Bidwell Walking/Bike Path

There was an article in the local paper today about the Bidwell Park and Playground Commission dropping the idea of closing the path running through Bidwell Park to cars. I personally don't mind the cars in the park, but that's because I can usually ride along side or behind them. The speed limit in the park is 20 MPH, which is perfect for cyclists, a bit slow if you are in a car, but blazing fast if you are a pedistrian.

In seeing this article, I spoke with a few co-workers about it. It was interesting to hear the different points of view as compared to my own.

I rarely have issues with the cars in the park, but seem to always have problems with pedistrians. The problems I have is if you call out that you are passing on someone's left, 50% of the time they step into your path because they don't understand there are rules of the road. Then about 40% are wearing headphones and don't hear me anyway, leaving about 10% of pedistrians who are appriciative for my calling out. Then there are the pedistrians with the 20 foot dog leashes who walk on the right side of the path while there dog walks on the outter edge of the left side. Prime situation for me to have a major crash.

So, I'm always at odds wheather or not to call out, "on your left" if it really only puts me in dangers way but I definately yell at the dog walkers.

In talking to my co-workers I was able to hear ideas from a different perspective. Just as I am not too fond of the pedistrians, they are not fond of cyclists and the article went as far as calling cyclists jerks. My co-workers confirmed this by explaining situations where cyclists buzz them on the path. As well, cyclist are already disliked because some of us don't stop at stop signs and red lights. My co-workers pointed out this happens all the time around the Chico State campus.

Like I've lumped together all pedistrians, they have also lumped all cyclist together. And I must admit, college students on bikes rarely, if ever, follow the traffic laws.

I guess we all need to be a little more conscience about each other while out there enjoying the park.

One odd comment I found in the article was this:

Commissioner Russ Mills pointed out that cyclists can't be given speeding tickets because odometers are not required on bikes.

Now I won't feel so bad when I cruise past a park ranger while on the path doing greater then 20 MPH!