HomeMy WebLinkAbout2/6/2018 Item 12, Halsted
From:Diane Halsted <dhalsted@sbcglobal.net>
Sent:Sunday, February
To:E-mail Council Website
Subject:bike path
Dear Mayor and Council Members,
I urge you to reconsider the plan to make a bike path from downtown to Foothill area. Concerns about parking removal
and access for residents to enter and exit the main road from and onto their property are real. So too is the very idea of
spending a million dollars to change something that works just fine as it is.
I strongly suggest instead that you allot funds (1) to put lighting under the overpass where Highway 101 crosses Chorro;
(2) to improve signage to designate the route up Chorro to Mission to Broad; (3) to educate cyclists to follow the rules of
the road, wear helmets, appropriate footwear, and bright clothes; (4) to enforce the rules of the road with police at
corners who give tickets to those who do not stop at signs and lights, who cut across traffic, who go the wrong way on
one-way streets or ride on sidewalks;(5) to stop cyclist riding at dusk and after dark without lights. Money dedicated to
student education at the public schools throughout the city plus subidies to purchase helmets for all riders would go a
long way further than money spent on a bike way that most riders will not use.
Cal Poly students will learn to be safe cyclists ONLY when they experience the financial consequences of tickets when
they ride unsafely. Without enforcement, they will continue to plague motorists with their unsafe practices on two
wheels. I have written several letters over the years to the police chief to suggest that enforcement be emphasized
when school begins in the fall. A little education up front saves a good lot of trouble down the road. I was long ago a
student at UC Davis where the police were at every intersection the first weeks of school, giving warnings, and soon
tickets. No cyclist in the town of thousands of bikes violated the rules of the road.
You need only to walk once on the Bob Jones Bikeway to Avila which is shared by pedestrians with dogs, children on
scooters and tiny bikes, and fast-moving cyclists to see the folly in the ideas you are planning to impose on routes
between Foothill and downtown. Please rethink your goals and reconsider the allocation of the funds.
Diane Halsted
258 Patricia Court
San Luis Obispo, CA 93405
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