The Grover Beach City Council is being urged to formally adopt a bikeway master plan developed by Cal Poly graduate student Adam Petersen as part of his requirements for a master's degree in city and regional planning.

The recently presented plan won praise from Mayor John Shoals, who said Petersen did “an excellent job” of developing the plan, as well as from other council members and bicyclists in the audience.

Jessica Berry of the Regional Rideshare program and Adam Fukushima, executive director of the San Luis Obispo Bicycle Coalition, both urged the council to formally adopt a plan to help the city compete for limited state and federal funding.

“This is the perfect time to start thinking about it,” Fukushima said. “If you don't have a plan, it's a lot harder to compete with other cities that have one.”

The City Council took no action on the proposal, but Shoals said the plan likely will go out for public review and comment before being considered by the Planning Commission and the council.

Petersen said encouraging people to use bicycles for transportation would have benefits ranging from cleaner air and energy conservation to improving health and physical fitness.

“There are a lot of opportunities to improve cycling opportunities in Grover Beach, to promote bicycling as a means of transportation,” he said.

Advertisement

He noted that while 24 percent of the city's population lives within nine minutes of their workplaces - regardless of what means they use to get there

- 73 percent of the population drives to work.

Only 1 percent of the population cycles to work over the city's current 3.8 miles of bike lanes.

He said the goal is to “create a continuous system of bicycle facilities that result in a bicycle-friendly city.”

Facilities would include streets designed to accommodate bicyclists, racks for parking bicycles, and shower facilities and lockers for riders, Petersen said.

Routes should be selected based on rider safety, convenience and which streets have the highest volume of bike traffic.

His proposed grid of mostly “class 2” bike routes - those that follow roads and are delineated with striping - include Atlantic City, Ramona, Grand, Seabright and Mentone avenues, Farroll Road and The Pike on an east-west axis.

Routes on a north-south axis would include Highway 1, Front, Fourth, Eighth and 13th streets and Oak Park Boulevard.

Petersen recommended establishing “class 1” bike routes - paved paths dedicated exclusively to bicycles - in the northern part of the city where the most open space exists.

Routes would serve existing parks, schools, public buildings, the train station and commercial zones, where parking facilities would be located.

The plan calls for improving safety for cyclists through education programs for children, teens, adults and parents as well as motorists, which Petersen envisioned would be conducted by the SLO County Bicycle Coalition.

Safety would be enhanced by the Police Department through stepped-up enforcement and increased patrols along bikeways.

Money to implement the plan would come from three sources:

n Federal funding from the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act of 2005, which guaranteed $244.1 billion in funding,

n State funding from the Bicycle Transportation Account, and

n Local funding from the city's general fund and traffic impact and air quality mitigation fees.

Petersen said the plan would be judged successful if it results in 2 percent of the population biking to work, doubles the miles of bike lanes, doubles the number of bike parking spaces, reduces accidents by

0.5 percent, distributes 1,000 bike maps, increases funding by 2.5 percent and draws

200 people to workshops and education programs.

July 29, 2008