Cycling Task Force Watches Presentation, Begins Organizing Council Presentation
While watching a safety presentation at a task force meeting on Monday, City Councilwoman and bicycle enthusiast Nancy Gardner had an Ah ha! moment.
“The thing that struck me — and I’m a very casual rider — is that I’m causing a lot of the problems,” she said. “People like me need to drive more seriously.”
The 30-minute presentation examined ways that bicyclists put themselves in danger, including riding against traffic and not being careful at driveways. The presentation, given by Brian DeSousa of the Orange County Bicycle Coalition, also showed that cyclists sometimes have the right to move into the center of a traffic lane — even if it slows down motorists behind them.
“So how do we train our bicyclists in Newport Beach,” asked Frank Peters of Corona del Mar, a member of the Newport Beach Task Force of Cycling Safety.
“It takes a generation,” replied Pete van Nuys, another Coalition board member. “It’s nothing that happens quickly. Bicyclists are a minority, but the majority needs to get with it.”
The group discussed how to approach cycling safety education, both with police and with the public, as well as the Idaho state law that says cyclists can treat all stop signs as yield signs. “That’s interesting!” Gardner said — but then was told that it was very unlikely ever to become law in California.
(DeSousa’s presentation used information included here; another, shorter presentation can be seen here.)
After the presentation and discussion, Gardner reminded the group that they would have only three more meetings before they disbanded. (Gardner suggested the creation of a task force last fall, in response to several cycling accidents including a fatality; it was approved as a short-term group that would meet only until March.)
“We need a very rough draft of an outline of something to present to Council,” she said. She added that she would draft the outline before the next meeting. The Council will receive the task force report, with supporting documents, and then can direct staff to follow up on elements that could be implemented.
Education and outreach, a sharrow, or shared lane for cycles and motorists, possibly in Corona del Mar, the need for bike racks and an ongoing requirement for new businesses to include racks in their plans, bike maps and other elements all will be included.
“I think they’ll be very positive,” Gardner told the task force members.
The next meeting will be held at 4:30 p.m. Monday Feb. 22.
Read our earlier stories here, here and here.
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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.
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.