No Easy Path to Solutions for Strand : Traffic: Hermosa Beach’s latest idea to make its oceanfront walkway safer was to install bike barricades. But residents said no.

Traffic on The Strand, the paved oceanfront pathway in Hermosa Beach, tends to be a crowded montage of Spandex-adorned cyclists, barefoot beachcombers, wobbly-legged roller-skaters and hyperactive dogs.

“It’s just a mass of different types of wheels and walkers and joggers,” said June Williams, a former mayor who roller-skates, bikes and walks along The Strand.

Stories of accidents and near-misses on The Strand--biker versus walker, Rollerblader versus biker, skateboarder versus jogger--have been the subject of regular testimony at City Council meetings. And as the summer, with its peak congestion, draws near, the council has begun looking at the problem anew and grappling with a way to handle what Williams calls “a disaster waiting to happen.”

But at last Tuesday night’s council meeting, when the city proposed installing five wooden barricades along The Strand to slow down cyclists, residents vehemently opposed the obstructions, and the council withdrew the idea. Some residents rushed from their homes to City Hall when they heard the idea mentioned on the live cable television broadcast of the council meeting.

“The problem,” said Mayor Charles Sheldon, who favored trying the barricades, “is those people that have their biker clothes on, their helmets on, their heads down, and are speeding throughout the city.”

Others agreed that racing cyclists are the main culprits but said barricades are not the answer.

Glenn Tanner, who calls himself a “Strand expert” because he jogs along the ocean for more than an hour every day, complained that his infant son’s three-wheeled baby stroller would not fit through the barricades.

“We couldn’t agree more that there is a problem with speeding on The Strand,” Tanner said, “but barriers are not the answer.”

Garrison Frost, a local pharmacist, said he has been riding his bike since the first grade and has been hit several times on The Strand.

“In the pot of ideas that are coming out, I have not heard anyone say anything about really, really stringent enforcement . . . with very strict penalties,” he said.

The pot of ideas is not at all empty. Over the years, city officials have considered speed bumps, dips, cobblestones, a separate bike path and a wider pathway. But none has won a consensus.

The city launched a Strand Safety Committee five years ago and in 1987 installed yellow flashing lights and 10 m.p.h. speed limit signs to slow down bicycle racers. In 1989, the Police Department cracked down on stunt cyclists and trick skateboarders near the pier. Last year, officers began using a special radar gun aimed at cyclists.

But just like the bumper-to-bumper traffic on the San Diego Freeway, Hermosa’s congestion continues. There have been more than 100 paramedic calls since 1988 attributed to accidents caused by congestion on The Strand. Officers have issued close to 400 tickets for speeding and reckless cycling on The Strand during the same period.

Building a separate bike path, like those in most other cities from Santa Monica to Newport Beach, is difficult in Hermosa Beach because of a deed restriction on the city’s beach.

The Hermosa Beach Land & Water Co., when it donated the beach and The Strand to the city in 1901, prohibited using the beach “for vehicles, trains, horse wagons, carriages, automobiles, and every other kind of conveyance.”

Hermosa Beach officials have generally interpreted the deed to mean that construction of a separate bicycle path is not allowed.

Other South Bay cities have cracked down on cyclists in busy pedestrian areas. In Torrance, bike riding is banned on sidewalks in a business district, but there are no laws against skateboards. And in El Segundo, an ordinance prohibits riding bicycles and skateboards--as well as wagons, carts, scooters and coasters--on the sidewalks of any business district, public park or recreation area.

Hermosa Beach’s flashing lights were installed in 1987 along the most congested strip of The Strand between 10th and 15th streets. When they are activated, cyclists and skateboards must dismount and walk.

The lights, however, have not solved the problem. They must be manually activated when Strand congestion peaks and be turned off when the pathway clears. But police officers are often not on the scene to activate the locked switch.

The city had considered installing a remote-control camera on a nearby lifeguard tower so that officers could gauge the congestion from police headquarters a few blocks away. The camera idea was scrapped, Williams said, because “we had protests from citizens that the police officers would just watch the bikinis.”

Richard Kenny, a cyclist from Redondo Beach who was once upended by a man on Rollerblades, has proposed moving all bikes off The Strand to the nearby Greenbelt.

That strip of city land has a controversial history of its own, with voters recently approving a bitterly contested referendum requiring dog owners to leash their pets there. Council members, aware of the recent controversy of the Greenbelt, did not jump at Kenny’s suggestion.

“There are probably 50 alternatives,” said Sheldon, a bike rider himself who lives on The Strand, “25 of which are excellent, 10 of which could be implemented, all of which are going to be supported. . . . The fact is we have an enormous problem on The Strand.”

In withdrawing the barricade proposal Tuesday, the council decided to wait for information on bike barricades installed in Berkeley before pursuing the idea. It also plans to review other options, such as using uniformed volunteers to issue warnings or moving all bikes to nearby Hermosa Avenue.

Police are planning a major crackdown on speeding during the summer months, when vacationers and schoolchildren add to The Strand’s congestion. But the city’s public safety director, Steve Wisniewski, says enforcement is difficult.

“We only have so many people to go around,” Wisniewski said. “We have to handle all the other calls for service. Then there is the difficulty in capturing a speeding bicyclist. You don’t chase a speeding bicyclist with a patrol car on The Strand.”

And, Sheldon said, enforcement carries another risk:

Already known as the parking ticket capital of the world for its 24-hour-a-day meters and aggressive ticketing, Hermosa’s reputation might plummet further.

“Not only are you going to get tickets on the streets,” he said, “but we’re going to give tickets on The Strand.”