News, Links, and Other Views

City of San Diego

  • The Cabrillo Bridge addition was officially found to be illegal in California Superior Court.  With this legal setback the offer of private funds for the project has been withdrawn.
  • The City of San Diego has ended its red light camera program.
  • Here is an article that encapsulates the difficulties and questions people have when they first start cycling in San Diego.
  • Unsafe at any speed: a woman was run over by her own SUV in Carmel Valley.
  • A cyclist is suing the City of San Diego and the San Diego Velodrome Association after a crash that resulted in him fracturing his skull, breaking his collarbone, and sustaining a concussion at the velodrome.

San Diego Region

  • The Encinitas City Council decided to move ahead with plans to make Coast Highway more bicycle friendly despite objections from the Coastal Commission.
  • Debate continues about bike corrals in Coronado.
  • A woman was killed and a toddler in a stroller was critically injured when an SUV ran a red light in Rancho Santa Fe.  A passing cyclist pulled the child from beneath the vehicle.
  • SANDAG is accepting nominations for the iCommute Diamond Awards, these are awards given to employers who support alternate forms of commuting.
  • The Orange Line trolley has added new low-floor trolley cars.
  • Barona Casino will be the site of SANDAG’s annual three day working retreat.

Elsewhere

  • The California Bike Coalition has announced its 2013 agenda, addressing changes to the California state budget, CEQA, Caltrans design guidelines, hit and run laws, and the transportation sales tax threshold.
  • Los Angeles has passed a new ordinance that will allow commercial and residential developers to replace car parking requirements with bike parking.
  • Pasadena has opened its first bicycle boulevard.
  • The complicated process of building cycle tracks on Market Street in San Francisco inches along as planners consider alternate routes.
  • Plans are in the works for a bike path along the new bay bridge that may someday connect all the way from the East Bay to San Francisco.
  • The implementation of parked cars as a buffer for a bike lane in Golden Gate Park has been challenging to some bicyclists and drivers.
  • Car enthusiasts are worried that the car may be going the way of the dinosaur, as car usage shrinks globally.
  • Aspen Colorado is considering allowing bicycles to yield at stop signs, instead of requiring them to come to a complete stop.  Something Idaho did 30 years ago.
  • After a cyclist  was run over and killed by a semi-truck driver with 30 years of traffic violations, a Massachusetts grand jury declined to indict the driver for motor vehicle homicide.
  • In the forewarned is forearmed department, an economist weighs in on recent studies about the economic and social impacts of cycling.
  • The average commuter in the United States spends 38 hours per year stuck in traffic.
  • London’s bike share program is experiencing growing pains as bikes are snapped up quickly and parking is overcrowded along busy commuter routes.
  • In New York, as bike lanes become more political, for some they are no longer topics of polite conversation.