Steve Lopez finds a battle of wills on Santa Monica Beach bike path

It's another lovely day at the beach in Santa Monica, with a light spring breeze blowing across the sun-dappled sea and cyclists pedaling stress-free along the bike path.

Paradise. Nirvana. Whatever you call it, we're lucky mugs to have a tranquil respite from the urban madness and permanent bottlenecks.

But wait. Do I see a collision in the making?

A woman is pushing a stroller, a teenager is on a skateboard, a man is walking a dog on a leash -- all of them idling along on a path that's marked BIKES ONLY -- and here comes a cyclist, closing in on this knot of nudniks. The cyclist slows, he weaves, he shoots past them and all are safe. But it doesn't always work out like that.

"It happened right here," Jon Louis Mann is telling me as he replays an accident that happened about a week ago. "I was heading south and there's a guy standing in the bike lane with a dog on a leash, and he's talking to another guy."

Read Steve's full column here.

Comments

[gdub]

some years ago when i lived in venice i delibertly rode my bicycle on ocean front walk up to an oncoming lapd cruiser. they asked me to stop. i did and complained about the skaters and pedistrians on the bike path. yeah, they gave me a ticket and went on about their way.

[bikinginla]

I long ago stopped riding the Marvin Braude bike path through Santa Monica and Venice on weekends, when it becomes virtually impassible, and try not to use it after noon in the summertime. As an experienced cyclist, I find it's more challenging — and more dangerous — to ride there during peak hours than at rush hour on virtually any street in the city.

[kyoseki]

Whilst the ideal solution would be to add fences or barriers to stop people wandering across the bike path at critical spots (like parking lots where people just run out from behind cars), I can practically guarantee that they solve this problem by instituting a 10mph speed limit on the bike path and put up lots of signs telling bikers to avoid pedestrians rather than the other way around.

It seems that pedestrians are regarded as little more than cattle by the legislature and are seemingly exempted from having to pay attention to what they're doing or even think for themselves.

[Walker]

I'm curious about the plan mentioned in this column to extend the pedestrian walkway north of the Santa Monica Pier. Is this a widening of the bike path to accommodate walkers? Or is it a separate path? Is it directly on the beach? If anyone has a link to this Metro plan, I'd be very interested to know more about it.

[tricia]

it is with great gratitude that i read this story. i love riding my bike on the bike path but i spend the majority of time yelling at the pedestrians to GET OFF THE BIKE PATH. there needs to be a delineation or a gate of some kind that really separates the walkers from the bikers. and bikers do NOT include women with baby strollers. there also needs to be aggressive ticketing of people who walking on it. it creates a huge danger, not helped by the SUPER bikers who use the leisurely path as their olympic training ground, who are almost as dangerous as the walkers. the main thing i see with the bikers is that they want to walk on the beach not back away from it which is where a large part of the walking path is, so they use our path instead. it's a serious pain.