Politics & Government
Road Rage Accused Opposes Figueroa Bike Plan
Louis Mraz, the Mount Washington motorist accused of running down a cyclist in Highland Park, used Monday's Mount Washington Homeowner's Alliance meeting to speak out against the "Figueroa for All" initiative.
Louis Mraz, the Mount Washington man for running down a cyclist in Highland Park in June, is not keeping his feelings about bike riders to himself.
During Monday's Mount Washington Homeowner's Alliance meeting, Mraz spoke out against the recently launched initiative, which is an effort to make the Northeast L.A. thoroughfare safer for cyclists and pedestrians.
Mraz, MWHA's vice president of land use, opened his Land Use Report by asking if anyone at the meeting “remembered the 1940’s” when Figueroa had one lane for cars and one lane for the Red Car. Mraz then told attendees that he’d read about a proposed plan – the Figueroa for All initiative, although Mraz didn’t mention it by name -- on the NELAlist forums. Mraz cautioned that the plan would return Figueroa to the same, 1940’s traffic pattern but with one lane for bicycles and only one lane for cars. In Mraz’s opinion, cyclists should be rerouted to less-trafficked streets.
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Mraz reported that “thirty people” had met at The Flying Pigeon bike shop and told those at the Alliance meeting to keep an eye on the issue. Otherwise, he warned, Figueroa could become “jammed with bikes."
, Mraz was arrested on Friday, July 8, on charges that he intentionally ran down a cyclist who was riding on Avenue 50 near Buchanan Street.
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Winona Wacker, the cyclist who was allegedly run down by Mraz, shortly after the incident took place in May.
“He laid on his horn, then yelled back at me, ‘You wanna test your weight against mine?’” Wacker said. “[He] continued blowing his horn, hit the gas and then sped up to run me down.”
Wacker said a Good Samaritan stopped to attend to her by the side of the road, and then sped along to retrieve the motorist's license plate number.
According to the Los Angeles Police Department, an eyewitness corroborated Wacker's account.
Mraz, , told LAPD that he accidentally side-swiped Wacker after trying to avoid her.
He is due to go back before a Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge on Monday, Sept. 19.
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