This past week, Q-line asked: Does Santa Monica have adequate streets and routes for bicyclists? Do you feel safe riding your bike here?
Here are your responses: ✆ “Well, it’s a noble thought to push for alternative forms of transportation — bicycling being one of them, as it is a good exercise as well. However, given the badly designed roads and horrendous traffic, especially here in Santa Monica, bicycling is not only dangerous and hazardous to the cyclers, but also to the poor motorists trying to maneuver and cope with all the traffic. The roads are not ready for a deluge of bicycle riders.” ✆ “I am an avid bicycle rider. I ride 100 miles per month, mostly on the excellent Santa Monica bike paths between the Marina del Rey inlet to the south and Sunset Boulevard to the north. I find the city of Santa Monica — the buses and the motorists — are for the most part, bicycle friendly. I have also found that California Avenue, Ocean Avenue and San Vicente Boulevard have excellent roadside paths. Still, when I ride my bicycle, I consider myself to have the wrong-of-way. I am aware of the fact that I am hanging out there, and that I am no competition for a motorist’s front fender, or for a driver opening their car door. I am also learning to be a parked automobile red taillight reader. I realize that when a red taillight and white back-up light go on, the automobile is being geared for movement. I have also trained myself to look in the parked automobile’s rear window to see if the driver’s seat is occupied. At that point, an ounce of precaution is worth a pound of cure. Considering everything, including the beautiful Pacific Ocean, Santa Monica is a great place to ride a bicycle.” ✆ “There are a number of problems with bicycles in Santa Monica. First of all, there are a lot of hills, but nobody can do anything about that. The other problem is while there are plenty of streets to ride bicycles on, so many of these idiots ride them down the sidewalk. They go weaving in and out, they get mad if you don’t get out of their way. I walk on the sidewalk, and I am not getting out of their way. They can go around me, or they can get knocked to the ground, I don’t really care. It’s their choice. As far as the stop signs, they gotta remember, the red lights are considered for vehicles, they have to stop. They can’t just go racing through. But as far as the cars are concerned, they’ll be the ones to get hurt, not the car. All they have to do is be courteous and careful. Then bicycling in Santa Monica won’t be a problem.” ✆ “I don’t have a bicycle yet, but I want to say that if gasoline goes the way it’s going — and some of the predictors are saying we could have $4 or $5 a gallon gas by the end of this year — I will be a bike rider. I want to say that we do have very adequate streets and routes for bicycle riders. We just have a lot of crazy speeding drivers in this city — bicycle and autos — and I have to say that I’ve even seen cyclists talking on their cell phones while they’re riding their bikes.” ✆ “The Santa Monica bicycle system works for very skilled, experienced, confident bicycle riders, such as me. My bicycle is my primary mode of transportation, and I have years of commuting by bike on road to most locations in Santa Monica. But I am the exception. Some areas of Santa Monica are hostile to even the most skilled cyclists. For example, the Cloverfield, Colorado, and Olympic areas, and roads with freeway on-ramps. We need to redesign these areas to be more bicycle friendly. Most of all, we need to do what Palo Alto, Berkeley, and San Francisco have done — design a bike system with low stress, low traffic, and mostly residential routes, that speed cyclists, while discouraging autos through traffic. These can then form a safe bicycle route in Santa Monica for children, so that Santa Monicans can reclaim their lost independent mobility. These routes would also benefit non-drivers, pedestrians, those with inadequate road-riding skills, and those who would prefer a tranquil ride.” ✆ “I am now in a wheelchair, but when I did ride my bike, I found the streets pretty adequate. Now that I am in a wheelchair, I find them a bit bumpy. It would be good to smooth them out in this lovely city of Santa Monica.” ✆ “Cycling groups are a hazard to themselves and everybody else. Especially on major streets and bus routes. And they’re a hazard to pedestrians on sidewalks, especially narrow sidewalks such as Pico.” ✆ “I’ve ridden a bike in Santa Monica for almost 50 years — to the schools, three years delivering papers, six years without a car, riding to work in 109 degree heat, in the pouring rain, in 39 degree cold. There is nothing noble about any of these events. I did them because I wanted to, not to be told by the City Council to ride a bike. Look at how bad bike riders are in this town. There is a bike accident at least once a week on the beach bike paths requiring paramedics. People ride through the park, they run through red lights and stop signs, they ride the wrong way down streets like Wilshire Boulevard and Montana Avenue. Weekend cyclers are the worst, instead of riding single file they take up the whole lane. You don’t need bike paths, you need common sense and an abandonment of City Hall’s progressive attitude. Bicyclists in this town have a chip on their shoulder. How about re-education camps for bicyclists? Then next you could have a re-education camps for drivers on the evils of driving a car. Our City Council would love that — because of their abysmal failure to solve driving and parking. Their idea is to tax everyone who isn’t progressive enough to ride a bicycle.” ✆ “The streets for the biking and the roads are certainly not adequate. Plus, for the alleviation of the traffic condition, if more people had the bike ways, more people would ride their bikes, but then there would have to be protection so that if they leave their bike, it wouldn’t get stolen. I think that the pollution would be improved with more bike riders.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 9, 2005. Read the original PDF.