Month: March 2011

From The City That Breads

Well that settles it, Bill’s Lighthouse Inn had its transfer of license approved the other day and new owner Marla Streb (the Strebinator, as I call her) will be occupying the space for South Baltimore’s second attempt at a Bicycle themed restaurant – hehehehe get it?

At any rate, seems like the establishment will now be named Cafe Velocity and will feature some sort of cycling theme, as the owner is a professional mountain biker and probably a triathlete and/or Parkour expert or something. Whether or not the joint will be bicycle themed “in name only” much like The Bicycle, the failed defunct wine bar / restaurant where Centro Tapas now resides, remains to be seen. Beyond that, the neighborhood where Bill’s sits is a bit rough around the edges, to the point where prior ownership often times had to bolt the doors shut to keep drunkards out. Yeesh. Beer Baron Steve Fogleman noted “She’s a tough woman. I mean really tough,” so it’ll be interesting to see how this whole thing flies – er, pedals.

And being that I am personally an expert on all things restaurant, here are my suggestions for the upcoming Cafe Velocity that will enhance the experience, the cycling ambiance, the essence of biking:

• When customers enter the restaurant, rather than having some sort of little bell or beeper to alert the staff there are customers, the door should set off a bike ringer, alternatively the full length version of Queen’s “Bicycle Race.”
• Everything on the menu must absolutely somehow work bicycles into the title. Perhaps a fried onion strips app called “Onion Spokes?” Or a burger called “the Lance Armstrong,” made with beef from a cow that survived cancer and later dumped its wife for a pop star?
• Replace all of the barstools with bike seats, really thin bike seats.
• Actually, replace all chairs and stools in the establishment with really thin bike seats.
• NEVER, EVER refer to Cafe Velocity as a “biker restaurant” or you may get some undesirable clientele.
• Servers should, on occasion, deliver plates of food to tables on unicycles. Or maybe tiny trick bikes.
• Absolutely, positively jury rig one or two bike helmets to function as Foam Domes for happy hour. You’ll thank me later!

Am I missing anything? Who’s got some other suggestions?

Continue reading “Say hello to your new bicycle themed restaurant”

From the Baltimore Sun – Second Opinion

The story of Nathan Krasnopoler, a Johns Hopkins student who has been in a coma since being struck by a motorist while riding his bicycle in a designated bike lane, has sparked a significant reaction from other Baltimore bicyclists who are upset that the driver was not charged or fed up in general with rude and dangerous behavior by motorists. (The latest is that his parents are suing the driver, Jeanette Marie Walke, alleging that she violated multiple traffic laws.)

Del. Jon Cardin wrote in last week to protest the lack of charges against the driver, saying it goes against the intent of the General Assembly.

Katharine W. Rylaarsdam disagreed, saying the accident was a mistake but not a crime.

Jeffrey H. Marks says the problem is a failure of city officials to educate cyclists and drivers alike about how to make safe right turns.

And yesterday, Julie Gabrielli wrote an open letter to Baltimore drivers, setting out the code of conduct she will adhere to on her bike — and what she expects of motorists in return. (Hint: It doesn’t involve honking your horn.)

Continue reading “The Talk: A Baltimore bicyclist’s manifesto”

From Baltimore Velo

In light of the recent Krasnopoler tragedy and the frustrating situation over at Loch Raven, it has become obvious that despite the strides we’ve made as a cycling community in Baltimore, we still have a long way to go.  So where do we go from here?

Penny Troutner, owner of Light Street Cycles, has an idea of where we can start.  Penny has put together her thoughts about cycling advocacy in Baltimore in a guest post for Baltimore Velo.  It’s definitely worth the read,….

Continue reading “Guest Post: Penny Troutner on Cycling Advocacy in Baltimore”

from Baltimore Brew by Fern Shen

The lawyer for the family of a comatose Johns Hopkins University student, critically injured while riding his bicycle last month in north Baltimore, said the family’s $10 million lawsuit against the driver whose car struck him is meant to send a strong message to motorists.

“I don’t think she’ll be (criminally) charged and I’m not sure she should be,” said Andrew G. Slutkin, the lawyer who filed the suit Monday against Jeanette Marie Walke in Baltimore City Circuit Court.

“I don’t think she intentionally did this, I think she made a mistake,” Slutkin said, referring to the 83-year-old Walke, whose car allegedly struck 20-year-old Nathan Krasnopoler on Feb. 26.

But Slutkin argued that judgments like the one Krasnopoler’s family is seeking against Walke are the only way to make Baltimore-area roads safer and prevent similar tragedies.

“The moral of the story is, we need to better educate motorists about the law and about co-existing on the roads with motorcyclists and pedestrians and bicyclists and everyone else,” he said, in a telephone interview. The suit alleges that Walke violated multiple traffic laws in the late Saturday morning collision.

Messages left for Walke today were not returned.

No charges have been filed against Walke. Police have not completed their investigation into the crash, according to Shonte Drake, deputy communications director for the Baltimore City State’s Attorney, who said that media reports that police met to discuss the case today with prosecutors are “a misquote.”

Baltimore city police have backed away from earlier statements that the driver would not be charged and that the cyclist was at fault.

Until other accounts surface, though, the six-page complaint offers the most detailed scenario yet of what may have happened in the crash that has roiled the cycling community and set off a passionate — sometimes ugly – debate among motorists and cyclists about whose behavior most needs to be curbed.

A University Parkway U-turn?

According to the Krasnopoler family’s complaint, Nathan was riding his bike northbound on University that day and Walke was driving southbound on University when she “made a U-turn, and drove past Nathan as both Nathan and Defendant were now traveling northbound on University Parkway approaching 39th St.”

Walke turned right into the driveway of her apartment building, the Broadview, and cut off Krasnopoler’s right of way, the suit alleges. The suit also claims that Walke “failed to properly signal” before making the turn into the Broadview driveway.

The suit says Krasnopoler was unable to stop his bike and was thrown over Walke’s vehicle, which then ran over him, pinning him on his back underneath. Krasnpoler was severely burned because the driver left the car running when it was on top of him, the suit alleges.

His other injuries include eye damage, facial fractures, broken ribs and collarbone, two collapsed lungs and traumatic brain injury, the suits says. The Johns Hopkins engineering student has remained in a coma since the crash.

In the phone interview, Slutkin reiterated the suit’s claim that Walke broke several laws, including failure to yield the right of way in a bike lane.

“I mean, how much clearer could it be when there is a bike lane and there’s a law that just went into effect three months earlier that protects them?” Slutkin said.

(He may be referring to a new law that requires motorists to yield the right of way to cyclists when they are in a designated bike lane or to the so-called “three-foot law,” which says motorists overtaking bicycles “must pass safely at a distance of not less than 3 feet.”)

Slutkin’s firm, Silverman, Thompson, Slutkin & White, also handled the case of the family of another cyclist, John R. “Jack” Yates, who was killed by a truck turning right off Guilford Avenue in 2009. “It echoes this case,” Slutkin said.

The defendants (Potts & Callahan Inc. and the driver of the truck) settled the Yates family’s civil lawsuit for an undisclosed sum. In the Yates case, police also made statements early on that the driver was not at fault. “We found video and other evidence to prove that was not the case,” Slutkin said.

He said the firm has spoken with about a dozen people, “some were at the scene, some were there shortly thearefter,” and “people tell us (Krasnopoler) wasn’t flying, he wasn’t doing anything unusual, he was in the bike lane going maybe 15 miles an hour. She had passed him right before and must have forgotten about it. She turned, cutting him off and causing him to go flying over the car.”

Slutkin said even though he knows some cyclists are reckless, most are not and that he finds some peoples’ hostility toward cyclists “especially in the Sun comments section . . . really annoying.”

“There are a lot of people with this terrible animosity toward cyclists,” Slutkin said. “And the police have their bias against cyclists too.”
Continue reading “$10 million suit says driver pulled a U-turn before colliding with bicyclist”