Letter: Bike riders have an alternative route

Thank you for your informative front-page article on the new rules for the Mariposa Bridge.

One misconception in the article, however, was that for bike riders, who are now required to do what they’ve always done — dismount their bikes and walk them across — it’s a so-called “bridge to nowhere,” when in fact it’s possible to easily ride southward away from the horse paths down the asphalt L.A. County flood-control road along the river to the Victory Boulevard overpass and easily proceed under it to the L.A. River bike path and continue on for another 8 miles.

This is the safest route for bike riders to get there from Burbank.

When the City Council voted on the compromise to allow bike riders to continue sharing the bridge, members must have been mindful of the fact that there are many more Burbank voters who ride bikes than horses, and had they chosen to exclusively favor horseback riders while denying access rights to the Mariposa Bridge for bicyclists — despite the fact that their tax dollars go to supporting its expensive maintenance, which is made necessary mostly from heavy continual horse traffic — it would have left a bad taste with bike riders for a long time.

Beth Johnson

Burbank