The video below showing what’s being done around the country to encourage and accommodate bicyclists in urban areas should be a clarion call to all city officials to get with bicycling improvements.
Home town SLO, for instance.
On the plus side, It has a bicycle advisory committee, a single bicycle boulevard that is very lightly traveled, the railroad bicycle path, the path out to Cal Poly, the Madonna bike path, the bike path to nowhere that starts at Prado Road, the Bicycle Valet for the Farmers’ Market — and that’s about it. Oh, and it has a single bicycle box at Madonna Rd and Higuera—put in by Cal Trans.
There are none of the dedicated and protected bicycle lanes as featured in the video. No sharrows. [Oops. We are There are sharrows on upper Monterey St and on Industrial Way.] No separately colored lanes. No roadway dividers between automobile and bicycle traffic. Few places for city buses to pull over to pick up passengers without blocking bicycle lanes. And only about three or four miles of dedicated bike paths.
Among the roads I regularly ride, South Higuera’s north-bound bike lane is narrow with dangerously high ridges between the lane and pavement. Crossing the four lane Broad St for those who live west of the highway to get to the north-bound bike lane can be harrowing. The lane along Santa Barbara is narrow. The cross from Santa Barbara to the Morro St. bicycle blvd is awkward. And Tank Farm Rd is a terror for bikes.
There are plenty of bicycle racks downtown, but they are mostly unused, perhaps a testament to the fact that many of us who often walk from home to downtown find the bike ride there to be unpleasant and dangerous.
This is a city with tons of potential riders, a young student population and bunch of us old farts more than willing to ride when it’s pleasant and safe. But in truth I’d much rather ride a bike in Portland or NYC than SLO.
There… that’s off my chest.
