Strip Santa Monica of Bike Friendly Award?
Posted By Queequeg On July 9, 2009 @ 10:00 am In Art, Uncategorized | Comments Disabled
[1]My 20something year old neighbor never learned how to ride a bike. Her sweet English stud muffin of a boyfriend bought her a grown-up version of a tricycle for her birthday – or maybe it was Valentine’s Day – there was some occasion for this three wheeled wonder – and one of the first things she did, of course, was take the little trike out for a ride.
We live in Santa Monica. She decided to test her new wheels on Arizona and to head west towards the Promenade and, eventually, the ocean. By all accounts, though, the ride was horrible: drivers honked and cursed when she was in the bike line, pedestrians and random drivers yelled when she moved to the sidewalk; drivers not quite at a full stop at the signs were angry that her three wheels were not as fast as their four; and the bike lane randomly, abruptly came to an end a few blocks before the Promenade, which is really where you would think a biker would most need a separate lane.
If you recall, Sean posted [2] a month or so ago about the League of American Bicyclist’s [3] bronze medal award to Santa Monica for being a “Bicycle Friendly Community.” Per the Santa Monica Daily Press [4], Alex Thompson – who runs the fairly awesome Bikerowave [5] bike clinic in Santa Monica that pretty fairly awesomely has a “Bikerobabes” night on Tuesdays that is for women and transgendered individuals only – has upped the anger about the award and is circulating a petition to get the League to either withdraw the medal or to appoint a local biking committee to re-evaluate whether Santa Monica should earn such bragging rights. I’m fairly certain that it is difficult to strip prizes once they’re already awarded [6], but I suppose the take-home message about being nice to tricyclists is being well made. For those interested, I found the petition online here [7]. Critical Mass [8], anyone?
A pretty sweet shot courtesy feaverish [1] via the Metblogs’ Flickr pool [9].
Related posts:
Article printed from Los Angeles Metblogs: http://la.metblogs.com
URL to article: http://la.metblogs.com/2009/07/09/strip-santa-monica-of-bike-friendly-award/
URLs in this post:
[1] Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/feaverish/2265751392/
[2] posted: http://la.metblogs.com/2009/06/04/santa-monica-wins-bike-friendly-award-local-cyclists-call-bullshit/
[3] League of American Bicyclist’s: http://www.bikeleague.org/programs/bicyclefriendlyamerica/
[4] Santa Monica Daily Press: http://www.smdp.com/Articles-c-2009-07-07-60599.113116_Cyclists_circulating_petition_to_strip_city_of_bike_friendly_award.html
[5] Bikerowave: http://www.bikerowave.org/
[6] strip prizes once they’re already awarded: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stripped_Olympic_medals
[7] here: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/santamonicanotbikefriendly/index.html
[8] Critical Mass: http://santamonicacriticalmass.ning.com/
[9] Metblogs’ Flickr pool: http://www.flickr.com/groups/mb_la/pool/
[10] Santa Monica Hates Bikes More Than Legally Allowed: http://la.metblogs.com/2009/10/02/santa-monica-hates-bikes-more-than-legally-allowed/
[11] Santa Monica Yuppie Scum Death Battle Overflows onto New York Times Front Page: http://la.metblogs.com/2008/11/25/santa-monica-yuppie-scum-death-battle-overflows-onto-new-york-times-front-page/
[12] Patti Smith 2fer in Santa Monica: http://la.metblogs.com/2009/07/29/patti-smith-2fer-in-santa-monica/
[13] Archiving Angeles (AA): Santa Monica Bath House: http://la.metblogs.com/2009/04/24/archiving-angeles-aa-santa-monica-bath-house/
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