HomeMy WebLinkAbout9/4/2018 Item 15, Rippens
Purrington, Teresa
From:Marty Rippens <rippens@gmail.com>
Sent:Monday, September 3, 2018 11:59 PM
To:E-mail Council Website
Subject:In support of protected bike lanes for the Anholm Bikeway Plan
Dear Mayor Harmon and Councilmembers,
On behalf of my wife and our three children, I am writing to express my support for the Anholm Bikeway plan that
includes protected bike lanes.
I urge you to take a few minutes to learn about the transformation of Seville, Spain, by watching this short video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rz20rAJ7oIg
In Seville, city leaders removed 5,000 parking spaces to build a connected infrastructure of protected bike lanes along
major routes throughout their city. Bicycle ridership dramatically increased from 0.5% of daily trips to nearly 10% in a
few short years... and this in a city with no cycling culture to speak of prior to the cycling infrastructure improvements.
As the above video shows, the most vulnerable of a city's inhabitants, children and seniors, now feel comfortable
traveling by bicycle in Seville because of the safety afforded by the protected bike lanes.
We need this type of bold action and thinking here in San Luis Obispo. I urge you to do right by our children and future
generations of our city's residents by reframing how we use our public right of ways.
There are hundreds of families in the neighborhoods north of Foothill who desire a safe cycling route to and from the
downtown core. There are hundreds of families throughout the city who desire a safe route to school for their children
attending Bishop's Peak and Pacheco. We have been pushing for many years for what a recent article in the American
Journal of Public Health has concluded based on extensive research:
"Because the vast majority of pedestrian and cyclist fatalities are attributable to collisions with motor vehicles,
roadways are the most lethal environment for walking and cycling. Walking and cycling are safer on completely
separate off-road facilities, such as mixed-use recreational paths, or in car-free zones, traffic-calmed residential
streets (with slower speeds and less traffic), and physically separated on-street facilities (such as cycle tracks).
Thus, the provision of more and better separate facilities is a key to improving overall walking and cycling
safety. Such facilities are especially important for children and seniors, who are most likely to be killed or
seriously injured if hit by a motor vehicle."
Thank you so very much for taking brave action to safeguard our children and to help remake our city to meet our city's
stated transportation and environmental goals. I am hopeful that you will take inspiration from the example set by the
city of Seville and the leaders there who sparked a beautiful transformation... a transformation we all know in our hearts
that society needs to make in order to secure a more sustainable, convivial, human-scale future for all.
Respectfully,
Marty Rippens
511 Paseo Bella Montana
San Luis Obispo
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