Leader Editorial: Bicyclists may get a bridge of their own

Now that equestrians in Burbank’s Rancho area have successfully convinced the City Council that the Mariposa Street bridge must be essentially kept to their exclusive use, a new proposal has been made to assuage bicyclists who would like to have equal access to Griffith Park.

To whit, the city will undertake the process of getting its hands on about $680,000 in federal grant funds, then match it with roughly $170,000 from Burbank transportation-development impact fees to construct a bicycle path spanning the L.A. River at Bob Hope Drive. That of course assumes the proposed new bridge won’t cost more than about $850,000 by the time it’s actually open for public use — some four years from now.

We may be overstating the obvious, but the city could save a big chunk of public funds by simply posting signs at the existing Mariposa Street bridge calling on cyclists to dismount before crossing it and yield to the horseback riders. In fact, we suggested that action late last month after the council, bending to Rancho horse-owners’ outrage, flip-flopped on a December vote. But rather than coming up with a simple compromise, the City Council backed the equestrians and this proposal for a separate bridge to accommodate the cycling community emerged.

Assuming the new bridge comes to fruition, the bicyclists’ patience with the city will ultimately be rewarded, and they’ll be able to cross the L.A. River safely, peacefully, and presumably without encountering anyone on horseback there. We can’t see a downside to that — beyond the costs in time and money, not to mention some bruised feelings engendered by a council that handled the whole affair in a clumsy manner.