Stay on Two Wheels

Bikers can understand better than most people that need for car-free, people-safe streets, and perhaps local planners can be shown as well. Because these planners respond best to organized input, bikers need to get together to share the heavy task of articulating what we have learned over the miles.

Parties interested in self-motivated and its safe advancement will want to come to the People Powered Parade where BABA is planning to take a lane of JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park while activating bikers, skaters and anyone without cars to lobby for one small step toward a car-free park (city... state... planet). BAB (Bay Area Bicycle Action) is working to persuade the Recreation and Parks Department to close JFK Drive to motorized traffic on Saturdays, as it is now on Sundays. This will not be easy, but it was grassroots organization over a decade ago that got us the Sunday closure. Also encouraging was the Rec-Park Commission's recent decision to end car parking in the Panhandle west of Masonic Avenue as of January 1, 1992 (i.e. vote Agnos!).

Anyone was a more acute bureaucratic bent (impossible? Prove us wrong!) may be interested in the Bicycle Advisory Committee (BAC). The BAC runs the gauntlet of local planners, trying to deal with such pals as the DPW about potholes and light timing, the new main library planners regarding bike racks (progressive planning or "aesthetic clutter"?) and the Port Authority about bike lanes on the Embarcadero. This committee has members elected from industry, environmental groups, city schools, and at-large positions. Perhaps most familiar to us is Jerry Walker of the Freewheel. They are currently setting goals for next year and will soon be filling vacancies for at-large members. There is plenty of opportunity for us to participate; haw 'bout a SFBMAction chapter? Budding activists can talk to Joe #23 or John Seagrave to start the car-freewheels spinning. [As I'm typing this in the year 2001, the BAC is again looking for bike messengers to get on board the BAC!!]