Voice your support for a car-free Balboa Park Plaza tonight

Thanks to San Diego Coalition Executive Director, Kathy Keehan, for alerting us to good article in SignOnSanDiego regarding making Balboa Park Plaza a car-free zone in time for the 2015 Centennial Celebration, celebrating the Panama California Exposition.

Tonight at 6 PM there is a Balboa Park Committee meeting in the Santa Fe Room of the Balboa Park Club. Please attend to voice your support for creating a car-free Balboa Park Plaza.


CTCDC Says "No": No Bicyclists Allowed on Committee, No Bike Boxes, No Removal of Bike-Sensitive Signals

Last Thursday, January 21, the California Traffic Control Devices Committee (CTCDC) met at the Caltrans office in Old Town to make decisions that would effect the well-being of road users throughout California. There were four main issues at hand affecting bicyclists

(1) Bicyclist representation on CTCDC

(2) A proposal to remove bike signal detection and signal timing at intersections

(3) Bike Box experiment proposal for San Luis Obispo

(4) New guidelines for bicyclists through construction zones.

CTCDC said "No" to each of the above issues, with the exception of Issue 4, which pertained to the acceptance of new guidelines that would allow bicyclists to more safely ride on roads through construction zones. According to Kathy Keehan, Executive Director of the San Diego County Bicycle Coalition (SDCBC), this proposal passed easily.

Issue 1--request for bicyclist representation on CTCDC--was defeated. CTCDC voted against the idea to include representatives of bicycling organizations on the committee. As of today, CTCDC is composed of eight members; two from the Auto Club (AAA), one from California Highway Patrol, one from Caltrans, and two representing cities and two representing counties. While CTCDC's "No Cyclists Allowed" vote was frustrating, this particular issue is not dead. Jim Baross of the SDCBC plans to meet with California Senator Christine Kehoe and ask her to introduce legislation that will require CTCDC to allow a bicycling representative on the committee. Baross is concerned that this legislation will inspire other groups--such as accessible society representatives, pro-pedestrian representatives, electric vehicle representatives, alternative-transportation representatives, truckers, etc.--to join CTCDC, as well. However, the more representatives we have who are knowledgeable on facilitating sustainable transportation and livable streets, the better.

Only one of CTCDC's "No"s will actually benefit cyclists.  On the CTCDC agenda was a proposal to change the guidelines to allow even less time for cyclists to get through timed intersections.  That proposal--Issue 2--was defeated.

In November 2009, CTCDC adopted guidelines that require signal detectors in California intersections to trip for cyclists and to stay "green" long enough for a cyclist to ride through the intersection. Signal detectors that did not recognize cyclists as legitimate road users often put cyclists' lives at risk. However, at the meeting last Thursday, a CTCDC committee-member who represented cities, proposed that California do away with the new standards set in November and go back to the "old auto-centric way of doing things." Fortunately, that proposal was defeated. As Baross put it, this issue was pitting bicyclists' safety and ability to travel against motorists' level of service/convenience/delay.

Issue 3--request to experiment with a Bike Box in San Luis Obispo--was a defeat for cyclists. San Luis Obispo wants to follow the footsteps of bike-friendly cities such as Portland and Seattle, who already have Bike Boxes throughout their cities. New York City, one of the fastest growing cities for bicycling, has also installed a number of Bike Boxes throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn. Unfortunately, a relatively small group of cyclists in California have been standing in front and blocking the development of Bike Boxes. Baross, who represented CBAC and CABO but not SDCBC on this particular issue, presented a case against Bike Boxes. Instead, he proposed a Sharrow and a Bike May Use Full Lane sign in place of the Bike Box. While Sharrows and BMUFL signs are desirable forms of infrastructure, generally speaking, they do not achieve the same objective as that of a Bike Box:

Bike boxes work best at intersections with a high volume of bicyclists. They improve cyclists' visibility. They reduce delay for cyclists by providing space for "jumping the queue" of waiting vehicles. They allow a left-turning bicyclist to reach a better position for making a safe turn. They allow bicyclists to reduce exposure to vehicle tailpipe emissions, and are also thought to elevate the "status" of bicyclists relative to motor vehicles.

Overall, the results of last Thursday's CTCDC meeting are mixed. What bicyclists can look forward to is Senator Kehoe proposing legislation that will put both cyclists and Livable Streets experts on CTCDC. If California is serious about satisfying the requirements of the Global Warming Solutions Act, it must allow cyclists, livable streets experts, and other sustainable transportation experts in on the the decision-making process and not relegate them to the sidelines.

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Previous CTCDC-related entry at Bic Control: Tomorrow Morning: Huge Turning Point for California Traffic Control.

Previous CTCDC-related BikeSD entry: Make Your Voices Heard on January 21st For Long Overdue Improvements.

This entry was originally published on Bic Control.


News and links from around the web

Here are some stories and links that caught my eye lately:

  • Matt Wright contacted us wanting to let our readers know about the launch of The Mappy Thing.  The site is designed to  help newcomers and travelers who might visiting San Diego for a few days, or locals who are new to cycling to help them sort out where they can ride, places they can rent bikes, and reviews on select bike shops.
  • Here is a solution that would be ideal to deal with San Diego's canyons, suspending bike lanes up in the air. However, it seems this is a rather dangerous solution compared with just reducing the number of lanes and creating more traffic calming measures.

Mayor Sanders Wants a Car-Free Balboa Park Plaza

The 2009 Earth Day celebration provides a glimpse of a car-free central plaza in Balboa Park. Mayor Sanders hopes to have the plaza car-free by 2015.

In his State of the City speech on Wednesday, Mayor Jerry Sanders revealed his strong support for a plan that would take the cars and parking spaces out of Balboa Park's central plaza.  Sanders said of the plaza:

It was built for the 1915 Exposition as a grand ceremonial plaza for the public. Over time it was transformed into a grand ceremonial parking lot for cars.

We will reclaim that plaza for ourselves and posterity before the park’s centennial celebration in 2015. And in doing so, we will celebrate a moment that’s a century in our past.

For what it's worth, Bike San Diego would like to join the other park supporters and institutions that have already voiced their endorsement for this project.

Read Sanders' entire speech here.

Read more about the plaza plan at SignOnSanDiego. But don't read the comments, it'll just make you mad.


Another SDPD Officer Hits a Bicyclist

This afternoon around 2:40pm in Hillcrest (University Avenue between 10th Avenue and Vermont Street), an SDPD officer on a motorcycle struck a bicyclist, reportedly causing minor injuries to both the bicyclist and the officer. This comes two months after an SDPD cruiser struck and killed Walter Freeman in University City. Police Chief William Lansdowne has not responded to our call to release details of that investigation, and it seems unlikely, given the apparently minor severity of this latest incident, that any more details will be forthcoming.

Read at SDNN.

Read at SignOnSanDiego.

And discuss at SDBikeCommuter.