News, Links, and Other Views

City of San Diego

• Long-time bike and walkability advocate Dan Burden was recently honored at the White House. His favorite project was the re-design of La Jolla Boulevard.
• San Diego’s “myriad of paved [bike] trails” received some positive coverage from the Calgary Herald.
• San Ysidro may finally get a sidewalk installed between San Ysidro High School and San Ysidro Middle School. The project will also include bike lanes and street lights.
• Instead of building a safe walkable and bikeable route from Downtown to Balboa Park, Ron Roberts has proposed spending $75,000 to study the feasibility of building an elevated gondola.
• After District 8 received less than 2% of the city’s capital improvement budget, the Voice of San Diego tries to explain why this is fair.
• Mayor Faulconer’s infrastructure advisers seem to agree that San Diego needs to spend more on infrastructure maintenance and improvements.
• San Diego has received a grant from the California Strategic Growth Council to help with the planned Balboa Avenue Transit Station.
• Beginning in August San Diego will require permits for oversized vehicles to park on the street between 2 am and 6 am.
• A look at recent hit and runs in Hillcrest and Ocean Beach.
• Mr. Commute tries to explain why there isn’t a Coaster station in the UTC area.

San Diego Region

• Six local employers were honored for their participation during the recent Bike to Work Day.
• A drunk driver was sentenced to 11 years in prison after killing a pedestrian in Del Mar.

Elsewhere

• Beverly Hills is working hard to avoid new bike facilities and a subway underneath Beverly Hills High School (it might get in the way of an underground parking garage).
• A top bicycle safety instructor was rammed from behind by a driver in San Francisco despite sharrows being painted on the road.
• According to the OC Weekly a bicycle is a must-have in San Clemente.
• A map has been created showing where bicycles are most likely to be stolen in San Francisco.
• A bike thief was arrested in Sacramento thanks to the city’s bait bike program.
• Another toll road is on its way to bankruptcy – this time in Texas.
• Based on a study of bicycle ridership in the United States from 1995-2009, riders aged 60-79 made up more than 1/3 of the increase in the number of cyclists.
• Wired magazine takes a look at Dutch style protected bike lanes and intersections, meanwhile Washington D.C. is still pondering various other ways to improve the safety of intersections.
• A Harvard School of Health study in Boston found that cyclists are exposed to less air pollution on physically separated bike lanes, especially when separated by vegetation.
• The Hilton in Burlington, Vermont is planning to add bike rentals, covered bike parking, and a bike tool station to take advantage of their location next to the Burlington Bike Path.
• New York is building a cycle track on Kent Avenue in South Williamsburg.
• After being doored and run over by a van, resulting in serious ongoing injuries, a cyclist in Philadelphia was awarded $2.4 million.
• Pew Research has released a report looking at the demographics of people with different attitudes about bicycling and bike infrastructure in the United States.
• Two hotels in Honolulu are offering bike rentals and bike tour packages to their customers.
• Mayoral candidates in Toronto support the expansion of bike lanes in their city.
• An American visiting Amsterdam discovered that riding in a city of full-time bicyclists is not as easy as it looks.