SOUNDING OFF: Cycling decision taints ‘green’ image

Editor’s Note: The following was addressed to the Laguna Beach City Council.

I just returned from a bike ride that took me via Laguna Canyon to Irvine to care for business at the Orange County Teachers Credit Union. I returned home via Back Bay, Crystal Cove and Coast Highway. I bike whenever and wherever I am able to avoid the use of a car.

Why should you care?

Because Laguna was the most difficult part of the ride and least user friendly. Secondly, and, perhaps most important, I frequently thought during the ride of the manner in which the council responded April 7 to the plea from the local bicycle community to include improving bike safety for the city of Laguna Beach as an integral part of the now newly approved Climate Protection Action Plan.

I know many of my cycling compatriots who attended the same meeting — as well as many of the 400 who signed the submitted petition — feel that the council listened, but didn’t “hear” (with the possible exception of Councilwoman Jane Egly) what we were saying about the future. The comments after the many members of the public — all in favor of a bike component to be included in the plan — demonstrated that you had a [liability] mind set before listening to the half hour of comments.

For example, [Councilwoman] Toni Eiseman kept mentioning Coast Highway as “very” dangerous.

Agreed. The point of designating bike lanes is to avoid Coast Highway! Use Monterey Street, Hillcrest Drive, Glenneyre Street, Catalina Street, Forest Avenue, etc. Why not get us through downtown more safely — and even create some extra business as a possible byproduct? Try and envision what “could be,” rather than “what is.”

The promise of additional bike racks were thrown out — seemingly as a “carrot” — with the caveat, “for those brave enough to risk cycling in this town.” Is that a way to encourage the cleanest means of modern transportation? A method used for local travel by 37% of Europeans where towns were built in a constricted environment — like our city. They “get it” — why can’t Laguna?

Of course there will be logistical issues. But why does the automobile receive first priority when most of the time each car is carrying the same number of people as a two-wheeled vehicle?

Councilwoman Elizabeth Pearson flattered the biking audience by telling us what nice people we were based upon our considered comments. Then she showed that she had no concept of why a biking option is so important — philosophically, environmentally and from a health standpoint. Her mind was obviously pre-set and avoided addressing any of our well-made points. And of course the process left no chance for rebuttal from the audience.

As a 47-year resident of Laguna Beach — and one who has cycled for 60 years, 37 during which I cycled to work at Laguna Beach High School from upper Bluebird Canyon — I thank you for galvanizing the Laguna biking community.

We may be nice folks but we are also very committed people, and you will hear from us much more often, you can count on it, until Laguna fully lives up to its now-tainted “green” image.

Not encouraging the use of bicycles is both hypocritical and lacking in creativity and courage. And liability will be just as much a threat — if not more so — now that you have publicly decided, through omission in the Climate Protection Action Plan, that Laguna will not make any attempt to be bicycle friendly.

Cyclists are here to help craft a bike plan for Laguna. Hopefully the task force that Egly suggested is not just another carrot and will have some true impact.

ART WAHL lives in Laguna Beach.