Letter: Local equestrians go after bicyclists over Burbank bridge

Last month I wrote a letter, published in the Leader, thanking our City Council for voting 5-0 on a compromise measure Dec. 14 to have the Mariposa Street Bridge continue to be open to all, including pedestrians pushing or carrying bicycles.

Little did I dream that immediately afterward the local horse riding community would be organized by the owners of the Circle K Horse Stables to use their considerable political power to reverse that decision, although I suspected something was amiss when I saw one of the council members meeting at the bridge with Circle K people a couple of days after the vote.

I was not surprised, then, when I learned that a second vote was scheduled for Jan. 26 to reconsider the previous vote, which I sadly then expected to see reversed as a result.

Numerous horse folks attended this week’s meeting, addressing the council to angrily denounce bike riders as interlopers on “our bridge,” stating that there would be inevitable horse stampedes, injuries and seemingly an end to their neighborhood way of life.

None of them, however, cited accidents or injuries that had ever occurred on the bridge resulting from the presence of a bicycle, and none seemed to understand that the bridge does not exclusively belong to them, but is owned by all Burbank taxpayers.

So now, for the first time since the Mariposa Street Bridge was first opened decades ago, it will continue to be legal to hike across it, but the City Council has asked for a new ordinance that would prohibit not only riding a bicycle over it, but also pushing or even carrying a bike across the span.

Doug Weiskopf

Burbank