The OpEd Unfit to Print

How Laguna Beach Got its Sharrows

What 8 years of community organizing failed to accomplish the LB City Council achieved by decree: 'Yea it Shall Be, Yea Verily it Shall Be Done!' The long awaited alternative bike-route through Laguna Beach will be completed in February. Every manner of community bike-rides, task force meetings, public workshops, firesides, potlucks and drum-circles tried but failed to inflate the agenda bill. But fear of litigation for compensatory damages (French, Pettis, Deem, Fitzpatrick, Colvin, the homeless ) brings municipal focus and commitment like a bike end-O. Last October our city committed to finish a bike-route, any bike-route, to improve street safety for LB cyclists.

 

But damn the torpedoes, design process, engineering review, stakeholders and those safety rankings from State collision reports, it's political engineering that gets stuff done in Laguna Beach. If you think these bicycle Sharrows are a miracle, wait till CalTRANS plows the Canyon HOV lane and the merry-GO-roundabouts. How 'bout a LCR bi-lingual bike and pedestrian pathway for Parents Without Partners?

Four of five OC Newspaper would not print this commentary.       -LS