Tag Archive for Stolen bikes

LA approves ban on bike chop shops, and environmental groups pull support for awful Geary-designed LA River plan

June 15, 2022 / / Comments Off on LA approves ban on bike chop shops, and environmental groups pull support for awful Geary-designed LA River plan

As expected, the Los Angeles City Council passed an ordinance to ban open air bike chop shops on public property.

The ordinance is intended to give police a tool to address the proliferation of chop shops dealing in stolen bicycles, often found in homeless encampments throughout the city.

Here’s how CD15 Councilmember Joe Buscaino described the ordinance.

He said the new law, which is modeled after a similar one in the city of Long Beach, would target people in possession of five or more bicycle parts, a bicycle frame with the gear cables or brake cables cut, two or more bicycles with missing parts, or three or more bicycles on public property.

It also is written to specifically exclude people with a valid business license, as well as someone fixing their own bicycle.

While bike theft and receiving stolen merchandise are already illegal, LAPD officers tell me it can be difficult to make a case, since most bikes are never reported stolen, and it’s almost impossible to identify a bicycle once it’s been dismantled.

Even if they can make a case, it’s usually just a misdemeanor, since it’s hard to prove the value of the stolen bikes are more than the $950 value for grand theft. Which means the suspects are usually back on the street doing business again within days.

Whether this will be successful in preventing bike thefts, or simply becomes a tool for harassing and criminalizing homeless people, remains to be seen.

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Environmental groups have pulled their support of the proposed LA River master plan, accusing officials of ignoring their recommendations for the awful Frank Geary designed plan.

His designs would simply hide the river’s concrete channels under elevated parks, rather than return it to a more natural state.

Hopefully, it will never get built, even if it is approved.

But it will inevitably get tied up in court, and delay any real action on improving the river for years, if not decades.

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Local

He gets it. In an interview at LAX, Hanging with Mr. Cooper star Mark Curry says stop complaining about high gas prices and start riding a bike.

Active SGV led a toxic tour of Avocado Heights and City of Industry sites threatened by pollution, culminating with a stop at lead battery recycling plant Ecobat.

Long Beach plans to move forward with highway interchange improvement projects that would have been part of the now-cancelled 710 Freeway widening, including some protected bike lanes.

Lime is planning to test a new electric motor scooter with a top speed of 20 mph in Long Beach, deploying several hundred of the bikes in the city.

 

State 

Bills are starting to move forward in the state legislature again after it passed a budget framework, including one that would provide CEQA exemptions for sustainable transportation projects.

Yes, please. A San Francisco city supervisor wants to start holding public town halls after every traffic fatality. Although that might be just a tad impractical in Los Angeles.

 

National

Slate says traffic safety ads may be good at making puns, but they don’t change driver behavior to improve safety.

Colorado is preparing a $12 million statewide ebike rebate program, in the wake of Denver’s highly successful one. Meanwhile, California’s $10 million ebike rebate program remains in limbo, with no estimated start date.

A group of military vets are planning a 1,900 mile, 41 day ride to recreate the legendary ride of the Buffalo Soldiers, who rode from Missoula, Montana to St. Louis to prove bicycles could be a viable form of transportation for the military.

Heartbreaking news from South Dakota, where a 53-year old Canadian man was killed by a truck driver while on an 838-mile bike ride to raise awareness about kidney disease, and raise funds for a kidney transplant for his granddaughter; the crowdfunding campaign for her transplant has raised over $22,000, topping the $20,000 goal.

Over 200 people turned out for Boston’s first Pride bike ride.

ESPN’s ESPY award winner Jason McElwain was seriously injured when he was hit by a driver while riding his bike in Greece, New York; the autistic student manager of his high school basketball team, McElwain gained fame when the coach put him in near the end of the team’s final home game, and he responded by sinking seven three-point shots. He’s now a motivational speaker.

UPS is testing small battery-powered delivery trucks designed to operate in New York bike lanes. In other words, just one more obstacle putting bike riders at risk. Thanks to Megan Lynch for the heads-up.

Hoboken, New Jersey could decide that 20 is plenty, as the city council considers a proposal to lower city streets to 20 mph.

Seriously? Police in Philadelphia are looking for a burglar who broke into a bike shop and stole a 1996 military prototype bicycle worth an estimated — wait for it — $100,000. For that price, it must be made from Unobtanium.

An artist painted a message of hope in a Pennsylvania town, after the man she had planned to paint it with was killed by a driver while riding his bike. As usual, read it on Yahoo if Bicycling blocks you.

 

International

Electrek asks if Urban Arrow’s new e-cargo bike is the luxury SUV of the ebike world.

POC’s newest bike helmet is made for sustainability, made of 50% recycled materials and designed to be easily disassembled and recycled at the end of its usefulness.

A man walking his dog stepped in to rescue an 82-year old English man after he was knocked off his bike and attacked by a frenzied cow; he used the man’s bicycle to fend off the one-ton animal until it turned to attack another man.

An Irish delivery rider has been acquitted of murder for stabbing a 16-year old boy to death, agreeing he acted in self-defense when he was attacked by a group of teenagers while trying to reclaim another delivery rider’s stolen bicycle.

The capital city of Estonia will give kids the equivalent of $105 to buy a bicycle to encourage them to start riding.

He gets it, too. The mayor of Bengaluru, India says the city’s bikeways can’t have a real impact until they’re connected in a viable network; the city plans to build 378 miles of bike lanes by 2035.

A secondhand ebike has helped a longtime New Zealand bike advocate fall back in love with bicycling on his 37-mile commute.

 

Competitive Cycling

Cycling Tips explains how to follow the Race Across America, aka RAAM, which started yesterday.

Nice ad featuring L39ion of Los Angeles founder Justin Williams for Vuori.

 

Finally…

Evidently, bike polo is still a thing. If you’re already wanted by the cops for threatening a woman with a switchblade, maybe don’t ride an illegal motorized bike.

And bike riders are the new Atlas.

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

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

National masters road champ killed in DUI crash, CA still dangerous place to ride, and Bike Index helps recover SaMo bike

May 18, 2021 / / Comments Off on National masters road champ killed in DUI crash, CA still dangerous place to ride, and Bike Index helps recover SaMo bike

Just devastating.

Sunday night, I debated linking to a story about the death of an unidentified woman killed by an alleged stoned driver while riding in a bike lane in a Denver suburb.

I decided against it, in part because it happens every day in this motor-addled country.

Today we that woman was identified as the reigning national master’s road champ in her age category.

Forty-six-year old Gwen Inglis was riding in the foothills west of Denver, most likely headed home after an early morning ride, when a 29-year old driver drifted into the bike lane and slammed into her from behind.

This quote comes from the Denver Post.

The Bicycle Racing Association of Colorado, part of USA Cycling, released a statement mourning the loss of Inglis.

“Colorado cycling lost one of their best yesterday,” the organization said. “There are few words that can express the feeling of loss for any of our cycling community, and Gwen was a particularly special person. She was a multiple National and State Champion on the bike and very well known across the cycling community in Colorado. Even more impressive was her character off the bike. Knowing Gwen, you would immediately be aware of her strongest qualities. She consistently brought joy into all her relationships, and she openly accepted everyone.”

Inglis was the reigning road race national champion for women in the 45-49 age group. Her husband, Mike Inglis, is also a standout cyclist. The two won their classifications on the same day in an August 2019 race in Boulder.

The paper reported that her killer had previously been arrested on multiple drug-related offenses, including DUI.

Just one more example of officials keeping a dangerous driver on the road until it’s too late. Every one of whom should be held responsible for her death.

Meanwhile, VeloNews is collecting heartbreaking remembrances from the friends and competitors — usually both — who knew her best.

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However you measure it, California is a dangerous place to ride a bike.

According to Bicycling, a new report from StreetLight Data ranks states by the risk to bicyclists per miles traveled, rather than the per capita basis used by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

When comparing the old list from NHTSA, that use per capita data, to the revised list from StreetLight Data, the top 10 most dangerous states have been mostly shuffled around—particularly the top four, which list the same states in both but in a different order. New Mexico ranks the same in both, in fifth place. And California makes both the old NHTSA list and the new StreetLight Data list, but it ranks sixth on the former and tenth on the latter.

Delaware, South Carolina and Florida top the list of dangerous states, followed by Louisiana and New Mexico, while Massachusetts, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Utah rank as the safest.

As usual, read it on Yahoo if Bicycling blocks you. 

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Streetsblog California’s Melanie Curry picks up last week’s bizarre story about respected bike safety advocate Pat Hines’ opposition to California’s AB 122, the proposed Stop As Yield law.

And the personal tragedy she relates about the death of her friend Sue Latham, who she claims was killed in a hit-and-run when they both blew through a stop sign, and she made it, while Latham didn’t.

Except it probably didn’t happen.

At least not that way.

As recently as a few weeks ago, Race Across America posted the supposed origin story on Facebook, writing that Hines and her friend, Sue Latham, were “riding together when Latham was struck by a car and killed. They were training for the 1984 Olympics. This heartbreaking event propelled Hines into public service. She became one of the nation’s most vocal and best-recognized activists in the area of traffic and bicycle safety.”

But Latham was not training for the Olympics. The two women were members of a swim club that had planned a bike ride that day, according to press reports at the time, but there is no indication that they were riding together.

And there’s no mention of a stop sign.

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More proof that free lifetime registration with Bike Index really works.

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It’s Bike It! Walk It! Week for Santa Monica school kids.

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Yes, you can recharge your bike through the kickstand while you’re parked. But unless it offers a lot more security, it’ll never fly on this side of the pond.

https://twitter.com/menorman/status/1394329390054404098

Thanks to Stormin’ Norman for the link.

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As long as we’re in the Netherlands, let’s go to a live news remote.

From the bike path.

https://twitter.com/annaholligan/status/1392864907889152001

Thanks to Schroedinger for the tip.

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Anyone see a problem here?

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Local

Metro continues their Bike Week celebration with 15% off Metro Bike merch, with promo code bike2021. I’m thinking about this one.

Nick Jonas is painfully one of us, somehow cracking a rib falling off his bike while filming an undisclosed project.

 

State

Encinitas residents will soon be able to enjoy e-bikeshare as they ride around the coastal town.

Bakersfield is celebrating an extended Bike Month with a virtual scavenger hunt.

No bias here. A San Jose letter writer complains that road diets are inconveniencing drivers for the sake of bicyclists, while a columnist explains that they’re installed to improve safety on dangerous streets, and bicyclists and pedestrians benefit from the improvements. Just like drivers who want to get home in one piece.

The New York Times considers the debate over whether cars should be allowed back in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park.

A Marin writer says it may be legal to ride with your dog on a leash beside you, but it’s never a good idea.

 

National

Bicycling tells you everything you need to know about bike tire sizes, but were afraid to ask. Once again, read it on Yahoo if Bicycling blocks you.

A Washington state paper says ebikes are coming, ready or not.

A San Antonio councilmember is accused of inappropriate conduct by attempting to influence the judge and DA, sending a letter asking them to refuse any plea deal that doesn’t include a meaningful prison sentence for an accused drunk driver who killed a popular bike rider.

A Detroit website considers the role bike clubs play in the social fabric of the community. And have since the 1870s.

A Manhattan man was unexpectedly stabbed in both arms after getting off his bike in an apparent random attack.

 

International

They get it. The World Health Organization says streets are for people, and it’s time to give them back.

New UK press guidelines say it’s crash, not accident.

According to a British Parliament member, arguing that too many cars cause traffic congestion, and not bike lanes, is “bourgeoisie and woke.”

An op-ed from a Scottish bike lawyer says bicycling isn’t just for during the pandemic, and both new riders and the popup bike lanes installed for them should stick around.

Young bike riders in Madrid will now be required to wear a helmet to ride a bike or a scooter.

Unbelievable. An Aussie driver walks free following the hit-and-run death of a man riding a bicycle, after playing the universal Get Out Of Jail Free card by claiming she was unaware of the crash because the sun was in her eyes. Which doesn’t explain why she couldn’t feel or hear the impact, or notice the victim on her hood.

 

Competitive Cycling

Peter Sagan won the tenth stage of the Giro for the second year in a row, while Egan Bernal, Aleksandr Vlasov and Remco Evenepoel are bunched for the overall lead.

A writer for VeloNews argues that we’re in a golden age of cycling — maybe the best ever — as exemplified by this year’s Giro. Although it’s hard to argue against the age of Coppi and Bartali.

Amazing save by a cyclist in a U-23 race, who swerves to avoid a dog and narrowly avoids crashing by grabbing the rider ahead of him, surfing his frame to a safe dismount on the side of the road. Although his rescuer is none too happy about it, as shown below.

Marin school officials back off a decision to cut high school mountain bike teams loose after thousands of parents and students rise up in anger.

 

Finally…

It may be more aero, but probably not the best idea to ride naked from the waist down.

And don’t try taking a selfie while riding. Especially on live TV.

Thanks to Erik Griswold and Keith Johnson for the heads-up.

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Be safe, and stay healthy. And wear a mask. 

And get vaccinated, already.

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

Bicycle memorial to French Resistance, Sierra Madre cops recover hot Schwinn Continental, and bike cops behaving badly

November 6, 2020 / / Comments Off on Bicycle memorial to French Resistance, Sierra Madre cops recover hot Schwinn Continental, and bike cops behaving badly

A long overdue memorial to the French Resistance in World War II in finally underway, thanks to a retiring American Special Forces officer.

Using his spare time during the coronavirus lockdown to indulge his interest in history, Special Forces Cpt. Joseph Ivanov discovered there’s no memorial at Normandy Beach to the roughly 400,000 men, women and youths who risked, and often lost, their lives fighting the Nazis and preparing for the D-Day invasion.

Working with the designer of the site’s Navy memorial, he set out to rectify that with a design that also pays silent tribute to the bicycles that served as a primary means of transportation in the fight.

The pre-invasion shaping operations of the French Resistance, Ivanov says, were crucial to success on D-Day. He noted that French patriots reported German defense positions, produced and smuggled to England a massive map of the beachhead and cut enemy communications lines in advance of the landings. An estimated 1,000 German factories were sabotaged by the French Resistance during the war. Trains were derailed. Intelligence was passed along from children and women to Allied personnel in England and later in France. Around the D-Day window alone – June 4-6, 1944 – the French Resistance is credited for hundreds more acts of sabotage that enabled the Allies to storm the continent.

He hopes to have the memorial, which was initially funded out of his own pocket, installed next year.

You can contribute to the French Resistance memorial here.

Photo from The American Legion website.

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Sierra Madre police busted an apparently stoned burglar who allegedly stole a shotgun and a very cool Schwinn Continental ten speed — though not the one shown in the photo.

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Today’s common theme is bike cops apparently behaving badly.

And despite earlier condemnation, New York cops continue to brandish their bikes as barricades and weapons to corral members.

Thanks to Megan Lynch for the Seattle link.

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Looks like the bike giveaways are starting early this year.

The kindhearted elves at the Richmond VA bike advocacy group raised close to $25,000 to buy and assemble hundreds of new bikes for local kids.

The “bike fairy” has given over 3,000 refurbished bicycles to foster kids in Central Florida in less than four years.

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I wasn’t familiar with this one, myself.

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James Van Der Beek may not be one of us, but his young daughter is after the family moved to Texas during the pandemic.

Even if she’s not getting anywhere.

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Good advice.

GCN wants to teach you how to brake hard without crashing your bike or pulling an endo.

Which I may have done myself once or twice.

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Congratulations to BikinginLA title sponsor Jim Pocrass and the team at Pocrass & De Los Reyes.

But after getting to know them for the past several years, I never had any doubt.

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

A Canadian writer blames a bike lane for the bad behavior of drivers, rather than the people who can’t manage to drive between the lines.

A London town councillor blames bike lanes for excessive traffic, instead of all those people in cars rushing to run errands before Britain re-enters a Covid lockdown next week.

No, having a horn does not give an impatient English driver a superior right to the road.

Police in Brussels are conducting an internal investigation after a pair of Flemish women were assaulted and spit on by a road raging driver, and couldn’t find any cops who spoke Dutch to take their complaint.

A passing Aussie driver is caught on camera attempting to slap a bicyclist who was riding on the shoulder. And fails, thankfully.

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

A man tossed his bicycle into the bed of a $350,000 dual-axel pickup belonging to DJ Marshmallow, and led the LAPD on a three hour chase in the stolen truck.

Milwaukee authorities are offering a $10,000 reward for the bike-riding man who shot and killed another man following a dispute.

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Local

The award-winning Go Human safety program developed by the Southern California Association of Governments, aka SCAG, has received a $1.25 million grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety.

Coldplay’s Chris Martin is one of us, riding his mountain bike through the ‘Bu with a friend.

 

State

Bike-skate-paddle-snow-fitness e-commerce brand Retrospec is moving to a new 200,000 square foot warehouse in Perris after outgrowing their LA home.

Escondido police got over half a million dollars in grants from the state for traffic safety programs, including education efforts on the rights of bike riders and pedestrians; La Mesa police got a hundred grand. Who wants to bet that emphasis rights will end up focusing on the responsibilities of bike riders, instead?

If you lost a bike in the Bay Area recently, San Francisco police are looking for the owners of 18 apparently hot bikes recovered as a result of busting a fencing operation.

 

National

Bicyclists need strength training, too.

Your new bike may not be recyclable, but the packaging it came in may be.

Comedian Sebastian Maniscalco is one of us, and really, really loves his ebike. As usual, you can also read it on Yahoo if Bicycling block you out.

At last Baltimore has noticed that Black people ride bikes — and advocate for safer conditions, too.

The bloodbath continues in New York, which suffered its 21st bicycling fatality this year, just two years after touting the success of Vision Zero. That’s still a better rate than LA County, with a total of 14 deaths so far this year, despite having just half the population.

At least New York is doing something about it, though, with two new protected bike lanes in Brooklyn. Unlike a certain SoCal megalopolis we could name.

Philadelphia Flyers mascot Gritty presented a new adaptive bike to an 11-year old boy with muscular dystrophy, courtesy of the team and a local nonprofit.

Inspired by a fellow bandmate, a South Carolina musician lost 55 pounds after getting back on his bike for the first time in years. And yes, you can read it on Yahoo if the Bicycling site blocks you out.

A nonprofit founded by a South Carolina woman gave a new bike to a homeless man after his belongings were lost, including his bicycle.

Covid-19 has put a sudden end to the bikeshare program at the University of Georgia.

I want to be like her when I grow up. A Florida woman celebrated her 70th birthday by riding 70 miles to raise funds to fight ALS.

 

International

London’s Evening Standard looks at the best bike lights and reflective gear for winter riding, including a light that fits in your water bottle holder to make you more visible from the side.

This is how Vision Zero is supposed to work. Edinburgh is working to install emergency infrastructure to protect bike riders at an intersection where a woman was killed riding her bike this week, the second bike death there in less than two years.

Add bikepacking through the wilds of Scotland to your bike bucket list.

Forbes tracks the decades of sometimes bizarre research by a Swedish mechanical engineer that led to MIPS bike and motorcycle helmets.

The bike boom has hit the disputed Kashmir territory on the Indian – Pakistan border, leaving bike dealers struggling to keep up with demand.

 

Competitive Cycling

Belgian cyclist Jasper Philipsen took the first Grand Tour stage of his career at Thursday’s stage 15 of the Vuelta.

Rouleur looks back at the 1960 Vuelta, where bike pumps were wielded like medieval lances, and “any sense of dignity was left behind on the mountaintops of Spain.”

Cycling Tips looks back at the 2020 racing season as seen in…Google reviews.

 

Finally…

Maybe driving in a bike lane while stoned with weed stuffed next to your panties isn’t the best idea. Then again, passing out drunk while riding your bike with a flask stuffed in your pants, and shouting “Our time will come” in Gaelic at the cops might not be a real winner, either.

And maybe hi-viz isn’t the answer after all.

https://twitter.com/WilliamNB/status/1324415297797967876

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Be safe, and stay healthy. And wear a mask, already. 

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

Morning Links: Auto-centric traffic safety denier op-ed in OC Register, cross-border bike rescue, and why people keep dying

October 29, 2019 / / Comments Off on Morning Links: Auto-centric traffic safety denier op-ed in OC Register, cross-border bike rescue, and why people keep dying

One quick bit of advice before we get started. 

With all the fires in California this week, it’s important to note that wildfire smoke can cause problems ranging from allergies and irritated eyes to lasting lung damage. 

So if you can smell smoke, don’t ride. If you have to ride, wear a mask.

And stop by your local hardware store or pharmacy to get one that really works.

Your lungs will thank you. 

Photo by Denniz Futalan from Pexels.

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File this one under you’ve got to be kidding.

An op-ed in the Orange County Register makes some of the most blatant auto-centric, traffic safety denier arguments for the preservation of automotive hegemony we’ve yet seen.

Starting with the photo and captions of the “recent” road diets in Playa Del Rey.

LA Department of Transportation crews began restoring a second eastbound lane of traffic on Culver Boulevard between Nicholson Street and Jefferson Boulevard in Playa Del Rey while adding bollards as barriers to protect new bike/walk lanes. A recent “road diet” caused gridlock and backlash from commuters. Work is expected to be complete by Monday morning commute. Photo by Robert Casillas, Daily Breeze/SCNG

Only problem is, those road diets and bike lanes were removed two year ago. after climate friendly progressive mayor had them unceremoniously yanked out.

Evidently, it’s taken LADOT a long damn time to finish the work.

Or maybe our friendly neighborhood traffic safety denier authors — one a senior fellow with the Cato Institute, which is funded by the anti-transit Koch Brothers, the other an attorney and member of traffic safety denier pressure group Keep LA Moving — didn’t bother to do even the most basic fact checking.

Or maybe just didn’t care.

As demonstrated by their lead paragraphs, repeating the myth that a recent road diet prevented the evacuation of Paradise CA, leading to the deaths of 86 people.

Except it’s not true, according to the town’s mayor.

Mayor Jody Jones said Tuesday that the evacuation of Paradise, begun at 7:46 a.m Nov. 8, was complete by 3 p.m. Residents who arrived at a shelter in Oroville said the 16-mile exodus took 2½ hours, better than the three-hour evacuation in 2008 that sparked the Butte County Grand Jury’s investigation.

“I don’t believe that it really mattered,” Jones said of the changes made on Skyway. “I don’t think there’s any town in the world prepared with a roadway infrastructure that could evacuate their entire town all at once. They’re just not built to do that.”

That’s right.

The evacuation route took half an hour less than the same journey ten years earlier — six years before the road was even installed.

Then there’s this whopper.

The mass-produced automobile is one of the greatest inventions in American history because it brought both physical and economic mobility to the masses. These benefits were accompanied by pollution and safety issues, but such problems have dramatically declined. Cars today are 99 percent cleaner than cars in 1970, and fatality rates per 100 million vehicle miles have declined more than 75 percent.

Ask anyone who rides a bike or walks if they feel safer on the streets.

Never mind that this great invention they cite is literally one of the least efficient ways to move human beings from one place to another. And has the entire world on the brink of a climate disaster.

But hey, they’re not as bad as they used to be, right?

Or how about this?

The numbers reveal that fatalities plummeted 21 percent after the 2008 financial crisis. This was because total driving fell by 2.3 percent, reducing congestion and apparently increasing safety. When driving and congestion increased again during the economic recovery, fatalities also increased, though not by as much as they had declined.

This suggests that small reductions in traffic congestion can save many lives. Congestion especially makes intersections and streets more dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists.

However, there is a much better case to be made that while congestion may increase the risk of collisions, the severity of crashes decreases along with the decrease in speeds.

As we’ve seen in LA, the risk of traffic fatalities actually increases dramatically when streets are less congested, enabling drivers to speed and drive more aggressively.

Studies have found that for every pedestrian whose life might be saved by slowing traffic, anywhere from 35 to 85 people will die from sudden cardiac arrest due to delayed emergency response. This doesn’t even count other medical emergencies, structure fires, or other emergency service needs.

Someone please show us these studies, because they defy all comprehension.

Or maybe the Federal Highway Administration has no idea what they’re talking about when they say that not only do road diets not slow down emergency response times, they can actually improve them.

Then our traffic safety denier guides bring it down to the local level, LA style.

Los Angeles installed a road diet on Venice Boulevard, a tsunami, fire, and earthquake evacuation route, converting two of six traffic lanes into bicycle lanes. Auto traffic declined yet bicycle-auto accidents increased, a problem worsened by the difficulty emergency vehicles had in reaching injured cyclists.

Which is funny, since the road diet on Venice Blvd, aka the Mar Vista Great Streets project, actually reduced injury collisions involving people on bicycles, while eliminating severe injury collisions.

And average response times for the Mar Vista fire station are just 30 seconds longer than the citywide average.

Yes, every second matters. But clearly, the roads aren’t as congested and impassible as they would have us believe.

Let’s end on this note.

Calculations using the Department of Transportation’s National Transit Database reveal that transit in Los Angeles and most cities not named New York uses more energy and emits more greenhouse gases per passenger mile than the average car or SUV. Autos use even more energy and pollute the most in congested traffic, so increasing congestion or forcing people onto transit are the wrong ways to protect the environment.

The solution is not to force people to keep driving, which has already resulted in ever increasing traffic congestion virtually everywhere, with or without road diets.

It’s to provide viable alternatives to driving in order to get more of those cars, trucks and SUVs off the road. And the way to do that is by making bicycling, walking and transit safer, more pleasant and more efficient.

Not by doing the exact opposite.

Note: I debunked many of these and other similar myths by the Keep LA Moving half of these traffic safety denier authors in a response to his equally wacky Wall Street Journal op-ed earlier this year.

Sadly, it’s clear they’ll still get a platform, though, as long as newspapers keep excluding opinion pieces from any form of fact checking.

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David Drexler forwards news of a stolen bicycle returned to its owner, despite being taken across the border into Mexico.

Thanks in part to Bike Index.

BIKE INDEX AIDS IN RARE CROSS-BORDER RECOVERY
San Diego, Coronado, and Tijuana police forces collaborate expertly after receiving a tip on Bike Index to recover this $6,000 bicycle.

“Hi think I saw your bike on a swap meet place in Tijuana, which was a very weird place for me find an awesome bike. I’ve got the feeling that it was stolen so I took some pics and sent them to your phone. I hope it’s your stolen bike.” In August, a bike was stolen from outside of the Hotel del Coronado. A month later, someone messaged the registrant using Bike Index, believing they saw the bike at a swap meet in Mexico. Officers in Tijuana recovered the bike and met officers from the San Diego and Coronado police at the border to return the stolen bike to the owner. Cross-border recoveries are extremely rare! We’ve only had two others in our history: one bike found in Guadalajara and another found in Mexico City.

So what are you waiting for?

Register your own bike, already. Before it’s too late.

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This is why people keep dying on the streets.

The family of a Michigan man is understandably upset about a plea deal that would mean just one year in jail for the hit-and-run driver who killed him as he was riding his bike, instead of the maximum of 15-years behind bars.

After a New York trucker was convicted of killing a bike rider while driving with a suspended license, the judge sentenced him to…wait for it…another suspended sentence. Which probably won’t keep him off the roads, either.

A Malaysian judge dropped all charges and freed a woman who had slammed her car into a group of teenaged bike riders, killing eight young men; the judge ruled the police had failed to sufficiently investigate the crash. And even gave her back her driver’s license so she could do it again.

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The LACBC offers a few slogans for your Climate Strike sign at this Friday’s City Hall protest, which will feature 16-year old climate activist Greta Thunberg.

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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes is all too real.

Brooklyn garbage collectors respond to the recent deaths of bike riders killed by garbage truck drivers by walling off a bike lane with garbage cans to protest this damn bike riders. No, really.

Then there’s this, from our own LA backyard.

Meanwhile, CiclaValley says the new Safe Lanes app is the best way to record and report drivers who block bike lanes.

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Local

Here’s a better version of the Eastsider’s story about construction work on the new Red Car Pedestrian Bridge over the LA River that we linked to yesterday. Thanks to Patrick Pascal for the link.

West Hollywood ranked in the bottom third of America’s Best Small Cities, but scored a top 20 ranking for quality of life, due in part to its bikeshare system. Which has now been removed.

It’s not just bike riders who are dying in LA-area hit-and-runs.

 

State

The California Transportation Commission will livestream a symposium on the state’s Active Transportation Program today and tomorrow.

San Diego residents can look forward to a number of street disruptions in the South Bay Area for construction of the South Bay Rapid transit system starting, uh, yesterday. Thanks to Robert Leone for the heads-up.

More news from down south, where the bikeways program of the San Diego Association of Governments, aka SANDAG, is on hold for a year after falling behind schedule and $79 million over budget. Smart thinking. Nothing will get them back on track like falling even further behind.

Sacramento residents discuss how they’d make biking and walking safer.

 

National

Great long read from Cycling Tips’ James Huang, aka the Angry Asian, who says enough already, it’s time the bike industry did something about traffic deaths, while a Kentucky newspaper says not only are more pedestrians dying on our streets, but even more carnage lies ahead.

Vox says carfree zones could be the future of cities. Exactly what former state legislator Mike Gatto called for in Sunday’s Daily News.

He gets it. A writer for a public interest research group says with the dangers posed by climate change, bike riders getting scared off the roads by safety fears should be a big red flag, and we already know how to fix it.

A driving website recommends the best bike bells, calling them a must-have for a “safe, care-free ride.” Because evidently, a bell can be heard above a bumping sound system in a hermetically sealed, virtually soundproof motor vehicle, instantly alerting the driver he’s about to run over your ass. Right?

Outside tests three popular e-cargo bikes, and likes the Tern best. But says the much cheaper RadWagon will still get you there.

Evidently, they don’t get a lot of bike-riding Buddhist monks in Memphis. Or headline proof readers, for that matter.

When Boston park benches get in the way of bike stunts, just take an angle cutter and remove them. The benches, that is.

This is how Vision Zero is supposed to work. New York responds to this year’s epidemic of bicycling deaths with a $1.7 billion commitment to build 250 miles of protected bike lanes. Meanwhile, Los Angeles is committed to building bupkis.

A bike rider says he was tackled off his bike while riding on a DC trail and robbed at gunpoint, with the thief taking his bike, pannier, wallet and everything else he had with him.

The admittedly drunk New Orleans driver who killed two people riding bikes and injured several others at a Mardi Gras parade has changed his plea and and admitted guilt to all charges; he now faces up to 80 years behind bars.

A kindhearted anonymous donor dropped off a new bicycle for a Florida chef after his was stolen while he was at work; he can’t drive due to epilepsy and relies on his bicycle to get anywhere.

 

International

Interesting idea. A new bike stem comes with a built-in bike computer and 800 lumen headlight.

A brazen British bike thief literally followed a woman into a local shop to steal her new bike, after she took it in because she’d forgotten her lock.

In an absolutely brilliant step, a Belgian TV show takes politicians on a bike ride to show them the poor state of bicycle infrastructure, then confronts them with 500 relatives of people on bicycles who died because of it. Maybe if an LA TV station tried that, we might actually see some changes around here.

The City Fix offers three key lessons from The Netherlands to help spur bicycling in your own city.

A Pakistani man was killed when a glass-coated kite string fell on him, slitting his throat as he rode his bike; coated strings are used for popular kite battles in which the goal is to cut the strings of other kites.

Japanese internet users are in a tizzy after a mom is caught on video smacking her son in the head and knocking him down, for riding his bike in front of a car without looking.

 

Competitive Cycling

Bicycling likes next year’s Giro course, of course.

Good for them. After the lead rider in a Brazilian bike race got hit by a driver on an open course while the cop responsible for stopping traffic stood idly by checking his phone (see below), the entire peloton laid down their bikes and walked off in protest.

But maybe you’re more into Brompton racing.

 

Finally…

Mutant bikes and the people who love them. Who hasn’t dreamed of one day owning a shape-shifting aero bike helmet?

And nothing like getting dropped by a little kid.

 

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

Morning Links: The bikes that won the war, CA projects anti-Vision Zero jump in traffic deaths, and Jump Bike rates jump

June 14, 2019 / / One comment

Seventy-five years ago today, my dad was on his fifth day in France, after landing in Normandy on D-Day+3.

That is, three days after the bloody landing on Normandy Beach that marked the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany.

He was lucky that, as an MP, he was stationed mostly behind the front lines.

Mostly being the key word.

No so for the men of the 390th Bomber Group stationed in Suffolk, England.

David Drexler reports how they relied on bikes when they weren’t in the skies over Germany.

I am recently back from my trip to Tucson, Arizona.

In Tucson is the Pima Air and Space Museum — a phenomenal place — the Smithsonian of the West for Air History.

There is a special Hanger for the 390th Bombing Group who are alleged to have been instrumental in winning WWII:

“In the spring of 1943, the 390th Bomb Group was activated in Blythe, California with four squadrons: the 568th, 569th, 570th, and 571st. In July, the Group’s air and ground troops were assigned to the 8th Air Force and dispatched to Suffolk, England for missions over Europe. The 390th’s B-17 Flying Fortresses bombed aircraft factories, bridges and oil refineries. A total of 714 airmen sacrificed their lives in the cause of freedom.”

Part of the 390th Museum is a tribute to the importance of the bicycle in WWII along with an actual bicycle that was used in England during the War.

I like the Brooks Seat — not a lot has changed in 75 years for Brooks.

I’m always struck by just how young the men and women we sent to war were, a bunch of kids who literally saved the world.

And just how many never returned.

………

So much for Vision Zero.

Streetsblog reports that states are responding to a new federal government program to cut traffic deaths by projecting an increase instead.

Including right here in the late, great Golden State, where state officials say efforts to improve safety will result in an increase of 412 deaths a year, on top of the state’s already too high carnage on the streets.

Never mind that the projections are supposed to be aspirational, and attainable.

In that case, why stop at 412? California can easily attain even more blood on the streets just by doing what we’re already doing right now.

That’s something to aspire to, right?

………

Prices just jumped for one leading brand of dockless ebikes and scooters.

………

Brandi DAmore forwards Bike Index’s take on that stolen bike they helped recover 12 years after it went missing.

recovery

BIKE INDEX RECOVERS A BIKE STOLEN 12 YEARS AGO

“No one knows what use the bike performed during the years it was missing but, 12 years later, its new mission is to transport my son to perform some very important work.”

This might be a new record. 12 years after its theft in Iowa City, a bike has returned to its owner thanks to Bike Index. Picking up right where he left off, the bike’s owner now uses it to commute around Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago where he works. Bike Index has recovered over $8 million in stolen bikes. Make sure your bike has the best chance of returning to you if it’s stolen – register your bike on BIke Index right now.

………

Local

Metro hosts another of their BEST Rides tomorrow, along with People for Mobility Justice and TRUST South LA, as they celebrate Juneteenth by visiting venues along Central Ave from the legendary Green Book, which lists motels and other sites where blacks were welcome during America’s more openly racist past.

The Long Beach Post profiles the owner of the New York-based Propel ebike shop, which is opening its second location on Broadway in Long Beach. Someone tell him they need to advertise here on BikinginLA. No, go ahead, I’ll wait.

 

State

The California Senate Transportation Committee met to discuss a number of bills, including improving bike lane guidance at intersections. Meanwhile, Active SGV offers an update on the bills they currently support in the legislature.

San Diego’s Blind Stoker’s Club enables visually impaired bike riders to pedal throughout the county on the back of a tandem, with a sighted rider up front.

Sports Illustrated says we never really knew NFL star Kellen Winslow II, following his conviction for rape and indecent exposure in San Diego; he was caught in part by Strava data that put his bike near one of the assaults.

Sad news from Lake Elsinore, where a 19-year old man was killed riding his skateboard in a Lake Elsinore bike lane. Evidently, painted bike lanes aren’t any safer for people on skateboards than they are for people on bikes.

An 81-year old ‘bent rider has filed suit against the San Luis Obispo County, the county airport, Caltrans and the FAA after a gust of jet blast allegedly knocked him off his bike and into traffic, resulting in severe injuries and damage to his bike.

San Raphael has opened a new bike and pedestrian bridge across a canal.

A local paper offers more on the life and death of famed Petaluma bespoke framebuilder Bruce Gordon.

A Redding woman repeatedly stabbed a man, leaving him with life-threatening injuries, then calmly rode off on her cruiser bike.

 

National

Bike Snob confesses to riding on the sidewalk with his kids. And says if your city is “plagued by those pesky sidewalk cyclists,” it means its bike infrastructure totally sucks.

Tesla’s new Enhanced Summon feature allows the car to maneuver out of parking spots and come to the driver, instead of the other way around. So who cares if it can’t recognize narrow objects like people on bicycles?

Three groups of riders from my college fraternity will set out from Santa Monica, San Francisco and Seattle to ride across the US this summer, and raise three-quarter of a million dollars for disability awareness.

Bicycling’s Selene Yeager offers tips to build up the strength you need to ride hills. I learned to conquer hills by riding up the steepest one I could find as far as I could go, then coming back the next day and doing it again, going a little further each time until I could ride it without stopping.

Your next ebike could charge itself as you ride, giving you almost unlimited range.

Oregon is moving forward with their version of an Idaho Stop law, allowing riders to treat stop signs as yields, but still stopping for red lights.

Seattle sort of responds to complaints from bicyclists about cuts to the city’s new bike plan, but not really.

Once ski season is over, Aspen CO turns to thoughts of singletrack.

A Denver bike shop gave a new bicycle to a little girl, after a TV station aired a story about the girl selling lemonade to replace her stolen bike.

That’s more like it. A new ordinance in Wichita Falls TX requires drivers to change lanes to pass vulnerable road users, including bike riders, or slow 20 mph below the speed limit to pass.

Sounds like fun. An annual Milwaukee bike ride celebrates both Mexican and Polish culture with a rolling norteña and polka party.

After St. Paul MN police were unable to recover a teenage boy’s stolen bike, despite arresting the thief, they replaced it through a program designed to do exactly that.

A local paper says a South Bend IN bike delivery rider for Jimmy John’s isn’t about to put on the brakes. Not that his bike has any.

That’s more like it too. A Maine bike coalition reminds drivers that state law allows bicyclists to ride anywhere in the traffic lane where they feel safest.

If you’re going to build a bike path that ends at the airport, you might want to inform the FAA — as a Massachusetts town learned the hard way.

New York’s police commissioner remains trapped in the last century, saying he opposes attempts to legalize ebikes and e-scooters because he’s not sure they’re safe. If that’s the criteria he’s going to use, he probably supports banning cars, too.

 

International

An English bike rider says after a car driver apologized for a near collision, a bus driver traveling in the opposite direction pulled up next to them and blamed her for the close call, calling her a homophobic slur in the process.

The UK’s Cycle to Work program now offers commuters up to 39% of the cost of any new bicycle, including ebikes, to get more people riding to work. We need something like this in the US, let alone in Los Angeles – as long as it comes with safe infrastructure so people with actually use it.

A British lawyer explains why a bike rider didn’t get a farthing after he was injured hitting a pothole during a closed road sportive.

An Australian researcher says a lack of safe streets is a big reason why many people in the country don’t ride bicycles.

 

Competitive Cycling

Chris Froome underwent six hours of surgery to repair multiple broken bones, after the four-time Tour de France winner crashed into a house at 34 mph when a gust of wind caught the wheel of his time trial bike just as he took his hand off his handlebars to blow his nose. Froome was reportedly on a reconnaissance ride for Wednesday’s time-trial stage of the Critérium du Dauphiné; he’ll now miss that, as well as next month’s Tour de France. And probably everything else this year.

Speaking of Froome, he’ll win the 2011 Vuelta from his room in the ICU, because erstwhile champ Juan Jose Cobo was retroactively busted for doping.

 

Finally…

If you’re going to steal a bike in Canada, put on a helmet first. Even drivers think drivers are being more aggressive abound bike riders.

And now you can help clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch by wearing a piece of it on your head when you ride.

 

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

Morning Links: Bike theft victims wanted, how to use LA micromobility, and your right to take the lane

December 18, 2018 / / 2 comments

Just six days left in the 4th Annual BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive!

Time’s running out to support SoCal’s best source for bike news and advocacy. Donate in just minutes via PayPal, or through Zelle with the banking app that’s already on your phone, using the email address you’ll find on this link.

Any amount will help, and is truly and deeply appreciated, no matter how large or small. 

Or if you own a business, consider buying an ad on BikinginLA to show your support for this site, while you spread your message to thousands of bike riders in Southern California and around the world.

Not to mention you can write off the full cost as an advertising expense on next year’s taxes.

………

If you’ve had your bike stolen, the new 24-hour Spectrum 1 News channel wants to talk to you. 

Reporter Jada Montemarano is looking to talk to current and former victims for a possible story on the bike theft epidemic. 

You can email her at jada.montemarano@charter.com if you’ve got a stolen bike story to tell. 

Maybe shining a little light on bike theft will get the city to actually do something about it. 

………

LA Curbed offers everything you need to know to use bikeshare, e-scooters and dockless bikes in the City of Angels, but probably hadn’t thought to ask. 

The field has gotten more crowded in the past weeks, as Jump has dumped both ebikes and e-scooters onto the streets, while Lyft and Razor — yes, that Razor — have jumped into the LA scooter wars. 

………

Cycling Savvy has released a new video just for California bike riders spelling out our legal right to take the lane under most circumstances. 

As instructor Gary Cziko explains, 

“The exceptions to the far-to-the-right requirement of CVC 21202 provide clear recognition by the vehicle code that bicycling far to the right often exposes bicyclists to unnecessaryrisk, and makes it legal to avoid this risk by controlling the lane.”

https://cyclingsavvy.org/cvc21202/

Thanks to Cziko and our old friend Karen Karabell for the heads-up. 

……….

The LACBC is hosting their last Operation Firefly event to provide free bike lights in Pasadena tonight. 

……….

‘Tis the season.  

Canadians are taking their Christmas trees home by bike. 

Thirty Santas, elves and other assorted holiday types turned out for a Santa ride in the unlikely location of Fethiye, Turkey.

………

Local 

An op-ed in the LA Times says Los Angeles doesn’t have to be a city of parking lots, in part thanks to bicycles, bike lanes and the growth of micromobility. UCLA parking meister Donald Shoup has said DTLA has more parking per acre than anywhere else on Earth. So why are we wasting valuable curb space to provide car storage at the city’s expense when it could be put to better use?

It’s been awhile since we’ve heard from the LA Daily News, which takes a look at the safety improvements, including separate bike lanes, along La Tuna Canyon in the San Fernando Valley.  

How the popular Rock Store survived the Woolsey Fire that scorched the section of Mulholland Highway known as The Snake. 

State

The CHP highlights changes in traffic laws on January 1st, including one that removes any doubt that bike riders are subject to hit-and-run laws on Class 1 bikeways. In addition, bike riders under 18 will now get fix-it tickets if they’re caught riding without a helmet, while adults will no longer need one to ride an e-scooter. But you still can if you want. 

Great offer from the San Diego Bicycle Coalition. They’ll give the first 100 people who donate $50 to the group a free Boomerang CycloTrac GPS anti-theft system. 

National

A writer for Boing Boing sums up his experience commuting by ebike, calling it a total game changer for non-cyclists. 

Smart Cities Dive gazes deep into its crystal ball to look far into the future, and predicts what’s in store for dockless bikes and scooters in the year to come. 

A Hawaiian woman celebrates her 40th birthday with a 40-mile uphill ride into the wind from the ocean to the top of Maunakea on the Big Island, finishing in a not-so-speedy eight hours. 

Seattle questions whether the city’s water taxi service should charge extra to bring bicycles onboard. 

Uber executives were warned in advance that its self-driving cars were too dangerous not long before one hit and killed Elaine Herzberg in Tempe, Arizona. That jackpot sound you hear is her lawyers calculating just how much that bit of information will cost Uber in the inevitable settlement. 

La Crosse WI will remove bike lane markers along one of the city’s busiest streets to avoid confusion caused by new bulb-outs. Which, of course, will probably cause more confusion. 

The vice mayor of Cambridge MA calls for lowering speed limits to 20 mph throughout the city, while bike riders would be happy just to get cars out of the bike lanes. 

International

The Conversation says Toronto history proves that induced demand works for bicycles, too. 

A rose by any other name. London will rebrand their cycle superhighways to “detoxify” the image that they’re nothing more than motorways for Lycra louts. 

London announces a five-year plan to triple the amount of protected bike lanes to form a single, unified bike network across the city to get more people onto their bikes. Meanwhile, Los Angeles has its own 25-year bike plan to get more people riding, which is currently on the shelf gathering dust, and likely to stay there for the foreseeable future. 

A Welsh driver admits to running over the 75-year old mother of British cycling hero Chris Boardman after she fell off her bike in a roundabout. 

British insurers are surprised to learn they’re going to be offering a discount to bicyclists who pass the country’s Bikeability class.  

A Polish radio station is holding an on-air auction today to benefit 72-year old former Olympic cycling medalist Ryszard Szurkowski, who was paralyzed after crashing in a masters race in Germany last June. 

Over 5,000 people have signed up to use the 300 ebikes in New Delhi’s new bikeshare system. 

Competitive Cycling

The toughest rider in this year’s Tour de France tells his story firsthand for the first time, as American Lawson Craddock describes what it was like to ride the entire race with a broken collarbone.

VeloNews talks with the incredible Katie Compton about her 15th consecutive national cyclocross title. Next year they should just hand her the trophy, and let everyone else fight it out for second place. 

Finally…

That feeling when your endo goes viral in a friend’s selfie. And the perfect bicycle for when you have an extra ten grand burning a hole in your bike budget.

Or you could just buy five to ten pretty damn good bikes, instead. 

………

Thanks to Anne F, Dennis E and George W for their generous donations to the BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive to keep this site coming to your favorite screen every morning! 

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

Morning Links: Busting bike thieves around the world, CiclaValley rides Riverside Drive, and coke dart doping

September 7, 2018 / / 3 comments

Today’s common theme is stolen bikes and the thieves who take them.

Bike thieves in Moab UT aren’t bothering to break bike locks, but stealing the entire bike rack along with the bicycle. Only use bike racks that are embedded in the concrete. And make sure there are no cuts in the rack, which thieves often hide under stickers.

Edmonton, Alberta police bust a prolific bike thief, recovering 83 bikes worth up to $20,000. Which is a good reminder to register your bikes now, so you’ll be protected if it someone like that comes to visit your bike.

A British cop out rides a suspected bike thief in a high-speed bike chase caught on first-person bodycam video.

Police in Dublin, Ireland are starting a “Lock it or lose it” campaign, after bike thieves make off with nearly 10,000 bicycles in two and a half years; nationwide, the total is at least 14,000, with more thefts unreported.

As today’s photo shows, bike thieves don’t always take the whole bike at once. Which means you need to secure as much of your bike as possible

………

Local

CiclaValley rides the newly redesigned bike lanes on Burbank’s Riverside Drive, and finds them lacking.

KABC-7 discovers the Cycling Savvy program from the nonprofit American Cycling Education Association, including their instructions to take the lane.

Speaking of KABC-7, they talk with the Dream Riders bicycling down the Pacific Coast on the 37-day “Journey to Justice” tour from Seattle to San Diego as they stop in Long Beach.

 

State

A San Clemente letter writer says the greatest risk in allowing bikes on the beach path is that pedestrians may get startled.

An overweight, 68-year old Bakersfield bike rider hears a shouted request to put on a shirt, and politely but firmly says no.

The bike path paralleling Mission Road, aka State Route 246, will be closed for repairs east of Solvang for three weeks, starting September 17th.

A writer for Streetsblog says it’s time to stop hiding behind studies and process, and install a protected bike lane on San Francisco’s Valencia Street.

 

National

Bike Snob says give kids bikes, not helmets, arguing that helmet giveaways are an act of surrender to our dangerous streets.

Streetsblog reports a handful of states are throwing away millions of dollars in transportation funds that could go to build desperately needed sidewalks, bike lanes or trails.

A standup comic is riding down the left coast on a tour of open mic nights, while raising funds to buy 20 bikes through Bicycle Relief.

Nice gesture from the US Air Force, which sent members of the Air Force Cycling Team to assist fellow riders at this year’s RAGBRAI, calling them Guardian Angels of the Road.

One Chicago bicyclist was killed, and another critically injured, in separate dooring incidents.

In a study from Boston, researcher conclude what we already knew — local planning and zoning board meetings are dominated by older, wealthier NIMBYs. Which can be confirmed by virtually anyone who has attended a public meeting to argue for safer streets.

A Harvard research scientist makes the case for designing greener streets, starting with making room for bicycles and trees.

A writer for New York Streetsblog says the state needs to stop treating drivers and bike riders the same, subject to the same $190 fine for running a red light. Even though bike riders pose significantly less risk to others.

A Louisiana grand jury has declined to return a negligent homicide charge against the driver who killed a Baton Rouge city councilman as he rode with a friend, settling instead for a charge of reckless operation of a motor vehicle.

Tampa city leaders express concern that the police are still unfairly ticketing black bike riders when the new police chief shows up without any stats to address it.

 

International

Toronto bicyclists are riding with pool noodles to demonstrate the one-meter passing distance required by law, and often ignored.

A London driver — and a tabloid paper — freaks out over a man in a suit talking on a cellphone as he rides down the street, even though that’s not illegal for bike riders. Unfortunately, the video won’t play in this country.

An actor from the Game of Thrones is riding 980 miles across the UK on a tandem with his father, who suffers for Parkinson’s, to raise funds for a Parkinson’s charity.

The bike mayor of Bangaluru, aka Bangalore, says there’s no denying that bicycling is essential in the city.

The African Cycling Foundation has donated six bicycles to students in Nigeria to help them get to school — and stay in it.

An Australian government conference asks the same question everyone else keeps asking, how can we get more women back on their bikes.

The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes goes on. A road raging Chinese driver gets out of his car and attacks a bike rider with a machete. Until the rider turns the tables and kills the driver with his own knife.

 

Competitive Cycling

The winner of Thursday’s stage of the Vuelta was lucky to escape injury when a boneheaded race official stepped in front of his bike shortly after the end of the race, bringing down several riders.

You may never win a grand tour, but you can live like it, as the sprawling Georgian-style Minnesota estate belonging America’s last remaining Tour de France winner can be yours for a mere $4.9 million.

More proof that it’s not just cyclists who dope, as a professional darts player — yes, darts — has been banned for two years after testing showed a metabolite of cocaine in his system; he blamed it on a night of excess partying.

 

Finally…

Your next bike shorts could cost $300 — without a chamois. It’s one thing to win a KOM, another to beat a horse.

And you can relax now that autonomous cars have giant fake eyes to look at you with.

………

If you want to join the Militant Angeleno and me for the first-ever Militant Angeleno’s Epic CicLAvia Tour on September 30th, RSVP by emailing MilitantAngeleno@gmail.com. 

We want to guarantee a relatively small group to make sure we can keep the group together, and everyone can hear.

Category: Morning Links / Tags: , , , ,

Morning Links: LAPD recovers possibly stolen bikes, Los Feliz NC gets real with Ryu, and ticketing trucks in SaMo

August 30, 2018 / / Comments Off on Morning Links: LAPD recovers possibly stolen bikes, Los Feliz NC gets real with Ryu, and ticketing trucks in SaMo

If you had a bike stolen recently in Santa Monica or Venice, you might want to check with the LAPD’s Pacific Division.

According to the LA Times, the driver of a pickup crashed into two other vehicles as he was fleeing the police. The chase began when officers discovered the truck had been stolen a few days earlier in Bakersfield.

Three people were hospitalized, including a passenger in the truck.

After police arrested the driver, they discovered a number of bicycles in the back of the truck, and were checking to see if they had been stolen.

However, given that most bike thefts are never reported to the police, if the bikes weren’t registered, there’s a good chance they won’t show up in a police database.

Which means the thief will get away with it — assuming they are stolen.

And the owners may never see them again.

Thanks to Joe Linton for the heads-up.

………

I can’t say I’m familiar with the members of the Los Feliz Neighborhood Council. But after reading this letter, I could kiss every one of them.

This especially matters as Ryu contemplates ripping out the highly successful road diet on Rowena — after he already cancelled the desperately-needed road diet planned for 6th Street behind LACMA in the Miracle Mile neighborhood.

LA’s Vision Zero program is already at risk of dying before it has even been implemented, thanks to the auto-centric reactions of city councilmembers who, like Ryu, seem to fear angry drivers more than they fear blood on their hands.

And to answer the question posed in the letter, there is no acceptable number of traffic deaths.

None.

I’d love to see a version of this letter forwarded to every member of the city council. Especially CD1’s “Roadkill” Gil Cedillo and CD5’s Paul “Killer” Koretz.

Thanks to Alissa Walker for posting the letter.

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File this one under things that never happen in real life.

Yes, that’s a Santa Monica police officer ticketing a delivery driver double-parked in the San Vicente bike lane.

I complained about delivery drivers blocking the bike lanes for years when I regularly rode that route, and never got any results. From the police or the delivery companies.

And was harassed so much that I had to block the comments on my videos of bike lane-blocking trucks on my YouTube channel, and finally had to delete the videos entirely.

Which seems to be what’s happening in Reddit, as redditors argue that police are overreacting to what they consider a minor inconvenience for people on bikes.

Even though blocking those bike lanes forces riders out into the general traffic lanes on a section of roadway where few drivers seem to pay attention to much of anything, including the speed limit.

Still, it’s good to see SaMo police taking this seriously.

Let’s hope they keep it up. And maybe delivery drivers will finally find somewhere else to park.

Thanks again to the esteemed Mr. Linton.

………

The war on cars is a myth, but the war on bikes goes on.

A Toronto bike rider shook his head as he passed a driver blocking an off-road cycle track. So the motorist drove down the road to the next crossing point, waited for other riders to pass, then intentionally plowed into him.

And denied afterwards that he hit anyone.

Fortunately, the whole thing was caught on video.

He now faces charges for hit-and-run and failing to report a collision, as well as failure to yield. Even though he should have been charged with assault with a deadly weapon.

And then a local website has the audacity to say “Both drivers and cyclists are responsible when it comes to road safety.”

Which is like telling shooting victims they have a responsibility to stay out of the way of bullets.

Then there’s this one, where an impatient and indignorant driver can’t even manage to wait a few seconds for a bike rider to have room to pull over and let her pass.

And evidently concludes that the woman on the bike doesn’t belong there, because there’s no bike lane on a street that’s too narrow for one.

https://twitter.com/THREADRIOT/status/1034625219879739395

………

Local

Coldplay’s Chris Martin is one of us, as he goes for a bike ride in the ‘Bu.

 

State

The proposed Peninsula Bikeway promises to connect the cities of Mountain View, Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Atherton and Redwood City, and eventually extend across the entire South Bay Peninsula.

 

National

NPR reports on the great American e-scooter debate, saying dockless scooters are gaining popularity and scorn across the US.

El Paso TX bike riders get a shiny new two-way cycle track along a street car route.

A legally blind Indiana man put over 2,000 miles on his bike in the last year, despite his vision problems — until he was taken down by a pothole. A reminder that bad roads pose a risk to everyone on bikes, but some more than others.

A Cincinnati city councilmember says scooter companies like Bird and Lime should be held responsible for the actions of the people who use them. Which I’m all in favor of, as long as the same rule applies to a few other companies, like Tesla, Ford, GMC, Chrysler, BMW, Mercedes, Lexus, Toyota, Honda, Kia, et al.

Providence RI gets creative with outreach to build support for a bike lane project, including day-long popups. Then again, if people in Rhode Island are anything like people in LA, once the bike lanes are installed, they’ll insist they were never consulted and the popups never happened.

In a study that runs counter to what we’re usually told, Boston researchers conclude that lowering speed limits actually does result in lower speeds. Which we should remember the next time we’re told that raising speeds under the deadly 85 percentile law really doesn’t matter.

Facing as much as 40 years behind bars — or as little as nothing — a New Orleans driver who fled the scene after killing a bike-riding artist begs forgiveness from the victim’s family, saying he thinks about the crash every day. Chances are, they do too.

 

International

A British Columbia woman credits her bike helmet with saving her life when a pickup driver literally ran over her head.

A Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario bike shop has become a haven for bike tourists. And having a free pump track in back doesn’t hurt.

Montreal business owners are fighting a planned bike path along a wide industrial corridor, saying it will increase traffic and angry drivers, even though it will just narrow the overly wide traffic lanes without removing any lanes or parking.

Caught on video: Road.cc talks with a British bikemaker about how hard it is to design a bicycle.

Forty percent of the residents of Malmö, Sweden bike to work or school every day, thanks to a 200-mile bike lane network that makes bicycling the fastest way across the city.

A Bangalore, India website says the city has done nothing to promote bicycling or ensure the safety of bicyclists, despite the 45,000 bike riders in the city.

Life is cheap in Australia, where a driver was acquitted on a charge of dangerous driving in the death of a bike rider, who apparently just magically appeared in front of him.

Police in Australia’s Queensland state have started a new “Stay Wider of the Rider” campaign to fight close passes by drivers.

 

Competitive Cycling

Great piece from Bicycling about LA’s own CNCPT cycling team — aka Concept — made up entirely of people of color. And dedicated to blowing up the sport, in a good way.

The Vuelta saw a long breakaway in Wednesday’s stage, and a change in the leader’s jersey.

Britain’s Mark Cavendish is shutting down his cycling season after being diagnosed with the Epstein-Barr virus; he ranks second on the all-time Tour de France list with 30 stage victories.

Italy’s Vincenzo Nibali continues to have pain in his back after suffering a vertebra fracture in a crash during the Tour de France, and questions whether he will ever be the same again.

 

Finally…

No, it’s not okay to right hook someone in a bike lane. Pedestrians say people on bikes should wear license plates.

And as former pro and current Cookie Monster Phil Gaiman will attest, people who ride bicycles need a good fuel source.

………

I was hoping to attend today’s official opening of the MyFigueroa Complete Streets project, but it looks like a busy day with too many obligations will keep me away. 

If you go, try to corner LA Mayor Eric Garcetti — assuming he’s not too busy running for president to show up — and ask how Vision Zero can work if councilmembers have the power to block projects like MyFig in their own districts. 

And how it can possibly succeed if his own office isn’t willing to go out and fight for it.

I think we’d all like to hear the answers to that.

 

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

Morning Links: Policy change for Camp Pendleton bike access, and recovering a stolen bicycle with Bike Index

July 16, 2018 / / 4 comments

Decades of relatively easy bike access to Camp Pendleton is coming to a close.

According to an email from Major Chad David Walton, anyone wanting to ride the popular cycling route through the Camp Pendleton Marine base will now need to register with the new Department of Defense Biometric Identification System.

And it will have to be done on the base at Pendleton, not online as has been the case in the last few years.

The passes will be valid for one year, and good for one adult only; you can bring a minor with you to bike on the Marine base, but no adult guests will be allowed to enter Pendleton without their own pass.

If you have a current pass, it will be good through September.

After that, you may have to enlist if you want to ride through Camp Pendleton without one.

Thanks to Richard Masoner and David Drexler for the heads-up.

Photo of Retired U.S. Marine Corps Master Sgt. Fernando Andrade by Lance Cpl. Dalton Swanbeck.

………

This is why you should register your bike with Bike Index.

A Redditor got his bike back a full year after it was stolen, when someone checked Bike Index after buying it on Craigslist.

You can register your bike for free — or all your bikes — right here on this site, or report a theft to add it to the nationwide Bike Index database. And you can check to see if a bike was stolen right here, for no cost.

Maybe someone should tell the LA City Council about that, before they decide to reinvent the bike registration wheel.

Full disclosure — I don’t get a dime from Bike Index for hosting or promoting their site. I just hate bike thieves, and want to see every bike find it’s way back home.

……..

A pair of British bike riders were sideswiped by a driver who clearly needs a lesson in safe passing distance.

One rider suffered broken bones and a concussion, while another lost part of an ear, but both are recovering.

Needless to say, the 81-year old driver will be free to get behind the wheel again after losing his license for just two years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3A5moaYo_E

………

Hey Los Angeles media — can someone please hire the BBC’s Naga Munchetty and bring her here to the City of Angels?

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen someone shut down an anti-bicycling crank so effectively.

……..

Stop what you’re doing, and take a few minutes to read this piece from Cycling Savvy’s Keri Caffrey on how to survive riding around large trucks.

Seriously. It could save your life.

……..

Local

Nice piece from the Daily News, on how the community came together to recover the stolen bicycle belonging to fallen teenage cyclist Sabastian Montero.

She gets it. Curbed’s Alissa Walker says instead of banning scooters, cities should redesign streets to make room for them.

 

State

OMG! Some people in San Diego are using bikeshare bikes and e-scooters to commit crimes. Sort of like they use personal bikes, skateboards, cars, feet, rental cars, horses, and any other form of human conveyance.

Officials say the Coachella Valley’s 50-mile CV Link multi-use pathway will save lives, as Palm Desert approves plans for the design.

Sad news from Santa Cruz, as a long-time bike rider was killed in a collision while riding across a bridge. Naturally, police blame the victim, insisting he somehow veered into traffic, which usually means the driver didn’t see him until it was too late; something that happens so often it’s commonly called a SWSS, or Single Witness Suicide Swerve

San Francisco bike riders are protesting delays in implementing much needed safety projects.

One of the four bike riders run down by a hit-and-run driver in Marin County describes in his own words what it’s like to nearly get killed just for riding a bike.

 

National

Streetsblog offers eight tips for cities to make the most out of dockless bikeshare and e-scooters.

A Denver man is using his bicycle to rebuild his life, commuting 20 miles a day to classes after becoming homeless following a car crash; now he’s preparing for a 120-mile ride over three high mountain passes.

Colorado’s new Idaho Stop law could lead to confusion — and tickets — since it leaves implementation to local communities; as a result, it could be legal to ride through a stop sign on one side of an intersection, and illegal on the other.

Iowa officials say no charges will be filed against two bicyclists who lost control on a bike path and killed a 79-year old woman before riding off.

Little Rock gets it. Instead of blaming the victims, the Arkansas city is developing an educational program for drivers on how to share the road with people on bicycles, modeled after a similar program in my hometown.

An adaptive bicycling program in Minnesota’s Twin Cities is allowing people with handicaps to get on bicycles, sometimes for the first time.

No bias here. A Minneapolis commentator assumes the people behind the dockless Bird e-scooters must be California hippies.

Kentucky becomes the latest state to adopt a three-foot passing law; 35 states now require at least a three-foot distance to pass someone on a bicycle.

Talk about not getting it. Newport RI officials want the state Department of Transportation to improve safety on a major street, while backing off from plans to install a bike lane and new turning lanes — and making it safer for pedestrians by removing a crosswalk. Sure, that will work.

The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes goes on, as someone sabotaged a Boston bike lane with thumbtacks for the second time in a month.

Streetsblog offers a brief history of New York mayors on bicycles, as the current mayor takes a dockless bikeshare bike for a spin.

No bias here, either. There were several ways to describe the attacker who fatally stabbed a Philadelphia developer following an argument. But he rode a bicycle, so of course they chose “cyclist.”

Evidently, officials in bike friendly DC are no better than those in Los Angeles, as bicyclists continue to die as promised Vision Zero projects gather dust on the shelf.

 

International

Donald Trump’s trade war could mean you’ll have to pay more to fix your bike.

Don’t stop in Winnipeg if you want to keep your bike on a cross-country tour of Canada.

The BBC investigates how dangerous it really is to ride a bike on the streets of Toronto, while a college student says major changes are needed. Even though the city is safer for bicyclists than Phoenix, Philadelphia and yes, Los Angeles.

Speaking of Toronto, bicyclists have started a #NearMissToronto hostage campaign to report dangerous incidents and drivers, and call for safer streets. Maybe we should copy it; #NearMissLA has got a good ring to it.

A British writer raises a good point, asking if there’s a class divide in cycling, as rising equipment cost separate riders into those who can afford the best gear, and those who can’t. Or who just get turned off by the perception of high cost, and don’t bother trying.

 

Competitive Cycling

If you haven’t caught up on your Tour de France viewing, skip this next section. We could say the same about the Giro Rosa, except no one bothers to broadcast women’s bike racing.

In today’s semi-spoiler free Tour de France report, classics specialist John Degenkolb had a very good day.

Tour de Suisse champ Ritchie Port is out of the Tour de France, abandoning after apparently breaking his collarbone following a crash near the start of Sunday’s stage nine; Tony Martin is also out with a spinal fracture.

The Telegraph describes Sunday’s stage as a day of chaos on the cobbles.

No, you can’t butt heads in the peloton or bash everyone else out of the way, even on Bastille Day.

Lawson “Crash” Craddock has now raised over $92,000 for a Houston Velodrome by riding in the Tour with a broken scapula; no word yet on whether he survived Sunday’s cobbles.

Nice gesture from the UnitedHealthcare Pro team, which named a five-year old speech therapy patient “Pro Cyclist for a Day” at this year’s Twilight Criterium in Boise, Idaho; they gave her a new bike, helmet and autographed team jersey.

Yes, there was a women’s race, which was largely ignored even though it wasn’t tainted by questions of doping with asthma medication; as usual, a Dutch rider won the race, including the final stage, though an Australian team took the title. Maybe someone can explain to me why any race still has podium girls, let alone a women’s race.

 

Finally…

Nothing like riding 10,000 miles together to inspire a little romance. If you’re going to Comic Con, don’t ride your bike inside. No, really.

And no, being a state legislator does not give you diplomatic immunity from speeding tickets.

Thanks to Evan Burbridge for that last link.

 

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

Free bike registration and stolen bike alerts now available on BikinginLA

April 5, 2015 / / 4 comments

You can’t hang ‘em.

I grew up in an area, if not a time, when anyone caught stealing a horse was subject to being strung up. Often without the inconvenience of a trial.

Unfortunately, that’s not an option with bike thieves in this more enlightened age. No matter how tempting it may seem at times.

Which means we have to find other ways to fight back against one of the fastest growing crimes in the LA area.

I’ve tried to do my part by posting information on stolen bikes whenever a victim sends it to me.

But there’s often a significant delay between when the bike is stolen and when word of the theft is posted online. If I hear about it at all.

I’ve long wanted a way for bike owners to post a notice of their stolen bikes themselves in order to get the information out there as quickly as possible.

Thanks to Bike Index, that day is finally here.

The crowd funded, open source bike registry has partnered with bike advocacy groups and websites throughout the country to provide free online bike registration, as well as a way to report bike thefts so local residents and businesses can be on the lookout. And maybe even get those bikes back.

Now it’s our turn.

If you look at the tabs at the top of this page, you’ll now see links to Register Your Bike, Report A Stolen Bike, and Stolen Bike Listings.

Click on the first, and you’ll be taken to a form where you can record the identifying details of your bike in a free online database. So you’ll have the information when and if you need it, and police, bike shops, pawn shops and individual buyers can check to make sure any bike is legit, no matter where it turns up.

Even if you don’t know it’s missing.

In fact, police often say registering your bike is the single most important step you can take to help get it back if it’s ever stolen.

Then, in the unfortunate event someone does snatch your bike, you can post news of the theft on the Report A Stolen Bike tab.

Your bike will be entered in a national database of stolen bikes, which can be accessed by anyone anywhere in the country — or the world, for that matter — and help bring it back home wherever it may turn up. And an alert will immediately go out on both the BikinginLA Twitter and Facebook accounts so the bike community can be on the lookout for your ride, increasing the chance of recovery.

Finally, it will automatically be entered in the local Stolen Bike Listings, enabling anyone to check an exclusive LA area database to see if a bike was stolen, or to keep an eye out for missing bikes. Right now, it’s set to cover a 20-mile radius from the Hollywood area; that may be adjusted up or down as we work out the bugs.

Of course, Bike Index isn’t the only bike registration program; you can also register your bike with Bike Shepherd and the National Bike Registry, among others.

The important thing is that you register your bike, whether here or somewhere else.

And that you report it to the police, then post it here, if anyone takes it.

……..

Just to be clear, there is no financial relationship or any other form of compensation between Bike Index and BikinginLA. Bike Index has provided the WordPress plug-ins that allows free online registration and theft reporting, as well the listing of stolen bikes, at no charge in order to help fulfill their mission of helping theft victims get their bikes back. And I accepted their offer for the same reason.

Category: Stolen Bikes and Bike Crime / Tags: , , , , ,
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