What you see here is a bike sharrow painted by the city in Old Town Temecula. The Mayor, Council and city staff have purported that they have spent $500,000 on bicycle infrastructure improvements. Since this is the only thing I have seen new in town, and since the city paid its San Diego cycling consultants (Why do we need some guys from out of town who don't live here, don't ride bikes here and don't have any stake in how this all turns out for cyclists to tell us what we see with our own eyes every time we ride a bike here?) more than $150,000 to create a slick new web page featuring -- you guessed it -- this bike sharrow, I have concluded that the city leaders must have spent $500,000 on this sharrow!
And you thought finding Pokemons was fun?
Just kidding. The city hasn't spent $500,000 this sharrow. The city hasn't spent $500,000 on ANY cycling infrastructure, despite what the staff, our Mayor and Councilmembers say in front of the television cameras at public Council meetings.
In private, responding to my requests, they admit they have spent a few thousand dollars on a little striping and, of course, this cool looking sharrow. I hope you like this sharrow, though, because the city staff, our Mayor, our Councimembers, have no plans to spend any money on cycling infrastructure next year either.
As a cyclist why should I care?
Because the city of Temecula is spending literally hundreds of millions of OUR dollars on new freeway interchanges, parking garages and of course, a very cool looking City Hall, and nothing on cycling infrastructure. And because riding a bicycle in Temecula doesn't have to be so dang dangerous, if we make a few changes.
Our bike lanes in Temecula start and then stop in the most dangerous places and ways, don't connect in any systematic way, and are filled with trash, broken glass and dead animals.
Our signal lights don't recognize bicycles (lots of cities around this county, this state, this country, and the world have figured out how to do that Mr. Mayor), and what is our police force doing to stop the daily harassment of cyclists by motorists?
That's my point. OK, so why should you care?
Because we are cyclists, and cyclists care about other cyclists. We stop when we see someone with a flat -- do you need anything? We ride in groups inches apart and by being polite, it all works.
Even if you are one of those John Wayne types -- I go where I want, do what I want -- that may be fine for me, or for you, but what about new riders, what about our young people, our children? What about families that want to ride together but are too frightened of Temecula traffic? They load their bikes into their Suburbans and drive to the park, or to the beach, or to cities THAT HAVE BIKE LANES!
In a city of 100,000 people, where half of them old enough to ride will jump on a bicycle at least once during the next 12 months, why is nothing being done to make cycling safer?
Temecula has had plans for bicycle lanes and paths since its first Parks and Recreation plan. The city has had some kind of bicycle trail master plan since at least 2002. A group of us representing cycling clubs and others under the umbrella of the Temecula Bicycle Coalition met with Mayor Naggar and staff 10 years ago to urge the city to make our streets safer. We will get right on that, they said. You are our eyes and ears, they said. And now a decade later, with another $150,000 of our hard earned taxpayer money flung to the wilds of San Diego, we have yet another master plan and no projects.
When I spoke at City Council, I said quit making new plans and start building what you promised a decade (or more) ago. The Mayor, Mrs. Edwards, and other Councilmembers took turns telling me how wrong I am. My own eyes, and the numbers prove me right. $2,000 or even $10,000 is not $500,000. We have one new bike sharrow and a web page.
So what's to be done? Cut and paste, copy, repost, retweet, talk about, yell about, print this out and hand it around, I don't care, but get this message out to anyone who rides a bike and has a stake in this game. We pay city taxes, we pay fuel and other transportation taxes, and yet the city of Temecula spends none of it to help make us safe as cyclists. That's wrong.
Forget your new "pump track" at Ronald Reagan Park, it doesn't make cycling safer. Forget your plans to spend $10 million to put a new bike path under the 15 Freeway at St. Gertrudis Creek, we don't need it. If I am going to ride somewhere, I go the same way you do in your car -- the shortest route. And tell your San Diego consultants that we don't want to ride miles in the wrong direction out of the south end of Old Town to reach Wine Country.
You can really tell someone who doesn't live here came up with that one. The shortest route is straight out Rancho California Road, where, I keep reminding our $150,000 consultants and city staff, there used to be some very good bike lanes and two normal motorists lanes until the city paved over the bike lanes and squeezed in three narrow lanes for cars. Now they say bike lanes on Rancho Cal are "impossible." Really? They were there!
Connect our on-street bike lanes. Give us back the Rancho California Bike lanes. Spend some money on off street bike lanes -- you will really see cycling numbers skyrocket with that one. Fix our signals so we can get through red lights without getting off our bikes and using the pedestrian buttons. Tell your police officers to watch out for motorists trying to squeeze us into curbs, right hooking us at intersections, tossing bottles, cans or even coins at us, yelling out windows -- get on the sidewalk!
Our Mayor is running for re-election and his campaign material includes a vision of a hiking path from Temecula to the ocean. Great! But Mr. Mayor, we think you should turn your attention to how difficult it is to find a safe cycling path around your own town.
Again, repost this. Retweet it. Share this information. The Mayor and City Council are not listening. Their city staff is giving out misleading and completely erroneous information.
And what are we doing? Do we just keep taking this mistreatment? Do we let the Mayor and city staff meet with us every 10 years, pat us on the heads and tell us to go away?
It's up to us. I went to the Council meeting alone -- they had their way with me. OK. I can take it. I know I'm right, and I know they are not giving out accurate information. I have eyes. I know it.
The question is, do YOU want Temecula to be a city known for its beer bars and bikers (not cyclists, the Harley Davidson kind) that crowd Front Street in Old Town, or do you want to be known as a progressive, green city, with an active population, amenities for cyclists, pedestrians, hikers, a place with a bicycle culture where motorists harassing cyclists face the wrath of the entire community?
Share this -- please.
