By David J Keulen
Special to the OC Voice

Riding a bicycle can be fantastic in Huntington Beach. The city has all the right ingredients for a pleasant ride….lovely weather, wide roads, and almost exclusively flat terrain.  Plus the recent economic downturn has illustrated the advantages of changing to a means of local transportation that is convenient, healthy, and low-cost, in other words, cycling.

Dave Kuelen demonstrates the fun of bike riding in Surfcity.

Of course, there’s just one problem, namely the mega-ton four-wheeled vehicles that also course over the same roads that lead to the beach, the store , the schools. Virtually everyone who has ridden a bicycle anywhere other than on the beach bike paths has experienced a potentially life-threatening near-miss with a car. As an experienced bike rider, unfortunately one begins to take this for granted and hopefully learns to be extra cautious, learning to anticipate dangerous situations in advance in order to avoid a collision that will inevitably injury the bike rider more than the driver of the car.

But it doesn’t have to be so dangerous. All across the United States numerous cities have begun to see the value of bicycling for both transportation and recreation, and have incorporated cycling access, parking, and education into their municipal infrastructure. These aren’t bicycling fanatics, but are city planners and transportation engineers involved with issues such as public safety.  And, of course, it is a public safety issue, not a private safety issue that can be solved by wearing a helmet , a reflective vest, and using a special kind of bicycle. If the city environment is engineered with cycling as a defined part of the transportation package, it becomes safer and more viable.

As I mentioned, cities across the United States now compete to be designated as cycling-friendly communities, with designations such as bronze, silver, gold and platinum. These designations are based primarily on the amount of designated bicycle paths and lanes available, but also include other issues such as bicycle safety courses in the school, parking for bicycles , and incorporating bicycle use into other public transit systems, i.e. bike racks on buses. As of April 2009 more than 90 U.S. communities were designated as being bicycle friendly. Those who are interested in more detail should refer to The League of American Cyclists, www.bikeleague.org, which is the oldest cycling advocacy group in the United States.

So where do we start in Huntington Beach, Surf City, USA? (The other Surf City, by the way, is a silver-rated bicycle friendly city.) First of all, RIDE YOUR BIKE! That’s the only way you are going to know what’s good and what is bad. Then go to City Hall, by bicycle if possible, and ask for the Bicycle Plan of Huntington Beach. There is one, actually, and it is part of the City of Huntington Beach General Plan. If you ride about the city, you will notice that Huntington Beach actually does have a number of bike lanes, including some Class 1 trails, which are off-road by definition. These are primarily the beach bike trail and the trails along the Santa Ana River drainage channel. Many of the on-road bike lanes are quite wide and run for blocks, such as the bike lanes on Newland Ave. This lane could be almost perfect, since there is no parking allowed for blocks, except for one thing: there are no barriers between the car lane and the bike lane. The lack of this very simple thing is what makes all the difference in the world for safety and security. A simple low plastic curbing between the bicycle lane and the car lane is often all it takes to keep a cell-phone talking driver (or cyclist for that matter) from wandering out of their lane into a potentially lethal collision. This very low-cost engineering measure would instantly create miles of safer bicycle lanes in Huntington Beach on existing bike lanes.

There are countless other means of engineering traffic lanes to make them safer for cycling. Interested cyclists are encouraged to visit 2^nd Street in Belmont Shores, which as just created green, share-the-road lanes in the crowded downtown area that spans a few blocks. Here cyclists are designated by very visible signage to have the right to use the right lane in both directions, instead of feeling forced to ride the gauntlet between the parked cars and the traffic lane.

As mentioned before, these measures aren’t expensive, the costs being quite modest, compared with the cost of a lawsuit against the city. The main issue is one of education and having the political will to treat cycling for transportation on par with driving as transportation. More than once I have been cycling along a designated bicycle path to suddenly be stopped dead by a road maintenance sign completely blocking the bicycle lane. If someone completely blocked a car traffic lane it would not be tolerated, but the transportation department needs to be educated as well.

So pump up those tires and start riding, then start talking to your city council, fire department, police department and traffic safety department to let them know that you use a bicycle for transportation and expect the city to provide you and your family and friends with  safely-engineered streets. Who knows, maybe Surf City, USA could also become a  bicycle friendly community. Come on, if San Jose can do it, I think we could as well.

David J Keulen is an MD who resides in Huntington Beach.