2 Responses to “Cycling Task Force Watches Presentation, Begins Organizing Council Presentation”
Comments
Grateful Cyclist
February 10th, 2010
The reprogramming of the San Joaquin and Jamboree traffic signal hopefully begins a new era for bicycle safety in Newport Beach. For a couple years, the signal going west down into the Back Bay did not have green clearance time for a bicycle to pedal across six lanes of traffic. The bicycle button was not signaling the controller and the green clearance was four seconds for one car. Newport Beach engineers and the traffic signal vendor were ignoring cycling's growth. The NBPD was unconscionable by chasing bicycles for vehicle citations at a flawed signal. The traffic signal is one block from NBPD headquarters. The City Council's next meeting should begin with a moment of prayerful thanks that the San Joaquin/Jamboree intersection did not take down an entire cycling group with injuries or a fatality.
Cyclist Educator
February 19th, 2010
Can I suggest that the Cycling Safety Task Force return to the topic of group cycling and take on a realizable goal of educating about road sharing? Maps, racks and certainly sharrows are not easily implemented. Subtopics for group cycling would be these three: 1) Why cycling groups, 2) Educating both motorists and cyclists, 3) Advising traffic engineers and the police department. Group or team cycling will flourish in this decade. Group cycling combines recreation, fitness and most importantly, safety. Cars cannot pass a cycling group of five or more, even though riding single file, during heavy traffic within a right lane lacking a bike lane. A motorist cannot just weave around five or more cyclists strung out in single file. The cars have to move to the left lane, or slow down to share the roadway. The East Coast Highway is the most noticeable example because of car doors, but there are other examples such as Bison Road west out of UCI or Jamboree Road between San Joaquin and Ford. The posted speed limit is not a mandate for road rage like the motorist-cyclists collision at Mandeville Canyon in Brentwood. And group cycling has safety advantages over solo riding. Solo cycling in Newport Beach has been jeopardized by engineers setting back traffic signals and the NBPD chasing bicycles. The extreme risk to solo UCI cyclists has been NBPD cars speeding through the unlit Back Bay with headlights turned off. In contrast, group cycling generally is safer. The mass scale of a cycling group will trigger embedded wires at traffic signals like a vehicle. Group cyclists can protect each other at abrupt signal clearances timed for a single car. Group cycling also allows riders to warn one another about obstacles, driveways and be more visible to prevent fatalities like the Ridge Park-Tesoro blind hill curve. We hope that the Task Force can educate Newport Beach about group cycling.
