Ride, eat and be inspired - An event with Elly Blue, Joe Biel and Chef Joshua Ploeg on 9/7
Date: September 7th
What: An evening to celebrate dinner and bikes with Elly Blue, Joe Biel and Chef Joshua Ploeg
6pm: Pre-dinner ride from Filter Coffee Shop (1295 University Avenue)
Join us for a ride through mid-city San Diego that will end at The Triangle Building.
7pm Dinner and Presentation at Triangle Building
Joshua Ploeg will delight with an extensive buffet!
Elly Blue and Joe Biel will present short videos and a slideshow about bicycle culture, activism, and the economy. There will be time for questions, discussion of local issues, and perusing the traveling bookstore.
Admission cost: $20.
After a very successful 2011 visit to San Diego, the Dinner & Bikes event is returning for the second time. Tickets for the event include a leisurely bike ride through mid-city neighborhoods, a delicious dinner cooked by a touring vegan chef, and an evening of inspiring stories of bike advocacy, activism and inspiration from around the country.
I came away very inspired after attending last year's Dinner & Bikes event. I'm not a vegan and I found the buffet style spread prepared by Ploeg to be outstanding and extremely delicious. The stories told by Biel on Portland's bike culture and how Portland has become one of the most bike friendly cities in the country is a story that was well told. Blue's data analysis on the transformative nature of investing in and promoting bicycling as a mode of transportation was informative and thought provoking. I expect this year's event to even richer given the trio's tour around the country. Tickets are limited and all proceeds are going toward reimbursing our visitor's expenses and to the owner of the venue for providing us with a beautiful space.
San Diego Hit and Runs
Last Friday night a fellow rider, Andy, was a victim of a hit and run collision. The collision happened on the 3500 block of Nimitz Boulevard at around 11:30 pm, according to NBC San Diego. The 50 year old was pedaling north in the 3500 block of Nimitz Boulevard when he was struck. As of now, Andy appears to be in critical condition and the driver and his passenger who struck Andy still remain at large. The vehicle that struck Andy is a white Hyundai and the suspects are described as having, "short, dark hair and light skin"
If you have any information contact the San Diego Police Department or leave a comment here.
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While looking for information relating to the case above, I came across an update to another hit and run that occurred earlier this year on March 11.The victim, a student named Sho Funai, was walking when he was killed by a driver who later turned herself in. Despite pleading guilty to striking Funai and admitting to being under the influence of drugs and alcohol, the driver may only be charged with probation. In response to the verdict, Funai's friends appalled at the ruling have started an online petition to demand justice for the death of Funai.
Sharrows are a Copout to Real Change in Increasing Bicycling Rates in San Diego
One of the goals of the Bicycle Master Plan for the City of San Diego is to create (emphasis mine)
“[e]nvironmental quality, public health, recreation and mobility benefits through increased bicycling”.
In the last year, San Diegans have seen an increasing number of shared-lane markings, also called “sharrows”. Sharrows are appearing everywhere: Adams Avenue, Park Boulevard, Broadway, El Cajon Boulevard, Grand Avenue, Voltaire Street, Chatsworth Boulevard, Hotel Circle South, Pacific Highway and more. However, these sharrows are being used as a cheap band-aid instead of implementing real change on our roadways that would increase the number of people riding their bicycle for transportation or recreation.
For starters, San Diego’s Bicycle Master Plan recommends sharrows on roadways that are too narrow for bike lanes. Sharrows are recommended on roads that have a minimum width of 14 feet. Bike lanes are recommended on roads that have a minimum of 15-17 feet. El Cajon Boulevard, for example, has three travel lanes in each direction – it has more than enough room for a bike lane.
In an evaluation of sharrows in 2010 by the FHWA [pdf], the paper revealed that the percentage of riders (compared with other modes of transportation) didn’t increase with the presence of sharrows.
So how can the City of San Diego increase the percentage of people who ride a bicycle? A recent report [pdf] from the Mineta Transportation Institute, an institute that was established by Congress to research “multimodal surface transportation policy and management issues”, concluded that in order to attract a wide segment of the population, a bicycle network’s
most fundamental attribute should be low-stress connectivity, that is, providing routes between people’s origins and destinations that do not require cyclists to use links that exceed their tolerance for traffic stress, and that do not involve an undue level of detour.
The report revealed that in order to determine whether road segments provided low-stress connectivity, the evaluation criteria would be based on whether a segment of the road was suitable for children, based on Dutch bikeway design criteria and represented the traffic stress that most adults would tolerate.
Why Dutch bikeway design?
Dutch standards have been proven on a population basis to be acceptable to the mainstream population, since bikeways built according to those standards attract essentially equal male/female shares and high levels of bicycle use for all age groups. (By contrast, cycling in the U.S. is about 70 percent male, with very low participation rates by older people).
Installing a bicycle facility marking that has not demonstrated an ability to increase the number of bicycle riders on roads that foster speeding by motor vehicles is not an effective strategy to increase the number of riders.
If the City of San Diego is truly serious about making change that will get more people riding a bicycle, they’ve got to start implementing some real change in redesigning our streets. And sharrows are not the solution to redesigning our streets or increasing the number of people who can rediscover the joy of riding for both transportation and recreation.
Edit: I made an edit above regarding the the FHWA study that was referenced. The paper studied the effects of sharrows on driver behavior around bicycle riders which was included in the conclusions. The paper's authors also counted the number of riders before the implementation of sharrows and after which revealed no statistically significant increase in mode share after sharrows were striped. I've contacted the authors of the study to inquire why they didn't think to include the cyclist counts as part of their conclusion and will update this post if I learn more.
Survived a car/bike collision? SDPD says you were party to a simple traffic violation
In light of Charles Gilbreth’s and David Ortiz’s deaths, I decided to follow up on a small handful of the car/bike collisions that I’ve written about here.
I contacted Lt. O’Hanlon for an update on the following five cases. Specifically I wanted know if criminal charges had been filed against the drivers that were responsible for the death or injury of the following individuals:
1. Justin Newman - Newman died from his injuries after being doored on University Avenue
2. Unknown name - A little 10 year old girl was severely injured when she was hit by a driver in a van as she was riding her bicycle. The little girl was riding with her father when she was struck by the van turning left into her right of way.
3. Grant Fisher – Fisher was injured when he was struck by from behind while riding his bicycle during a lunch time break. The 76 year old driver who hit Fisher claims she swerved into the bike lane where Fisher was riding to avoid getting hit by a truck coming up behind her.
4. David Ortiz - Ortiz was struck and killed when riding his bicycle to work on Balboa Avenue. The first (of three) drivers that struck Ortiz reported that she was blinded by the sun's glare and thus didn't see Ortiz when the collision occurred.
5. Charles Gilbreth - Gilbreth was hit from behind when riding home from work by an apparently impatient driver in an SUV.
O'Hanlon reported that the investigation on the Newman case has been completed and the results sent to City Attorney’s Office for misdemeanor and manslaughter charges. O’Hanlon did not know if the City Attorney had filed charges. I too have been unable to determine whether charges have been filed in the Newman case.
No charges have been filed against the driver who struck the little ten year old girl who was injured while riding with her father. No charges were filed because the little girl survived.
Since Fisher survived, no charges have been filed. The SDPD has asked the DMV to reexamine the driver’s license. Fisher, in the meantime, has filed a civil suit against the driver that is currently ongoing.
O'Hanlon reported that the Ortiz investigation was almost done. O’Hanlon stated that it would “in all likelihood will go to the City Attorney’s office”.
When asked for specific details on the Gilbreth case and details about the collision. O’Hanlon stated that speed, alcohol, road rage nor the sun’s glare (as was the reason stated in the Ortiz case) were not factors in the Gilbreth crash. He said that investigation was still ongoing as results from the medical examiner and the toxicologist could take anywhere from 6-8 weeks to wrap up. There were no witnesses in this crash as the MTS driver didn’t witness the crash.
I wasn’t familiar with the process on what happens when the SDPD hands a case over to the City Attorney’s office and O’Hanlon stated, "once the case has been submitted to the City Attorney, the City Attorney will evaluate the case based on the evidence and, based on the investigation they’re the ultimate decision makers” on what, if any, charges will be filed. “The police department has no say in that. [The City Attorney’s Office] have complete judicial discretion in that. They can’t tell us how to conduct our investigation and we can’t tell them whether or not to file charges."
O'Hanlon went on to state, “it is not the police department’s decision to file charges. Even if we make a custodial arrest (i.e. arresting someone), the City Attorney has within their latitude to dismiss the charges.”
I was shocked when I heard O’Hanlon state that no charges were filed against the drivers responsible for two cases where the bicyclists survived.
O’Hanlon responded, “to be charged with a crime, there has to be a death.” Thus, the only recourse for the party injured is to pursue the case in Civil Court for damages. In order for a case to go to the District Attorney’s office the case has to be a felony – and the criteria for a felony includes intent, malice, gross negligence or substance abuse. But in a case that is not a manslaughter, "the law is very restrictive. We don't have a misdemeanor." Intentional road rage acts have "malice and premeditation and you have assault with a deadly weapon." Absent that, "you have a vehicle code violation".
Thus at best, the most the drivers would be charged with if they didn’t willfully injure a bicycle rider was a traffic infraction, or a California Vehicle Code violation.
Dangerous Balboa Avenue Claims Another Life
Last Thursday while over 800 bike advocates (including myself) were in Washington D.C. urging members of the House to vote in favor of a clean extension of the existing Transportation Bill and support the Petri Amendment in order to ensure safe routes for bicyclists of all capabilities, twenty nine year old David Ortiz began his ride to work as he had countless times in the past.
As Ortiz climbed Balboa Avenue from his home in Pacific Beach, Ortiz had no way of knowing that the extremely dangerous and fast paced traffic on Balboa Avenue would claim his life giving him absolutely no chance of survival. As he headed east toward the I-805 on-ramp, he was hit by an inattentive driver in three ton Ford Expedition that knocked him off his bike where he was then struck by two Toyotas. Only a miracle could have saved Ortiz from this horrific collision.
To make the pain worse for Ortiz's family and friends, the local media quoted Lt. Jerry Hara who simply blamed Ortiz for his own death by falsely stating that he had been riding the wrong way, facing traffic on Balboa Avenue, and the local media further blamed Ortiz for his death by noting that he hadn't been wearing a helmet - something that could never have protected him against a three ton vehicle from striking him.
For years, residents living in Clairemont along Balboa Avenue have been asking the City of San Diego [pdf] to turn Balboa Avenue from a 55 mph high speed thoroughfare into a source of community pride that would invite its residents to walk, bike and enjoy Balboa Avenue at a slower, more humane pace. The plan that the Balboa Avenue Citizens Advisory
Committe helped prepare addressed a lot of the downsides that currently make Balboa Avenue very dangerous road for cyclists despite being a major thoroughfare that connects residents to the major job centers in San Diego. Yet, five years after this plan received widespread community support, the City continues to drag its feet and has only allocated funds for a bike lane that has yet to be striped along Balboa Avenue. Meanwhile, the wide width of Balboa Avenue encourages all its motorized users to travel at excessive speeds contributing toward an unpleasant and dangerous riding and living environment.
It is this very dangerous environment that needlessly took away the life of a very young David Ortiz. My deepest condolences to all who knew and loved Ortiz.
UPDATE: I just spoke with Lieutenant of Traffic Division, Rick O’Hanlon who stated that the SDPD acknowledged the error in stating that Ortiz was riding the wrong way when he was not and has issued a retraction.
UPDATE from the comments: From Channel 6, Police Looking for Witnesses to Fatal Accident. NBC San Diego has a story asking for witnesses to step forward.
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I will post any more updates as I learn more. Members in the cycling community have been asking the SDPD for answers on what precisely happened last Thursday. I will also follow the legal proceedings that relate to the driver who initially struck Ortiz and post any updates as I learn them. If you learn of any new information, please share them in the comments or contact me.