BICYCLING : Cyclists Say Irvine’s Riding Roughshod Over Them

This is not the kind of publicity that you’d expect from the city of Irvine, a community that prides itself on such progressively social issues as the environment and planning.

The issue here is not gangs, or graffiti, or drugs--but bicycles. Mayor Sally Anne Sheridan would like to see bicyclists stay on the city’s extensive system of off-street bike trails, where she says they belong.

Cyclists, and there are a lot of them in Irvine, believe they have a right to the road. They cite California’s motor vehicle laws that entitle them to ride there.

The problem surfaced earlier this month when the City Council, acting on complaints from motorists, ordered Irvine police to crack down on the packs of club cyclists who ride through the city on the weekends, often four or five abreast, at times running stop signs and flaunting the law.

The police responded by setting up special enforcement teams that videotaped cyclists violating traffic laws. First they issued warnings, then they started issuing tickets.

Most avid cyclists--and there is a difference here between the occasional rider and those who do it for sport and fitness--do not question the city’s right to enforce the law. Run a red light, whether in a car or on a bike, and you deserve a ticket.

And as much as they’d like to think otherwise, most cyclists agree that those large club rides of 40, 50 or even 60 people riding in a pack do intimidate motorists--which is precisely why they do it. There is safety in numbers.

But city police have interpreted the Motor Vehicle Code to read that bicyclists are prohibited from riding two abreast, even if they do it well within a designated bicycle lane.

“If they want to talk to each other,” said Sheridan, “they can get a bicycle built for two.”

Sheridan, who campaigned for the money to build the bike trails, said: “People love to come to our city to bike. To say Irvine is anti-cycling is ludicrous. But we are going to enforce these laws. Just because you belong to a large group does not mean you can negate the rights of the individual rider.”

Councilwoman Paula Werner agrees, saying she is pro-cyclist “as long as they obey the law.”

“People are worried about hitting these people,” she said. “Over the course of months and months leading up to this, people have commented often on the fact that bicyclists were infringing on the car lanes. If you have bicyclists streaming out into traffic, you are talking about someone getting killed.”

Cyclists contend that there is nothing in the law that specifically prohibits them from riding two, or even three abreast as long as they ride with the flow of traffic and obey motor vehicle laws. In larger groups, cyclists often ride in twin “pacelines” where one group of riders is constantly passing the other, working off one another in a synchronized fashion that saves energy and allows the group to ride longer and faster.

Geoff Drake, West Coast managing editor of Bicycling magazine, said what is happening in Irvine is typical of the clashes going on around the country as cycling becomes more popular and people look to the bicycle as both an alternate means of transportation and a favored way to stay fit.

“This is something that we deal with all the time,” said Drake. “In many parts of the country, particularly where you have a strong racing community, you have this friction between motorists and cyclists. It is only natural that you want to ride side-by-side on a bike, but (many) motorists don’t like it.”

The problem worsens, he said, in traffic heavy areas such as Southern California, where motorists have yet to accept the bicycle as a legitimate mode of transportation.

“Seattle, on the other hand, is known for cycling. The climate, not the weather, is very conducive to cycling. The motorist accepts the cyclist as a legitimate part of the traffic flow.”

When local officials suggest that cyclists should stay on the bike trails, Drake said, “you create a mind-set that the bicycle is not a part of the traffic flow, that the bike cannot safely participate on the road.

“To me, that is the question that makes me mad. If the bike trails were genuinely safer for the cyclist, wouldn’t he use them? The fact is, off-street bike trails are not safer. Statistics prove that. They can be more dangerous. You have skateboarders, joggers, all kind of hazards. Personally, I avoid bike trials like the plague,” he said.

At the heart of the controversy in Irvine is Doug Kerr, an Irvine homeowner and attorney who also serves as vice president of the Orange County Wheelmen, with almost 900 members the county’s largest bicycle club.

Like other local clubs, the Wheelmen hold group rides on the weekends, sometimes attracting more than 100 cyclists at a time. And like other clubs, their rides often take them through Irvine, on their way to and from the canyons and beaches of North and South County.

Kerr sees the issue as a political one, charging that Sheridan and other council members are reacting to the complaints of a few motorists who would rather see bicycles banned from the streets altogether.

“I’m not one of the hotdogs,” said Kerr. “My wife and I enjoy riding with the group in a social atmosphere. We don’t sprint down the streets running lights. We are at the back of the pack but we enjoy riding. I have never heard of a city going to such extremes before. The only thing you can figure is they don’t want cyclists on the road at all.

“Look,” he continued, “if there are violations of public safety, the police should enforce the law and they should give us tickets. But what I’m saying is that Irvine has this image of having nothing better to do than harass motorists and cyclists who ride through the city.”

Kerr says that on large social rides of 100 or more people, riding single file would create a line of cyclists miles long.

“I am so opposed to this mentality that bicyclists have no place on the road and that we should always ride in single file,” said Dane Clark, another longtime Wheelman and resident of Laguna Hills. “You get 60 people in single file through Irvine and you’re really going to be disrupting traffic.”

For their part, Irvine police say they only want the cyclists to obey the law.

“If you take a technical reading of the law, it says the cyclists should ride as close to possible to the right curb,” said Lt. Al Muir, who is charged with enforcing the law. “If you talk about the spirit of the law . . . if they remain in the bicycle lane, riding abreast, there is a very good chance we will not issue a citation. You have discretion in enforcement.”

For the Orange County Wheelmen and other local clubs, the issue seems to be one of acceptance. They want Irvine and other cities to recognize that bicyclists have a right to the road--in or out of the bike lane.

In areas where there are no bike lanes, for example, Kerr notes that cyclists have as much a right to the road as any car, truck or motorcycle.

“I told Lt. Muir that the OC Wheelmen will not be run out of Irvine,” said Kerr. “We intend to ride in Irvine like we always have. If we have to go to court over this, we will.”