My co-workers scanned me from head to toe the day, just a few years ago, that I entered the building after riding my bike to work. Their mouths slightly agape, they took stock of the helmet on my head, my rolled up pant leg, and my mountain bike and questioned me about the health of my car. My answer—that I lived so close it made more sense to ride my bike—did nothing to change their surprised expressions. It was as if I had walked in wearing antennae and a spacesuit.
On my way home that day, I was the one wearing a surprised expression as a group of young men in a car swerved toward me as they passed. I barely gathered myself in time to see them laughing as they drove off. A few days later someone else thought it was funny to abruptly honk their horn as they sped passed me. On another day a group of people in a monster truck slowed down next to me, loudly revved their engine and drove off. A few days later I put the bike away and dug up the car keys.
North Santa Barbara County is known for a lot of things—but a bike culture isn’t one of them. Still, some say a bike community is present.
“It may not compare to San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara but we do have a lot of local active groups,” Planning Division Manager Peter Gilli told the Sun.
In Santa Maria at least two City Council members, Bob Orach and Jack Boysen, are bike enthusiasts. And there are a variety of cycling and mountain biking clubs in North County.
There are also various nonprofit groups that reach out to the county’s school children to provide education on bicycling safety. Despite these efforts and many similar pro-cycling campaigns, North County faces some challenges when it comes to getting more people involved in the activity.
Unlike San Luis Obispo to the north or the city of Santa Barbara to the south, northern Santa Barbara County is largely car dependent. Much of the cities in this part of the county are bedroom communities, housing residents who commute outside of the city to work. The cities themselves are largely spread out, divided neatly by major arteries. Geography makes a good argument for a car.
But layout alone isn’t to blame. The demographic has something to do with it too. Student populations in SLO and Santa Barbara also have an effect on the number of bicyclists in those cities. Though North County has a community college, there isn’t the same bike reliance seen in university students.
However, the environment may be experiencing a transformation since my failed attempt at environmentally friendly commuting.
For several years now the Santa Barbara Bike Coalition has pushed forward into North County in an attempt to educate and spread the joy of cycling, according to Christine Bourgeois, the educational director for SB Bike. “We’ll be focusing a lot in Santa Maria because the demand is so high,” she said.
That demand is happening for a number of reasons, both practical and trend-related.
“I think what’s happening all around the country is that biking is cool,” Bourgeois said. “That’s not to mention that having a car is expensive and riding a bike is affordable. The new generation is looking at it as a way of getting around, and we need to help them out.”
By the numbers
Cyclists of course can’t be identified as a single group. There are people who ride competitively, others who ride for enjoyment, and still others who ride out of necessity to get to work or run errands. Some ride the winding trails that cut through the scenic foothills and vineyards, and others go off road and mountain bike more rugged terrain.
Where a cyclist rides obviously can create more of a risk of a bicyclist vs. motorist collision.
With more than 100,000 people, the Santa Maria Valley has the largest population in the county. It ranks as the second worst of 56 cities in its population group for bicycle vs. motorist collisions, according to the state Office of Traffic Safety (OTS). That ranking was for 2013, the latest numbers available to OTS. That same year, Santa Maria had 45 bicyclists who were injured or killed. The city ranked the worst in regard to speed-related accidents as well as hit-and-runs.
Lompoc had 11 bicyclists killed or injured that year and ranked 14th worst out of 92 cities its size. It ranked 38 for speed-related incidents and 10 for hit-and-run.
Sgt. Duane Schneider of the Santa Maria Police Department gave some reasons for Santa Maria’s statistics.
“What we’ve been seeing happens all the time. It’s nothing new but our city’s getting larger so we notice it more,” Schneider said.
The numbers don’t tell the stories of the people hurt or killed in those collisions. Santa Maria has had some pretty high-profile bicycle-vs.-vehicle collisions in recent years. Matthew O’Neill, 33, was riding along Foxen Canyon Road, wearing reflectors and lights, when he was struck and killed in August of 2014. He was a champion for people with disabilities and special needs. He was into extreme long-distance bicycling events. He owned a retired guide dog and gave presentations to Guide Dogs for the Blind conferences.
There was also Eric Okerblom, who was struck and killed at age 19 by a distracted driver who had been texting moments before hitting him. He was voted “most likely to succeed” at his high school. He dabbled in beekeeping, and was an artist, musician, and athlete who earned seven varsity letters.
City officials are aware of the problems that can occur when a city expands and sees both more motorists and more bicyclists. Schneider and the Police Department have been participating in several enforcement operations made possible by OTS grant funding. While the funding allows for the department to hold DUI checkpoints and traffic safety checks, it also provides funding for pedestrian/bicycle enforcement operations. In the past couple of weeks there were five such pedestrian/bicycle enforcement operations. There were 66 cumulative stops and 20 citations issued.
The OTS grant runs from Oct. 1 to Oct. 1, 2017, which means the department will start planning its next set of operations now. Next year there will be seven bicycle/pedestrian enforcement operations, and 23 traffic enforcement operations in Santa Maria alone, which focus on seatbelts and other traffic violations.
During the most recent operations, citations were given to motorists who didn’t yield to pedestrians, as well as to people who didn’t use crosswalks or corners to cross. Even though there are “do not cross” signs on the medians, people will still cross.
“It’s an education thing. And it’s getting the awareness out to people that if you do that you’ll get cited. Worse than that you’ll get hit by a car. And even worse, you’ll get killed,” Schneider said.
Other than where and why they ride, there is another big distinction between the types of cyclists in North County—or any region for that matter: Some follow the rules, and some don’t.
It’s not always motorists who are at fault during a collision. Bicyclists often fail to heed the rules of the road, causing accidents themselves.
While that’s not the situation in the Okerblom and O’Neill cases, Schneider acknowledged that unfortunately that’s often the case in many others, especially on city roads.
“A lot of bicyclists have to understand that they have to follow the same rules of the road,” Lompoc Police Officer David Garza said.
In Lompoc the majority of motorist-vs.-bicyclist collisions are the fault of the bicyclist. Most often they happen when someone riding a bike doesn’t follow the rules, according to Garza. “They are riding on the sidewalk or not stopping for stop signs,” he said.
These violations cause major problems because often someone riding on the sidewalk will get hit when a driver inches out into a driveway to check for traffic. So when Lompoc police perform enforcement operations, they often cite bicyclists committing those offenses.
“We’ll get people that will say, ‘Are you kidding me? You’re citing me for that?’ But they aren’t the ones seeing the injuries,” Garza said.
In Lompoc, Garza said the areas that cause problems for bicyclists consist of the main streets, Ocean Avenue and H Street.
In Santa Maria, problem areas tend to be high-traffic areas like Blosser and Stowell, or Main Street and Broadway. The latter streets are Caltrans-owned, making it difficult for the city to add bike lanes or other pedestrian infrastructure.
One of the Police Department’s recent enforcement operations focused on the area of Stowell and Thornburg, near Santa Maria High School. Though there is a blinking crosswalk there, students often don’t use it, and that causes a lot of problems in terms of pedestrian/bicycle collisions with motorists. Sgt. Schneider said police encourage students to use the crosswalk but they don’t always do so. Because of that, police do outreach in the schools and try to educate students about the risks of not following the rules of the road.
Violations also happen when bicyclists drink and drive. Schneider said that when you add alcohol to the mix, riding a bicycle becomes more dangerous. A lot of times riders think they are safe because they aren’t driving, but Schneider said that just because they are pedaling doesn’t mean they aren’t piloting a vehicle on the road.
What’s being done
Though it may not have the ideal infrastructure for bicyclists and pedestrians, Santa Maria does have some advantages when it comes to biking.
“Santa Maria is becoming pretty bike-friendly. The nice thing is Santa Maria is pretty flat and it’s easy to see bicycles, unlike some other cities that have hills and twists in the road making it more difficult to see what’s up ahead,” Schneider said.
The city is moving toward a more bike and pedestrian friendly plan. Some more immediate steps include a series of bicycle/pedestrian education videos, which were funded by a $50,000 OTS grant. The videos aim to educate those who walk or ride about safe practices, with one set of videos aimed at drivers, and another aimed at pedestrians.
And many cities like Lompoc and Santa Maria will get a grant from the OTS this month for a yearlong campaign of bicycle and pedestrian enforcement operations.
In addition, the city of Lompoc Fire Department just announced a $25,000 grant for a yearlong bicycle and pedestrian safety program.
On a larger scale, the city of Santa Maria is taking another look at its master plan and how planners can incorporate more bicycle-friendly design, as well as streetscape improvements.
Planning Division Manager Gilli said that the plan originally included bike paths but when the recession hit, some of the plans changed. Now that things have more or less improved economically, the city will take another look at the plan. He said that in early 2017 the city will hold workshops to get input on what people would like to see in terms of pedestrian and bicycle paths and streetscape improvements. Gilli said the city often confers with bicycle groups, but this time they’d like to hear a broader collection of voices and hope to reach out to schools, churches, and community centers to bring the conversation to more people.
Independent groups are also reaching out to the community.
Santa Barbara Bike Coalition has been presenting schools with programs like Pedal Power, which teaches kids about bike safety, and allows them to build and keep their own bike.
SB Bike is working on opening a DIY bike shop in Santa Maria as well. The shop will offer bike classes for adults and kids, and will run off of donations and volunteer help, according to Ken Dahmen, Santa Maria program director for Santa Barbara Bike Coalition.
“There’s definitely a need for it up here,” Dahmen said.
He said many people bike for both recreation and necessity. However, he acknowledged that some people have expressed a lack of a safe-feeling riding in the city because of the limited infrastructure for bicyclists.
“I will hear people say, ‘You know I’d love to ride to work but I’m not going to chance it.’”
However, he added that bike laws have helped, and the city has some Class 1 bike routes, lanes that are completely separate from traffic.
Dahmen said that in Santa Maria specifically, the city is aware of some of the challenges and has responded in a positive way toward cultivating a bike community. He said that SB Bike is trying to be a part of the solution.
“We try to be an educational beacon for the city,” Dahmen said.
He also offered some advice for drivers who may get frustrated with bicyclists traveling on some of the heavier car-trafficked roads.
“We’re all trying to get from point A to point B so just be considerate, and realize that person who is going slower, it’s not like they are going out of their way to do so,” Dahmen said.
Meanwhile, SB Bike’s Bourgeois remains optimistic that the efforts of the county and its cities will go a long way toward increasing the bike culture here.
“It’s slow, but it will happen,” she said.
Editor Shelly Cone can be reached at scone@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Oct 6-13, 2016.