Some cyclists want to strip Santa Monica of biking award

Santa Monica is known as a bicycle-friendly place, but a local group is demanding that an award given to the city by a national bike-riding advocacy organization be returned, claiming police and officials are not concerned enough with bicyclists' safety.

Here's more from the Santa Monica Daily Press:

Co-founder of BikeRoWave, a local not-for-profit bike repair shop, and writer of the Cyclists' Bill of Rights, Alex Thompson has created a petition demanding a revision of the bronze award given to Santa Monica by the League of American Bicyclists, an organization centered in Washington, D.C., with a goal of promoting safe bicycle riding.

"I don't think it's deserved," Thompson said of the award. "I feel the requirements for the bronze award are insanely weak."

Photo: Cyclists ride through a park in Santa Monica. Credit: Spencer Weiner / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[bikinginla]

As a cyclist who rides through Santa Monica at least a couple times a week, I appreciate the steps the city has taken to promote cycling, such as bike valets and an effective grid of bike lanes that actually connect to one another.

On the other hand, I have to balance that against a complete lack of enforcement when it comes to people parking, driving in or otherwise blocking those bike lanes, and the fact that the prize jewel of the city bike system — the Marvin Braude bike path along the beach — is virtually unridable much of the time, as the Times' own Steve Lopez has noted, due to total lack of enforcement of the no-pedestrian rules. So I'd have to agree that Santa Monica's Bronze Award was unjustified.

On the other hand, they're light years ahead of Los Angeles.