Tag Archive for mobility lanes

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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

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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.

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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.

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

 

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