Santa Barbara Cycling

Just got back from three days of cycling in Santa Barbara, including UCSB and Isla Vista -- that's where thousands of UCSB students live just off campus. What a place. Walk out of your dorm and step onto a private beach. Wow.

Back to bicycling, I saw probably gazillions of bike racks on the campus of UCSB, where everybody gets around on two wheels, and which also boasts one of the most intricate bike trails system I have ever seen.

Not only are there roundabouts for car traffic on campus, which are useful in controling traffic, but there are so many bicycles, they have installed roundabouts for cyclists on the bike trails. They need them. Even on a Saturday, the bike trail is a freeway -- there are so many bicycles you get swept along in traffic. I wonder what it looks like during a busy school day.

Because of the roundabouts and clear marking on the trails, I saw no collisions or even near collisions. Not so much in Isla Vista, probably due to the fact that it was Alumni Week and there seemed to be a citywide block party going on. The only collision I witnessed, but I am sure there were others, was a young lady on a beach cruiser who was busy texting on her Iphone, slam head on into a guy on a skateboard who was distracted by a nearby group of partygoers.

There was a large "thud" when they collided. But they both ended up laughing it off and exchanging numbers. Not sure why since no one appeared injured. I must be getting old.

I visited a bike shop in Isla Vista full of classic bikes, beach cruisers and even some very high end racing bikes. Where did you get all these, I asked.

The owner said at the end of the term, students leave school and leave their bikes behind. Apartment managers call the bike shop and they go out and round them all up. Except the ones that get tossed off the cliffs in another unique tradition -- students toss their bikes off the cliffs when they graduate, much like other students toss mortar boards. The recycled bikes get fixed up and sold to new students. I liked the idea that none of them end up in the dump.

What does any of this have to do with cycling in Temecula? We have to get our minds around the fact that young people today don't want the same things as their parents. The older crowd wanted a place in the suburbs, an Expedition to bring home groceries from Costco (I don't know why, I can bring home everything my family needs in two saddlebags), and an average of 4.2 hours a day watching TV on the couch. Young people, on the other hand, want to live in busy cities, somewhere downtown if possible, they want to get around on public transportation and bicycles, eat healthy food bought fresh daily (not in 500 ct. frozen boxes), and an active healthy lifestyle. The couch is a coffin, they say. Get up, get outside, go for a ride, a run, a swim. Do something.

They will either try to find that culture here, or they will go elsewhere. We can build that here, and remain a vibrant, young town. It's a choice. For them, and for all of us. 

They are building a new bridge across the creek at Main Street, replacing it with a new MODERN bridge with 10-foot sidewalks, and NO BIKE LANES! Come on, this is 2013. Why is the city of Temecula operating like it's 1913? When are cyclists in Temecula going to be fed up with being treated like second class citizens? Do you care that the city is spending hundreds of millions of dollars of YOUR money to build a new interchange north of Winchester to save motorists a few seconds of wait at Winchester, with NO BIKE LANES? Don't we pay taxes? Don't we pay gas and car taxes? We all drive too. Why can't we get one bridge in this town with bike lanes? It's time to start emailing and writing the mayor, city council and city staff and let your voices be heard. Don't wait. When the new interchange is done, it's done. There won't be any adding in bike lanes after they have a ribbon cutting with the mayor and council and happy motorists smiling at you from the front page of the newspaper.