I blew it.
Yesterday, I wrote a pretty strong post about the City not living up to its own rhetoric about being bike friendly. I cited two examples where the City had taken away space from cyclists and given it to cars. I was wrong about one of those places and that’s the reason for this post.
A few hours after I posted it, the City got in touch with me and, in an email worded more kindly than I deserved, said I was wrong about Whites Canyon being restriped all the way up over the hill:
I checked with our public works staff and they are not restriping all the way up Whites Canyon Road as you mentioned in today’s blog. I think the confusion might be that there is a one block area of Whites Canyon that was restriped to coincide with a new turn pocket being done on Soledad/Whites but that “third lane” is only for one block on Whites and doesn’t extend up the hill. As you know, on existing roads it will always be a balance between cars, bikes and transit. Our community has 800,000 car trips a day that originate from homes, less than 1% for bikes, and maybe 3-4% for transit. I hope this helps clarify.I checked with our public works staff and they are not restriping all the way up Whites Canyon Road as you mentioned in today’s blog. I think the confusion might be that there is a one block area of Whites Canyon that was restriped to coincide with a new turn pocket being done on Soledad/Whites but that “third lane” is only for one block on Whites and doesn’t extend up the hill. As you know, on existing roads it will always be a balance between cars, bikes and transit. Our community has 800,000 car trips a day that originate from homes, less than 1% for bikes, and maybe 3-4% for transit. I hope this helps clarify.
I had based my report about Whites Canyon off a reliable cycling friend of mine in Canyon Country. But that’s no excuse; I should have confirmed what this source told me before writing my post. So to the City’s traffic staff and elected officials and the City manager, I apologize for getting this one wrong. I also apologize to my readers for getting the facts wrong.
Obviously since they aren’t restriping Whites all the way up the hill, my post’s thesis -that the city isn’t living up to its rhetoric- largely falls apart (indeed, I learned later they may actually add a bike lane onto Whites!). On the other hand, Lyons Avenue has already been restriped, an action that was approved by the City Council back in May (I was there to speak against it, but lost).
In any event, I regret this and promise to tighten things up. Thanks as always for reading SCVTalk.
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