BikinginLA

Just 155 days left until Los Angeles fails to meet its Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025. 

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I’m still looking for more volunteers to write guest posts or fill in for me for a few days while I’m out next month following shoulder surgery. We’ve already had a few people volunteer, but we could use more; just email me at the address on the About BikinginLA page, which I really need to update. 

And if I haven’t gotten back to you yet, don’t worry, I will.

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About damn time.

A 1.5-mile section of Crystal Springs Drive through LA’s Griffith Park is getting a lane reduction, from two in each direction to just one each way, along with buffered bike and pedestrian paths.

The road will also get speed bumps and new traffic signs to slow endemic speeding. Although key to the success of the $1.4 million project is whether there will be anything to prevent drivers from using the buffer — or worse, the bike path — to simply go around them.

This is the same section of road where Andrew Jelmert was killed while the beloved 77-year old was participating in a training ride for the annual AIDS/LifeCycle Ride.

Thirty-seven-year old Jairo Martinez was allegedly speeding and under the influence when he slammed into Jelmert while passing another car, with enough force to scatter bits of his shattered bicycle across the nearby hillside.

Martinez was arrested by sheriff’s deputies who scoured the scrub along the roadway after he fled the crash on foot.

There’s no word on the outcome of his case; the last news was when Martinez pled not guilty to the charges against him a little more than two years ago.

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San Diego celebrated the official opening of the long-awaited 2.3-mile Pershing Bikeway through Balboa Park on Saturday, which includes a fully separated two-way bike lane and pedestrian path, along with a new 75-foot bridge over Florida Canyon creek

Noted San Diego architect Laura Shinn was killed by a meth-addled driver while riding her bike to work there three years ago, while 34-year-old Johnathan Sepulveda was killed by a teenaged driver while riding a scooter a few months later.

Both died while waiting for the long-delayed bikeway that might have saved them.

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A new GCN video says we’ve all be brainwashed by a 100-year old “carspiracy,” suggesting we’ll never see the world the same way again after watching it.

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It’s now 221 days since the California ebike incentive program’s latest failure to launch, which was promised no later than fall 2023. And 37 full months since it was approved by the legislature and signed into law — and counting.

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

No bias here. An op-ed in the often anti-bike New York Post calls a citywide trade-in program to ensure delivery riders are on safer bikes with non-flammable batteries the mayor’s ebike boondoggle. Although she does have a point that the companies they work for should be on the hook for paying for it.

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

No surprise here, as a new French study shows that men, younger riders and bikeshare users were more likely to engage in risky bike behavior — which was defined as not wearing a helmet, running red lights, and crossing an intersection in front of oncoming traffic — than older riders, women and people riding their own bikes.

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Local 

No news is good news, right?

 

State

Sad news from Merced, where a 15-year old boy was killed in a collision with a “vehicle” while riding his bicycle, in a story that doesn’t even bother to mention if there was a driver involved.

More sad news from San Jose, where a woman was killed while riding her bike in a crosswalk Thursday evening, when a van driver swerved to avoid the man she was riding with, and slammed into her.

Still more sad news, this time from Antioch, where a woman was killed by a suspected drunk driver while riding her bike early Saturday morning; the 38-year old driver was arrested on a charge of DUI causing serious bodily injury or death.

 

National

He gets it. A writer for Utah’s Cycling West calls cars America’s biggest death cult. Which is hard to argue with when drivers kill around 40,000 Americans every year.

The battle over curbside parking is once again rearing its ugly head in Denver, as business owners fret over the loss of 200 parking spaces to install a protected bike lane in the Sloane’s Lake neighborhood. Even though studies have repeatedly shown similar projects have often resulted in increase in business activity, or at least no net loss. 

Nice gesture from a group of kindhearted Michigan State Police officers, who replaced a young boy’s bicycle that was stolen by a man who went on to kill a cop a few blocks away — and also brought three more bikes for the boy’s younger brothers.

Hundreds of people rode their bikes through the streets of Philadelphia to the steps of City Hall to demand safer streets, following the recent deaths of a bike rider and a pedestrian.

Heartbreaking news from Florida, where a three-year old boy was killed while riding a bike with his mother and siblings in a condo complex parking lot, when the SUV driver hit the boy after turning a corner.

 

International

Momentum recommends ten must-try summer North American bicycling routes, ranging from Canada’s Icefield’s Parkway to the Great Divide Trail.

They get it. The Toronto Star calls for improving safety in the ostensibly bike-friendly Canadian city, where five bike riders have died already this year, with another ten seriously injured.

London could soon ban “free-floating” bikeshare and e-scooter parking on sidewalks, requiring that they be left in designated bays, which providers say could kill micromobility in the city. Although it hasn’t seemed to hurt it anywhere else. 

The Bamboo Society of India is promoting bicycle frames made with locally grown bamboo as a more ecological solution to the countless bicycles that end up in landfills.

 

Competitive Cycling

French mountain biker Pauline Ferrand-Prevot won gold for her home country in the women’s cross-country race, while American Haley Batten overcame a broken rear wheel to take silver, with Sweden’s Jenny Rissveds capturing bronze.

Batten was fined the equivalent of $565 dollars after the race for “failure to respect the instructions of the race organization or commissaires” when she rode through a lane dedicated for taking on food and drink or stopping for a mechanical; fortunately, the violation was not considered serious enough to merit disqualification from the first Olympic mountain biking gold or silver won by a US cyclist.

France’s Loana Lecompte was lucky to escape without serious injuries when she went over her handlebars and landed headfirst on rocks on the side of the trial during a technical part of the course, briefly losing consciousness as the medics rushed in and cameras cut away.

Australian Grace Brown won the gold medal in the women’s time trial, while British cyclist Anna Henderson won silver, and American Chloe Dygert overcame a fall on the rain-soaked course to capture bronze, after watching the gold medal slip through her hands; US cyclist Taylor Knibb skidded off her bike four times before mercifully finishing.

Belgium’s Remco Evenepoel took gold in the men’s Olympic time trial in a pouring rain, finishing just ahead of Italy’s Filippo Ganna, with fellow Belgian Wout van Aert winning the bronze medal.

Australian cyclist Lucas Plapp underwent emergency abdominal surgery after he went under a barrier fence when his bike slid out from under him on the rain-slicked roadway during the time trial.

 

Finally…

Your next bike saddle could cost the equivalent of $1,400.

And bikes come in handy for a lot of things — like whacking an angry mama bear on the snout to make your getaway.

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

Oh, and fuck Putin