sonoma paper wants to honor whoever is “adorning” a local bike path with seasonal displays.

 

National

Giro is recalling bike helmets made before this year because the straps may “disengage” during use. Which sounds like a bad thing.

For the second day in a row, someone riding a bicycle has been killed in a collision in my platinum-level Bicycle Friendly Colorado hometown. And once again, police blame the victim for allegedly blowing through a traffic signal.

Life is cheap in Texas, where an Austin municipal bus driver walked with seven years probation for killing a former TV station employee as he rode his bicycle on the University of Texas campus, while she was allegedly stoned on prescription drugs.

The official explanation for a bike crash involving an Illinois college student doesn’t pass the smell test, as the local MTD insists the bike rider somehow swerved into the side of a bus as it passed him safely outside the bike lane he was riding in.

There’s a special place in hell for the Michigan hit-and-run driver who fled on foot after killing a six-year old boy riding his bicycle.

New York advocates complain the city has failed to live up to promises to upgrade bicycling infrastructure in high-risk areas of Brooklyn.

The Washington Post says those darn Gen Zs just don’t want to drive.

 

International

Momentum Magazine suggests ten ways to go on a Valentine’s Day bike date.

He gets it. A British letter writer says if it’s true we live in an anti-car world, he’d hate to see a pro-car one.

UFC star Connor McGregor says he’s still traumatized after being knocked off his bike by a driver in Ireland last month.

A Dutch man has spent the last nine months riding his bike 8,700 miles from the Netherlands to Nepal to observe the effects of climate change.

An Australian man is on trial for murder after allegedly stabbing his rooming house neighbor to death, in a dispute that began when the other man called him a “poof” and moved his bicycle; he says he killed the victim in self-defense as the man was trying to steal his bike.

 

Finally…

Win a $1 million bike race without ever leaving the comfort of your own home. Your next Trek could be tie-dyed.

And watch out for those sneaky bicyclists with their damn cams out to catch those poor, unfortunate drivers breaking the law.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

 

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

Vanroy Evan Smith admits random killing of bike-riding doctor, claims to be God; San Fernando Bike Path takes shape

February 13, 2023 / / One comment

The reason behind Dr. Michael Mammone’s murder may have been the worst one on all.

Because apparently, there was no reason.

The Orange County Register conducted a jailhouse interview with the accused killer of the respected Laguna Beach ER doctor, who was run down from behind in a violent collision as he waited at a PCH red light in Dana Point on February 1st, then repeatedly stabbed by the driver after he exited the car.

The paper talked Friday with Vanroy Evan Smith, who’s being held on $1 million bond after being charged with murder in Mammone’s death.

Smith confessed to the killing in the chilling interview, relating that he apparently picked Mammone at random as he drove around looking for a victim, after buying the machete allegedly used in the attack at a gun shop earlier that day.

Yet he expects to be set free, because he is “entitled to commit murder because he is both God and Jesus Christ.”

Oh. Okay then.

In a rambling, hourlong interview with a Southern California News Group reporter, Vanroy Evan Smith cited end-of-world scriptures from the Bible’s Book of Revelation and said that if the public knew he was the Messiah and the “king of kings,” they would think differently about him and his crime.

“I have killed,” Smith, 39, said during the interview at Orange County’s Intake Release Center in Santa Ana. “If they knew who I was, they would let me walk out of here. They would fulfill all my desires.”

Nope. Nothing crazy there.

Yet Smith, who was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and bipolar disorder following a 2020 episode, denied being mentally ill.

And despite his diagnosis, he was allowed to continue driving a multi-ton vehicle that can be weaponized on a whim, even through he wouldn’t be allowed to purchase or carry a gun.

Smith also denied using racial slurs or uttering comments about white privilege, despite sometimes racist reports that continue to circulate on conservative media sites.

He chose Mammone as his victim, in part, because he would not kill a woman.

According to the paper, Smith awoke that day fully expecting to kill someone before the day was over, “adding that he has long been plagued by troubling ‘communications’ from others and conflict because of his mixed-race heritage.”

After purchasing the knife, Smith recounted that he began driving around and felt compelled to run over Mammone and stab him. “It was my right,” he said, rubbing his hand against his eyes while adding that he feels no remorse for the killing. “He was in the crosswalk and presented himself.”

Smith cited the story of the Last Supper in Gospel of Luke as justification for purchasing the knife.

35 Then Jesus asked them, “When I sent you without purse, bag or sandals, did you lack anything?”“Nothing,” they answered.

36 He said to them, “But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.

37 It is written: ‘And he was numbered with the transgressors’ ; and I tell you that this must be fulfilled in me. Yes, what is written about me is reaching its fulfillment.”

He also said he had a BB gun he intended as a distraction, confirming some reports that he had a gun, though not that he used it.

Smith told the Register he had no regrets about the killing.

Smith, meanwhile, said he has found peace after 10 days in jail, placing at bay some of his demons typically exacerbated by heavy drinking, marijuana use and consorting with prostitutes.

He said he hopes to eventually meet with Mammone’s family. “I didn’t want to cause anyone pain,” he said.

No, he just wanted to kill someone. Because in his mind, he was God, and apparently, that’s what gods do.

I can think of nothing more chilling than a driver who decides to deliberately kill another human being, for no more reason than the person was there, exposed and vulnerable.

And he just, you know, felt like it.

Nothing personal.

Photo of ghost bike for Dr. Michael Mammones by Walt Arrrrr.

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Vanroy Smith wasn’t the only one who decided to use his car as a weapon recently.

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It looks like the city is making real progress on the San Fernando Road Bike Path.

Proving, as the following tweets make clear, that advocacy works.

https://twitter.com/Ravener85/status/1624862238749372416

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This is the future I want to see.

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

A group of drivers attempted to terrorize Oakland bike riders by deliberately dooring 14 people riding their bikes, hitting eight and seriously injuring two people; at least four separate vehicles were involved over a three-day period.

No bias here. A letter writer in Victoria, British Columbia complains that bike lanes and a car-hating mayor are responsible for all the traffic congestion in the city of 92,000 people.

But sometimes, its the people on two wheels behaving badly.

Advocates for the blind complained about riders on a London bikeway repeatedly ignoring pedestrians in a crosswalk. Even though none of the people crossing appeared to be visually impaired.

Seven years after a woman in the UK was killed by a man riding an illegal bicycle, a British government minister suggested more people would have to die before the country would do anything making the laws tougher.

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Local 

West Hollywood’s city council voted 3-2 to convert the existing painted bike lanes on Santa Monica Blvd to protected bike lanes, while extending the lanes east from the current terminus at Kings Road; the city will also consider how to connect them to planned bike lanes on Fountain Ave, and the existing sharrows on Willoughby.

LAist looks at LA’s renegade Crosswalk Collective, whose outlaw DIY crosswalks are forcing the city to improve its pedestrian infrastructure.

Streets For All is calling for everyone to complete Metro’s survey to support a heavy rail line through the Sepulveda Pass, with a station on the UCLA campus.

 

State

No bias here, either. Opinion was evenly split for and against a planned Carlsbad roundabout at a recent public meeting, but the San Diego Union-Tribune makes it sound like residents are against the “drastic change.”

An op-ed from the leaders of San Diego’s BikeSD says the city can end its over-reliance on cars with bike, mass transit and pedestrian infrastructure.

Sad news from San Luis Obispo, where a 23-year old man riding a bicycle was killed when he was struck by a hit-and-run driver, then hit by a second motorist as he lay in the street; police arrested the 19-year old driver on charged of felony hit-and-run and vehicular manslaughter.

A San Jose op-ed asks whether America’s 10th largest and “most forgettable” city is building a national model for the metropolis of the future.

Sad news from Half Moon Bay, too, where a 75-year old man was killed when he was struck by an 18-year old driver while riding his bicycle.

 

National

Retailers says bloated inventories and a dip in demand will make this a year of bike bargains.

A man riding a bicycle was killed in my platinum-level Bicycle Friendly Colorado hometown, after allegedly running a stop sign, just two days after the city’s Winter Bike to Work Day. Although the location where he was struck didn’t even exist when I lived there. 

The growing population of San Antonio, Texas is making the streets more dangerous for people on bicycles.

A nonprofit group has donated a mobility trike to an eight-year old boy paralyzed in last year’s mass shooting at a 4th of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois.

An Arkansas youth center worker uses his mountain bike to deliver much-needed supplies to homeless people in his community.

Jurors will consider whether convicted Manhattan bike path terrorist Sayfullo Saipo will receive the death penalty for killing eight people as they walked or rode their bikes.

Life is cheap in Pennsylvania, where a hit-and-run driver got just under one to two years for killing a local homeless advocate as he rode his bike in 2020.

The Idaho Stop, allowing bike riders to treat stops as yields, could come to Virginia before it does California, where it has been vetoed twice. Or was it three times?

Once again, a bike rider was a hero, as someone riding by on a bicycle managed to wrestle a gun away from a would-be robber, who was sticking up a couple on New Orleans’ Bourbon Street.

Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen is one of us, as she takes her kids on a Tom Brady-less bike ride through the streets of Miami.

 

International

Momentum Magazine says Valentines Day is the perfect excuse to get a tandem.

A London commuter copes with the rail strike by trying a bikeshare ebike, totally transforming his commute.

Cycling Tips considers why pioneering London bike shop Look Mum No Hands! was more than just a café and workshop.

Having apparently learned his lesson about electric motorbikes, America’s Got Talent judge Simon Cowell rides his ebike through the streets of Manchester, England, in his $1,500 Armani cargo pants.

A kindhearted seven-year old Scottish boy raised the equivalent of over $880 for charity by riding his bike a total of 20 miles this month, and plans to keep it going for the rest of the month.

I want to be like him when I grow up. A 90-year old man in the Netherlands rides his bike ten and a half miles a day to see his wife of 63 years, who now lives in a hospice facility. Except for that part about the dying wife, of course.

Berlin plans to ban all parking in the city’s Gräfekiez neighborhood for three months this summer, as a test for plans to make the city center carfree within a few years.

The Tehran Times recommends the ten best bike rides for your next visit to the Islamic Republic.

Tragic news, as two members of the Qatar Cycling Federation were killed when they were run down by a texting driver.

Hundreds of bicycle and e-scooter riders turned out to protest plans to remove protected bike lanes in a Philippine city, which bizarrely concluded that the need for the lanes would decrease as commuters increased.

 

Competitive Cycling

Tragic news from Spain, where rising 19-year old cyclist Estela Dominguez was killed by a hit-and-run driver as she was on the verge of her professional career, while on a training ride in Salamanca.

VeloNews says the rigors of junior cycling set reigning world and Vuelta champ Remco Evenepoel on the path to stardom.

Los Angeles-based L39ION of Los Angeles says its a hard pass on participating in the National Cycling League’s new four-race crit series.

Six people were injured when 15 bicyclists competing in a monthly bike race collided in Sydney, Australia.

 

Finally…

When you’re carrying a couple meth-filled baggies on your bike, stop for the damn stop sign, already. Don’t ride your bike through an intermediate school without permission.

And a comedian celebrates the need to drive.

Not.

Thanks to GlennC1 for the link.

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

 

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