BY DAVE PRICE
Daily Post Editor
You know those new bike lanes on El Camino Real that nobody uses? They were forced on Palo Alto and other cities by Caltrans. Now some cities are ripping them out. They say they’re hurting the businesses who need the parking that the lanes eliminated.
Bike advocates are pushing a bill (SB569) to make removal nearly impossible.
The bill adds a bunch of red tape to delay any effort to remove bike lanes, and it prevents the removal of lanes built with state money for 20 years.
The bill is authored by Sen. Catherine Blakespear, D-Encinitas, and sponsored by the California Bicycle Coalition (CalBike).
An earlier version of SB569 gave cities more authority to remove homeless encampments, but it wasn’t going anywhere. So Blakespear removed all of the language about homelessness and replaced it with CalBike’s plan to save bike lanes. Legislators are much more enthusiastic about catering to the bicycle lobby than they are combatting the homelessness crisis.
The “bicycle lobby” is totally out of control, as are it’s members. Woodside Rd. now has 3 or 4 miles of extra wide bike lanes, next to “no parking” red zone curbs. Some businesses are now barely accessible … except of course, by bikes! 🙂