Comments of the Week: Bike Plan

A first draft of the  was released this week, and Patch columnist to share their opinions on the plan.

With seven participating cities—Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach, El Segundo, Gardena, Lawndale, and Torrance—the plan is an effort to interconnect the areas with bicycle transit ways among other proposals.

Here are some of the comments Patch received:

• "While bike plans are all about the details of policies, networks, signage, etc.. what the plan represents for me is a major stepping stone for our area. It is our region embracing cycling as not just a recreational or sporting activity—but as a truly viable and accepted transportation method. With approximately 250 miles of bikeway proposed in the plan—it provides a real blue print for interconnecting the people of the South Bay with their neighbors and their neighborhoods."—wrote .

• "The seven cities sponsoring the Plan are embracing a 21st century reality in which we have to reduce dependancy on fossil fuel, protect our environment and take better care of ourselves and our children. Walking and biking contribute to all of these objectives. Please come to the Bike Master Plan workshops in any of the three Beach Cities and let your voices be heard."—wrote .

• "Today is a profound step forward for transportation in our region. We are at a milestone reached as the community, elected leadership, and city staff from seven cities came together with a shared vision of our future. We have a first draft of a tangible plan in hand. With it, we envision a future with more than 200 miles of safe and healthy bikeways radically improving accessibility and encouraging bicycle use. As we get more public feedback we will shortly have a final draft that will allow our children to safely get to school, our adults to get to work, and our families to get to recreation all arriving with the smile that results from riding a bike."—wrote .

• "Hermosa Beach already has bike lanes on the Strand and Hermosa Ave that run from one end of the city to the other..Why now must they clog up Valley and Ardmore and every single major east-west street? Ardmore is too small of a street to have the sharrows—I ride my bike down this street now and stick as close to the gutter as I can—the sharrows will do the same as they have done on Hermosa Ave (cyclists will take the entire lane) causing traffic in both directions to have to cross the center lane into oncoming traffic to get around them. I'm a fan of biking and do it fairly often, but not a fan of this plan."—wrote .

• "In my opinion, the sharrows they have now on Hermosa Avenue are a disaster, but will be worse when they are used much more in the summer. Poor signage and cyclists that ride more than two abreast cause confusion and a dangerous situation for both drivers and riders. There must be a better option than putting the riders on the Strand or Valley/Ardmore. Time will tell as the summer is almost here. God Bless our Law Enforcement officers, but the only enforcement I have seen is the placement of more electric message boards warning drivers and riders to obey the laws of the road. In 44 years of driving and bike riding here in Hermosa Beach, I have only seen one person pulled over on a bike for an infraction. That was down by the Chart House, on Harbor Drive, and there was a crew from the TV show "COPS" filing it... Go figure!"—wrote .

Coming up: Check Patch on Sundays for our weekly roundup of the latest Hermosa Beach headlines in the Week in Review.