Beverly Hills Pounds Final Nail in Bike Lanes Coffin

GETTING THERE FROM HERE-If you expected that Beverly Hills might install bicycle lanes on our segment of Santa Monica Boulevard when reconstructing it next year, you will be sorely disappointed to know that City Council just pounded the final nail into the bike lanes coffin. City Council split on the Blue Ribbon Committee recommendation to expand the corridor and stripe lanes, with majority councilmembers Willie Brien and Nance Krasne and (Mayor) Julian Gold saying “thanks but no thanks” to lanes. That’s a clear rebuke to the scores of pro-lane speakers who addressed Council and their decision flies in the face of hundreds of supportive comments to date. 

The prospect of putting bicycle lanes on North Santa Monica Boulevard as part of the corridor’s reconstruction seemed promising just last year.  Advocates put on the table a ‘Greenway’ proposal that would include lanes yet sacrifice no Beverly Gardens parkland. But even though Council this week agreed to a wider boulevard that could accommodate bicycle lanes, a three-member majority of Brien, Gold and Krasne agreed among themselves that riders in this city – and from the region beyond – simply don’t need lanes. 

The rationale that brought Councilmember Krasne to that conclusion? She believes that Santa Monica Boulevard is too dangerous for riders (whom she in the past has labeled with some humor as “organ donors”). She “loves the cyclists” but prefers that we ride somewhere else. The alternate route she recommends is South Santa Monica. (Read the rest at Mark Elliot’s excellent Better Bike blog here.)

-cw

 

 

CityWatch

Vol 13 Issue 61

Pub: Jul 28, 2015