Oceanside's San Luis Rey River Trail Gets an Extension
Oceanside is the only community in San Diego County to receive recognition from the League of American Bicyclists as a bike-friendly community. In 2009, the League awarded Oceanside Bronze status, citing the San Luis Rey River Trail as one of the community's highlights. The city has just begun a one mile extension to the eastern end of the trail, which will take riders from College Avenue to North Santa Fe Avenue. The new segment will be funded entirely by state and local grants, and will cost $550,000. Compare this with an estimated $5-$10 million per mile for freeway lane construction (a number provided by the ultra-conservative, auto-centric American Dream Coalition, and thus probably too low), and the fiscal value of Oceanside's bike-friendly commitment is hard to deny.
SignOnSanDiego has a story today, and the North County Times has been covering Oceanside's commitment to bicycles for some time.
Photo: Charlie Neuman/Union-Tribune
Ghost Bike Memorial for Walter Freeman
While the family of Walter Freeman asks the SDPD to provide them with some support after an officer struck and killed Freeman on November 9, the bicycling community has lent its own show of support for the avid and safety-conscious cyclist. NBC 7/39 reports that a Ghost Bike memorial has appeared at the intersection where Freeman was killed.
The SDPD continues to claim that Freeman veered directly into the path of the oncoming cruiser after exiting a filling station driveway, but has still not concluded its investigation into the matter, three and half weeks after the incident. They had originally promised results of the investigation within a week of Freeman's death.
Previously on BikeSD:
Questions in the Deadly University City Crash Involving an SDPD Officer
Bicyclist Killed in University City Crash with SDPD Car
Photo: NBC 7/39
San Diego Bike Blog Digest Holiday Version
Once again, I'm late in getting this post up. This fall has been a busy one, and with the holidays approaching, promises to be busier still. The blogs have been pretty quiet, too, but just in case you have a spare moment, here's the best of what our local bloggers have been writing.
- Farewell to My Car has gone well past her original 30 day trial, and has discovered the joys and perils of riding at night. She brings up the very good point that many local bicyclists are not adequately lighted for nighttime riding. We may not have winter in San Diego, but it does get dark early.
- Vélo-flâneur did a little underbiking in Santa Monica, and promises to say more later.
- And Life with Bicycle got dirty, had a bad day, and got yelled at.
Streetscape Plan Updates from Leucadia & Solana Beach
The North County Times is reporting that a Los Angeles fire Engineer David Smith is collecting signature support to oppose Leucadia's beautification project since he believes the new plans will compromise fire truck access. However, the city's Fire Chief Mark Muir disagrees with Smith's assessment and stated that while the road didn't weren't up to par on the city's requirements, the recommendations did meet the state's standards.
Asked if he thought a fire truck would have trouble moving through the reworked area, Muir responded, "To me, that's not even a question. We can do it."
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Meanwhile John A. Eldon an instructor at UCSD's extension program attended the Solana Beach Streetscape Plan and learned that,
the project consultant now advocates two southbound lanes, the rightmost of which would to be clearly sharrow marked and designated as a slower lane to be shared by motorists and bicyclists. Northbound we would have one through lane next to a fairly wide bike lane, which should work OK because there is only one intersection (Lomas Santa Fe) along the 2-mile stretch.
The shared lane is a huge improvement over earlier door zone bike lane plans and the proposal to divert southbound bicyclists to a side street west of the coast highway. The next community meetings will be sometime in January.