Bicycle Injustice

Can't wait to read this new book by two researchers at UCR. Here is a link: Bicycle Justice.

Here is a paragraph about it:

"Policymakers and urban planners in much of Southern California – where a car culture dominates – are not highly receptive to rascuache cyclists, the researchers said, noting the lack of secured bicycle-parking areas at shopping centers, commuter rail stations and college campuses; bike paths that are designed with recreational users – not low-income commuters – in mind; and bike-safety legislation that negatively impacts cyclists who can least afford helmets and reflective clothing."

"Rascuache" is a term these researchers use to describe low income citizens who rely on their bicycles for transportation. That could have been me at one time -- trying to get to school, and a job, living on Top Ramen and no car. My bike? A freebie from a dumpster in Santa Ana that I rescued and coaxed back to life with a little WD40, a screwdriver and a crescent wrench.

So what does my hard luck story have to do with Temecula, one of the most affluent cities in the county?

If you live in Temecula, cruise Rancho California Road some time and watch the men and women who work at the car washes, grocery stores, and restaurants pedaling their 38 pound department store bicycles to work every morning, and home late in the evening. They have jobs, but no cars. 

Look for the students among them who are carrying heavy backpacks or worse, carrying books swinging in plastic bags tied to the handlebars. They need to get to school. They have bikes. But unfortunately, they live in a city that is openly hostile to cyclists. Their leaders spend nothing out of the millions they collect in taxes each year to make cyclists safer. 

Why is this so important?

Because they are cyclists. They are Temecula residents. 

And a lot of them are riding on the sidewalks, where they are dodging pedestrians, moms and dads pushing strollers. It's not a healthy mix. 

Yes, Temecula is affluent, but it is such a dangerous place to cycle these commuters are not about to venture out in the three skinny (probably not even up to code) car traffic lanes squeezed into Rancho California Road, because the city wiped out the bicycle lanes there! 

Now the city says it is "impossible" to have bicycle lanes on Rancho California Road. How is it impossible when they used to be there? They would still be there if you had left them alone. And a lot of us would be safer for it.

I've talked before at City Council about connecting Old Town to Wine Country for tourists via Rancho California. Their $150,000 consultants from San Diego want tourists to ride out of the south end of Old Town and up some gnarly hills, turning a 15 minute ride into hours. Tourists bring money to Temecula, but most of them don't try the bike to wineries trip more than once. Ask the bike shop owners what these cycle-tourists say when they return their rental bikes. Yikes!

But I have also reminded Council that a lot of their constituents who do a lot of the work in this town use Rancho California Road to get to work. Do your San Diego consultants have answers for them? Do they think they should ride out the south end of Old Town too? Where are they supposed to ride?

The sidewalk.