Tag Archive for Streets For All

De León: hell no, he won’t go; advocacy groups call for ebike libraries; and what happens when officials give a damn

October 20, 2022 / / Comments Off on De León: hell no, he won’t go; advocacy groups call for ebike libraries; and what happens when officials give a damn
Talk about misreading the room.

In an announcement that was almost universally condemned, CD14 City Councilmember Kevin de León says hell no, he won’t go.

De León is refusing to resign in the wake of a racist and otherwise offensive recording in which he was heard actively participating, along with outgoing CD1 Councilmember “Roadkill” Gil Cedillo, former Council President Nury Martinez and ex-LA County Federation of Labor Ron Herrera, the latter two of whom at least had the decency to resign.

His announcement was immediately condemned by newly elected Council President Paul Krekorian.

Yes, the same Krekorian who singlehandedly killed the fully funded and shovel ready lane reductions and protected bike lanes planned for Lankershim Blvd in one of his first official acts on the council.

Apparently thinking he can somehow survive this, de León said “I’m not going to mince words. I’m not going to deflect blame. I’m not going to defend the defenseless,” before attempting to do exactly that, adding he’ll be “spending the coming weeks and months personally asking for your forgiveness.”

Forgiveness that is not likely to be given, after failing to condemn Martinez’ open racism, while himself comparing fellow Councilmember Mike Bonin’s toddler son to the Luis Vuitton purse favored by Martinez.

Bonin is clearly in no mood for de León’s weakass mea culpa.

As we’ve noted before, this whole city hall soap opera matters, because we’re never going to get action on safer streets with dysfunctional city leadership, particularly with the council’s draft of the Healthy Streets LA initiative due back at the council in a few weeks.

Speaking of which, the LA Times has opened a web portal to help you find how to contact the right city agencies and officials to address various issues.

You know, in case you want to advocate for safer streets. Or complain about corrupt city officials.

Photo from Wikipedia. 

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And speaking of Bonin, Streets For All has posted video of Wednesday’s virtual Happy Hour with the outgoing councilmember.

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Yesterday we mentioned Metro’s confusing proposal to reform management of the Metro Bike bikeshare system.

The leaders of the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, ActiveSGV and People for Mobility Justice teamed to release an open letter to the Metro board, suggesting that opening ebike libraries and investing in safer infrastructure might be a better approach.

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It looks like LADOT is finally getting serious about counting bikes, at least on 7th Street.

https://twitter.com/subwayray/status/1582956512519286785

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This is what happens when city officials actually give a damn.

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CNN recognizes the Dutch city of Utrecht for the world bicycling capital it is.

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

An Ottawa, Canada mayoral candidate is politely taken to task after declaring he won’t declare a war on cars by investing bike lanes, preferring a “balanced approach” that’s balanced heavily in favor of motor vehicles.

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

A 70-year old Fresno man insists he’s the real victim after he lay in wait and repeatedly shot and stabbed a man he accused of stealing his bicycle; Edmundo Martinez faces 50 to life if he’s convicted of killing Jose Palafox, Jr. Once again, no bike is worth a human life.

A Phoenix man faces charges after he was captured on video circling a convenience store parking lot on his bike while aiming a gun at bystanders; the man bizarrely claimed there was someone hiding in a cooler at the store to justify his actions.

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Local

The next driver who tries to run you off the road may not be one, after Google’s Waymo announced plans to bring driverless taxis to the City of Angels.

Streets For All is calling for canvassing volunteers to help elect transit advocate — and corgi dad — Kenneth Mejia as Los Angeles City Controller.

Cycling Tips reviews the second-gen Cero One cycle truck-style e-cargo bike from Los Angeles-based Cero. And likes it. I’d get one myself, with the perfect upfront corgi carrier, if I had an extra three grand laying around.

 

State 

California is offering $50,000 rewards for each of four unsolved murders, including a 16-year old boy who was shot and killed while riding his bike in Alameda County.

Great idea. The League of Women Voters is hosting a Bike Out the Vote bike caravan in Albany this weekend. Although someone should tell them that Bike the Vote is a lot less confusing.

 

National

Momentum examines bike storage solutions to help keep your bikes safe and out of the way.

Bicycling wants to know what’s the weirdest animal you’ve ever had to dodge on a bike, after a video of two angry moose charging down an Alaska bike path goes viral. In my case, it was an alligator sunning itself on a Louisiana roadway. As usual, read it on Yahoo if the magazine blocks you.

Bike Portland profiles an adventurous leather goods peddler, who pedals a bike trailer with his merchandise to a local outdoor market every weekend.

Life is cheap in Houston, where an eight-year old boy riding a bike is dead because a driver insisted on distractedly making a left turn while she was “messing with her sandwich;” a month later, charges still have not been filed.

Kindhearted Michigan sheriff’s deputies dipped into their own funds to buy a 13-year old boy a new bike after he was struck by a driver, trashing his bike and leaving him with 100 stitches in his leg.

Travel site Condé Nast recommends the best bike routes to explore New York’s five boroughs.

A Virginia woman tells drivers that rushing is never worth the risk, after her daughter was killed and another woman seriously injured by an 18-year old drunk driver as they rode their bikes.

 

International

A British Columbia letter writer offers a brief tutorial on the differences between pedestrians, bicyclists and motorists, stressing that the latter might kill the first two, but the first two never kill the latter, and that separate infrastructure is the only solution to keep everyone safe.

An Indian college student faces charges for the high speed crash that killed one bike rider, before swerving onto the other side of the road and killing another.

A handmade Namibian bike brand made its international debut at the recent Bespoke bike show in London; the steel-frame Onguza bikes made by Dan Craven, a two-time Olympic road cyclist and Namibia’s only professional cyclist to ride a Grand Tour, retail for four grand for a frame, and double that for a complete bike.

 

Competitive Cycling

Former Vuelta and world champ Alejandro Valverde called it a career after rolling across the Il Lombardia finish line one last time.

 

Finally…

No, no seat tube doesn’t mean you have to ride standing up. Introducing an ebike roadie for weight weenies.

And can you really say you ride a bike if you don’t know how to pop a proper wheelie?

https://twitter.com/BicyclingMag/status/1582793704775077895

 

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

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

Flawed Metro bike map & bikeshare changes, parking reform house party, and odd non-endorsement of Newsom foe

October 19, 2022 / / One comment

We should be so past this crap by now.

A couple stories popped up this week that expose the sort of needless problems that shouldn’t even exist after decades of advocacy.

Not to mention Metro’s repeated lip service to supporting active transportation.

First up, Streets For All sent out a notice about proposed changes to the Metro Bike bikeshare program. Changes that have virtually everyone scratching their heads, trying to figure out what the hell it all means.

Here’s what Streets For All had to say on the subject.

THIS THURSDAY, Metro’s Operations, Safety, and Customer Experience Committee has an item on its agenda to consider a staff recommendation to mostly privatize Metro Bike Share.

While we’re not against this in principle, the fact is that Metro has treated its own bike share program as the odd man out, and not like a real transportation mode.

Regardless of which model the bike share program ultimately becomes, the next phase must include:

  1. A major expansion, based on equity, starting in our most underinvested neighborhoods
  2. The ability to put bike share stations at Metro train and bus stations (right now, Metro’s employee union blocks this)
  3. Treating bike share like a real transportation mode part of Metro’s bus/rail system, not an afterthought. This means real funding and integration into the rest of the system.

HOW YOU CAN HELP:

CALL INTO METRO’S COMMITTEE MEETING THURDAY AT 12:30PM

EMAIL THE COMMITTEE IN ADVANCE

The second issue came up when Metro released the interactive map we linked to yesterday showing the agency’s Draft Prioritized Active Transportation Network, which purports to show bikeways, pedestrian districts and first-last-mile station improvements prioritized by the agency.

The problem is, they can’t even get the existing infrastructure right.

Streetsblog’s Joe Linton was the first to call out the problem, noting a number of errors in the following Twitter thread.

It raises obvious questions of how we can count on Metro to plan future bikeway and pedestrian improvements when they don’t even know what the hell we already have.

And combined with the Metro Bike changes, makes it clear active transportation continues to be an afterthought at the county transportation agency, and the lack of seriousness with which they consider it.

Let alone address it.

And by extension, the local governments that make up the Metro board, who certainly should know better by now.

Then again, why bother with a million dollar bikeway when they can keep flushing billions down the toilet with more induced demand-inducing highway projects in the midst of a climate emergency?

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Another notice that popped up in my email yesterday was a reminder from Bike Talk’s Nick Richert about tomorrow’s parking reform house party, with special guest UCLA parking meister and The High Cost of Free Parking author Donald Shoup.

I’m reaching out to invite you to a fundraising house party for an organization that I believe is doing important work on an issue that doesn’t get enough attention … parking reform!

We’ll be gathering at the home of Lindsay Sturman, in Larchmont Village, LA on Thursday, October 20th. Drinks and Socializing at 7:00PM, with a short program at 7:30 PM

Car parking can be enormously  expensive – often costing upwards of $40K per stall to construct – and takes up so much space – an average parking space, including aisles, is 300 square feet. Because of outdated rules that ensure we’ll continue to over-build parking whether we need it or not, these costs are baked into our cities … and we are just beginning to pay the full tab.

The Parking Reform Network is a 501(c)3 non profit organization with a mission to accelerate the adoption of critical parking reforms through research, coalition-building, and direct advocacy.

Over the last two years, PRN has released a widely cited map of US cities that eliminated parking mandates, produced a how-to guide for advocates working to create new  parking benefit districts, worked with Congressman Blumenauer’s office to introduce federal legislation introducing a parking cash-out benefit (HR 8555), and built a membership of nearly 300 practitioners, activists, and academics worldwide.

This fundraiser will support:

  • Grants and organizational support to local reform campaigns
  • Developing presentations and training speakers to educate policymakers and stakeholders about parking reforms.
  • Creating materials to advise government agencies who are in the thick of parking reforms, and need technical and/or communication support to get their plans across the finish line.

Please RSVP via this web page, or email la-party@parkingreform.org, and also let us know if you’re planning to bring a +1.

On behalf of all our party co-hosts: Lindsay Sturman, Tony Gittelson, Terence Heuston, Jennifer Levin, Eduardo Mendoza, Gerhard Mayer, Thomas Small, Abundant Housing LA, Livable Communities Initiative, Hang Out Do Good, Culver City Forward, Bike Talk, Sunset4All, and Culver City Forward …

We hope to see you there!

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Um, okay.

An editorial from the Southern California News Group says nothing will change as long as Gavin Newsom is governor, citing among his many perceived flaws “diverting” funds collected for road maintenance to “perceived climate-friendlier projects such as bike lanes.”

Yet oddly, they don’t endorse the other guy running against him.

Never mind that anyone who doesn’t recognize that bike lanes are better for the climate than highway projects probably shouldn’t be writing editorials in the first place.

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Enough said.

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

A Denver bike rider was intentionally run down by a road raging driver, for the crime of accidentally brushing the maniac’s mirror.

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

An apparent homeless man riding a baby blue beach cruiser was arrested for attacking a Catholic priest in La Jolla with a box cutter and half a pair of scissors when the pastor asked him to leave the Catholic school parking lot.

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Local

Northridge-Chatsworth Patch reminds us that Cal State Northridge is hosting its first BikeFest this Sunday.

An op-ed in the Loyola Marymount University student newspaper says forget more parking, and build safe infrastructure to encourage more students to bike to campus, instead.

A Long Beach man pled not guilty in the September murder of a man outside a gay bar in the city, and the stabbing of his partner; 56-year old Michael Smalls allegedly rode up on a bicycle as the couple was trying to disarm a man with a Taser, and stabbed them both. He’s being held on $3 million bond.

 

State 

An op-ed in the San Diego Union-Tribune says closing the successful Diamond Street Slow Street in Pacific Beach would be a mistake, despite the calls from some residents.

San Diego and Caltrans are preparing to flush $39 million down the toilet by widening State Route 56 from four to six lanes, promising it will reduce congestion, even though both science and experience show it will just result in more induced demand. But at least the project includes a new bike bridge and extending an existing bike path.

A kindhearted Mountain View cop bought a new bicycle for a toddler who was struck by a driver, along with his father, outside the local library; fortunately, both father and son escaped with minor injuries.

A Streetsblog op-ed calls for a dedicated political action committee, aka PAC, for safe streets in San Francisco. They’ve got a point. Los Angeles street safety PAC Streets For All has made a huge difference in just a few short years.

 

National

Apparently, it’s not just the flesh and blood drivers you have to worry about.

Consumer Reports recommends their picks for the best foldies. But you’ll have to be a member if you want to see it.

A San Francisco site argues that while the city dithers on street design, Seattle is demonstrating that bikes drive local business. Meanwhile, Seattle is committing just $8.3 million to fund its Vision Zero program, despite the deadliest year for traffic deaths since 2006.

Nice move from my platinum level Bicycle Friendly Community hometown, which is raising funds to provide a free bicycle for every 2nd grade student in the local school system.

Speaking of Colorado, the state has renamed a classic bikeway as the Mestaa’Ėhehe Pass ride, replacing a racial slur for indigenous women.

Once again, a bike rider is a hero, after a man on a ebike led a moose away from a Wyoming soccer pitch after it crashed a kids match.

The 67-year old person of interest in the gruesome murder and dismemberment of four Oklahoma friends who disappeared on a bike ride was arrested 1,200 miles away in Daytona Beach Shores, Florida; Joseph Kennedy is being held without bail on an unrelated charge pending extradition.

More on the white Milwaukee man seen on video grabbing a Black man by the neck while accusing the victim’s friends of stealing a bicycle from the white man’s friend; despite initial reports that the victim was a boy, he’s actually a 24-year old man.

In another tragic reminder to always carry ID when you ride, a missing Tennessee man’s family finally learned of his death two weeks after he was killed in a collision while riding his bike.

A compact-framed 1890’s direct-drive safety bicycle sold at auction in New York for $52,800, vastly exceeding initial estimates of $4,000 to $6,000.

A travel site highlights three “amazing” bike rides along the Great Allegheny Passage.

A Georgia teenager will spend the rest of his life behind bars for fatally shooting a 60-year old man at a bus stop, just to steal his bicycle. As we’ve said before, no bike is worth a human life.

 

International

Road.cc review’s Knog’s new bike alarm and tracker, designed to fit beneath your water bottle holder.

Cycling Weekly considers the difference between gravel and road bikes. Maybe I should start my own magazine for people who ride like I do these days; we could call it Cycling Weakly.

So much for that. A campaign by London’s mayor to keep drivers out of bike lanes has resulted in just 12 citations in three months.

A giant hedgehog on a bicycle, built with the help of local children, was crowned the winner of the national Tour of Britain’s land art competition.

Introducing a new French-made ebike apparently designed for people who really want to pretend they’re riding a motorcycle, instead. No word on whether it makes vroom! vroom! noises, or if you have to provide those yourself. 

Globalization in action, as Ukrainian ebike brand Delfast introduces their new U-frame Delfast California model; the bikemaker has managed to remain active despite the Russian invasion.

 

Competitive Cycling

A 78-year old former Santa Monica resident describes setting a record as the oldest person to complete the Kona Ironman competition.

A Welsh triathlete is being remembered as a “warrior princess” after she was killed in a crash while riding her bike last weekend.

 

Finally…

Maybe he should stick to driving spaceships. No one has ever had to draw from the strategic oil reserve to support bicycling.

And seriously, who doesn’t need pumpkin spiced, uh…chain lube?

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

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

Streets For All skips mayoral race, CD5 candidates talk bike lanes, and Biden calls for racist councilmembers to quit

October 12, 2022 / / Comments Off on Streets For All skips mayoral race, CD5 candidates talk bike lanes, and Biden calls for racist councilmembers to quit

Streets For All has released their final endorsements for next month’s 2022 general election.

But surprisingly, without a pick in the mayoral race.

Among their endorsements in Los Angeles County, they anointed the following candidates,

  • Congress CA-34, David Kim
  • LA City Controller, Kenneth Mejia
  • LA CD5, Katy Young Yaroslavsky
  • LA CD11, Erin Darling
  • LA CD13, Hugo Soto-Martinez
  • LA County Supervisor District 3, Lindsey Horvath

The Los Angeles County transportation PAC also makes endorsements for council races in Burbank, Culver City, West Hollywood, Santa Monica and Monterey Park, as several local state Senate and Assembly races.

Here is how they explained their decision not to endorse either candidate in the mayor’s race.

We would love to have made a strong endorsement for Mayor, as Los Angeles desperately needs strong environmental and transportation leadership. And while both candidates answered our questionnaire and had some good things to say, neither seemed to show the boldness or courage of conviction needed for our city to truly change. Both candidates displayed a lack of vision for the future of transportation in Los Angeles, which is frightening considering the Mayor has a place on the Metro Board, as well as multiple appointments.

Read all candidate questionnaires here →

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Speaking of Yaroslavsky, both she and Sam Yebri, her opponent in CD5, support protected bike lanes in the district, although Yebri seems to be a little less enthusiastic about it.

Here’s how they addressed the issue in a recent debate, as reported by the Larchmont Buzz.

Do you support the installation of more protected bike lanes and, if so, where?

Yebri said bike infrastructure is an important long-term planning issue (citing the example of the 80,000 cars that pass through Westwood Village every day), but that it’s critical to plan projects such as bike lanes in partnership with Metro and local residents…which he will do.  Yebri also noted that he’s been hearing a lot of complaints about a new bike lane that just opened on San Vicente Blvd., because residents say they weren’t consulted before it was installed.  He also said he would like to revisit the Uplift Melrose project that was dropped last year after resident complaints, but with better community outreach and input, because we desperately do need to upgrade our transportation infrastructure.

Yaroslavsky said Los Angeles should be one of the great bike cities in the world, because it’s mostly flat, the weather’s great, and most things are within a reasonable distance of each other. She said she supports a broadly connected bike infrastructure, and that we should start with first/last mile areas near transit, and then connect the system outward to our various neighborhoods.  She said both Sixth Street and San Vicente Blvd. would be good places to plan bike lanes – in partnership with those communities – and that improving bikeability is important for both the climate and public safety.  Yaroslavsky also noted that her husband and kids all love to ride bikes, but right now they have to load their bikes into a car to drive to safe bike paths, and “that’s crazy; that’s nuts.”  So when it comes to improving bike infrastructure, Yaroslavsky said, “I’m here for this.”

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More on the latest scandal rocking City Hall.

President Biden joined the calls for Nury Martinez, Keven De León and “Roadkill” Gil Cedillo to resign; Martinez took a leave of absence from the city council rather than face her accusers.

The LA Times says the meeting between three Hispanic councilmembers and a labor leader that led to accusations of racism may have been ugly, but it probably wasn’t illegal.

Times‘ columnist Steve Lopez says CD11 Councilmember Mike Bonin’s tearful address to the city council in the wake of the racist comments directed towards his Black toddler son was the best thing to come out of City Hall in ages.

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Streetsblog is hosting a return to the annual in-person Streetsie awards tonight, with a free reception honoring L.A. County Supervisor Holly Mitchell.

Reserve your tickets here.

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Angela Lansbury was one of us, appearing as a bike-riding, crime solving mystery writer for 12 seasons of Murder, She Wrote.

The actress died yesterday at 96, after a nearly 80-year career.

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

A Pittsburgh bike advocate recounts the crash that left her with a brain bleed and a two-year recovery from a shattered jaw, after she was struck by a driver while riding on a street the city had refused to improve, despite the urging of local residents. Along with the ticket she got for running a red light after the police took the word of the only witness — the driver who ran her down.

An English man was strangled with his own bike helmet strap by a road raging drunk driver “dressed like a Blues Brother,” after he was intentionally doored.

You’ve got to be kidding. Life is cheap in Ireland, where a cab driver walked with a suspended sentence for deliberately driving into a man on a bike — twice — while blaming the victim for verbally abusing him and undertaking his taxi.

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

YouTube road safety advocate CyclingMikey is accused of deliberately jumping onto the hood of an SUV so he could claim a celebrity agent crashed into his bike.

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Local

Streetsblog offers photos and an open thread from Sunday’s Heart of LA CicLAvia.

A retired LAPD lieutenant is fighting the same battle too many other bike riders have faced, after the DA’s office bargained away the charges against the hit-and-run driver who left him seriously injured as he rode his bike in Agoura, reducing it to a misdemeanor, even after the victim agreed to probation if the driver pled guilty to a felony.

Long Beach’s Artesia Blvd will get a Complete Streets makeover, including protected bike lanes, with the 3.2-mile, $36.2 million Artesia Great Boulevard Project.

 

State 

Calbike recounts the wins — and losses — for bikes and active transportation in the just-ended legislative session.

A motorcyclist pled not guilty to gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and other charges in the August crash that took life of 68-year old Brad Allen Catcott during a police pursuit at Carlsbad State Beach in August; Eric Burns is currently being held without bail pending trial.

Congratulations to San Diego’s Barrio Logan, which has been named the world’s sixth coolest neighborhood; Colonia Americana in Guadalajara, Mexico, ranked first.

This is who we share the road with. A 74-year old woman mistook her car’s gas pedal for the brake and plowed into a Rialto market, sending herself and seven other people to the hospital. Just one more example of keeping an elderly driver on the road until it’s too late.

 

National

Forget self-driving cars. Bloomberg makes the case for why Apple should build an ebike, instead, saying it would be the company’s most revolutionary product since the iPhone.

A US military health website recommends safety tips for bike riders, several of which are actually mandatory for military personnel.

WaPo examines a popular Portland bike bus.

Houston authorities are looking for the hit-and-run driver that crashed into a man who lost control of his bicycle during a Pride Ride, then ran over him again while fleeing the scene, killing him.

Dual knee replacements get an Arkansas monk back on his bike.

A Chicago project is giving free bikes to Black trans people in need.

Meet the worst bike lanes in St. Paul, Minnesota. To which Los Angeles says, hold my beer. 

A Minnesota man faces two counts of criminal vehicular homicide for running a stop sign and killing an eight-year old girl while he was high on meth. Allegedly.

A survivor of the horrific Michigan crash that killed two people on a Make-A-Wish fundraising ride recounts the crash and its long, painful aftermath, urging  drivers to slow down and be patient; the alleged drunk driver faces ten charges, including a pair of fatal DUI that could put her away for 15 years each.

No bias here. After an Indiana University student was killed by an alleged speeding drunk driver as he was riding a scooter in the bike lane, the City of Bloomington naturally responded by restricting…scooters. No, really.

 

International

Cycling Weekly lists the best Amazon Prime Day deals on bicycles and accessories in the US and the UK, while the upscale Robb Report recommends the Hurley single-speed urban ebike.

An ecology website examines a program to get women on bicycles in Guazapa, El Salvador, whose motto translates to “without a bicycle there is no planet.”

Leading bicycling researchers Ralph Buehler and John Pucher examine how London responded to the pandemic by expanding bikeways and low-traffic neighborhoods, the equivalent of US Slow Streets. A sad reminder of what Los Angeles could have done with better leadership.

A British driver gets six years for killing a bike commuter with a runaway trailer he’d stolen just minutes earlier. But will only serve another year after accounting for time served in jail and house arrest.

No surprise here, as a new German study shows popup bike lanes not only increased ridership but improved air quality, while decreasing riders exposure to nitrogen dioxide.

 

Competitive Cycling

Cycling Tips talks with two-time Tour de France winner Tadej Pogačar, who says it’s the losses that drive him, including this year’s Tour.

Sad news, as Paralympic medallist George Peasgood is in neuro critical care after falling off his bike in a freak accident.

Who says you need a gravel bike? This year’s gravel world champ won on a road bike. As usual, read it on Yahoo if Bicycling blocks you.

A competitor in the the 2022 Ironman World Championship in Kona proves you can be fast and have fun on fat knobby tires, too.

LA’s Phil Gaimon will now have to reclaim a number of his KOMs, courtesy of semi-retired British cyclist Tom Pidcock.

 

Finally…

That feeling when bike lanes are used as a wedge issue. Your next bike could be made of magnesium.

And when you’re supposed to pretend two of America’s three greatest cyclists weren’t.

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

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

Martinez resigns as council president, but not from council, after racist remarks; and Streets For All happy hour with Mike Bonin

October 11, 2022 / / Comments Off on Martinez resigns as council president, but not from council, after racist remarks; and Streets For All happy hour with Mike Bonin

Following up on yesterday’s lead item, Los Angeles City Council President Nury Martinez resigned her position, but insisted on remaining on the council in the wake of racist and otherwise offensive comments on a leaked audio recording.

For now, anyway.

Also refusing to take responsibility are the other councilmembers included in the conversation, Kevin De León and “Roadkill” Gil Cedillo.

Although the only non-councilmember heard on the recording, LA County Federation of Labor President Ron Herrera, showed enough integrity to resign his position.

Now if the others would just follow his example, as the list of people calling for their resignations keeps growing.

Here’s a short sample posted by the LA Times.

The list of political figures and organizations issuing those calls took in Mayor Eric Garcetti, former Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), the Los Angeles County Democratic Party, Reps. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), Tony Cárdenas (D-Pacoima) and Jimmy Gomez (D-Los Angeles), an array of labor unions and two mayoral candidates — Rep. Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) and developer Rick Caruso.

Not to be left out, Streets For All joined the clamor — even though the loss of Martinez and De León could threaten hard-fought wins like adoption of a modified version of the Healthy Streets LA ballot measure and the Complete Streets makeover of Colorado Blvd in Eagle Rock.

But sometimes, integrity has to matter more.

By my count, we’ve already seen three councilmembers convicted or currently facing bribery charges, with another — CD12’s John Lee — implicated but not charged in the bribery scandal that brought down his predecessor.

Meanwhile, Mayor Eric Garcetti’s bid to become ambassador to India went down in flames amid allegations he turned a blind eye to a top aide’s open sexual harassment of male coworkers.

Now three more elected leaders have been captured engaging in a racist conversation, as well as discussion of possibly illegal racial gerrymandering, and what appears to be a violation of the Brown Act open meetings law.

So if you’ve been wondering why our city hasn’t been more responsive to the needs of bike riders, and why nothing seems to get better in what should be — but isn’t — one of the world’s leading cities, we can start with a city government that looks to be rotten from top to bottom.

Photo from Wikipedia.

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In a very timely announcement, the next Streets For All virtual happy hour will feature a conversation with outgoing CD11 Councilmember Mike Bonin, whose Black toddler son was the subject of some of the most offensive comments from Martinez, De León and Cedillo.

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This is what it looks like when bikes are taken seriously as transportation.

Our German correspondent Ralph Durham forwards a photo of a bike repair stand next to an ebike charging stand for four bikes at his neighborhood biergarten.

Not shown, he says, is the bike tube vending machine on the restroom wall.

Photo by Ralph Durham

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

A pair of British men in their early 20s are facing murder charges in the death of 22-year old ebike rider; a third suspect has been released on bail, while a 30-year old woman has been arrested for helping them. Unfortunately, there’s no word on just what happened.

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

Police in South Wales are looking for a pair of men who assaulted another man as he rode his bike in broad daylight, for no apparent reason.

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Local

The LA Times has confirmed their previous endorsement of Kenneth Mejia for city controller, saying opponent Paul Koretz has fought efforts to make it easier to build more housing and blocked bike and pedestrian safety improvements, and “seems more interested in remaining in elected office than in being the taxpayers’ watchdog or government reformer.” Full disclosure — I’ve endorsed Mejia as well. 

 

State 

A 75-year old Yucca Valley man was pushed off his bicycle by a neighbor, then beaten with his own bike, in retaliation for pepper spraying the neighbor’s dog when it came up behind him the previous week.

Mt. Diablo State Park has added 30 bike turnouts on the popular Bay Area riding route, allowing bike riders to pull out to allow uphill traffic to pass.

 

National

Schwinn is introducing a new energy absorbing helmet liner to compete MIPS, designed to reduce rotational injuries in a fall.

Denver bike advocates are meeting with city officials to pitch a low-stress bike network.

This is the cost of traffic violence. A popular Bozeman, Montana high school teacher was killed when he was struck by a red light-running driver while riding his bicycle to work.

An op-ed from a Buffalo NY bike advocate makes the case that everyone benefits from effective bike and pedestrian networks, even drivers. Or maybe even especially drivers.

Philly bike riders are using expensive locks, AirTags and GPS, and social media to fight back against the city’s persistent bike thieves.

Frederick, Maryland is the latest community to introduce a book bike, intended  to take the public library to those who can’t come in themselves. Thanks to Robert Leone for the link.

 

International

Bloomberg Philanthropies is teaming with the Global Designing Cities Initiative to create the new Bloomberg Initiative for Cycling Infrastructure, which will award up to $1 million each to ten cities worldwide to help develop bike lane networks.

Cycling Weekly tries out the new Raleigh e-cargo bike, and says everyone loves it. The built-in kids seats are a nice touch.

A travel website recommends five “magical” Mexican towns to ride your bike in.

Winnipeg, Manitoba bike riders marked Canada’s Thanksgiving with an indigenous-led bike jam combining biking and music with lessons about colonization and reconciliation.

The UK’s British Cycling is being roundly criticized for signing an eight-year sponsorship agreement with oil and gas giant Shell to advise the group on how to achieve net zero. After all, who understands how to get to zero emissions better than an oil company?

A British bike advocacy group is calling on the government to close a loophole that allows people who would otherwise lose their driver’s license to keep driving, by claiming that suspending their license would result in an exceptional hardship.

A new Dutch app promises to tell when you fall off your bike, with or without automotive assistance, and automatically text someone for help.

Tragic news from Italy, where a British international sailing champion was killed when he fell 33 feet down a ravine while on a package mountain biking tour.

Sydney, Australia bicyclists say riding in the city is hard enough without police cracking down on bike riders in the central business district.

 

Finally…

Your next bike could be made from recycled plastic.

And we might have to deal with angry LA drivers, but at least we don’t have to worry about getting chased by a couple of angry moose.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

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

“Coming out of nowhere” to get right hooked by clueless driver, Streets For All virtual Happy Hour, and classic bike ads

September 6, 2022 / / Comments Off on “Coming out of nowhere” to get right hooked by clueless driver, Streets For All virtual Happy Hour, and classic bike ads

One quick personal note before we get started. 

You may recall an LA Times story from a couple years ago about how my wife and I took in a foster corgi for a homeless man for a few weeks after our corgi died, so he could get into a shelter and get back on his feet.

Those few weeks turned into nearly six months. But in the process, that little dog helped heal three lives. 

Sadly, the corgi — whose owner asked us to keep his name private — died on Friday, after suffering from cancer and doggie dementia. 

He was 15 years old. 

………

SoCal bike writer Peter Flax was the victim of a right hook by a driver who cut in front of him after passing, then claimed he “came out of nowhere;” turning so close Flax actually brushed his shoulder against the moving SUV.

Which serves as yet another reminder that, in the entire history of cars and bikes, no one on a bicycle has ever come out of nowhere. Though it may sometime seems that way to careless and/or distracted drivers.

Click on the tweets below to read the whole thread.

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Streets For All will host their latest virtual Happy Hour a week from tomorrow, featuring my state assembly member.

Although probably not just because he’s my assembly member.

………

Your periodic reminder that bike advertising was so much better back in the day.

………

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

No bias here. A writer for Vice responds to last week’s anti-ebike screed in The Atlantic by saying the lack of appropriate infrastructure for ebikes is making bicycling worse, and that we have an ebike problem that more ebikes won’t solve.

A DC bike rider was hit in the face with a metal water bottle thrown by a road raging driver, who then reversed into him and tried to run him over; fortunately, he escaped with a few bruises.

Former Canadian pro cyclist Marcel Zierfuss was the victim of a road raging driver in Toronto’s contentious High Park; the man started by driving erratically and swearing about entitled cyclists, before swerving towards Zierfuss and finally brake-checking him, leaving Zierfuss with a serious concussion, nose injury and whiplash. Thanks to Megan Lynch for the heads-up. 

An English city painted over a previously existing bike lane because drivers couldn’t manage to avoid a new pedestrian island without swerving into it.

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

Houston police are looking for a man who fled by bicycle after fatally shooting another man following an altercation outside a convenience store.

A bike-riding thief punched a student walking on an Illinois university campus before making off with the victim’s cellphone.

A 20-year old British man fled from police on his bike after showing up late for a court hearing, then hurling abuse at social workers.

………

Local

Long Beach bike riders enjoyed a tour of new murals painted over the weekend as part of The Long Beach Walls and Art Renzei Festival.

 

State 

No news is good news, right?

 

National

Tour de Fat is back in my Colorado hometown after a two-year pandemic layoff.

A Colorado man got 16 years behind bars for his part in an organized bike theft ring that used stolen cars to break into 29 Boulder area bike shops, then shipping the stolen bikes to a Mexican bike shop for resale.

The Chicago Tribune offers photos from Sunday’s Bike the Drive open streets event on the city’s iconic Lake Shore Drive; a growing number of those riders were using ebikes.

Five kids from the Cleveland Boys & Girls Club hopped on new loaner bikes to help a videographer with the local paper finish the last three-tenths of a mile of his century ride — then are shocked when they get to keep the bikes, along with other gear.

They’re one of us. Or maybe four of us, as Kate Hudson and her fiancé Danny Fujikawa, and Sophie Turner and husband Joe Jonas go for separate bike rides in New York.

This is why people keep dying on our streets. After a Pennsylvania driver drifted onto the shoulder of a roadway, critically injuring a 61-year old bike rider, police gave him a pat on the wrist by writing a pair of traffic tickets. As someone noted on Twitter, that could cost the driver tens of dollars.

Hundreds of DC area bike riders turned out to honor a fallen bicyclist at her ghost bike ceremony; the veteran diplomat was killed by a driver while riding in Bethesda, Maryland last month.

 

International

A new book details the world’s largest collection of bicycle derailleurs.

Smart bike helmet maker Lumos has introduced a set of magnetic bike lights that can display red, white and yellow lights, which combine with an app to work as turn signals and brake lights; there’s still a few left at two for $65.

Wired likes Skarper’s new ebike conversion prototype, but questions why someone wouldn’t just buy an entire ebike for the $1,190 price tag. Although we’re getting closer to the Holy Grail of conversion kits, where they’re small enough to toss in a backpack and just clip on as needed.

Hats off to a four-year old Welsh girl, who has raised the equivalent of over $1,100 by riding her bicycle 93 miles over the past six weeks.

Once again, authorities managed to keep an elderly driver on the road until it’s too late, after a 70-year old English man was killed when he was run down on his bike by an 82-year old driver with failing eyesight, who couldn’t manage to read a license plate from ten yards away.

After a Bristol, England woman’s bikes were stolen, she spotted one of them when she went to the police station to file a report — and was mugged by the thief when she tried to reclaim it, even though they were right outside the doors of the cop shop.

Then there’s the Lancaster, England thief who denied stealing a bicycle when he was questioned by the police , but they saw him riding the purloined two wheeler the next day. Oops.

A UK woman says she made her two kids stop riding their bikes after it got too dangerous when officials started removing the pandemic popup bike infrastructure; a British bike advocacy group blames the removal of those bikeways for a drop in bicycling rates.

Good news, as Welsh decathlete Ben Gregory is breathing on his own and slowly coming out of a coma after suffering a fractured neck and skull, and multiple brain hemorrhages when he was struck by a driver in a near-fatal collision while riding his bicycle last month.

No bias here. Stuff says the data is inconclusive on whether Christchurch’s protected bike lanes are improving safety, with four of 13 planned major bikeways in operation — except the data is only inconclusive because it’s based on the entire city, with no specific safety information for the new bike lanes themselves. The website also asks why Christchurch lost its position as New Zealand’s bicycling city, where bikes outnumbered cars on the streets as late as the 1950s.

A drunk driver in Hunan, China could face a charge of intentional murder or injury for the hit-and-run crash where she ran down an ebike rider, then dragged the victim for more than one thousand yards after her clothes got caught on the car’s bumper. We could use a law like that here.

 

Competitive Cycling

Veteran Belgian cyclist Sep Vanmarcke won Baltimore’s inaugural Maryland Bicycle Classic, out-sprinting four other riders who survived a lengthy breakaway; more than 50,000 spectators turned out for a brief glimpse of the riders zooming by, with downhill speeds of up to 45 mph.

Things are getting more interesting in the Vuelta, where Remco Evenepoel is holding on to the red leader’s jersey by one minute 34 seconds over second place Primož Roglič, after the three-time winner shaved over a minute off Evenepoel’s lead in Sunday’s 15th stage.

Now you, too, can own your very own replica of Tadej Pogačar’s Tour de France-winning yellow Colnago V3Rs signed by the cyclist; the current bid is the equivalent of just over $550,000 — yes, over half a million bucks — with the proceeds going to a nonprofit that provides access to education for vulnerable children. Did I mention it’s a replica?

This is what a photo finish looked like in Monday’s Tour of Britain.

https://twitter.com/TourofBritain/status/1566796521865101318?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1566796521865101318%7Ctwgr%5E0a8968b61c05a60715b4656fc6a7d2e8221ac8ea%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Froad.cc%2Fcontent%2Fnews%2Fcycling-live-blog-5-september-2022-295707

 

Finally…

Oddly, advice on how to treat common bike injuries doesn’t involve wrenches, spokes of bike lube. Seriously, who doesn’t need a 153-pound ebike with a sidecar?

And that feeling when a man decides to take up bicycling after a judge bans him from driving for the next year for driving while high.

Even though he couldn’t legally drive in the first place.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

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

Getting a jump on LA mobility plan, seriously injured Mtn biker rescued, and anti-semitic banner on Davis bike bridge

August 29, 2022 / / One comment

Good piece from Streets For All founder Michael Schneider.

He makes the case for the city council to get a head start on their promises to implement the Los Angeles mobility plan, rather than waiting for the inevitable drawn-out process to draft and approve an alternative to the Healthy Streets LA ballot proposal.

Schneider recommends ten streets currently scheduled for resurfacing work that they can start work on restriping right now.

Unless the councilmembers were just saying what they think we wanted to hear, with no intention of actually following through.

Naw, they wouldn’t do that to us.

Again.

………

The Los Angeles Fire Department rescued a seriously injured mountain biker in Brentwood, hoisting the 56-year old victim to safety by helicopter after he suffered several traumatic injuries Saturday morning.

………

There’s a special place in hell for the group of people who hung a racist, anti-semitic banner from a bicycle overpass on the UC Davis Campus, for the second weekend in a row.

Thanks to Megan Lynch for the tip.

………

Caltrans forwards a notice that Camp Pendleton will close the bike path through the base for five days next month, so mark your calendar. And make plans to use the shoulder of the 5 Freeway through the base if you need to ride then.

Another notification to pass: Bike path from Pulgas Gate to south entrance to the San Onofre State Park will be closed for military operations from 15 to 19 September from 6:00 AM to 6 PM daily.

Thanks to Robert Leone for the heads-up.

………

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

No bias here. A Chico letter writer complains about a new bike bridge, saying it will just give bike thieves a faster route to escape after stealing one.

No bias here, either. The New York Post calls Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine an anti-car extremist for pushing a “pie-in-the-sky bike lane plan for the West Side Highway,” despite his record of 41 traffic violations in the past decade. Although bad driving ability is a pretty damn good reason to switch to bikes.

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

There’s not a pit deep enough for the bike-riding thieves who stole a cellphone and the equivalent of over $2,000 from a homeless woman in Hong Kong. Although why she was sleeping on the street with that much cash is beyond me.

………

Local

Metro recommitted to using Randolph Street for the eastern segment of the Rail-to-River bike/walk path, after Union Pacific refused to relinquish its right-of-way for an abandoned rail line.

Congratulations, Los Angeles. We now beat the Bay Area in transit use, especially buses. The story wasn’t paywalled for me, for some reason; your results may vary.

Streets For All calls on the city to cancel plans to expand parking at the Los Angeles Zoo in the middle of a climate emergency.

LA Times readers sound off about what streets they’d like to see closed, after the city banned cars from Griffith Park Drive in the park. My first choice would be to close Hollywood Blvd to install a pedestrian plaza at Hollywood & Highland, followed by closing Broadway in DTLA, and Wilshire Blvd from Downtown to the coast.

About damn time. Los Angeles blacktop may not be black for long, as the city works to cover one million square feet of Pacoima streets and other paved surfaces with cooling reflective paint, which can lower surface temperatures up to 12° Fahrenheit. Of course, that’s just a small fraction of LA’s heat-sink paved surfaces. And something tells me they’re not building out the mobility plan when they do it. Thanks again to Robert Leone for the link. 

This is who we share the road with. Despite initial denials, the LAPD was chasing a stolen car when it crashed into multiple vehicles August 19th at Manchester Ave and Broadway, killing a couple in a hit-and-run.

This is who we share the road with, too. One person is dead and two injured, after a pair of road raging drivers traded gunfire in Long Beach, before one of the drivers crashed into a truck and home.

 

State 

A Huntington Beach cop killed a pedestrian in a predawn crash while responding to an emergency call Saturday.

San Diego bicyclists Biked the Bay, riding across the Coronado Bridge in the San Diego County Bike Coalition’s biggest fundraiser of the year.

A San Diego County man credits his Apple Watch with saving his life after a mountain biking crash that left him a quadriplegic; he was able to tell Siri to call a friend for help.

The rich get richer. Santa Barbara County is beginning work on the new Santa Claus Lane bikeway, which will create a new Class I bikeway and multipurpose path connecting the California Coastal Trail to bike lanes on Carpinteria Ave.

 

National

Former New York City transportation commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan applauds the rise of car-free cities to combat climate change.

Cities around the US are debating whether to keep pandemic-era road changes, as drivers, pedestrians, bike riders and diners debate who the streets are for. Although you know it’s not a serious report when they quote a spokesperson for the tiny drivers rights extremist group the National Motorists Association.

A Eugene OR newspaper seems surprised to discover that bicycles can move things “just like cars,” as a group of cargo bike owners carry a live band performance along the city’s streets.

A 19-year old Durango, Colorado man faces DUI and vehicular homicide charges for the hit-and-run death of a bike-riding local fire captain; he abandoned his car, with the victim’s bike sill under the front fender, and the victim embedded in his windshield. At his age, the legal alcohol level is zero.

Colorado residents debate allowing ebike access on offroad trails, even though the bikes can provide outdoor access to people who couldn’t otherwise ride them.

Horrible news from Texas, where a Houston-area man in his 30s was apparently mauled to death by dogs while riding his bike.

This is the cost of traffic violence. A Kansas City teacher and father of ten children was killed in a hit-and-run while riding his bike.

Good idea. A Michigan writer describes how he carries pruning shears on his bike to trim bushes and trees encroaching on the bike path.

Cleveland announces a Vision Zero plan, committing to ending traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2032. Let’s hope they commit to it better than Los Angeles, which still hasn’t adequately funded the program after seven years.

Christian singer Amy Grant made her first public statement since she was seriously injured in a fall off her bike, saying she’s taking it easy at her Nashville home this fall on the advice of her doctors.

A Tennessee newspaper lists “12 perfect gifts” for bike enthusiasts. And for a change, they actually offer some pretty good suggestions. Although I’d add a gift certificate for a cleaning and overhaul at your local bike shop.

No surprise here, as Boston bike ridership jumps nearly 50% after a major train line was shut down for renovations.

Madonna is one of us, sticking her tongue out at the paparazzi as she goes for a bike ride in the Big Apple. And deservedly so.

NPR examines how Hoboken, New Jersey achieved zero traffic deaths in just four years, using quick, high-impact techniques. Thanks again to Robert Leone.

This, too, is the cost of traffic violence. A 42-year old State Department employee was killed when she was run down by a flatbed truck driver while riding her bike in Bethesda, Maryland; the diplomat had most recently served as head of the International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs Section at the US Embassy in Kyiv.

Virginia drivers complain about the width of a new bike lane, apparently unable to figure out how to drive between the lines.

 

International

No surprise here. A new study charts bicycle ownership in various countries worldwide, concluding that high bike ownership does not necessarily correlate to high ridership. Sorry, America.

Cops in Surrey, England have added a Brompton to their crime fighting fleet, catching over 20 scofflaw motorists in the first few days.

Olympic gold medalist track cyclist Katie Archibald talks about her struggles in the week since her boyfriend, Scottish champion mountain biker Rab Wardel died of a heart attack at their Glasgow home.

Road.cc asks if anyplace requires numbered license plates for bicycles, aside from North Korea; Britain’s transport minister says they won’t be required, regardless of what he said before.

A pair of British men have been sentenced to 21 years each behind bars for using a car to deliberately murder a bike-riding father of four in a drug dispute.

A website says no, ebike batteries don’t attract lightening, in the wake of an Italian ebike rider killed by a lightening strike.

After the Russian invasion, a Ukrainian mayor rode her bike to patrol her small town and resist the occupation.

A New Zealand bike rider received a frightening punishment pass from a delivery truck driver; fortunately he was stopped for a pedestrian in the crosswalk, or it could have been worse. Never mind that he stopped, and the truck driver didn’t.

 

Competitive Cycling

Belgian pro Remco Evenepoel continued to hold onto to the red leader’s jersey in the Vuelta with a gap of 1:12 over Spain’s Enric Was; three-time defending champ Primož Roglič remains in striking distance at 1:53 back. All the American cyclists have dropped out of contention, with Lawson Craddock now the top US rider in 59th place, over 45 minutes back.

Pez Cycling News looks back at 1945 Vuelta winner Delio Rodríguez, who holds the record for stage wins in the Grand Tour at 39.

The LUX/CTS U19 cycling team, one of the most successful junior development teams, is shutting down at the end of this season, a victim of cycling’s failed sponsorship model.

Tragic news from Vermont, where 33-year old Kenyan cyclist Sule Kangangi was killed in a high speed fall while competing the Vermont Overland gravel race Saturday.

 

Finally…

Probably not the best idea to try to escape through a flooded river, no matter what kind of bike you just stole. It’s hard enough riding the grueling Iron Horse Classic on two wheels; now try it on one.

And at least one NBA star is excited about cycling’s rising stars. Then again, he does hold a French passport.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

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

LA Council considers Healthy Streets tomorrow, carfree living in LA ain’t so pretty, and Venice bike lane extension

August 23, 2022 / / 2 comments

As we mentioned yesterday, the Los Angeles City Council is scheduled to consider the Healthy Streets LA ballot proposition at Wednesday’s meeting.

After the proposition qualified for the ballot, it opened a 20 day window for the council to adopt it as written, or place it on the 2024 ballot for a vote by the city.

Aside from the usual opposition that comes with any proposed changes to LA streets, some advocates have come out against the measure because it doesn’t include a focus on equity or schedule for how the plan will be rolled out.

But that’s not the purpose of the proposal. It’s really a very simple measure — all it does is require Los Angeles to build out the city mobility plan, which they’ve already approved, whenever a street included in the plan is resurfaced.

That’s it.

It’s up to the city to determine when streets get resurfaced, and how to bring equity into the process.

So the best option is for the council to adopt the Healthy Streets LA proposition as written, then adopt a separate plan to fairly and equitably roll it out, especially in lower income communities that are too often ignored.

Unfortunately, I probably won’t be able to make it. I’m still having major health problems that keep me close to home, especially at night in the mornings until my meds kick in.

But I’m begging you, if you can clear your schedule Wednesday morning, go make your voice heard to demand that the city keep its word, and give us the safe, livable streets they promised.

And if you can’t, then email your council member today, before the day is over. That’s what I’ll be doing.

Here is what Streets For All said about it in a recent email.

IT ALL COMES DOWN TO THIS WEDNESDAY AND WE NEED YOU TO COME IN PERSON!

After a year and a half, it all comes down to THIS WEDNESDAY. The City Council has item #20 on its agenda to consider adopting Healthy Streets LA now, or send it to the 2024 ballot.

The City Council no longer takes remote comments, and we need you to show up in person Wednesday at 10am at LA City Hall (200 N. Spring St. Room 340) and make public comment asking them to take Option #1, and adopt Healthy Streets LA. Here are some talking points you can use. We suggest timing yourself to make sure you can say everything you want to say in 1 minute.

We’re almost there, and we need all hands on deck. See you there!

HOW YOU CAN HELP:

RSVP AND TELL US YOU’LL BE THERE

VIEW TALKING POINTS

………

It’s not always pleasant to see yourself through someone else’s eyes.

Especially the view isn’t always pretty.

An Indian writer working with the LA Times on a journalism fellowship discovers just how difficult it is to survive in Los Angeles without a car, where the taxis are expensive and transit unreliable, and bike lanes start and stop with no coherent reason.

And you can’t even go through a Del Taco drive through without one, even when the walkup window is closed.

………

This is the cost of traffic violence.

A Florida driver killed five people in their late teens and early twenties when he drove the wrong way on a freeway at 4:30 am.

The 30-year old driver, who was the only one who survived the crash, hasn’t had a valid driver’s license since his was revoked after getting caught doing 109 mph.

Yet he continued to drive anyway, racking up traffic violations that include speeding, running red lights and failing to yield at an intersection, despite being described by a former girlfriend as psychotic and obsessive.

Just one more example of authorities allowing a dangerous driver to stay on the roads until he killed someone.

Or five someones.

Thanks to Victor Bale for the heads-up. 

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Streetsblog says work is underway to extend the parking protected bike lane on Venice Blvd.

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Buena Park has started work on what will be the longest bike lanes in the city when they’re finished.

https://twitter.com/mikeocbike/status/1561836685813358593

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I’m not sure I’d call this a rickshaw. It seems more like a side-by-side tandem to me.

Although I did have to read the tweet to figure out that wasn’t Peter Pan sitting next to Peter Fonda.

………

A YouTuber converted his old mountain bike to an ebike, in order to tow his solar-powered camper trailer complete with rechargeable battery.

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

A road raging pickup driver disrupted a Portland open streets event by driving onto the route, screaming obscenities at volunteers and participants, and even flashing a gun at one point. Police say they are investigating.

Once again, cops bend over backwards to exonerate one of their own, after a Lincoln, Nebraska cop right hooked a 15-year old kid crossing the street on his bike with the walk signal; the police insist the kid somehow crashed into the side of the police cruiser as the officer was turning. Something smells like bullshit here, which isn’t hard to find in Nebraska.

British lawyer “Mr. Loophole” wants bike riders who kill pedestrians to face life imprisonment, even though drivers usually get off with a slap on the wrist, if that. And even though it hardly ever happens, while drivers kill people every day.

Cycling Weekly has more information about the Spanish driver who plowed into a group of eight bicyclists, killing a couple of 67 and 72-year old men and seriously injuring three others; the driver was captured ten hours after fleeing the crash. He’s under investigation for murder, after witnesses say he suddenly changed lanes and sped up before hitting the bike riders.

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

A Phoenix man faces charges for shooting and killing another man in a dispute over a stolen bicycle; he confessed to the killing when police arrested him, but swore he actually stole the bike from someone else.

………

Local

This is who we share the road with. The LA Times takes a deep dive into deadly street takeovers and side shows, which authorities describe as a scene of lawlessness “bordering on a riot;” six people have already been killed in street takeovers this year.

The WeHo Times provides photos from Sunday’s Meet the Hollywoods CicLAvia, while My News LA offers a brief wrap-up.

The sheriff’s department will conduct a traffic safety operation in Santa Clarita from 2 pm to 8 pm today, focusing on violations that put bike riders and pedestrians at risk, regardless of who commits them. You know the drill. Ride to the letter of the law until you leave the area, so you’re not the one who gets ticketed.

 

State 

California is still trying to get its shit together regarding the fully funded ebike rebate program that was supposed to be up and running by now; the California Air Resources team will hold a virtual public workshop tomorrow to discuss issues like participant income eligibility, what types of ebikes should be covered by the program, and what kinds of retailers should participate.

San Diego’s popular Bike the Bay rolls this Sunday, providing your annual opportunity to ride the city’s iconic Coronado Bridge. Thanks to Robert Leone for the heads-up.

KTLA-5 offers an update on the 14-year old boy who was run down by a 68-year old driver while riding bikes with a friend in the parking lot of the Camarillo Premium Outlets; his mother reports he suffered an extensive brain injury, as well as a collapsed lung, cracked sternum, fractured vertebrae and serious road rash. A crowdfunding campaign has raised over $20,000 of the $50,000 goal.

Thanks again to Robert Leone for catching us up on a couple stories we missed recently:

Richmond is planning to revive its moribund e-bikeshare system a month after Bolt bolted, and left hundreds of abandoned ebikes on the streets.

 

National

Runner’s World recommends the best bike helmets for “comfortable, breezy protection.”

Highway-choked Houston is slowly inching away from its auto-centric reputation with a series of multimodal infrastructure projects. Maybe they could show LA officials how to do it.

There’s a special place in hell for whoever stole a “priceless” bike that belonged to a Minnesota man who recently died of a brain tumor; before his death he passed the bike onto his son because he wanted the boy to enjoy riding like he did.

This, too, is the cost of traffic violence. Pioneering heart researcher Jeffrey Robbins, PhD was killed when a teenage driver attempted to pass him as he was making a left turn on his bike to enter an Ohio bike trail. But it’s okay, because the cops say it was just an “oopsie.”

Unbelievable. Indianapolis has removed concrete bollards along a protected bike lane, and replaced them with flimsy car-tickler plastic bendy posts, because it was just to hard to maintain the concrete barriers after drivers hit them. So better to let drivers crash into the soft people on bicycles instead, apparently.

Ebikes are getting more Maine residents out of their cars, and could help the state meet its climate goals. Which is a pretty good indication that their climate goals aren’t ambitious enough.

Boston residents are working together to cope with a month-long shutdown of a pair of commuter rail lines, including mapping bike routes and organizing bike buses for beginning riders.

DC installed a new traffic signal to address years of complaints about a dangerous intersection, nine days too late to save the life of a woman riding a bike who was right hooked by a garbage truck driver.

This is the cost of traffic violence, too. An 11-year old Florida boy was killed when a pickup driver towing a boat swerved up on the sidewalk to avoid a crash, where the boy was riding his bike.

Sad commentary from a Florida website, which says ghost bikes are becoming all-too-familiar roadside memorials on Miami’s Rickebacker Causeway.

 

International

Yes, cars really are out to get us, one way or another. Vancouver bike riders are demanding a safe route after a bike path was closed when the roof of a parking lot collapsed, blocking the bikeway.

Calgary residents complain about new bike lanes intended to slow speeding drivers, as some worry they won’t be safe because…wait for it…scofflaw drivers will break the law.

Life is cheap in the UK, where a hit-and-run driver walked without a single day behind bars for leaving a bike rider with a broken pelvis.

A British bike rider completed the grueling, 2,500-mile Transcontinental race across Europe riding a Brompton foldie.

That’s more like it. France will pay you up to the equivalent of nearly four grand to swap your smelly, polluting car for a clean running ebike, or $400 to buy an ebike without a car trade, and Paris will give up up to $500 to buy an ebike or foldie.

This is who we share the road with. A 20-year old American service member is under house arrest inside the Aviano Air Base in northern Italy after killing a 15-year old boy while driving at four times the legal alcohol limit.

Cycling Tips considers why Australian roads became proportionately more dangerous during the pandemic.

 

Competitive Cycling

The real Vuelta starts today, when the peloton returns to Spain with a harrowing uphill finish.

Semi-retired LA pro cyclist Phil Gaimon now owns the course record for Maine’s prestigious Mt. Washington Auto Road Bicycle Hillclimb, while notching his fourth win in the event; San Jose’s Courtney Nelson also set a course record while winning the women’s event.

 

Finally…

Once again, if you’re carrying meth on your bike, put a damn light on it, already. Congratulations, your kid is now some Tesla driver’s crash test dummy.

And this is how you avoid close passes.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

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

Contact LA city council to support Healthy Streets LA, and CA bill would give up to $5,000 tax credit for carfree households

August 15, 2022 / / Comments Off on Contact LA city council to support Healthy Streets LA, and CA bill would give up to $5,000 tax credit for carfree households

Streets For All is asking everyone to support the Healthy Streets LA ballot proposal now that it’s before the Los Angeles City Council.

The council has 20 days to decide whether to adopt the proposal as written or place it on the ballot for the 2024 election.

Or they could adopt their own ordinance, which could include similar language to the Healthy Streets LA ballot proposal, but could be change at any time, for any reason, unlike the the ballot measure which would require a vote of the people to modify or repeal.

Your support matters, especially since some advocates have come out against it.

WE NEED YOU:
Tell City Council to adopt Healthy Streets LA!

Last month, we turned in more than 100,000 signatures from residents in every single council district in Los Angeles — the people demanded safer streets, protected bike lanes, and dedicated bus lanes. Yesterday, the City Clerk certified our petition.

Now, it goes to City Council. The City Council has 20 days to decide to adopt our measure as an ordinance, or send it to the ballot to let the voters decide. We already know what voters want. That’s why we need your help to get the city council to adopt us as an ordinance within the next two weeks.

MAKE PUBLIC COMMENT ON THE COUNCIL FILE

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Good news for carfree households.

Let’s hope this one passes.

It could do as much as anything to help get people out of their cars.

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This is who we share the road with.

A New Hampshire truck driver plowed head-on into a group of motorcyclists, killing seven people; a jury let him walk without a day behind bars, though he may be deported to his native Ukraine. Just in case you wondered why people keep dying on our streets. And my apologies to whoever sent this to me; I’m afraid I lost track of it over the weekend.

A Pennsylvania man faces charges after plowing through a crowd gathered to raise funds for victims of a deadly house fire, killing one person and injuring 17, including four critically; he then ran down his own mother with his car and beat her to death with a hammer.

A driver plowed into an Arlington, Virginia pub, injuring 15 people, two critically; people inside described the crash as being like a bomb going off.

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Too many Angelenos learn about our deadly streets the hard way.

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Evidently, Portland drivers can figure out what San Diego drivers couldn’t.

Or didn’t want to.

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Not Just Bikes considers the bakfiets as a car. replacement.

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French illustrator Jean-Jacques Sempé created over one hundred covers for The New Yorker, including many bicycling themed illustrations.

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If anyone has me on their Secret Santa list, I’ll gladly settle for a copy of this painting.

Or the original, even.

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

This is what a punishment pass looks like.

No bias here. A Louisville KY TV station reports, apparently seriously, that a salmon cyclist crashed her bike into the front of a police patrol car, rather than the cops hitting her with their car. That’s like saying “Please accept my apologies for hitting your fist with my nose.”

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

Police in Fort Worth, Texas are looking for a bike-riding man who rode out of the darkness to slash a man’s arm with a machete.

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Local

Los Angeles Times readers address the recent article about the Healthy Streets LA initiative qualifying for the ballot with surprisingly less vitriol than expected, though one insisted on trotting out the old “this is not Amsterdam” bromide, combined with the myth that its too hot to ride to work in a suit here. Especially since so many Angelenos have ditched their suits post pandemic.

The Times editorial department says you’ll soon have the chance to vote for safer streets.

Treehugger says the high-speed Windsor Hills crash that killed six victims, including a pregnant mother just two weeks from full term, has reignited debate about installing speed limiters in cars.

 

State 

California governor Gaven Newsom has named former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to serve as the state’s first Infrastructure Advisor to identify priority projects and maximize access to federal dollars.

A memorial crowdfunding campaign has raised over $110,000 for the family of Christine Hawk Embree, the 35-year old Carlsbad mother killed by a driver while riding an ebike with her 16-month old daughter; at last check, the fund stood at more than $119,000.

Eight San Diego men set a new team record for riding across the US in five days, two hours and 47 minutes.

Police in Contra Costa County arrested a hit-and-run driver who allegedly killed a 57-year old bike rider, before crashing head-on into another car minutes later.

A new 600-mile hiking and mountain biking trail could help revive dying towns in the Sierras.

 

National

Bike shops couldn’t keep up during the pandemic bike boom, and ended up ordering bikes that weren’t delivered until the after the boom crested; now they’re overflowing with bikes they can’t sell. For some reason, this story wasn’t blocked by the Wall Street Journal’s paywall, though your results may vary. 

Tech Radar offers a ten point checklist on how to safely secure your bike. And adds advice to never buy cheap secondhand bikes from shady sellers.

A Flagstaff, Arizona woman rode her mountain bike 2,700 miles on off-road trails in 51 days — despite being blind.

There is no lower form of human scum than someone who could leave a bike-riding 6-year old Las Vegas boy to die in the street.

That’s more like it. A Beaumont, Texas driver got 12 and a half years behind bars for the hit-and-run death of a bike rider; his sentence was extended as a repeat offender.

A Wisconsin family brings 17 extra bikes with them to ensure every child can take part in the Green Bay Packer’s tradition of riding borrowed kids bikes to practice.

Christian singer Amy Grant has postponed more concert dates in September and October, as she continues to recover at her Nashville home from being knocked cold falling off her bike.

No, New York City will not be banning cars anytime in the foreseeable future.

The gunman who killed a security guard on the set of Law & Order: Organized Crime in Brooklyn last month apparently stalked the victim using a bicycle.

Someone tossed a heavy bikeshare bike onto the tracks in front of a New York subway train, with predictable results.

This is the cost of traffic violence. Friends remember a Virginia woman who was killed by a teenaged drunk driver while riding with a friend at 7:30 am; the other woman remains hospitalized in critical condition.

President Biden took another bike ride with his family while on vacation in South Carolina. And didn’t fall off this time.

A Miami man carries his 75-pound, sunglass-wearing golden doodle on his back as he rides around his neighborhood.

Kindhearted Florida duputies bought a 13-year old boy “the monster of all bikes” after learning he was depressed over the theft of his bike and the death of his father.

 

International

Road.cc reviews the new book Two Wheels Good – The History and Mystery of the Bicycle, giving it four out of five stars. The website also lists a half-dozen bike upgrades you don’t really need, from high-end gruppos to disc brakes and tubeless tires.

Kindhearted Ottawa, Canada cops dug into their own pockets to buy a new bike for a young kid after the one he received in a charity giveaway was stolen.

Someone may have stolen $3,300 from a bike rider in Trinidad after he was killed in a collision.

A British luxury lifestyle magazine recommends the best places for a biking vacation this fall. And no, nowhere in the US made the cut.

They get it. Officials in Camden, England say new bike lanes will benefit both bike riders and local businesses.

A 34-year old Edinburgh man with terminal motor neurone disease completed a mountainous, 20 hour, 265-mile fundraising ride; in the four years since his diagnosis, he’s raised the equivalent of $181,000 to fight the disease, with another $60,000 pledged for this ride.

Life is cheap in the UK, where a truck driver got just seven months behind bars for killing a 71-year old man riding a bicycle; he played the universal Get Out Of Jail Free card, saying he just didn’t see the victim.

Would you like fries with that? A new documentary tells the story of a Yugoslavian man who ate an entire bicycle in three days. No, really. 

Over 100 bicyclists turned out to mark Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav, aka the 75th anniversary of Indian independence.

Nice story from Gabon, where a teacher got tired of watching her students walk for miles to get to school, so she started a company making bamboo bicycles; she already has over 5,000 orders.

You’ve got to be kidding. The new Hermes bicycle sold out in mainland China, despite a price tag over $24,000. Demonstrating that a number of wealthy Chinese have more yuan than sense.

 

Competitive Cycling

Seventy-one-year old Rick Taggart qualified for the US Nationals for his age bracket, despite a high-speed crash in the final mile of a 76-mile race that left him with a broken collarbone; he somehow managed to finish the race anyway.

Pez Cycling News takes a look at seven of the world’s “most challenging, weirdest bike races.”

 

Finally…

That feeling when your bike breaks during a 1,000-mile audax, so you ride into the nearest town, buy a new frame and build up a new one to finish the ride. We may have to deal with LA drivers, but at least we don’t have to worry about getting kicked in the head by a deer doing a high jump. 

And evidently, Napoleon was one of us, too.

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

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

Healthy Streets LA ballot measure qualifies for ballot, moves to city council; and Paris moves to be 100% bikeable

August 11, 2022 / / Comments Off on Healthy Streets LA ballot measure qualifies for ballot, moves to city council; and Paris moves to be 100% bikeable

Correction: I got a couple things wrong in the following piece.

First off, the Healthy Streets LA initiative has qualified for the 2024 ballot, not this fall as I originally wrote.

Second, my sloppy wording implied that the city council had the option of changing the wording on the initiative, but they don’t. They have the option of adopting the initiative as written, or adopting their own ordinance based on the initiative. 

I’ve made both corrections below. 

It’s on.

The Healthy Streets LA ballot measure has been approved for the 2024 election.

According to Streetsblog, the LA City Clerk’s office ruled that the coalition behind the proposal, headed by transportation PAC Streets For All, has collected enough qualified signatures to go to a vote of the people.

Or as an alternative, the city council could skip the whole hassle of campaigning for the next two years, and adopt the measure outright, which is what Streets For All is pushing for.

The measure would simply require that the city implement the already approved mobility plan whenever streets in the plan get resurfaced, whether repaved or coated with a slurry seal.

The council can adopt the plan outright, adopt their own alternative version based on the plan, or vote to place it on the ballot.

Some people, including longtime leading pedestrian advocate Jessica Meaney, have called for the city to adopt the alternative version including a plan for implementation with a focus on equity.

The problem with that is that it could be amended or revoked by a simple vote of the city council at any time, for any reason. So if the next Gil Cedillo or Paul Koretz decided they didn’t want bike lanes in their district, they could easily have them removed.

Adopting the proposal outright would give it the force of law, and would require a vote of the people in order to modify it. And nothing prevents the city council from approving both the Healthy Streets LA proposal, as well as the council’s version, with a focus on equity in the resurfacing schedule, to govern how it will be rolled out.

Which would be the best of all possible worlds, and what Streets For All is recommending.

Meanwhile, the LA Times looked at the ballot measure, and the willingness of city officials and the public to make real changes to the streets to increase safety and livability.

In the city where the car is king, activists are pushing to claim strips of the biggest boulevards for bicyclists and walkers.

Their fight has played out at Griffith Park, where streets were recently closed after a cyclist was killed. It spilled out along the steps of City Hall where advocates staged a die-in. And now, it could make its way to the ballot box in a vote that will test traffic-weary Angelenos’ willingness to put themselves on a so-called road diet to make streets safer and the air cleaner.

But what jumps out from the story is a comment from a board member from NIMBY advocacy group Fix The City.

“If you take away vehicle lanes, you are creating congestion,” said Mike Eveloff, a board member of the nonprofit Fix The City. The group successfully sued Los Angeles over its mobility plan, mandating that an extensive outreach plan accompany new projects for 10 years. “This will result in even more lawsuits against the city. There are no costs disclosed. This represents a ‘hidden’ tax.”

Eveloff said he once loved to cycle but not anymore. “The infrastructure is incompatible with cars, bikes and pedestrians sharing the same space.”

He clearly doesn’t recognize the irony of that statement.

Because that same lack of safe infrastructure keeps many people from riding their bikes or walking to the market. And the fixes the Fix The City group opposes are exactly what would allow him to ride a bike once again.

Who knows, he might even like it.

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This is what Los Angeles could be doing.

Paris has invested the equivalent of 154 million dollars to transform itself from a typically auto-centric, car-choked city to one where both residents and visitors can choose to get anywhere in the city on two wheels.

Now Paris is planning to drill down to the neighborhood level over the next five years, to make 100 percent of city safe and convenient to travel by bicycle.

The city is increasing its investment to $258 million to build 621 miles of bike lanes and 186 miles of cycle tracks, along with 30,000 bike racks, with 1,000 spaces reserved for cargo bikes, and 40,000 new secure bicycle parking spaces.

They’re also planning for 8,400 ebike charging stations.

This is the sort of wholesale transportation changes we were promised with the adoption of LA’s mobility plan, before we were all told it was merely “aspirational.”

And forgettable, evidently.

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Robert Downey Jr. is one of us, as he makes a sepia toned call for more bike lanes.

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A Vancouver visual effects artist created short videos placing local bicyclists in the Upside Down and the middle of a Star Wars battle.

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

The widow of a man murdered by a bike-riding man while their family was on vacation in Myrtle Beach SC is demanding the death penalty or life in prison for his killer; the victim was shot eight times after agreeing to give the down-and-out stranger a ride

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Local

AAA calls on people to drive safely and avoid distraction as kids return to school. Never mind that they should drive that way all the time, whether or not school is in session.

The LAPD reports things are finally quieting down on LA’s new $577 million 6th Street Viaduct, while the city public works committee considers a proposal to periodically close the bridge to cars to allow greater bike and pedestrian access.

Santa Clarita residents are invited to a public meeting on Wednesday, August 24th to learn more about the Bouquet Canyon Bike Trail project.

 

State 

Streetsblog calls on California to ban parking minimums, noting that AB 2097 would prohibit parking mandates in areas near public transit.

Assembly Bill 371 could threaten bikeshare systems throughout the state by requiring providers to obtain insurance to cover the cost of injuries or deaths caused by negligent users.

Steve Martin is one of us, riding his ebike into town when he spends summers in Santa Barbara with his wife.

Sad news from Bakersfield, where a bike-riding man was killed in a collision just after midnight Wednesday.

Gizmodo calls Silicon Valley’s push into transportation a miserable failure, marked by a lot of disruption but not much innovation, while a Canadian technology writer accuses tech firms of planning for transportation that benefits the few, not the many.

San Francisco has received a $23 million federal grant to improve the plastic-protected bike lanes on a seven-block section of Howard Street, including concrete buffers, curb-protected intersections and new bike traffic signals.

No surprise here, as the parents of a 19-year old UC Davis student killed by a university garbage truck driver as she rode her bike to class have filed a wrongful death suit against the university.

A New Jersey website offers tips on how to keep your bike from getting stolen.

A new study suggests the Richmond-San Rafael bridge is dramatically underused, with an average of just 136 weekday crossings.

Call it a different kind of tall bike, as Road Bike Action examines 6’7″ former NBA great Reggie Miller’s new Moots gravel bike.

People For Bikes examines plans for the Lost Sierra Route, a new 600-mile bike trail connecting 15 mountain towns in Northern California.

 

National

Treehugger asks if we’re seeing the beginning of an e-bikelash.

Speaking of Silicon Valley tech firms, Ralph Nader urged the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, aka NHTSA, to recall Tesla’s full self-driving technology, calling it “one of the most dangerous and irresponsible actions by a car company in decades.”

CityLab calls for installing speed governors on all cars to keep drivers from dangerously exceeding the speed limit; modern versions use geolocation to match the posted speed limit on a given roadway.

A Seattle website suggests riding your bike around the scenic islands of Puget Sound.

Utah has seen a spike in fatal bike crashes, already topping any other year for the past decade.

A Durango, Colorado letter writer reminds readers that without an ebike, he wouldn’t be able to ride at all.

A Massachusetts city councilor is calling for the removal of a bike lane, even though it has reduced crashes a whopping 77%.

 

International

Toronto’s mayor met with the city’s largest bike advocacy group protesting a crackdown on bike riders in the city’s High Park; an Ontario website calls the crackdown a colossal waste of time and money, since only 15 pedestrians were hit by bike riders over an eight-year period, with no fatalities, while drivers killed 212 pedestrians over the same time.

A London bike company is offering commuters free bikes to use when tube workers are on strike.

Five British bicyclists completed a 1,100-mile trip across the country, raising the equivalent of nearly $100,000 to install “life-changing” gardens at every spinal injury center in the UK.

Horrible story from India’s Uttar Pradesh state, where a woman and her son beat a young man on a bicycle to death, using a bat to knock him and his bike into an open sewer.

A New Zealand website recommends the world’s best and most beautiful bike routes.

 

Competitive Cycling

Veteran World Cup mountain biker Lea Davison has walked away from the Life Time Grand Prix gravel racing series, concluding she loves mountain biking, gravel not so much; she also cited a lack of safety and fairness.

 

Finally…

Now you, too, can sculpt a giant pink cow for a Florida bike path. Or hold your own in a drag race pitting a DIY ebike against a Ford Mustang.

And if you’re going to get drunk and fall off your bike, try not to do it in front of someone’s doorbell cam.

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

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

13 previous car crashes for nurse who killed six people in Windsor Hills, and women and retirees fastest ebike adopters

August 10, 2022 / / One comment

Talk about keeping a dangerous driver on the road until it’s too late.

According to the Los Angeles Times, 37-year old, Texas-based traveling nurse Nicole Lorraine Linton was involved in 13 prior crashes before she killed six people and injured eight others after allegedly blowing through a red light at up to 90 mph on Thursday.

Yes, you read that right.

Thirteen previous crashes, including a 2020 crash that totaled both vehicles. And yet she was somehow allowed to keep driving, despite demonstrating a clear inability to do so safely.

Either that, or she was plagued by some of the worst luck in the history of driving.

Linton was formally charged with six counts of murder — one for each victim — along with five counts of vehicular homicide. The unborn child of the pregnant woman killed in the crash accounts for the discrepancy; the death of the eight-and-a-half month unborn baby is eligible for a murder charge, but not vehicular homicide.

LA County DA George Gascón concluded her prior crash record indicated she was aware of the risks of driving in a dangerous manner, making her eligible for the murder charges.

Linton faces up to life behind bars upon conviction. She’s currently being held without bail after the previous $9 million bond was revoked.

Thanks to How The West Was Saved for the heads-up.

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Meanwhile, the news is not good for Anne Heche.

The actress, who was seriously burned crashing her car into a Mar Vista home at high speed on Friday, is reportedly in extremely critical condition after slipping into a coma.

Police investigators are trying to determine if drugs or alcohol played a role in the fiery crash.

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I once made the mistake of telling a bikemaker I didn’t see a market for ebikes, because I assumed everyone would want the exercise and health benefits of a standard bike.

Turns out I was wrong about that, too, since studies show ebikes offer the same health benefits as any other bike.

So this is a snapshot of just who is taking up ebikes.

You know, the market I somehow couldn’t picture.

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Let’s take a few moments to consider what’s possible when you register your bike with Bike Index.

You can get a free, lifetime registration in just minutes.

So if anything happens to your bike, you’ll have all the information you need to add your bike to Bike Index’ nationwide database of stolen bikes. And increase your chances of getting it back, wherever its found.

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Streets For All is hosting their latest virtual happy hour this evening.

https://twitter.com/streetsforall/status/1557205486327455744

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Who needs an ebike bike when you can build your very own DIY jet-powered bicycle?

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

No bias here. A new San Francisco group demanding the reopening of JFK Drive through Golden Gate Park to cars has issued their full set of demands, including parking on every street, no parking-protected bike lanes, and no bike lanes replacing parking.

A road-raging Dayton, Ohio man faces charges for intentionally running down, then running over, a man riding a bicycle, before getting out with another man and looking at the victim; the attack was apparently in retaliation for the rider throwing a small flashlight at the driver’s car, after someone in the car threw a water bottle at the victim.

A Florida driver is accused of circling back and jumping a curb to intentionally run down a pair of bike riders, then getting out and shooting one of them in the leg

British police interviewed a man accused of “furiously” pushing a man against a wall and throwing his bicycle out into the street, for the crime of riding his bike on the sidewalk.

An Irish road and cyclocross racer is back to riding just two weeks after he suffered four broken ribs and two broken vertebrae, as well as a partially collapsed lung, when someone sabotaged a mountain bike trail with a rope strung across the path; Seán Nolan warns that its only a matter of time before someone gets killed.

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

A Nebraska man was busted after fleeing from police on his bike when the cops recognized his as having outstanding warrants; he was also carrying meth and drug paraphernalia in his backpack.

A Tulsa, Oklahoma man learns the hard way that if you’re going to stab a man and ride off on his bicycle, make sure it doesn’t have a flat tire first.

Police in Chicago are looking for a bike-riding man who has targeted elderly women in a string of strong-arm robberies, stealing their jewelry before riding off.

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Local

Dozens of bicyclists and other activists turned out at City Hall on Monday to protest a new ordinance banning outdoor bike chop shops, fearing the law could be used to target low-income people and people of color, rather than cracking down on bike thefts.

Streetsblog reports Venice Blvd will be getting another 4.3 miles of parking protected bike lanes connecting to the .8-mile Mar Vista Great Street project, for a total of 5.1 miles of protected bike lanes.

The LA River Greenway is getting a new Canoga Park entry pavilion designed by acclaimed architect Frank Geary, even though the river is nothing more than an open air concrete culvert at that point. Geary has also proposed hiding lower sections of the concrete channel under elevated parks, rather than returning the channel to a more natural state.

Walk Bike Glendale offers action alerts on proposed makeovers of North Brand Blvd and La Crescenta Ave, as well as plans for a feeder ride to the Meet the Hollywoods CicLAvia on August 21st.

 

State 

Sen. Scott Wiener’s SB 922 passed the state Assembly with almost unanimous support; the bill expedited bike, pedestrian, light rail, and rapid bus projects by exempting them from the California Environmental Quality Act, aka CEQA. It now goes back to the Senate for a final vote before going to the governor’s desk for a signature.

Encinitas-based bikemaker Electra continues to stick close to its roots, keeping its focus on cruiser bikes on the eve of its 30th birthday.

San Diego’s newly revised Climate Action Plan doubles down on efforts to get people out of their cars, including a shift to more Class IV protected bike lanes.

Santa Barbara’s Parks and Recreation Commission approved the removal of 34 trees to build a bike path on the city’s Modoc Road, which will require moving the roadway 12 feet so the path won’t go through sensitive wildlife habitat near Arroyo Burro Creek; the project is less controversial than another one along Modoc Road in Santa Barbara County, which will require removing 40 to 61 trees.

Streetsblog calls on San Francisco officials to fix a street grate in Golden Gate Park that could grab a narrow bike tire and bring down the rider. And did. Call it Golden Gate Grate-gate. 

Oakland wants to use a $1 million state grant to buy 500 ebikes to open an ebike library for low-income neighborhoods.

After hundreds of bike-riding teens swarmed the lower deck of the San Francisco Bay Bridge Saturday afternoon, they’re accused of burglarizing businesses and throwing things at people in Oakland.

A man was sentenced to a well-deserved 17 years behind bars for trying to rape a woman on a Davis bike path.

 

National

Streetsblog offers advice on how to access federal funding from the new Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) program, offering a cool $1 billion a year for the next five years for “meaningful, community-led Vision Zero projects.”

Even with federal incentives of up to $7,500, electric cars remain outside the reach of many Americans. Yet the new climate bill fails to mention far more affordable bicycles, let alone ebikes.

The Verge says the ebike tax credit is only mostly dead, as supporters plot the next steps to revive it.

Add this one to your bike bucket list. Take a cog railway train to the summit of Colorado’s 14,115-foot Pikes Peak, then bike 13 miles and 5,000 feet back down.

A 49-year old Durango, Colorado fire fighter was killed when his bike was rear-ended by a driver; his death came just two weeks after a 60-year old member of the same department died of a heart condition while riding bikes with his son.

A 68-year old Sierra City, California man was killed when he was rear-ended by a semi driver and knocked into a ditch while riding in Kansas.

Great idea. While Houston is in the midst of a years-long commitment to build 1,800 miles of high-comfort bike lanes, the city is reserving 10% of the funding for smaller “strategic” projects suggested by members of the bicycling community.

Police arrested a 26-year old man for yelling and chucking rocks at people using a Madison, Wisconsin bike path.

A Detroit website says more pedestrians are getting killed as trucks and SUVs keep getting bigger, with some models now exceeding the size of a WWII tank.

The woman accused of killing two men participating in a Michigan Make-A-Wish fundraising ride while driving under the influence is due back in court for a prelim next week; the crash left nine kids without their fathers.

The bighearted employees of a Maine company pitched in to buy a new bicycle for a 19-year old coworker, after the bike he used to ride to work was stolen.

Boston Red Sox pitcher Chris Sale is one of us, after he suffered a broken wrist falling off his bike to end his season; a Texas website offers an incomplete list of other major league bike incidents, although they include motorcycles as well as bicycles.

New York saw a 33 percent jump in weekday bicycling trips during the deepest, darkest days of the pandemic in 2020. Meanwhile, the latest official figures for Los Angeles show a 22 percent increase — in 2019, before the pandemic and subsequent bike boom.

New Yorkers want more, and more secure, bike parking. Then again, doesn’t everyone?

DC has a new bicycle awareness specialty license plate, even if it does misspell “taxation.”

New Orleans police arrested a 16-year old boy, accusing him of stealing a bicycle from an off-duty cop in a French Quarter strong-arm robbery.

 

International

A Suffolk, England woman is credited with helping save a man’s life after he rode his bike into a river; now she’s raising funds to support the medical charity that helped his rehabilitation.

British police failed to arrest a single bike thief in 87% of neighborhoods with at least one bike theft. And usually a lot more.

A German company has introduced what they call the world’s smartest bike helmet, including a full face air bag, 360° surround safety system, LED lights and a breathable, 3D-knitted liner.

NPR says many Sri Lankans have switched to bicycles due to the country’s economic crisis.

The pandemic is fueling a sports bicycling boom in China, a country more noted for utilitarian and proletarian bikes; meanwhile, the country’s surviving bikeshare companies are raising their prices in an effort to finally turn a profit. Thanks to Steven Hallett for the link.

 

Competitive Cycling

Indianapolis Monthly takes readers to school, explaining what a crit is.

A new documentary captures Pittsburgh’s Frigid Bitch alleycat bike race.

 

Finally…

That feeling when you find driving stressful when you’re not going 186 mph. Try not to back your motorbike into a pit.

And this is who we share the road with.

https://twitter.com/ChadBlue83/status/1556435695635517440

………

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

Oh, and fuck Putin, too.

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