Letters to the Editor: Both bike lanes on Verdugo and trees on Magnolia should stay

After reading a letter to the editor on last week’s Forum page about how bike safety lanes in Burbank are an inconvenience to motorists trying to use streets such as West Verdugo Avenue, I cycled up to Empire Avenue and Frederick Street, one block west of Buena Vista Street, to take this photo of the “Ghost Bike” chained to a pole, put there by a local volunteer group to memorialize a bicyclist who was struck by a car and died there last month.

If you look at Empire Avenue just beyond the “Ghost Bike,” you’ll notice no bicycle safety lane there, which might have saved the life of the man killed on that spot. As for the bike lanes on Verdugo, they have not caused any traffic jams that I’ve ever seen while pedaling along there, and I believe it has helped to make it far safer for myself and others to ride our bikes through town.

There are cities in America and around the world where bicycles are heavily used in urban environments, and I think that in Burbank, where we have nice weather year round with flat and easy-to-ride streets, more people should do their health some good by riding a bike when possible.

Doug Weiskopf
Burbank

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Regarding the proposed removal of the trees that span the length of Magnolia Boulevard (“Tree removal plans move forward,” May 17), I must say that this is troublesome news. Who was responsible for planting trees that were ‘wrong’ for Burbank 20-plus years ago? I understand upkeep has become costly to the city, but really, this removal will make Magnolia look as blighted as Burbank Boulevard once was. I would imagine that this will result in the loss in our designation recently being named “40 years as a Tree City USA.”

Mike Frediani
Burbank