Posted on March 11, 2010

In bicycle advocacy circles, we hear a lot about what a bike-friendly San Diego would look like, and of course, we should always look to the future, but we also want to see your photos of what already works in San Diego. Is there a particularly sweet bike lane on your commute? Or an off-street dedicated path? Is there especially good bicycle signage that helps you feel like the city actually acknowledges your right to the road? Is there a bike rack that always has a nice selection of bikes parked? If you’ve seen any of these things, and any others that illustrate San Diego as a working bicycle city, we hope you’ll consider sending your photos us to help build a photo library of bicycling in San Diego.

You can attach photos to our Contact Us form, or Flickr users can upload them to our Flickr pool.

Category: Advocacy, Bicycle Projects, Reader Contributions | No Comments »

Posted on March 10, 2010

Google Announces ‘Bike There’ Directions – Yesterday at the ongoing National Bike Summit, Google announced that biking directions would be added to their maps. This is exciting news and I did some test runs and was pleased that the elevation was taken into consideration when routing around San Diego’s various canyons.

Call your Congressperson and ask to co-sponsor ACT – Kathy Keehan (SDCBC) is currently in Washington D.C. and will be meeting with Congressmembers Issa, Billbray, Hunter, Davis and Filner tomorrow morning (March 11) to ask them to co-sponsor the Active Community Transportation Act. The bill creates a competitive grant program where communities around the country will compete for $2 billion in funding to help make their communities better for walking and biking by creating more infrastructure for both pedestrians and bicyclists. To find your congressperson’s contact information, use this link. Keehan asks that you call your congressperson between 6 AM and 2 PM San Diego time tomorrow.

Category: News | No Comments »

Posted on March 9, 2010

Kearny Villa Road. Photo by Robert Leone

Recently, the Union Tribune reported on how dangerous the conditions are on Kearny Villa Road for cyclists. This is not news. In 2001, Larry Mahr was a victim of a fatal collision and, in 2005, Captain Patrick M. Klokow was fatally struck – a victim of a hit and run – all on Kearny Villa Road.

The dismal conditions of the bike lanes along Kearny Villa Road is not the sole culprit. Despite running parallel to the 163 freeway, the speed limit on Kearny Villa Road is 65 mph with drivers frequently going above that speed limit on a regular basis.

Nearly ten years after Mahr’s death, Kearny Villa Road is still in shambles. There has been no traffic calming measures installed and the facilities for cyclists is dismal at best.

Cyclists who ride Kearny Villa Road have complained to city officials for years to no avail.

Kearny Vila Road lies in District 7 which is under Councilwoman Marti Emerald’s control. We contacted Councilwoman Emerald’s Chief of Staff, Xema Jacobson [XJacobson@sandiego.gov] who responded by stating that the problem had been forwarded to San Diego’s staff to their traffic engineering department.

According to Kathy Keehan, Executive Director for the San Diego Bicycle Coalition, the city expects the city’s contractors to repave some sections of the bike lanes in six weeks. Despite San Diego’s deficit, lack of funding is not the issue as money has been allocated toward fixing the bike lanes along Kearny Villa Road.

Kearny Villa Road. Photo by Robert Leone

Meanwhile, this is the current state of Kearny Villa Road as it stands. We’ll check back in six weeks and report back on what changes have been made.

Category: News | No Comments »

Posted on March 9, 2010

Edit: Nothing wrong with a little redundancy, right? Although it seems I’m a little behind with this, I’ll still be posting tidbits for your perusal. Ah, the joys of multi-authored blogs!

The folks at the Alliance for Biking and Walking (formerly the Thunderhead Alliance) have just recently released their 2010 benchmarking report. We have our copy in house now, and as we work through it, plan to post interesting and relevant bits here for those of you who don’t feel like reading through the entire tome. You can, however, also download it for free if you’re so inclined.

The Benchmarking Project is an on-going effort to collect and analyze data on bicycling and walking in all 50 states and the 51 largest U.S. cities. This second biennial report reveals data including: bicycling and walking levels and demographics; bicycle and pedestrian safety; bicycle and pedestrian policies and provisions; funding for bicycle and pedestrian projects; bicycle and pedestrian staffing levels; written policies on bicycling and walking; bicycle infrastructure including bike lanes, paths, signed bike routes, and bicycle parking; bike-transit integration including presence of bike racks on buses, bike parking at transit stops; bicycling and walking education and encouragement activities; and public health indicators including levels of obesity, physical activity, diabetes, and high blood pressure.

Category: Advocacy | No Comments »

Posted on March 4, 2010

by Larry Hogue

Larry Hogue is a writer. He lives in San Diego.

Imagine you’re standing at the corner of Governor Drive, waiting to cross Genesee Avenue. You’re waiting, and waiting, and waiting, as traffic rushes by at 45-50 miles an hour. When you get your walk signal, you have to wait as two or three of those left turners run the red light. Then a driver in the right-turn-only lane next to you decides to play “beat the pedestrian into the crosswalk,” nearly hitting you. As you’re waiting to cross Genesee on your return trip, you notice that drivers making a right turn on red onto Governor rarely come to a complete stop, and few of them check for pedestrians about to enter the intersection.

Governor Drive and Genesee Avenue (Photo by Larry Hogue)

Or, imagine you’re biking eastbound on Governor, waiting at that same red light on Genesee. You’re positioned in the right through lane because it’s really too narrow to share safely. You can sense the impatience of the drivers stacking up behind you, who are just as tired as you are of waiting more than three minutes for a green light. The instant the lane becomes wide enough to share, the driver behind you hits the gas. You feel the backdraft as the car passes within a foot of your handlebars, then the driver slams on the brakes and turns right in front of you into Vons parking lot.

This is daily life at the intersection of Genesee Avenue and Governor Drive: a quiet, walkable neighborhood collides head-on with infrastructure that privileges auto-dependent commuters traveling quickly through on their way to somewhere else.

In that respect, it’s not much different than a lot of other intersections in San Diego, sharing many of the same problems: freeway-like speeds, signal timing that turns the major arterial into a barrier to cross-traffic, a refusal by city personnel to approve safety measures. Add to the mix three nearby schools, and the safety issues become even more complex.

…continue reading the rest of the story

Category: Events, Reader Contributions | 3 Comments »

Posted on March 4, 2010

The San Diego Custom Bicycle Show is around the corner. The event will be held April 9th, 10th & 11th, 2010 at 500 Hotel Circle North at the Town and Country Resort and Convention Center in the “Golden Pacific Ballroom.” For more details and information on registering for the show, please visit the website.

Category: Events | 1 Comment »

Posted on March 2, 2010

Bike San Diego reader, Andrew Parish, wrote letting us know of his efforts to get the city of Oceanside to place signage alerting motorists to the presence of bicyclists who would be riding the lane on Oceanside Boulevard while the bike lanes get resurfaced. A copy of his letter (dated February 25, 2010) and the City’s response is pasted below in its entirety.

I congratulate the City of Oceanside on its recent distinction from the League of American Bicyclists for the quality of its bike infrastructure. But it is precisely because of the City’s obvious awareness of bicycling as a form of  transportation that the current state of Oceanside Boulevard is totally inexcusable. Despite the high speed of traffic along this arterial road I have felt relatively safe because of its long and visible bike lane. Now, the sides of the road are scored in such a way as to make them entirely unridable, requiring cyclists to position themselves well into the rightmost lane. I understand that this state is probably a precursor to improved bike lanes, but there is absolutely no signage, at least on the  eastbound side, indicating to drivers that bicycles may need to share more of the right lane than usual during construction. While using this road Wednesday afternoon, I felt that such a sign would have encouraged a little more awareness and caution in the aggressive motorists I encountered. For a designated “Bicycle Friendly Community,” I think this lack of signage is unconscionable and ask that you put out some “Share the Road” signs before someone gets hurt.
Sincerely,

Andrew Parish

————
Mr. Parish:

I want to thank you for your recent e-mail.  I have forwarded your e-mail on to the project manager overseeing the resurfacing project and requested that he make the necessary changes concerning advance warning signs for both bicyclist and autos.  Please let me know if we can be of further assistance.

David DiPierro
City Traffic Engineer
City of Oceanside
760-435-5114
ddipierro@ci.oceanside.ca.us

If any of you readers find yourself in Oceanside, please check to ensure that some sort of signage has been placed. If not, we encourage you to contact the city to do so.

Category: Advocacy, Reader Contributions | 1 Comment »

Posted on March 2, 2010

You have probably noticed, loyal readers, that BikeSD has been off the air for a little while, or at least that new posts have slowed down. Those of us who contribute to, edit, and administer the site are not full-time advocates in the traditional sense. We all have other things we do. What unites us is a desire to make San Diego a better place to ride a bike. We all do other things to help make that happen besides maintaining this site, but our desire to create a shared space for all bicyclists in San Diego brings us together here.

So, from time to time, as each of your contributors weathers the ebbs and flows of lives lived away from a computer screen, our posts here may slow down. If you are missing your BikeSD fix, the best way to remedy this situation is to join us and contribute content to the site. Please see our About and Submissions Guidelines pages to learn how you can join us in providing content which brings San Diego bicyclists together as an informed, congenial, and active community. It’s like a KPBS pledge drive, except we’re not asking for money, we’re asking for your voice.

Category: Editorial, Reader Contributions | No Comments »

Posted on February 24, 2010

The members over at SDBikeCommuter will be riding round trip to Julian on May 1-2:  65 miles each day, 5000′ elevation differential.  One overnight at William Heise County Park.  Camp site reservations have been made – all you need to do is to pack up and go!

In preparation for this weekend tour to Julian, three preparation (or “training rides”) will be offered in ranges of 40-60 miles as follows:

• February 27:  Lakeside
• March 20: Poway
• April 17:  Escondido

All riders are welcome to join.  Please go to SDBikeCommuter for more information and discussions.

Category: Events | 3 Comments »

Posted on February 23, 2010

The City of San Diego is continuing work on its Bicycle Master Plan. With the aid of nationally recognized Alta Planning & Design, the city has come up with a list of top 40 projects [pdf link] and is now soliciting the cycling community’s input and suggestions. Kathy Keehan, Executive Director of the San Diego Bicycle Coalition (SDCBC) will be accepting suggestions until Wednesday, March 3.

According to Keehan, there is currently no timeline for when work on these projects are scheduled begin.

As the SDCBC has chosen to focus on the Urban Core in 2010, I’d suggest continuing to maintain that focus and place the top 30 project ideas around the Urban Core region.

What are your thoughts and ideas? Use the comments to discuss.

Category: News | 10 Comments »