News, Links, and Other Views

City of San Diego

  • A lap of silence was held for Jackie Price Dunn at the San Diego Velodrome.  Also a memorial ride was held last Saturday.
  • The Plaza de Panama in Balboa Park is now a place where parents can teach their kids to ride bikes.
  • San Diego police are cracking down on bike thieves using GPS technology and bait bikes.
  • A recap of last Friday’s public meeting regarding the trolley extension from Old Town to UCSD and UTC.
  • Meetings will be held on June 29th to discuss “eco districts” planned for Pacific Beach, Mission Beach, and Mission Bay Park.

San Diego Region

  • The California Coastal Commission has approved the Bikeway Village Project in Imperial Beach.
  • The Escondido City Council has approved funding to provide lighting for a flood control channel in order to help transform it into a safe bikeable and walkable area.
  • At the opening of Encinitas’ new Moonlight Beach concession facility one local resident expressed his worries that the bike rental service will have a detrimental effect on the city’s most valuable resource (not the beach, ocean, waves, or weather) – parking.
  • Encinitas is considering turning off its red light cameras.
  • On Dump the Pump Day SANDAG, MTS, and NCTD tried to encourage people to commute by public transportation with shows of goodwill and gift cards.
  • SANDAG and the NCTD may expand the Oceanside Transit Center as early as next year.
  • The Bike to Work Corporate Challenge winners have been announced.

Elsewhere

  • A cynical Londoner takes a moment to consider the cycle super highways, angled trash cans, and cycle footrests in Copenhagen.
  • Amsterdam suffers near “war zone” conditions as it tries to keep “hordes of bikes” under control.
  • Tech executives in Chicago ask for more bike infrastructure to help with recruiting.  Meanwhile, the Illinois DOT is blocking construction of protected bike lanes on roads under their jurisdiction, sometimes with fatal consequences.
  • Oklahoma City forces the state DOT to consider a grid pattern for streets instead of a high speed through-street.
  • A small oasis of cycling safety can be found on Market Street in San Francisco.
  • Lincoln Nebraska is planning construction of a two-way cycle track on N Street, causing some people to worry about parking.
  • After a ride through Seattle, John Pucher (one of the authors of City Cycling) declared that it’s “as bad as a major avenue on Manhattan . . . maybe even worse,” and “there’s only one solution . . . put in a cycle track.”
  • Here’s a link to a 102 page PDF presentation from John Pucher (of Rutgers University) and Ralph Buehler (of Virginia Tech): Cycling to the Future.
  • Chicago area bike trails are on a roll, however for one Yorkshire Terrier sharing a path with cyclists was not a pretty picture.
  • In response to complaints about conflicts between cyclists and pedestrians on the Lachine Canal bike path, Parks Canada thinks the answer might be enforcing a speed limit for cyclists.
  • Massachusetts is working on a system of 700 miles of bicycle greenways to connect cyclists with mass transit.
  • A look at 10 brilliant pieces of bike infrastructure from around the world.
  • Cycle tracks have to make way for a Bus Rapid Transit corridor in Ahmedabad India.
  • Planners in Los Angeles and Santa Monica are struggling to figure out how to make intersections safe for cyclists.
  • Mississippi has transformed a cattle gap beneath an interstate highway into a bike path.
  • Los Angeles held its seventh CicLAvia event this past Sunday.