Traffic signals were upgraded at the intersection in 2014 to improve safety; clearly, it didn’t work.
Unfortunately, there’s no further information at this time. No word on which way the victim and his killer where going, or how the crash occurred.
This is at least the seventh bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the third that I’m aware of in Los Angeles County.
It’s also the fourth person killed riding a bike on PCH in Malibu in just the last none months. Just more evidence of a serious traffic safety problem in the beachfront city.
Correction: I originally misidentified the cross street as Black Rock, rather than Big Rock, for reasons that will forever escape me. Thanks to Andrew Goldstein for the heads-up.
January 21, 2022 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on 52-year old man killed riding bike on PCH in Huntington Beach; 2nd Orange County bicycling fatality in past 6 days
SoCal’s killer highway has claimed yet another life.
The driver, who has not been identified, remained at the scene. Both he and his wife suffered minor injuries, and were taken to a local hospital.
Police don’t believe he was under the influence.
Investigators say only that Carrington was in the roadway when he was killed, making it unclear whether he was riding in the traffic lane or crossing the roadway.
It’s also possible that he was riding on the shoulder, and only briefly entered the lane to avoid some obstacle.
Anyone with information is urged to call Huntington Beach traffic investigator Doug Demetre at 714/536-5670 or investigator Vishal Rattanchandani at 714/ 536-5231.
This is at least the sixth bicycling fatality in Southern California this year, and the second that I’m aware of in Orange County.
December 21, 2021 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Breaking News: Bike rider killed in PCH collision near Big Rock Drive in Malibu; 3rd PCH bicycling death this year
It looks like LA County’s killer highway has claimed yet another victim.
Video from the scene appears to place the crash on the westbound side of the roadway, where riders are forced to either share the lane with impatient drivers, or use the poor quality shoulder, which varies in width and is frequently blocked by debris and parked cars.
Malibu State Senator Henry Stern had this to say after driving by the aftermath of the crash.
A coat. A book. A toothbrush. A can of beans split open. A few other cans that weren’t. He has a name. He was once a baby boy to a mom and dad. Every life, even those among us who sleep in the dust and have no one, is of equal and immeasurable value.
Just take a few minutes to practice an attitude of gratitude, and find something to give thanks for. Even if it’s just making it through another year in these trying times.
And if you can take a break from stuffing yourself with stuffing, find some time to get out for a bike ride. Take it from me, there are few better days to ride, as long as you make it back before all those drivers high on tryptophan start crawling back home.
Then come back on Friday, when we’ll officially kick off the 7th Annual BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive, and I shamelessly beg for your hard-earned money to help keep this site coming your way every day.
We’ll be back on Monday with more Morning Links to catch up on anything we missed. And of course, we’ll be here over the weekend if there’s any breaking news.
And yes, that’s the royal “we,” unless you count our intern and spokesdog up there on the left.
Now stay safe, and enjoy the ride. I want to see you back here next week.
And that’s on top of the usual benefits like reducing traffic congestion and improving air quality.
Investment in cycleways was one of the best ways of creating jobs through infrastructure spend, more than any other infrastructure project aside from energy efficiency in buildings, reported the TUC’s 2020 study. Thirty-three jobs are created for every $1.4 million invested in walking or cycling infrastructure over a two-year period, found the TUC.
The Bicycle Association’s 32-page report claims that increasing cycling’s modal share to 14% is “realizable” because net-zero ambitions will require a shift from private motor car use to other means, including cycling.
There’s absolutely no reason to believe the same wouldn’t hold true in Los Angeles, or most other major cities. And it should be easier to realize that kind of increase in Los Angeles, with its temperate climate and mostly flat terrain.
All that’s missing is the political will and financial investment to make it happen.
So what the hell are we waiting for?
………
This is the cost of traffic violence.
If it’s true about that which does not kill you, one LA bicyclist is going to be pretty damn strong once she gets back on her feet.
Then again, it sounds like she already is.
A reader named Mitchell reached out to me yesterday to ask if I’d heard about Peta Takai, a master’s road and gravel cyclist who was critically injured in a collision while riding on PCH last September.
Apparently, she was riding near La Costa Beach in Malibu when a kid driving the family Range Rover made an illegal U-turn and slammed into her.
As she notes, she has a very long road ahead of her to get her life back, let alone get back on her bike some day.
A crowdfunding page has raised $28,100, easily topping the low $20,000 goal. But given the extent of her injuries, and the months, if not years, of rehab that will be required, that’s likely just a fraction of what she’s going to need.
So if you’ve got a few extra bucks, send them her way. And tell your friends to do the same.
And maybe remember her on Giving Tuesday next week.
Thanks to Mitchell for the heads-up, and hats off to Giant Santa Monica, which I’m told helped raise funds for her.
And you can make that crowdfunding total $28,120 now.
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Maybe we’ll see some decent bike parking at the Arboretum soon.
Fingers crossed.
Thank you for your comments, and patience. Apologies for the inadequate amenities for bikers. Improvements coming soon, so thanks for bearing with us!
San Francisco’s iconic Golden Gate Bridge is about to get a 15 mph speed limit for bike riders, with fines ranging from $238 to $490 for anyone caught speeding. The question is whether the limit will be enforceable against riders without a cycling computer or speedometer, who would have no way of knowing they’re exceeding it — especially since there is no statutory requirement to have one on your bike.
Smaller communities are getting creative to promote ebike use, including Colorado’s Roaring Fork Valley, which uses a pair of freestanding solar-powered bikeshare docks to recharge the bikes. They also have a pretty damn good trout stream, too.
Wendy Galdamez Palma was attempting to make her way from the beach to her car parked on the other side of the deadly roadway. She reportedly turned away from the onrushing car, sacrificing herself to save her child.
The city settled a lawsuit over that crash for $9.5 million.
Palma’s death will likely cost Los Angeles a lot more, after city leaders caved in to demands from angry pass-through drivers used to using the street as a free-flowing freeway bypass, ripping out the road diet and returning Vista Del Mar to its previous dangerous state.
And making another death virtually inevitable.
Authorities showed just how seriously they don’t take traffic crime in California, releasing Dantzler on a remarkably low $50,000 bail, given the seriousness of his crime.
Then again, he faces a maximum of just four years behind bars for felony hit-and-run. And if he’s convicted, he’ll likely serve less than half of that with good behavior.
Meanwhile, Wendy Galdamez Palma was — allegedly — given the death penalty at Dantzler’s hands.
And her husband and kids will have to somehow find a way to go on without her.
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Caltrans will be closing a section of shoulder on southbound PCH in Ventura County for several months to repair damaged retaining walls.
If you ride through that area, you can expect to share the right lane with motorists.
But at least they’ll be dramatically lowering the speed limit through the construction zone. Let’s just hope drivers obey it.
Especially when someone on a bike is in front of them.
AAA and the CHP had an outsized influence on our last governor. Hopefully they won’t oppose this bill. Or if they do, let’s hope Newsom listens to more enlightened voices and signs it anyway
And congratulate him on keeping his job while you’re at it.
It never hurts to suck up a little.
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Valley Blvd is well on its way to getting shiny new curb-protected bike lanes.
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
I don’t even know what to say about this one, as a cop tells someone on a bicycle that it’s not safe to ride in a bike lane, because of all the cars in it. Thanks to Keith Johnson for the forward.
Paris continues to free itself from the tyranny of motor vehicles, as Slate talks with David Belliard, the city’s adjunct mayor for transportation and public space.
This looks just a tad bigger than your usual one day bike race. Six figure prize list, evenly split between men and women pros, for starters. @Pflax1@bikinginlahttps://t.co/bSEZKUiLxi
In a truly awful piece, a writer in San Diego’s Ocean Beach neighborhood complains that bike advocates are lying about this years rash of bicycling deaths to foist an anti-car agenda on the car-driving public.
He has the shameless audacity to go through each death one by one, pointing out how the victims were, or could have been, at fault, but from his windshield-biased perspective.
Never mind that he’s relying on newspaper accounts for his information, which as we’ve seen, too often don’t contain the salient facts and leave far too many blanks to fill.
And all too often, are based on police reports, which can, and usually do, reflect the officer’s windshield bias, and a basic lack of training when it comes to bike laws.
I had intended to open today’s post with a lengthy rant dissecting his arguments. But soon discovered that Peter Flax had beaten me to the punch.
The central premise of Page’s story is that bike advocates and city leader in San Diego have dishonestly tried to leverage the spate of riders being killed there to get more bike lanes built — “to further the cycling agenda” as he puts it. In his argument, the connection between people dying and the need for better riding infrastructure is mostly fictious and totally overblown. And then to prove his hypothesis, Page does some light googling and sets out to demonstrate that nearly all the cycling deaths that have occurred in San Diego were likely the riders’ own fault. It’s an eye-opening exercise in victim blaming.
Above all, the story is inhumane and recklessly presumptive. Imagine thinking that you could spend an hour on Google, read a handful of day-one news stories, and then feel equipped to pronounce that strangers in your community have been killed because of their own errors or bad judgment. Imagine being an editor or publisher and thinking you want to publish that kind of a hot take on your site.
Then Flax did something remarkable.
He reached out to the man who penned that awful piece, and held a non-judgmental online discussion — nonjudgmental on his side, anyway — on why he wrote it.
In your story, you state quite firmly that five of these deaths were the fault of the cyclists, and that several made “poor choices” and several more died in circumstances where blame cannot be assigned. This adds up to nearly all the deaths in San Diego. Can you see how many people felt like you were engaged in victim blaming?
I did not blame any victims. I recounted that the news stories on five of these clearly showed the cyclist was at fault, that was not me making a decision based on the facts. The facts in five more do not say who was at fault, not a conclusion I came to. I have responded to several comments asking for a specific instance of victim blaming in my article. Nothing.
It’s not victim blaming these folks are upset about. They are upset because I had the temerity to challenge the cycling narrative to the public by debunking their claim about what these 12 deaths meant. My target was dishonesty.
Unfortunately, the conversation accomplished exactly what you’d expect, with the author unbudging in his unbridled victim blaming, and accusations of some subversive cyclist agenda.
But you have to give Flax credit.
That could not have been an easy conversation to have. And he went out of his way to understand the other man, and to be fair.
But this kind of attitude is, sadly, all too common.
One where we are seen, not as ordinary people simply trying to stay safe on the streets, but as wild-eyed activists pushing a radical anti-car agenda to force the unwilling car-driving public onto bicycles.
When the truth is, we’re just trying to get from here to there in one piece.
And too often, failing.
Photo from the bike path in Santa Monica, which will have to stand in for Ocean Beach.
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Malibu’s continually rescheduled discussion of a plan to widen the shoulder on a two-mile section of PCH, instead of building bike lanes, which will presumably put bike riders in the door zone — unless maybe they won’t — is back on the agenda for tomorrow night.
Ask the City of Malibu to add safe, protected bike lanes to PCH
There is a special Planning Commission Meeting (RESCHEDULED) in Malibu this Wednesday at 630pm where they are going to discuss approving a plan to widen the shoulder on 2 miles of Pacific Coast Highway between Webb Way and Puerto Canyon Road to add MORE parking.
Their proposal really only benefits cars and puts people on bikes in the “door zone.” We need them to do better – it’s time for Caltrans and Malibu to add protected bike lanes to PCH.
To be honest, it’s hard for me to get too worked up about this simply because it’s been going on for so long.
Whether’s it’s RVs, illegally parked semis and construction trucks, or some other obstacle, the Venice bike lanes are frequently blocked in one place or another from one end to another, and have been for years.
Enforcement doesn’t seem to do any good. Ticketing or towing drivers for parking illegally only seems to work in the moment, until they come back a day or two later.
If not the same day.
The only solution I can see is to install protected bike lanes from Downtown to the coast. And preferably designed so drivers won’t just park in it anyway, like the LAPD and delivery drivers already do in DTLA.
Which should have been done already.
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Sunset4All held a successful celebration of LA’s first public/private partnership to transform one of the city’s most dangerous streets.
Big community turnout to celebrate @SunsetForAll reaching their fundraising goal thanks to your donations, our partners @lacbc, & a generous gift from @LINK_Scooters that got us over the top! pic.twitter.com/A8U6rbz4Vh
This is who we share the road with. A 22-year old Los Angeles man is dead following a road rage confrontation after a minor fender bender. He chased the other driver when she left the scene, then was thrown to the street after somehow ending up on her hood during a second confrontation.
Streets For All is hosting another virtual happy hour a week from tomorrow, with special guest LADOT General Manager Seleta Reynolds. Which makes it the perfect opportunity to ask why the bike plan is still just “aspirational,” and why Vision Zero and the city’s Green New Deal seem to have been pushed so far onto the back burner they’re in danger of falling off entirely.
Reno bike advocates are up in arms after the city calls for a $100,000 study to reroute a planned bike lane, because the casinos complained that they don’t want one in front of their businesses. Apparently failing to grasp that bike riders are used to gambling, since we have to do it on a daily basis.
Kansas police insist they’ve got the right man now, after arresting a motorist for shooting and killing a man, apparently to steal his bicycle, after they’d both visited the same business; another man was cleared of the crime after being arrested earlier, but was still being held on outstanding warrants.
Speaking of Singapore, a woman had a far too close call when she fell off her bike and nearly landed in the path of a large truck. Although all the commenters seemed to care about is that the group of bicyclists she was with wasn’t supposed to be on that highway to begin with.
Colombian Miguel Angel Lopez apologized for giving up and quitting in the middle of the penultimate Vuelta stage, after falling off a possible podium finish when he was dropped in an attack, slipping from third to sixth before abandoning.
August 27, 2021 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Scarpa trial Monday for killing Costa Mesa fire captain, wrist slap for killer SD AG, and Malibu postpones PCH meeting
The allegedly stoned driver who killed a popular Costa Mesa fire captain will finally face justice next week.
Kreza was off duty and riding his bike in Mission Viejo on Nov. 3 when a van driven by Scarpa drove off the roadway at Alicia Parkway and traveled 8 feet across the curb line, a sidewalk and an embankment, striking Kreza.
Police found Scarpa sitting on a curb following the crash, apparently intoxicated. He admitted to investigators he had shot up a combination of methamphetamine and fentanyl while at a party, along with taking an anxiety medication.
Kreza died two days later, leaving behind his wife and three young children.
The murder charge suggests this wasn’t Scarpa’s first DUI arrest, and that he had probably signed a Watson advisement indicating he could be charged with murder if he killed someone while intoxicated, following a previous conviction.
The paper reports Scarpa has remained in county jail for 1,032 days since his arrest — nearly three years — by the time he goes on trial Monday.
Chance are, he’ll end up serving a lot more than that.
The judge gave Ravnsborg a gentle caress on the wrist, allowing him to plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts for a total of $1,000 in fines.
Which is apparently what a human life goes for in South Dakota these days.
Even an order to do some sort of public service to mark the anniversary of the victim’s death was put on hold, when Ravnsborg’s attorney argued it wasn’t allowed under the statute.
Authorities allowed Ravnsborg to claim he kept driving because he thought he hit a deer, rather than a man walking along the roadway. Even though the victim did a face plant in the AG’s windshield, leaving his glasses in the car where investigators found them the next day.
You’d think most people would have recognized a human face staring back at them through the windshield. Or at the very least, stopped to see what they hit.
But apparently, that kind of logic isn’t required for elected office in the state.
By continuing home, Ravnsborg may also have escaped a DUI count by delaying a blood alcohol test until 15 hours after the crash, by which time any alcohol consumed at the political fundraiser he attended would have been safely out of his system.
And it was.
Ravnsborg capped it off his extremely minimal sentence with a very self-serving statement.
He said he thought he hit a deer. The dead guy’s glasses were found in his car. He remains South Dakota’s attorney general. https://t.co/Qn8S6WGOUx
Supporters describe the proposed project as improving safety for people on bicycles. But others fear it would just move us into the door zone, instead.
I’m told that the wider shoulders will allow plenty of room for both bikes and parked cars, without posing a risk to the people on two wheels.
But let’s get serious.
That would require at least seven to eight feet to the right of the roadway and the left of parked cars. Anything less would be in the door zone.
So if there’s that much space already built into this plan, why don’t they just install bike lanes, instead?
Or better yet, a parking protected bike lane.
The @CityMalibu just postponed tonight’s 630pm meeting to discuss widening PCH without adding safe bike facilities. The meeting is now scheduled for Wednesday, September 8, at 630. We will send out a reminder prior. @bikinginlapic.twitter.com/UPbOg0t0F9
Anthony Portantino, a state senator representing some of the richest parts of LA, just killed AB1401, a bill that would make it legal to build transit-oriented housing without mandatory parking requirements.
Hey @metrolosangeles – there's some kind of glitch in the new website – a bunch of Metro highway expansion projects are mistakenly listed under the "Less Traffic" category pic.twitter.com/o4M0L3UiL4
New York is moving forward with plans for congestion pricing, after reaching an agreement with the Biden administration to conduct an environmental review of charging drivers a toll to enter central Manhattan; it would be the first such fee in the US. Meanwhile, Los Angeles officials are doing what they do best, conducting a study of Metro’s congestion pricing proposal. Which usually results in studying it to death.
As you may recall, we sounded the alarm about this proposal last month, which is described as a plan to improve safety for people on bicycles by providing more space to ride on the shoulder, while also providing additional curbside parking.
Put another way, the proposal appears to put bikes in the door zone, instead of providing protected bike lanes.
And that it would be a big safety improvement for the deadly highway, especially for people on bicycles.
Although what PCH really needs is narrower traffic lanes and far slower speeds.
Admittedly, while I used to be involved with the PCH Task Force, I haven’t been able to keep up with it since the one-two punch of diabetes and neuropathy knocked me on my ass half decade ago.
So I can’t speak to just what this plan does or doesn’t do, other than what was in the description.
But if you ride PCH, you owe it to yourself to voice your concerns and tune into the meeting to see whether it would help tame LA County’s killer highway and keep you — and everyone else — safer as you ride through the ‘Bu.
Or if this one needs to go back to the drawing board.
Okay, so it’s not PCH. But this photo of a bike-riding surfer resting on his board is the only decent shot I’ve got of Malibu.
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Nothing like cops doing the right thing, but getting the law wrong.
They’re right that drivers are required to stop for pedestrians in painted crosswalks.
But drivers are also required to yield to pedestrians at any unmarked crosswalk at an intersection, per CVC 21950. And every intersection is presumed to have a crosswalk, whether marked or not, unless signage prohibits crossing.
So bottom line, drivers have to yield to pedestrians at any crosswalk, painted or otherwise.
But like I said, at least they’re doing the right thing.
We've had numerous, recent reports of hit and run incidents in #BoyleHeights, including some on Whittier Blvd. not far from this crosswalk. https://t.co/6SYr2skGbS
Or rather, the website is real. But the deals and companies offering them aren’t.
With bikes currently being in such strong demand globally, it has become increasingly difficult to get the bike you want when you want it, with lead times often running into several months – and in response, we’re hearing more reports of fake websites trying to part people from their cash for bicycles that don’t exist, apparently offering deals that seem to good to be true, because they are.
While that alone may set alarm bells ringing among many prospective purchasers who will quickly realise that they risk being scammed, what the operators of such sites are banking on is that human nature being what it is, others will place an order and never see the bike, or their money, again.
If an advertisement is telling you that the bike you want is now 70%-90% off, they are lying to you. Do not click on the ad. Do not give them your money or any personal information.
The contact information is suspicious
Trek and our retailers hold ourselves to a very high standard of customer service. If you cannot reach the person you are buying from, do not buy from them.
The site is relatively new
You can check to see how long a website has existed by entering it into archive.org. If the site is brand new and offering steep discounts, do not purchase anything from them.
The site does not ask you to pick a preferred retailer
All current model Trek bikes ordered online must be delivered to an authorised Trek retailer for assembly. If you are not asked to select a retailer to dispatch a bike to, do not buy from the site. Previous model year Trek bikes can be delivered directly to consumers, but only through an authorised retailer’s website or BikeExchange.com.
In other words, stick with sites you know. Or better yet, check with your local bike shop before you buy anything online.
And caveat emptor.
………
Let’s consider a few more stories to restore your faith in humanity.
A generous Texas business owner bought a young boy a new bike after his was stolen while he was playing near a church parking lot; that bicycle had replaced another one that was stolen just weeks earlier. Let’s hope they also bought him a decent lock this time.
A bighearted Pennsylvania man gave a young girl a new bicycle after the bike she’d just received from a youth program was stolen days after she got it; police found the stolen bike heavily damaged in a local creek. However, you may have trouble getting past the paper’s paywall.
Popular Mechanics offers their picks for the best hitch-mounted bike racks. Just remember, any rack that obscures the license plate is illegal, although it’s one of those things where you’ll probably get away with it, until you don’t.
CyclingTips considers that $28,000 Louis Vuitton bike with the bizarre backward suicide handbrakes. Which is a lot of money for something that will probably get you killed the first time you have to make a panic stop. Then again, if you can afford the bike, you can probably afford to pay someone to ride it for you.
Glasgow, Scotland has adopted a Vision Zero plan, with the goal of ending traffic fatalities and serious injuries on the roads by 2030. Although as we’ve learned the hard way here in Los Angeles, it’s meaningless without the political will to make the hard choices, which we clearly lack.
A new German-made, four-wheeled, self-propelled bike trailer promises you won’t have to work any harder to pull it, and it will easily follow your bike wherever you go, at speeds up to 19 mph. It might be just a bit pricy, though, available for rent for a tad under $600 a month.
July 16, 2021 /
bikinginla / Comments Off on Questions raised about PCH door zone warning, and driver crashes into home built by Lincoln’s great-grandfather
Those were quickly followed by a comment on here, and a series of increasingly rude and insulting private messages blaming me for somehow ruining 20 year of bicycle advocacy by repeating what was said in a news story from a Malibu paper.
Which I was apparently supposed to somehow be able to deduce had made some yet-to-be confirmed error in reporting the story.
Then again, I was also accused in those private messages of somehow plagiarizing that same story by someone who had apparently never read it, and clearly has no idea what plagiarism means.
@bikinginla gets it wrong. Bicyclists in Malibu have been campaigning for this safety project for 20 years. Really sad to see sloppy research in the name of activism get it so wrong. 14-foot wide shoulders leaves plenty of room for safe parking -a state requirement- and bikes.
@bikinginla you got your facts wrong in #malibu City wants vehicle lanes scrunched to the center by eliminating an unused, extra wide median. It will not add or decrease parking spaces. That is illegal under Coastal Law. Shoulders will become 14 feet wide, giving bikes safe zone!
While I wasn’t involved in this project, and had no idea it was even in the works before this week, I have long fought for bike safety on PCH in Malibu. And worked with and supported Eric Bruins in his surprisingly successful campaign to turn the city from extremely anti-bike to a newfound commitment to welcoming people on two wheels.
And this project was definitely not what I remember asking for.
I also don’t remember meeting Mr. Laetz during all those years that I represented the LACBC on the PCH Task Force, before illness forced me to step down.
Which doesn’t mean he wasn’t there, or wasn’t working for bike safety in other ways. With all the meds I’m on these days, I have trouble remembering last week, let alone what happened a decade or so ago.
A stretch of Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu that’s seen several bicycle collisions in as many years is being looked at for changes that will make it safer for bicyclists while adding motor vehicle parking.
Note that last phrase, “adding motor vehicle parking.”
The writer of that piece, Scott Steepleton, the editor of the Malibu Surfside News, cited a Malibu Planning Commission document as his source.
According to the July 19 meeting staff report by Jessica Thompson, associate planner, the changes “will provide increased travel space on the right shoulder for a combination of bicycle use and on-street parking, thereby improving safety on this segment of PCH.”
I never hid the fact that this was my source, and linked back to the story in my original post. I also sent the link to Mr. Laetz when he objected to my story to confirm where the information came from.
Yet he continued to attack me, both publicly and privately. Right up to the point I told him what he could do with himself, and blocked him from my personal Twitter account.
WAIT A MINUTE, The city’s plan is to WIDEN the shoulder, by narrowing the median and shifting the traffic lanes to the center, No parking will be added, none will be eliminated. Te (sic) plan will leave shoulders that are in excess of 14 feet wide. It will also add marked bike lanes at the traffic lights. The Coastal Commission will not allow the city to add parking (reducing coastal access to bicyclists) or decrease parking (reducing parking access for people in vehicles). This plan is parking neutral. It will eliminate much of the wide, unused median. GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT.
Despite repeated requests, he never sent me a link to any source to back up his description of the project, though he did reference a story he claimed to have written for the Malibu Times, which I haven’t been able to find on their website.
However, assuming the shoulder will in fact be a minimum of 14 feet wide, while that may be enough room to safely pass an average parked car, it would leave only a sliver of space outside the door zone of today’s massive pickups and SUVs.
And that’s if the driver pulls all the way to the right, which hardly ever happens the real world.
It also raises the question of whether that space could be better used to provide a parking protected bike lane that would keep riders safely out of the door zone, as well as away from drivers cutting over to park their cars or pull out of a parking space.
And why maintain those plush eleven-foot traffic lanes, which encourage higher speeds, when they could easily be narrowed a foot to help slow traffic, and provide more space to work with on either side?
As I tried to point out to Mr. Laetz, even if this project would be wholly beneficial for people on bicycles, the worst thing that resulted from calling it out is that hundreds of bike riders are newly aware of it, and prepared to give it the scrutiny any bike project should have.
Full disclosure, I won’t be able to make it Monday evening. Somehow, I suspect my wife’s birthday has to take priority if I don’t want to see a permanent change my sleeping arrangements.
I’ve also offered to let Mr. Laetz write a guest post for this site to clarify anything he thinks we got wrong.
So far, he hasn’t responded.
I’ll let you know if he does.
………
I do my best to be as truthful and accurate as possible in everything you read on this site.
If I get something wrong, I’m more than happy to correct it, which I’ve done more times than I can count. Just reach out to me, either in the comments below, at the email address on the About page, or on Twitter @BikinginLA.
Just be able to back it up. And don’t be a jerk about it.
A Utah TV station wins the award for best attempt to remove any agency for an injury collision, with a headline that suggests some unidentified “person” was injured when a car without a driver somehow collided with a bicycle without a rider.
The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
After a Denver man attempted to stop a woman from stealing his neighbor’s $5,000 mountain bike, she returned in a beat-up SUV and smashed into another car while attempting to run him down. But even after they tracked the attacker to a nearby homeless camp, the police have refused to go in and do anything about it.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
CyclingTips examines the custom Trek Domane Richard Branson pretended to ride to Sunday’s space launch, in what they accurately describe as part of a billionaire “dick-measuring competition.” Couldn’t have said it better myself.
A culture website suggests four exciting US cities to ride a bike in. If you really want excitement, though, it’s hard to top mixing it up with LA drivers. Although it may not be the kind of excitement you want.
No surprise here. Las Vegas is being sued by the family of a Black man who died in police custody in 2019 with a cop’s knee planted firmly in his back; Byron Williams was recorded saying 24 times that he couldn’t breathe, after getting stopped for the capital crime of not having a light on his bike. The family is being represented by the same lawyer who filed suit in the George Floyd case.
Montana’s first shuttle mountain bike park is now open near the Flathead Lake resort area, incorporating a shuttle service to carry riders from the end of one gravity trail to the start of another.
Talk about flash photography. A British woman snapping a selfie captured the exact moment she and her brother and sister were struck by lightening as they were sheltering under a tree, after getting caught in a thunderstorm while riding their bikes to see their aunt; fortunately, they were all okay after being treated for burns.
After we sounded the alarm yesterday, Streets For All is calling on everyone to email the Malibu Planning Commission.
The street safety PAC is urging bike riders to protest plans to widen a two-mile section of PCH to “improve bicycle safety” by installing even more roadside parking, forcing bike riders into the door zone.
And yes, that means you.
Ask the City of Malibu to add safe, protected bike lanes to PCH
However, their proposal is really a way to add even more parking for cars on PCH, while putting people in bikes in the “door zone.” We need them to do better, and eventually would love a protected bike lane for the entire stretch of PCH.
Cuong Trinh, the Active Transportation and Complete Streets/ Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator for Caltrans District 7, wants your input on the state DOT’s active transportation plan for the Los Angeles region.
Hello Community Stakeholder,
I wanted to let you know that we are undertaking the development of the Caltrans District 7 Active Transportation Plan.
Our plan serves as a needs assessment, by utilizing our government agency partners, non-government stakeholders and members of the public to identify bicycle and pedestrian needs along the State Highway System. In order to undertake the completion of this plan, we have a Consultant that is analyzing existing planning documents from cities and counties, as well as user and partner-submitted needs (using a location-based-needs survey) that your organization and its stakeholders can participate in.
The State Highway System includes all state-owned freeways, select regional highways and some local streets. All of these freeways, highways or local streets are signed by a red and blue Interstate freeway shield (Interstate 5) or a green California state highway shield (State Route 2).
Next Thursday, July 22nd, we invite you to attend one of our informational meetings intended for our non-governmental stakeholders where we will provide an introduction to the Caltrans Active Transportation Plans and the effort to complete the plan in Caltrans District 7, serving Los Angeles and Ventura counties. You may be aware that other Caltrans districts are also in the process of completing their district-specific plans as Caltrans has 12 districts that serve 58 counties statewide.
Your organization and its stakeholders may be aware of bicycle and pedestrian needs on our State Highways. These needs can range from missing or broken sidewalks to gaps in bicycle lanes and paths along or across State Highway System facilities. We see that your input is critical in providing locations and context for those needs. With your help, we can prioritize those needs in our future highway projects. However, without sufficient input from our stakeholders, we would be short of sufficient information that our project engineers could use to address non-motorized user needs.
You can learn more about the CAT Plans, as well as take a survey (where users are invited to place pins on a map) at http://www.catplan.org and click District 7.
We have scheduled two informational meetings in the next week that you can attend at your convenience, as the same materials will be presented at either meeting. Therefore, you can attend one meeting that best fits your schedule.
Feel free to attend one of these (virtual) meetings at your convenience:
Also feel free to forward this to anyone from other organizations or people who may find the Caltrans Active Transportation Plans effort of interest or relevance, as we may have missed many organizations and local interests.
Should you have any questions regarding the CAT Plans, don’t hesitate to contact the project lead for the Caltrans District 7 Active Transportation Plan, at cuong.trinh@dot.ca.gov.
Hope you stay healthy and safe.
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Sunset4All is now over halfway to their goal of raising $25,000 to fund a public/private partnership to build protected bike lanes on eastern sections of Sunset and Santa Monica Blvds.
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GCN explains how to successfully deploy chamois cream to keep your bike from being a pain in the ass.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
Horrifying video from Idaho, where a 26-year old man faces charges for responding to a minor dispute between kids at a skate park by chasing two young boys in his pickup, and running over their bicycles after they barely jump out of the way. Never mind what kind of a sick schmuck would actually do something like that.
No bias here. A Missouri newspaper says a young boy was injured when he hit a car with his bicycle. Unfortunately, there’s no way to tell what actually happened from the brief three-sentence article. But that probably wasn’t it.
Sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
Despite a number of street safety projects across the city, San Francisco is failing to make progress on Vision Zero, with roughly the same number of fatalities last year as in 2014, when the program to eliminate traffic deaths was adopted. On the other hand, at least they’re undertaking major Vision Zero projects, unlike a certain megalopolis to the south we could mention, which continues to just nibble around the edges.
Writing for Road Bike Action, a doctor explains how to treat and survive road rash. Don’t get me started. I once wiped out during a high-speed turn and ended up with road rash from my ankle to my chin. Good times.
Fast Company says simply designing cities better — whether through superblocks, a Paris-inspired 15-minute city or going carfree — could cut deaths by all causes up to 20%.
The New York Times and National Public Radio both pick up the story of Austrian cyclist Lachlan Morton’s remarkable solo ride along the entire Tour de France route, and every mile in between, raising over half a million for World Bicycle Relief while beating the Tour peloton the Paris by six days.
