SAN FRANCISCO -- A cyclist charged with vehicular manslaughter in the death of an elderly pedestrian at a busy San Francisco intersection pleaded not guilty Wednesday.

Software developer Chris Bucchere, 36, is accused of recklessly speeding downhill through a red light and into an intersection crowded with pedestrians in the city's Castro District on March 29. He struck Sutchi Hui, 71, who was crossing the street with his wife and died of his injuries four days later.

The case, a rare felony prosecution of a bicycle rider for a fatal accident, comes amid a 71 percent increase in bike traffic in San Francisco in the past five years. It also marks the third instance in which a pedestrian has been killed by a cyclist during the past year in the Bay Area.

Evidence against Bucchere, who is free on $150,000 bond, includes several eyewitnesses and a surveillance video that have helped investigators put his estimated speed at up to 35 miles per hour.

A spokeswoman for District Attorney George Gascon's office, Stephanie Ong Stillman, said investigators had evidence Bucchere also ran a number of stop signs on his way downhill to the intersection where the crash occurred.

'Plowed through'
Authorities also suspect Bucchere was the author of an online blog post about the accident in which the cyclist recalled being "too committed" to stop at the traffic light before going through it.

"I couldn't see a line through the crowd and I couldn't stop, so I laid it down and just plowed through the crowded crosswalk in the least-populated place I could find," the post said, going on to describe a "river of blood on the asphalt" in the aftermath of the collision.

The post drew criticism from other people in the forum when Bucchere wrote that the moral of the story was that it was important for cyclists to wear helmets, local station KTVU Channel 2 News reported. The post was later removed. 

The San Francisco Chronicle said Bucchere had been trying to set a speed record for a popular bike route through that neighborhood, and an electronic monitoring device on his bike provided investigators with some of their evidence against him.

In a written statement issued to reporters at the courthouse on Wednesday, Bucchere's lawyer, Julie Salamon, said her client "anticipates the day when he may express his deepest condolences to the Hui family for their tragic loss. But for now, while the case is ongoing, he will continue to cooperate with the authorities and to respond responsibly to the charges in court."

Bucchere, who left the courthouse without speaking to reporters following his 10-minute arraignment, is due back in court on July 27, when the judge will set a date for a preliminary hearing.

Stillman said Bucchere was the first bicyclist charged by Gascon with felony vehicular manslaughter, an offense for which prosecutors must show gross negligence and is punishable by up to six years in prison.

In March, cyclist Randolph Ang, 23, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter for running down a 67-year-old woman who died a month later. He was sentenced to three years' probation and 500 hours of community service.

In a more recent accident, a 92-year-old woman was struck and killed by a cyclist in a crosswalk near El Cerrito, east of San Francisco.

Msnbc.com staff and Reuters contributed to this report.

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Cody Duty / AP

Occupy Houston protesters lay in the exit ramp at the Port of Houston Authority on Dec. 12.

Seven Occupy protesters were indicted on felony charges by a grand jury in Houston on Tuesday, a spokeswoman for the district attorney's office says, in connection with their demonstration at the local port as part of a national day of action by the movement.

The decision comes nearly a week after a judge initially dismissed the charges, saying the protesters could not be charged with possessing or using a "criminal instrument" – a felony in Texas – for their use of PVC pipe.

The protesters -- three from Austin, four from Houston -- put their arms through the pipe and used latches on it to connect together, making their arrest more difficult but not preventing it, said one of their attorneys, Daphne Silverman, of the National Lawyer's Guild in Houston. Donna Hawkins, a spokeswoman for the District Attorney's Office, confirmed the indictment.

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"They are feeling, 'wow,' is the word. ... They're in a lot of shock. They were very happy with the justice's decision last week, they believed in her, they believed in the justice system," Silverman said. "These people ... are not criminals. These folks are out there attempting to make the country better for all of us."

Silverman, who noted that she believed the law had been wrongly applied by the prosecutor, said it's likely the protesters will be back in court in January to talk about the next step, such as negotiations or to go to trial. If convicted, they face up to two years in jail.

• Arrests as Occupy Wall Street makes bid for new camp

Protester Dustin Phipps -- who is not one of the seven charged -- said it was a "strategic move" by local police to discourage others from participating in civil disobedience.

"We definitely plan on fighting it," said Phipps, 28, a pre-medical student at the University of Houston. "We're going to move forward ... with faith and determination because we understand we have the rights and the upper hand, and we're going to make sure justice is served."

The protesters had joined with other Occupy outfits across the country that were conducting port shutdowns on Dec. 12 to economically disrupt what they called "Wall Street on the waterfront.”

Arrests on felony arrests were occurring in other cities, such as Denver and New York. Civil rights lawyers have suggested the use of felony charges was another form of crackdown on the movement.

The Houston Police Department has used the "criminal instrument" against protesters on previous occasions, according to Attorney Randall Kallinen, who is representing one of the seven protesters. The charge usually does not hold up in court in such cases, but because it is a felony charge it has a chilling effect on would-be activists, he said.

"We’ve been seeing more of them (felony arrests), especially beginning of November," said Gideon Oliver of the lawyers guild in New York. The police and the district attorney’s office have discretion in determining the charges, "and so there are two sort of steps in the process where ... the police or the DA, if they conducted a reasonable investigation, I think, in a lot of these cases would realize that they’re overcharging."

Msnbc.com's Kari Huus contributed to this report.