NBC San Diego is reporting that one of San Diego’s only pedal powered business may be shut down because of the City Attorney’s archaic views on what constitutes transportation. Not unlike the slippery slope that began with the City’s attitude to pedicabs, the city seems intent on promoting a message that a dense urban downtown cannot benefit from people moving at a more humane pace. If anything, the city should be promoting and enhancing ways for people to transport themselves in a manner that allows them to experience San Diego in all its beauty – outside an automobile.
This story does send a message to the broader business community that the City doesn’t value creative thinking and that they will crush any entrepreneurial spirit if it doesn’t fit into a specific set of codes that is currently very pedal unfriendly . When I last spoke with Laura Rovick, the owner of Social Cycle, she wanted Social Cycle to succeed in San Diego and was gratified to learn that the demand to use the Dutch based 16-person bicycle was high. However she was quite frustrated in dealing with the City’s narrow focus and reluctance to support her endeavors. I have to admit that it is an embarrassment how the City attorney’s office is dealing with Rovick and her business.
What are your thoughts on this subject?