Kearny Villa Bike Lane (finally) paved
The horrid state Kearny Villa Road's bike lanes has taken the lives of two bicyclists and endangered countless others. This is a road that runs parallel to the 163 freeway and has a posted speed limit of 65 mph, and is the only north/south route for many of the city's cyclists wanting to reach the northern limits of the city.
After numerous complaints were phoned in and emailed, the city finally decided to "fix" the hazardous cracks in the bike lane in a rather passive aggressive manner earlier this year in March.
Kearny Villa Road lies in City Council Member Marti Emerald's district. After months of going back and forth with the city's traffic and engineering department, and Marti Emerald's office on the dangerous condition of the road, the city finally informed us of their decision to repave the bike lanes on Kearny Villa Road in June.
Yesterday, Jim Gates, a Bike San Diego reader, informed us that the bike lanes were indeed getting repaved.
Below are photos showing the progress to date:
San Diego's First Naked Bike Ride Rides into Legal Trouble
San Diego's first Naked Bike Ride is scheduled for June 12, 2010. But the organizer, Sarah Bush, is already in the hot seat with the City,
The organizer of a June 12 naked bike ride protest is heading to federal court on a mission to overturn San Diego's anti-nudity ordinance, saying it doesn’t protect her right to engage in free speech by going without clothes in public.
"We think it's too broad and sweeps all nudity into one big category," said attorney Mitch Wallis, who plans to file a request for an injunction Wednesday on behalf of organizer Sarah Bush. She and others want to use the ride -- and the nudity -- to promote biking and oppose the country's dependence on oil.
The legal brief, which says the nudity ordinance violates the First Amendment, puts Bush's case this way: "The Plaintiff Is Entitled To Strip Naked, Paint Her Body With Political Slogans and Protest Important Public Issues."
The city isn't cooperating, and appears ready to crack down on any bicyclists who ride naked (or, in the case of women, topless) on the World Naked Bike Ride's 10-mile route through Hillcrest and downtown.
Read more at Voice of San Diego.
Interview with Kenton Hoppas, bicycle courier turned film maker
Hoppas, owner of Aloha Bicycle Courier, contacted us a while back to inform us of his new project: a documentary on long term bicycle messengers. I conducted an email interview to find out more about his new endeavor.
----
Bike San Diego: Tell us a little bit about yourself and what brought you to San Diego County?
Kenton Hoppas: In 1999 I was working as a graphic designer in a corporate communications company in Indianapolis. I realized I needed to find a passion in my work I wasn't enjoying. I knew bicycle messengers existed, I knew I wanted to live by the ocean and learn to surf, so I quit my job and moved to San Diego with no job or place to live. But I did have a plan. The plan was to start a bicycle courier company with the mission statement, "Consider it done." Up to that point I felt the same day delivery industry had more of a "We will do our best" attitude.
BSD: What keeps you riding after all these years?
KH: I continue to ride because I love to ride. I don't drive a car. A bicycle lifestyle has always been in my blood. I knew it was a mode of transportation that I would use forever if possible. And to date, I pretty much ride everywhere for everything I do. Yes, I am still a messenger.
BSD: Who is your inspiration and why?
KH: My inspiration has to be my wife. She keeps it real, and always reminds me with her attitude and kindness that life isn't about accomplishment, it's about love and respect. I've got a long way to go.
BSD: Where do you live and work?
KH: I own my own company, and enjoyed a year or two that I didn't have to be on the bike for deliveries, but still rode to work and around on errands. The economy crashed and I'm back on the bike full time doing all our companies deliveries. I live in Encinitas with my wife and 2 year old daughter. I ride the coaster train to work and home.
BSD: What inspired you to create a movie about bike messengers?
KH: A homeless man gave me a camera one day back in 2005. That's another story. But I had never shot any video, ever really. I just feel in love with making these little 2 minute movies about my friends at work. My first video has been viewed over 55,000 times on youtube to date.
Is it any good? Not really, but I knew there was a market for a messenger documentary. I progressed in my film making and won a bike at the first annual Cottonwood Creek Film Festival in Encinitas for a film that encouraged people to use their bike to commute to work. From there Peder Norby gave helped me make a film about sustainability and our homes. I shot a few more short documentaries, then a live action short submitted to Cannes Film Festival and then I launched my production company Sweet Corn Studio.
BSD: What inspired you to choose James and Kevin as the two messengers to base your documentary around? I am also wondering why you didn’t pick someone from San Diego.
KH: I started filming last year in San Diego and I just didn't feel I was finding the story I was looking for. So I put the project on the shelf and went onto other projects. A year later I called James and Kevin and asked if they would be the focus of my documentary. They said yes, and I launched the kickstarter.com project soon after that. Well, that's not completely true. I actually launched the kickstarter.com project two weeks before I even told James I was doing a documentary about him! The thing was, James was my first employee at Aloha Bicycle Courier, my messenger company. He had moved here from Seattle and came to work for me in 2003. He worked for me about a year, but always remained a friend after leaving. He then moved to Portland a few years ago. I chose Kevin and James because they are quite different as individuals, they live and work in different side of the country, but they have two major things in common. They are both owners of their own messenger company, and they are both excellent examples of what a "Career Courier" is all about. Of which we hope to discover and share in depth during the film. All you have to do is google Kevin "Squid" Bolger and you will find out why I choose Kevin. He's maybe the most famous messenger in the world. Seriously.
BSD: What are your thoughts about the San Diego messenger scene?
KH: The SD messenger scene is like no other. It is relaxed, laid back, all but attitude free, and just a lovely bunch of guys and girls. It's small though. Only about 20 riders on the street at best on a daily basis. So with numbers that low we just don't have as many events and community like NYC or Portland.
BSD: What can San Diego do for the messenger community?
KH: That's a tough one. San Diego can't do much, but individual businesses can. Too many companies through away millions of dollars paying FedEx and UPS to do next day deliveries only a few blocks away. The client loses two ways, they pay MORE to have the delivery done and it doesn't get done until the next day. If they used a same day company they could save money, get it there the same day and give the local companies a boast in sales. More deliveries locally and more messengers would have better paying jobs. What can San Diego cyclists do for the messenger community?
That I am not sure of. I'm open to suggestion. Help support my film? At the very least go to the site and get signed up for updates and win some cool swag over the next 6 months.
BSD: Do you have a target audience?
KH: Yes, the cycling community as a whole, nationally. Cyclist seem to be interested and at times fascinated by the messenger community. "It must be nice getting paid to ride your bike." It is, you just don't get paid much. But if I dare to dream, and I do, I hope this film is the Endless Summer of our generation. That it sweeps the nation in theatrical release and shines a light on a community and industry and two men who make it all happen, day in day out.
BSD: What do you want the take home message to be?
KH: To answer one question, "What are the aspects of making a career as a courier." We all think we know what everyone does at their job and what it must be like. The dentist, the lawyer, the mechanic. But each story is unique to each individual. I just hope to cover some common ground within the industry that people aren't aware of. Because the job is a lifestyle and much more than just getting paid to ride your bike. If it were just for the money, we all would have quit a long time ago.
BSD: Would you be willing to do screenings in San Diego? What can we do to make that happen?
KH: Yes, local screenings for sure. Adams Avenue is a supporter of the film and we will do a screening there at the shop when the film is finished. And while the film won't be completed until Spring 2011, I will be more than happy to make arrangements to have multiple screenings anywhere we can get two or more people!
Thank you for taking your time to do this!
San Diego - the new bicycling mecca?
BikeSD reader, Everett, sent in the latest newsletter [pdf link] from the City Planning and Community Investment Department.
I have to admit surprise at the message from Director Bill Anderson who writes (in part),
Certain European cities have a strong tradition of supporting the bicyclist. Paris has public bikes for anyone to use. Amsterdam and Copenhagen are the leaders, with dedicated bike streets, bridges, lanes, and intersection priorities to bicyclists to avoid conflicts with cars and reduce travel times. According to Copenhagen’s Director of Engineering, who visited us last year, almost 40 percent of their daily commute trips are by bicycle.
In these cities, bikes are not just for the avid, they’re for the average person, old and young, rich, poor, and middle income, factory workers and office workers. What do these cities have in common? One, they’re relatively flat. Two, they’re relatively cold. Three, they’ve invested in bicycle circulation infrastructure.
While San Diego overall has lots of varied topography that can deter many casual bicyclists, we have many mesas, river valleys, and coastal areas that are relatively flat, including areas that have residential development, job centers, and transit. Bicycle circulation systems can work in these communities. Obviously, we have the weather that is conductive to biking, especially when compared to the large cities in the United States and Europe that are most famous for encouraging biking. Finally, we are preparing plans that will enable more investment in the bicycling infrastructure.
One reason why this message from Director Anderson really surprised me is because looking at some of the bike infrastructure that San Diego has invested in, makes me scratch my head. The main thoroughfares going east west (and north south) have absolutely nothing for bicyclists either downtown or uptown in the mesa. The routes to head down into Mission Valley are in every sense of the word, terrible. The task of riding around San Diego as a newbie cyclist is very daunting and intimidating.
So to read that the City actually wants to increase the percentage of utility cyclists in San Diego was nothing short of surprising.
The newsletter also has a short article by the City's Project Manager, Shahriar Ammi. Mr. Ammi has written about the city's plans to increase the current 511 miles of bicycle network to 1,044 miles.
I, for one, am extraordinarily pleased to read this and can't wait to see all these plans put into action.
Your Bike to Work Day Morning Media Roundup
On the one day we might expect a more sympathetic or positive portrayal of bicycling for transportation in our local mainstream media, here’s what thousands of San Diegans read and heard yesterday and this morning on local news stations, channels, and websites about Bike to Work Day:
Maureen Cavanaugh of KPBS’s “These Days” thinks bicyclists wear “knee guards.”
Channel 10 equated the estimated 5,000 Bike-to-Work riders with the Amgen Tour of California.
SignOnSanDiego implied that one has to “sweat like an ox” in order to commute by bike.
Voice of San Diego didn’t mention it.
NBC 7/39’s website had a nice, short write-up and piece of fluff about “Bike to Work Songs.”
CBS 8’s website didn’t mention it.
SDNN had the best and most balanced coverage, with a piece by Chris Nixon, who "experimented" with car-free living last year.
Some readers wonder why Bike San Diego bothers to waste space on what the mainstream media does or does not cover with regard to bicycling. We are interested because most San Diegans don’t read Bike San Diego just yet; most of your neighbors, and certainly most of the drivers you will encounter today and every day on your commute, watch, read, and listen to the mainstream media. How bicycling appears there matters to every bicyclist in San Diego because it is a direct reflection of how you appear on a bicycle from behind the steering wheel.