Late August ASM News

 Hello Active Sierra Madre friends! 

Bikes are popular at the Saturday morning farmers market, Victory Park (photo: J. Lloyd)

 

Updates: 

• Sierra Madre Blvd Improvements: You may have noticed the construction on Sierra Madre Blvd between Baldwin and Auburn. The city is widening sidewalks, improving ADA access, and pedestrian safety. This project has been in the works for some time, and there are currently no plans for bike lanes on that stretch of Sierra Madre Blvd. The project should help reduce traffic speeds, which will improve safety for everyone, including people on bikes. Getting more bike lanes in Sierra Madre is a worthy goal, but that is something we should advocate as part of the city's updated mobility plan, a process that is in its early stages. Stay tuned! 
  
• New Protected Bike Lanes in Pasadena! Join our friends at Pasadena Complete Streets Coalition (PCSC) for a fun bike ride and celebration of the new protected bike lanes on Union Street in downtown Pasadena! Saturday Sept. 9, 8:30 AM - 11:00 AM. Free. Experience the freedom of riding without fear of cars! The ride starts at Pasadena City Hall. If you don't want to ride the whole way, you can take your bike on the Metro A Line (formerly Gold) from Arcadia Station to Memorial Park station in Pasdena! Register here. 
• Meet & Greet CA Assembly Candidate Jed Leano, Sunday, Sept. 24, 11:00 AM, Sierra Vista Park. In order to get funding for safe streets improvements and better transit, we need state legislators who understand the importance of active mobility and transit. I am hosting a "Meet & Greet" with Jed Leano, a candidate for our state Assembly district, running for Chris Holden's open seat (Holden is terming out and running for CA state Senate). Jed is a Claremont Councilmember who has a solid track record of support for active transportation and transit. He wants to meet Sierra Madreans who care about these things, too. That's you and me! RSVP here! Please feel free to share this event with friends and neighbors who care about these issues, too. Refreshments served.
  

Hot Links: 

• Bicycling Magazine has a inspiring article on the school "Bike Bus" in Portland, OR., "Bike Bus in Portland Gives Us Faith in the Future of Cycling." Parents, let's get something like this started in Sierra Madre! 
• Governing magazine reports on a new study that shows how a public health approach to road safety could save lives. Basically it involves designing streets for safety, not motorist convenience and land use that encourages less driving. 
• Electrek says "It's not an electric bike craze, you're looking at the future of transportation." We couldn't agree more.
  

Back to School, Bike to School!

 Updates: 

• Parents! School is back is session, which means the return of the dreaded school drop off and pickup lines. Everybody hates the traffic, including parents. One way to be part of the solution is to walk or bike to school with your kids, if or when you can. Walking or biking to school is great for kids' health! Even if it's not possible every day, try for one day a week. My daughter and I used to ride to school every Monday when she was in Middle School and High School. It was great parent-child quality time! 
• Farmers market ride! If you're interested in joining us on our (very informal) farmer's market rides every Saturday morning from Sierra Madre to Victory Park, meet on Highland Ave in front of Sierra Madre Elementary by 8:00AM. Email John for info: boyonabike62@gmail.com.

Calendar: 

 

New 2-way protected bike lanes on Union Street in Pasadena! Join us for the ribbon-cutting ceremony at Pasadena City Hall, Saturday Sept. 9! (Photo W. Reutimann)

• Saturday Sept. 9: Union Street Protected Bike Lanes ribbon cutting, 9:00 AM, Pasadena City Hall. Ride on the protected bike lanes follows. 
• Sunday Sept. 24: I'm hosting an informal "meet & greet" with Assembly district 41 candidate Jed Leano, 11:00AM, Sierra Vista Park picnic area. Jed has a strong track record of supporting active transportation as a Councilmember in Claremont, and is running for the open seat in Sierra Madre's Assembly district. It's a great opportunity to meet him and ask questions! (see flyer)
  
  
  
  
• October: Diana Kohne is working on a "bike, walk, and roll to school day" at Sierra Madre Elementary in early October and promises to share a flyer when ready.
  

Hot Links: 

• Electrek shows how much money riding an ebike saved one woman.  
• The New York Times recently ran a series of articles focused on potential dangers of ebikes (thanks for sharing, Bill P.), but the framing of the articles were misguided, in my view. For one thing, the crashes discussed in the articles focused on ebike riders who were killed or injured when they were hit by drivers of cars. Yet the authors' framed the problem as ebikes. The articles also overlooked the essential role of safe infrastructure that keeps all road users safer, or the benefits of ebikes. Ebikes are an amazing, zero emissions mobility tool that are growing in popularity. We should definitely expand bike safety programs in schools and in our community, but safer infrastructure is absolutely necessary to accommodate this new mobility alternative.
  

Summertime News and Hot Links

 Hello Active Sierra Madre! 

It's been a while since my last email, but there has been a lot happening, so I want to get you all caught up. 

News: 

• New format: I am using Google's Blogger to post our newsletters because it gives me more options to share a wider variety of links, videos, and images with you, it's shareable on a wider variety of platforms, and it provides a space where folks new to our group can find information and where everyone can find an archive of our posts. I'm not a graphic designer, so I'm keeping it simple. Let me know what you think! 
• Transportation Subcommittee News: I've been asked to serve on the city's new Transportation Subcommittee, which is a subcommittee of the Community Services Commission and works with city staff and Commissioners to address a wide variety of transportation needs in Sierra Madre. We will be exploring opportunities to improve transit connectivity in town, which is especially important for transit dependent folks. The issue has become more pressing since Metro suspended regular bus service to Sierra Madre in June 2020, and replaced it with Metro Micro, a ride-hailing service that has some advantages, but also some limitations compared with regular bus service. There will be important opportunities for community engagement in the future, which I will keep you appraised of.
  
• We are still waiting for the Complete Streets Safety Assessment report from Berkeley Safe TREC and I hope to share some information when we have it.

 

Community members and city staff participated in a complete streets safety assessment with Berkeley SafeTREC researchers in June. 

Upcoming Events:

• Mark Your Calendars! Celebrate Pasadena's first 2-way protected bike lanes on Union Street with  a ribbon cutting and bike ride, Saturday, September 9, at Pasadena City Hall. Time TBA. If anyone wants to take your bike on the Metro from Arcadia Station to Memorial Park Station to participate in the bike ride, let me know. 
• School starts soon and it's not to early to mark your calendars for Walk, Bike, and Roll to School Day, October 4, 2023.
  

Summer Travel: 

• I recently returned from a car-free vacation trip to Carlsbad, riding my ebike to the Arcadia Station, taking the Metro to Union Station, and then the Metrolink OC Line to Oceanside. It was a short, pleasant bike ride from the Oceanside Transit Center to Carlsbad on the Coastal Rail Trail and well-maintained bike lanes. I was impressed with the improvements the cities down in North San Diego County are making for walking and biking, including protected bike lanes. As a result you see a wide variety of people of all ages using bikes (and particularly ebikes) to get around for local trips. They seem to be much farther along than we are here in the San Gabriel Valley. It makes me wonder why the cities down there seem to have more political will and vision than we do. It is important to remember that political will here can be changed, however.
  
• Enjoy some images from my bike-train trip that show some of the great bike infrastructure in North County, San Diego: