Save the bike lanes - Solana Beach to Cardiff Kook!

[karlos]

NCCC bike riders - especially Encinitas residents

Most of you are unaware of a $500K project to remove the current bike lanes we've been riding for years along this 1.3 mile stretch, adjacent to south Cardiff beach. In their place will be a Class IV protected bikeway (aka "cycletrack") with these features:
1. Northbound from Solana Beach, the bike lane will have a left buffer with flexible poles to provide "protection" from adjoining traffic. There will also be wheelstops the whole way (those 4" high rubber bump stops in parking lots to make sure you stop correctly). The wheel stop barrier will have 10' gaps for cyclists to enter and exit. At 15 mph which is 22 ft/sec, a cyclist will have < 0.5 sec to pop through those gaps into traffic to avoid debris, slow cyclists, runners, etc.
2. Southbound from Chesterfield, the treatment will be the same, but where there is parking along the beach, the parked cars will provide the barrier and cyclists will be riding to the right of the parked cars.

The purpose of this project is to attract the "interested but concerned" population who currently do not ride here because of the adjacent traffic.

The NCCC Board has voted to oppose this project and President Norval Lyon's letter is attached for reference and as an example how you can lend your voice to the opposition.

This hastily conceived, with no public outreach, project will be voted on this Wednesday, Sept. 25. If you oppose, please send your letter to council@encinitasca.gov and specifically urge Encinitas City Council to Vote NO on Sept. 25 Agenda Item 10B: South Coast Highway 101 Mobility Enhancements Project. Every single letter counts (they keep a tally) and if you are an Encinitas resident, your vote matters even more.

Even better, show up at the meeting which starts at 6pm Wed Sept 25, Encinitas City Hall,505 South Vulcan Avenue. Norval and I will be speaking, but the more voices the better. If you want to speak, don't be afraid, it can even be a short 20 seconds to urge them to vote NO. Even your presence as a non-speaker will show audience support, especially if you ride your bike  .

Thanks,
Karl Rudnick
copy me at rudnick.cooper@gmail.com when you send in your letter, please

Below is a cartoon image the Encinitas Mayor is using to urge support

[Lisa Ruby]

Thank you Karl and Norvil. I just sent an e-mail to the Encinitas City Council using the e-mail provided by Karl in his post. Only took a few minutes. I did a copy and paste of Norvil's letter into my e-mail and modified it some using my own words. I signed it with my name and the tagline A concerned San Diego County cyclist, since I don't live in Encinitas. Urging everyone to pitch in and do the same.  Lisa

[karlos]

Thanks, Lisa. I also sent the same letter everyone of you should have received to ALL 370 expired members in our membership database. I'm sure they're all still riding their bikes 

[karlos]

Peter Scott gave me the go-ahead to share the letter that he sent in. Another good example because of its brevity and strength, imo. We all thank you, Peter!

Subject: Agenda item 10B. South coast Hwy 101 mobility enhancement project.
Dear Mayor and members of the Encinitas city council,

As a Carlsbad resident and active member of the North County Cycling club and the greater cycling community in general I would strongly urge you to vote NO on the aforementioned agenda item at your regular meeting this Wednesday evening, Sept. 25.

While this drastic and expensive change is possibly well intended it will also have undoubted and dangerous unintended consequences.

As proven over the years by the similar 'cycletrak' south of W. K street, cyclists simply do NOT use this lane.

Adding more will only result in one thing, more injuries and deaths by forcing riders into the general high speed vehicle traffic lanes especially in light of the ever increasing phenomenon of drivers who would rather look at their phones than the road.

Respectfully,

Peter B. Scott
Carlsbad resident.

[karlos]

All - Note that it is good to expressly include Item 10B as Peter did in the Subject of his email: "Agenda item 10B. South coast Hwy 101 mobility enhancement project." Also, refer to that agenda item for a NO vote as Peter did. I'm sure they will get it, but some bean counters could overlook it. You would like to think people are smart enough, but ...
It is also good to include your street address and phone number, should they want to know where you're from or even give you a ring (highly unlikely due to the volume of letters I know they are getting on this project)

[karlos]

Sharing my comments on the outcome of the Council Meeting to another group here... (red are some clarification for NCCC folks)

[...]I would like to add that Andy Hanshaw (Exec. Dir. of San Diego County Bicycle Coalition) did a good job of covering the points in the letter (support but with nearly all the same concerns I had). I think his remarks, as well as points made by people completely opposed as well as those with real concerns, were important for Encinitas Council to hear. Council members also remarked that they were amazed at the opposition letters, mostly because each was individually written, not following a form template that happens so many times in opposition statements. I think those letters played a big role in Council Member Kranz's statement before public comment that they were flexible in amending the plan. In the end, 5-0 in favor of the Class IV with the addition of sharrows/BMUFL (Bikes May Use Full Lane signs) from the get-go. They also indicated, along with the engineer, that some flexibility might involve further tweaks re: traffic calming, bike racks at the beach, even speed tables somewhere. I know that I and almost everyone I ride with can live with that. I do worry there may be people "in between" who find the cycletrack too inefficient or not to their liking who also may be uncomfortable with lane control. I'm REALLY glad Andy mentioned an Education component; also in my prepared remarks that I never got to because time was cut from 3 minutes to 2. EdComm should come up with ideas to educate people on using the cycletracks AND motorists on why cyclists will be in the #2 lane, which for many of us is an improvement - a MUCH wider huge bike lane where we can really cruise 😉! I would volunteer to help organize and lead a Community Ride kickoff - round trip Cardiff to Solana Beach on Class IV, + optional 2nd roundtrip in the #2 lane for both the experienced and an educational opportunity for those to feel what it's like as we do in our Smart Cycling road sessions. I believe Encinitas resident and fellow LCI Kristine Schindler would help with that and she may also have more, better ideas in addition to that.

2 minute sound bites, because of 33 speakers, were tough, and I certainly stumbled personally adjusting my prepared 3 minutes. I still would have preferred all the same people, maybe even more, in a public workshop setting prior to Enc. Staff presenting a design to be voted on. It was important, for me, to listen to those in favor. I would say speakers for/against(or concerned) was split roughly 50-50. What I learned, despite the fact that I KNOW this corridor has probably the highest usage and highest safety rating (that hardly ever happens, btw), is that people are truly fearful of riding their bikes there. I tended to think it was only families with kids, and there were some of those, but there was a Cardiff resident who works in Solana Beach who tried to commute once and was scared to death returning northbound out of Solana Beach. Having ridden that probably ~1-2,000 times, saying "whee" every time, truly gave me pause. Despite the fact that I KNOW education and encouragement could make them comfortable eventually on this segment, it's evident we can't get them in the classroom, so I really hope to see that this facility gets more people out of their cars. We'll see. So, even the 2 minute sound bites provided a simulated workshop, but of course, no conversation was allowed which really would have been useful for even better understanding. But it has to be left as "good enough." I really appreciated Mayor Blakespear's no-nonsense approach to "getting things done" without a lot of fiddling. It helped me understand my questions concerning haste, since Solana Beach engineers first saw the plan mid-July and I first heard of it 2nd week in August. That seemed like a rush-job until she explained so well that, given an opportunity, they grabbed it and pushed it. All their comments indicated they ALL prefer a road diet to one lane each way, a 35 mph speed limit, a wide real CRT on the beach side for the "interested but concerned" and walkers/runners, and wide buffered bike lanes for those who bypass the CRT experience. This was the classic "don't let perfect be the enemy of the good." I thought the plan without modification could not even be called "good." After the meeting with the amendments discussed, I felt it was a little better than "lipstick on a pig" at least.

Another item for future is measuring before/after bike volume. Since electronic counters are not there, maybe we gather volunteers to do it by hand. Done all the time.

Glad everyone who spoke came. It made a real difference in the amendment, and an acceptable outcome to me.

Karl

[karlos]

Just to be sure everyone understands the vote. The regular bike lanes will be replaced by the new protected cycletracks both northbound and southbound. Our groups should avoid them, especially southbound. We got Encinitas City Council to agree to add sharrows and Bikes May Use Full Lane signs in the adjacent travel lane. So our groups will be controlling those lanes over the sharrows just as you do southbound now through Leucadia and Solana Beach. This just keeps sharrows "all the way" on the ocean side from La Costa to Via de la Valle (with a few bike lanes scattered along the way). So, don't think of it as LOSING a bike lane, but GAINING a great big travel lane to use fully