By Alan Toy Santa Monica
I am not surprised to see your article on bike paths in Santa Monica (SMDP, July 18, page 1). Regarding the path across the beach, the truth is that when it was opened it immediately became a fine example of both the success and the failure of public policy-making. It is a success because it is extremely popular as a bike path, a pedestrian path, a wheelchair path, a skate path and skateboard path, among other things. I have also seen strollers, shopping carts, tricycles — large and small, four-wheeled pedal conveyances, etc., on it over the years.
It is a failure because it is a “bike path.” All other means of transport are, therefore, legally not appropriate. The powers-that-be did not foresee that putting a ribbon of concrete up and down the beach would draw so many disparate users. Thus, in a moment of well-intentioned shortsightedness (I know, pretty incredible, huh?), they did not create a separate but equal path for all other people who want to have unfettered access to one of the great beaches in the world.
If the City Council wants to enforce the ban on everyone but bikers from the beach path, they’ve got a problem that won’t go away or be easy to implement. For example, is a bicycle a two-wheeled conveyance? What about tricycles, or bikes with training wheels? Are you really going to tell someone in a racing wheelchair they can’t be on the path? Good luck. Although I have witnessed many near collisions, the only accident I ever saw was when a woman who must have thought she was pedaling in the Indianapolis 500 run smack into my young son who was riding his bike on the path for the first time. He never went back, on or off a bike.
The only real and lasting solution to the challenge of balancing public safety with public access is to lay down a companion path for all of the rest of the taxpayers and visitors to our beach who want to use it for the same reasons the bicyclists do, which is why people go to the beach in the first place and why so many people come spend their weekends, their vacations and their money in Santa Monica — to enjoy the outdoors and maybe get in a little fun and exercise.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 28, 2006. Read the original PDF.