Comments on: Cognitive Dissonance at City Hall

By: Madam_S

Madam_S — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:47:49 +0000

Mixed use has many benefits, and each project or location doesn’t have to provide all of them to be valuable.

The idea is to have homes, stores, and other work places spread around. This reduces driving distances and therefore reduces traffic in general. Every time you can walk from one point to the next (bakery to wine store, for example), you are reducing traffic.

Saying that mixed use is a failure if everyone can’t walk to work is ridiculous. That’s like saying don’t wear seatbelts because they won’t always save your life.

We have to do ALL these things: bring high-paying jobs, flesh out our “villages”, support alternatives to one-person-one-car transportation, and improve our roads.

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By: SCVTalk.com » Blog Archive » Ugh – Time to eat crow

SCVTalk.com » Blog Archive » Ugh – Time to eat crow — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:27:38 +0000

[...] I wrote a pretty strong post about the City not living up to its own rhetoric about being bike friendly. I cited two examples [...]

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By: Jim Farley

Jim Farley — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 01:44:08 +0000

When KK said he ‘took umbrage’ I imediately went to check to make sure he didn’t get mine. Fortunately I found it so I will be able to rest comfortably in the shade in the future.

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By: townbeet

townbeet — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 01:00:12 +0000

Valencia Joe: You mean they were delayed for school and work by the car drivers that wouldn’t pass the bicyclist? The McBean I have riden on has side walks not bike lanes northbound from Granary Square.The sidewalk by target and on the bridge is pretty narrow and the one on Bridgeport is full of pedestrians and makes bicycling impossible. West of Granary Mcbean there is a skinny side walk around HMNMH and after that there is no space for bicyclists since the space where a sidewalk should be is a grassy strip, and thick protruding tree roots make riding anything other than a mountain bike impossible. Cars drive 45-to 55 mpr even though by law bicyclists can ride on the street albeit close to the curb. Here is a link to that law. http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d11/vc21202.htm

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By: spineflower2

spineflower2 — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 23:31:05 +0000

Tell me how OVOV is going to create businesses paying salaries in excess of $100K and then we can start to talk about “villages.” Until then, it’s just a planner’s wet dream.

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By: Valencia Joe

Valencia Joe — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 19:46:22 +0000

I think that instead of spending money on restriping to create bike lanes where they are not needed (DECORO!), the City ought to spend that money to educate the motorist and the cyclist with respect to sharing the road. I have witnessed on many occasions the instance where the sole bike rider is taking up a lane of traffic on a major street (McBean) where there is a dedicated bike lane on the sidewalk to his left. The arrogance that this one cyclist had that morning just infuriated the drivers trying to avoid him while driving to work.

Education needs to be for both sides.

’nuff said.

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By: navigator

navigator — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 19:23:55 +0000

How about a motorcycle lane???

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By: Need for Involved Citizenry

Need for Involved Citizenry — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 19:20:46 +0000

The regular joe should care about what the City is doing (or says they are doing) with bike lanes because between biking, increased use of public transportation, a whole slew of new roads and restriping (which often times will wipe out the bike lanes) will solve all the traffic problems arising from the OVOV population growth. Oh – and by the way, OVOV won’t address the Newhall Pass because all the new folks will work in the SCV and the Pass is out of the “Planning” area. As Gauney says – the folks who work at the Hyatt (or the mall or much of the industrial center) don’t live in the SCV but instead commute from the SFV or AV. The only way this could work would be for all the new residential units to be low income (which the City does not have the balls to require from their developer friends).

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By: mike c

mike c — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 19:19:16 +0000

Rememember Pardee is going to punch a road that connects Sierra Highway (just north of Soledad) to Whites/Plums Canyon…it is part of their proposed development. They gave a presentation at the Canyon Country Advisory Comm. meeting

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By: townbeet

townbeet — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 18:56:14 +0000

This whole thing is an image problem. Imho bicycling in this city is viewed as something mostly done for recreation and mostly in nylon-clad wear. The people who bicycle home after washing cars , the single- speed-bike riding youths or the other occasional white collar bike commuters do not figure in our collective definition of bicycling in SCV. Unless the city and all bike afficionatos clearly care to frame or address the need to accept bicyling as a way of transport in SCV why would the regular taxpayer really care?

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