March
2004

International bicycling symposium features Mayor Marty Blum



Mayor Marty Blum (left) discussed local bicycling before leaving for Washington with the Bicycle Coalition's Dru van Hengel and Ralph Fertig. Photo by Ralph Fertig.

• This March 4th, Santa Barbara Mayor Marty Blum will address attendees at the International Symposium on Bicycle Friendly Communities in Washington DC. The symposium is sponsored by the national League of American Bicyclists, the organization that recognized Santa Barbara last year as one of our country's "Bicycle-Friendly" Communities.
• The symposium is open to mayors and municipal elected officials from around the world. The opening address will be given by Enrique Penalosa, the mayor of Bogata, Columbia, who is responsible for initiating car-free days that have become very popular and successful.
• Mayor Blum will offer a 15-minute afternoon presentation about what the City, its staff, the Bicycle Coalition, and all us great bicyclists have accomplished here. On February 13, Bicycle Coalition president Ralph Fertig and the City's mobility coordinator Dru van Hengel met with Blum for over an hour discussing achievements that promote local bicycling. We feel that she has more than enough material to impress everybody.
• The event will certainly promote bicycling in Santa Barbara, but more important, it will bring elected officials together to discuss how to best encourage more bicycling in their communities. We hope that a video of the conference will be available so we can all learn what happened.

Goleta cycling club proposes partnership



Host for the People Powered Ride Brooks Firestone meets with GVCC members for breakfast on February 14 to discuss regional bicycling issues. Photo by Ralph Fertig.

• The Goleta Valley Cycling Club (GVCC), a South Coast bicycling group with over 130 members, has proposed that we join them in producing and sharing profits from their annual People Powered Ride (PPR).
• The ride, now in its 25th year, attracts several hundred cyclists for three rides up to 100 miles long. Because they have done it for so many consecutive years, most of the details are easily duplicated. However, every ride takes volunteers to help mark the courses, register, staff food stops, patrol the course, troubleshoot emergencies, and clean up afterwards.
• Areas where the GVCC feels we could be especially helpful are obtaining permits (from the CHP, Sheriff, City of Solvang, the County), raising additional sponsors for food and raffle prizes, supplying home-made goodies to eat, promotion to regional cyclists, and designing needed art.
• On February 14, the GVCC held its monthly meeting and discussed PPR issues with Brooks Firestone who offers his ranch facilities near Los Olivos for the ride start and post-ride party. The Club voted to partner with us if we decide to accept.
• We previously considered having our own ride May 15th during Bike Week, but no decision was reached. So the questions before us now are whether we're willing to help with fund raisers like the PPR, like a Bike Week ride, both, or neither. This important issue will be discussed at our March 2nd monthly meeting.

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Looking up the road

Word from the President, by Ralph Fertig

• I love the bicycle. It's the ultimate mechanical construction that carries its human load with unparalleled efficiency. Honed over 150 years by thousands of tinkerers, engineers and visionaries, the bicycle has moved closer to perfection one idea at a time.
• One day I watch lean racers whooshing by in a blur of speed. Next I see a little girl circling on her pretty pink bike with whitewall tires, her helmet fanciful with decals. Then I watch workers pedaling home from lower-income jobs on secondhand bikes. And young kids zipping around their neighborhoods on BMX bikes. The people and uses for offspring of this magnificent invention go on and on.
• The bicycle is what it does. That's what it does for the rider and what it does for our community. It gets you to work while you're getting exercise. It propels you around cars stuck in congestion, getting you to the store and out while they're still looking for a place to park their SUVs. It bonds you and your family on trips to the beach and the ice cream parlor. It saves fuel, reduces pollution, saves the landfill, saves paving for car parking, provides more room for trees and birds and animals, it allows people to see and greet one another—and to grin because we share a secret way to live that others barely imagine.
• The Bicycle Coalition has begun its fourteenth year of making things better for us all. Opportunities to share the fun of getting around by bike abound. I look forward to helping us spring into heightened visibility and greater effectiveness in the coming months. With our collective energy and imagination, we can forge a safer, more human community for us all. Let's mount up and start pedaling toward the light.

Coalition may partner on kids SB bike project

• We may look back on February 2nd as an important date in Bicycle Coalition projects. On that day, Lorriane Cruz Carpenter from Looking Good Santa Barbara (LGSB) phoned the Bicycle Coalition's Ralph Fertig. Their group was considering a project, perhaps for one summer, that involved reusing bicycles and getting them to kids who need them.
• Although the main motivation of LGSB is in reducing solid waste in landfills, the program immediately resembled the Santa Barbara Bike Project that we were involved in the mid-1990s. The idea was considered at our Bicycle Coalition meeting on February 3rd, and our new Board Member Nancy Mulholland agreed to join Fertig at an upcoming LGSB committee meeting to work on the project.
• That February 18th meeting of six people resulted in a flurry of possibilities. Bonnie Switack, Assistant Principal at Santa Barbara Junior High, suggested testing a bike program with a small student group at her school. It could lead to week-long, afternoon summer sessions for students who will be entering the Junior High in the fall. And bikes and parts might be stored in their large basement. Bike classes might even be held there.
• Portland's Community Cycling Center program was described, and the group considered hiring them as consultants to help set up a similar program here. The use of local bike mechanics to direct bike repair and reconstruction from rescued bike parts was considered.
• Steven McIntosh from the City's Solid Waste Division wanted to make sure that students learned the value of recycling things. The possibility of a League of American Bicyclists' licensed instructor to teach bike handling skills also was discussed. Involving mechanics from UCSB's Bike Shop, or those from Santa Barbara Middle School's program were also brought up.
• Overall, the importance of helmets, bike safety instruction and actual riding was stressed. Just giving kids bikes won't result in many benefits, for the kids or for our community. More meetings are coming for this venture. Carpenter is coordinating things; if you have ideas, contact her at 386-2361 or cruz.carpenter@verizon.com.

February Coalition meeting topics

• Our February 3rd Bicycle Coalition meeting attracted 16 people who discussed many issues facing us, including these:
• Matt Dobberteen described an update of the County's Goleta Transportation Improvement Plan (now excluding the new City of Goleta). Six people volunteered to form a committee with Matt to review bicycle project priorities.
• Drew Hunter volunteered to work with the Goleta Valley Cycling Club concerning their proposal to partner with us on the People Powered Ride this October.
• Erika Lindemann said that plans for Bike Week are progressing, and an initial meeting will be held in late February.
• Ralph Fertig described data that compares bicycling and walking at Santa Barbara City intersections.
• Gary Wissman asked for an accountant to help him complete the federal and California tax forms. He will investigate possibilities.
• Officers and Board members were elected.
• Ralph Fertig described Santa Barbara Earth Day preparation. Eric Schwartz suggested an expanded bike area. We will keep our booth in the Courthouse sunken garden, and bike checkups and parking on the street.
• Ralph Fertig reported that Looking Good Santa Barbara is proposing a bike recycling program for kids. Nancy Mulholland will help define possibilities.
• Eric Schwartz reported that Velo City Cycles has been providing free "yellow bikes" on Santa Barbara's Eastside neighborhood.
• We will again be participating in the Sustainability Project's "Parade of Green Buildings" this May 1st with a bike tour.

SB starts Oak Park traffic management



This is the block of Castillo Street that Cottage Hospital proposes to close for its new two-block complex of buildings. Photo by Ralph Fertig.

• The City of Santa Barbara started a second neighborhood process for traffic management in its Oak Park area on January 27. The meeting was the first of five scheduled meetings that will end with a three day workshop with livable communities consultant Dan Burden.
• The first neighborhood selected was the Saint Francis area where residents determined what traffic measures they want to have installed. They include roundabouts, lane striping, landscaping and curb extensions—efforts that help increase bicyclist safety.
• The Oak Park neighborhood was selected because of the major changes that are coming from the rebuilding of Cottage Hospital. The plans call for closing off one block of Castillo Street so the hospital can span two city blocks. This will have an effect on circulation. If you live in the Oak Park area, consider attending the upcoming meetings; the next one is on March 18. Get more information from the City at 897-2509 or on their web site here.

Nancy Mulholland restarts her career
by Ralph Fertig



Nancy Mulholland finds that her rain poncho works to keep her bike saddle dry when she's away. Photo by Ralph Fertig.

• Most people retire from a job and vegetate, but that's not what Nancy Mulholland has in mind. Nancy, a new Board member of the Bicycle Coalition, just left three decades of working in public health, specializing in children with disabilities, and is now plunging into leading bicycle tours ... perhaps.
• Nancy was born and raised in the San Francisco East Bay, where she enjoyed bicycling—at least until high school when automobiles lured her away. It wasn't until she had children of her own that she started biking again, and encouraging her two kids to bike too.
• A wonderful tour that she recalls took place when her daughter graduated from the University of Colorado. The two of them created their own loaded tour from Boulder west through the Rocky Mountains, then south to Flagstaff, Arizona, where they caught a train home.
• Since then, Nancy's most memorable trip was in 1994 when she cycled across the US along the northern tier. Well, mostly along the northern tier because she entered Ontario at Sault Ste Marie from northern Michigan and rode all the way through Ontario to Kingston where she entered New York east of Lake Ontario.
• Road cycling, she says, gives her a chance to be outside, to de-stress, and a time to think about important things.
• What's next? Starting on March 11, Nancy will join a WomanTours ride across the Southern Tier of the US. She will be a guide on alternate days to get an idea of what it's like to lead a bike tour. She won't make it all the way to St. Augustine, Florida because she will fly from New Orleans in late April to join her partner Mark Sapp for a three-day course in Port Townsend, Washington. That course is in bike touring leadership put on by the Adventure Cycling Association.
• After all that, Nancy feels that she will know enough to decide whether leading bike tours will be her new career or not. Wherever she pedals, however, Santa Barbara will always be home where she finds the bicycling just wonderful.

Active members

• Please thank and support the following Bicycle Coalition business members:
• Hazard's Cyclesport, Santa Barbara
• Lightning Cycle Dynamics, Lompoc
• MarBorg Industries, Santa Barbara
• Rincon Cycles, Carpinteria
• We welcome new members Nancy Mulholland and Brian Larinan. And we certainly thank those who renewed their memberships: Alan Bergquist, Owen Patmor and Doris Phinney.

Greg Siple

Local races attract hundreds of cyclists

• Sunny weather and back-to-back races combined to draw nearly 500 cyclists to each race: Santa Barbara Bicycle Club's Good Ol' Days Road Race in Los Olivos (left) and Echelon Santa Barbara's Mothballs Criterium in Goleta (right). Echelon President Mark Purcell said "there was a lot of dual racing with Good Ol' Days and Mothballs, good for each event."

Oberns receive more honors

• All the publicity from the County's naming a section of the Coast Route the "Obern Trail" has brought added and well deserved recognition to Bicycle Coalition members George and Vie Obern. The Oberns were largely responsible decades ago for envisioning and having built that section of popular bikepath.
• The February 13th issue of the Valley Voice featured the Oberns with a cover story about their achievements, including a large color photo of them. Voice Associate Editor Margo Kline wrote, "Thanks to Vie and George Obern, trails are thriving throughout Goleta and Santa Barbara County, earning the lasting gratitude of hikers, bikers and equestrians."
• On top of that came a Certificate of Recognition to the Oberns from the California Assembly. "Heartiest congratulations and commendations are conveyed upon the occasion of being recognized for lifelong contributions to the creation of trails and pathways in Santa Barbara County." It is signed by Assemblywoman Hannah Beth Jackson.
• Praise didn't stop there. US representative Lois Capps entered a testimonial honoring the Oberns into the Congressional Record. It noted, "George and Vie Obern's work led to the successful development of local trail and pathway projects, including the Maria Ygnacio Creek Bikepath, the Coastal Route Bikepath, the Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail, and many others."
• Can there be more? How about a dedication ceremony when the new Obern Trail signs are unveiled. We'll let you know when a date is set. Until then, thank the Oberns when you have the chance for their dedicated efforts that we all enjoy.

How to get more bikes on MTD buses

• A letter published in the Santa Barbara News-Press on February 4th by a foreign student complained about not being able to ride an MTD bus with his bicycle. It was because the rack was full and the driver would not let him bring his bike inside.
• This is not the first time that people with bikes have been stranded far from home. The MTD policy is no bikes inside, with the suggested reason of liability insurance. However, other transit companies across the US manage to accommodate bicyclists better than the MTD. Here is a sample:
• Denver RTD allows bikes inside when racks are full and it's dark or the next bus won't come for more than an hour.
• Vermont GMTA's Mad River Valley Bus allows bikes inside (it has no outside bike racks).
• Philadelphia's SEPTA allows bikes inside their buses whether the racks are full or not; some drivers prefer them inside.
• Pennsylvania's Blair County AMTRAN allows bikes inside if the driver thinks that other passengers won't be endangered. They encourage Altoona Police bike cops to board with their bikes for passenger security.
• San Luis Obispo Regional Transit has three-bike racks on both front and rear, accommodating six bikes total. The RTA just got a $5,000 grant to buy more of the three-bike racks to retrofit some of their two-bike mounts.
• Sacramento's SRT allows bikes inside when bike racks are full and it's the last bus of the day for that route.
• The three-bike racks being used in San Luis Obispo are a new offering from SportWorks, the manufacturer of the MTD's two-bike versions. They are currently installed on 400 vehicles, including the whole Long Beach Transit bus fleet. SportWorks' Lisa Robinson says the bikes go on and off them nearly as fast as the two-bike ones.
• So where does this leave us? There are two options—pursue 3-bike racks and check the MTD's liability concerns.

Biking and walking in Santa Barbara

• Within the City of Santa Barbara, we see lots of people bicycling and walking. It's what makes the place so livable for us all. But just how many people do either? And how does it vary from one part of town or time of day to another?
• The Bicycle Coalition's Ralph Fertig had an opportunity to obtain some answers while gathering data for the City's upcoming Pedestrian Master Plan. He counted pedestrians and bicyclists passing through 16 intersections over 185 hours between July 31 and September 12, 2003. The data show the following:
• There were 43,145 pedestrians and 8,293 bicyclists. That means for every five people on foot, there's one on a bicycle.
• The peak 2-hour period for bicyclists was 3:15-5:15 PM.
• Weekday biking and walking had very different patterns than weekends, as shown in the graph.
• Intersections varied greatly, both in mix of pedestrians and bicyclists, and in hourly densities of either.

New Coalition Board

• Our election of Bicycle Coalition officers and board members at our February 3rd meeting resulted in some new people and some returning ones. Ralph Fertig was elected President, a repeat of his serving in that capacity in 1994-1997. Other officers are Chuck Anderson, Vice President; Gary Wissman, Treasurer; and Drew Hunter, Secretary.
• Board members are now the following: Dru van Hengel, Don Lubach, Nancy Mulholland, Mike Hecker, and Jim Marshall. In addition, we now have a new category of professional advisors: Wilson Hubbell and Erika Lindemann.
• Our contact information is listed here, so feel free to contact any of us when you have ideas that we might benefit from.

UCSB students to vote on new bikepath



In spite of a heavy fine if caught biking on the broad sidewalk, few students walk their bicycles by Broida. Photo by Ralph Fertig.

• A five-day rush to get enough university students to sign a petition resulted in an opportunity to vote on a missing-link bikepath on UCSB campus. The proposed path would be 450 feet long and would connect Webb Hall and Engineering, just south of Broida Hall. "We did it!" exulted Associated Students' BIKES committee director Edward France after they turned in 2661 signatures by the February 3rd deadline. "This happened only with a huge amount of help from a strong crew of both us, bike shop people, and the EAB chargers." (The EAB chargers are Environmental Affairs Board people.)
• What the University students will face in late April is a vote to impose a $3 per student per quarter fee for three years to pay the estimated project cost of $400,000. The cost is high because a building must be moved to make room for the new connecting path, and new landscaping will be needed. If the students pass the measure, design would be accelerated, and construction could happen this summer with borrowed funding guaranteed by future fees.

Bicycling makes us smarter

• Just as we always thought—aerobic exercise like cycling not only keeps our brains from deteriorating as we age, it can make us sharper mentally. Recent research by Arthur Kramer reported in the Journal of Gerontology confirmed that exercise improves cognition as determined not only by tests, but also by MRI imaging of the brains of study volunteers aged 55 to 79.
• A review of 18 earlier studies shows:
• Women on estrogen replacement therapy benefit more than women not on it.
• Exercise programs involving both aerobic exercise and strength training produce better results on cognitive abilities than either one alone.
• Older adults benefit more than younger adults do.
• More than 30 minutes of exercise per session produces the greatest benefit.
• So if you're not smart enough now to realize how beneficial biking is, just go do it and you'll eventually know how true it is.

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