Editor:
It is difficult to select which Daily Press front-page photo is more ironic — the shot of the biker riding in the auto lane to illustrate the green bike lanes of Ocean Park Boulevard ("Ocean Park Boulevard goes green," Jan. 15), or the perfectly staged pedestrians ("Work begins on beach bike path to help cyclists, peds coexist," Jan. 31) walking within their new lane as precision cyclists couples, each two by two, use their now smaller lanes to equanimously share the old bikeway.
Get real! It took years of studies and lots of taxes to finally layout and build the serpentine bikeway, only to have it turn into a dog walk, baby carriage, dog pulling a skateboarder, inline-skater pushing a baby carriage and skater way.
When the 1983 winter storm took parts of the bikeway out, no one repaired it in time for the 1984 Olympics. A bag or two of cold patch here and there should do it! Yet you think some paint is going to make all well in Santa Monica?
I was walking on Wilshire Boulevard last week going east on the sidewalk near the banks and stores before Banana Republic. Office workers in suits and ties flooded out onto the sidewalk and we all were bumped by bicyclists on the sidewalk who had disdain and frustration for the pedestrians using the sidewalk. If the cyclists, riding side by side on the sidewalk were local, they should have been ticketed and fined. If they were tourists then the person who rented them the cycles should be fined for not clearly explaining the rules of rental biking.
There are no rules in Santa Monica. Going to the Santa Monica Pier? Take Seaside Terrace to Appian Way standing up on a bike, don't wear a helmet, don't bother to obey stop signs and rules of the road. Just stand up while going downhill to the beach. Mow down pedestrians if they get in the way. You can stay connected with wireless, smoke and drink a custom coffee — all while biking.
If you dare to walk, don't mess with the "train" of real cyclists who travel to and fro. They don't like the bike paths recently provided on Main Street through Venice and Santa Monica; they prefer Pacific/Ocean/Neilson Way. Go figure.
Those who are upset with things in the city can go to City Hall on foot to complain. But remember, the newer three-way stop signs in front of City Hall at "Little Olympic" don't pertain to cyclists. In fact cyclists and skateboarders use pedestrians as slalom cones. Too bad the schools stopped teaching physics and geometry. The hell-bent movers can't judge movement and speed to save a life. They zig when they should zag.
Cassidy Ford
Santa Monica
