Is Coronado City Getting New Bike Paths?

According to the Coronado Eagle & Journal, the Coronado City Council meeting held last week to determine whether or not the city would be paying to construct new dedicated bike paths along Coronado’s beach saw an impressive swell in attendance. The $100,000 project had previously been approved in a June 2015 meeting, but opposition managed to get a substantial community following behind the slogan “Save Our Beach.”

A few other issues were brought up over the course of the meeting, including plans to stripe Olive Avenue with bicycle markings, general opposition to bicycle markings on streets, and a number of requests to reevaluate the city’s budget for bicycle related improvements.

Despite the fact that all of these issues had already been approved, opposition was able to gather enough supporters to outnumber those in favor during the meeting. The council provided 36 emails from residents that had been sent to city officials regarding the improvements. From the emails, 21 were against the dedicated bike paths; six were in support of them; only one writer was in support of striping Olive Ave.; six were against striping in general.

Those in favor of rejecting the plan to construct dedicated bike paths also outnumbered those in favor in an online poll almost four-to-one. There were 16 public speakers against the paths and only three in favor.

Councilmember Mike Woiwode had this to say about the bike path project: “Ocean Boulevard is very difficult to traverse by three different modes of transportation and something will need to be done. I personally have thought a path on the beach would not be the solution. The path would change the character of the beach and for a number of reasons it doesn’t address the problem. I hope to remain open to suggestions. The problem is not going to go away.”

The motion to defund the Coronado Beach bike pathway project was passed five to none. This is unfortunate for cyclists in the area as bike paths have been shown to reduce the risk of accidents by more than 50 percent according the Department of Transportation.

Bonnici Law Group APC – San Diego bicycle accident lawyer