Taking a Stand So Cyclists Can Ride Safely : * Council Didn’t Duck Issue of Improving PCH While Accommodating Bicycle Traffic

“Progress” may not always be all it’s cracked up to be, especially when you are rolling along on pedal power instead of in the latest muscle car.

In Huntington Beach, a state plan to “improve” Pacific Coast Highway by re-striping a 2.2-mile stretch as a six-lane highway has met with stiff resistance from bicycle riders who face having their bike lanes squeezed into much narrower, and perhaps unsafe, rights of way.

Hooray for the City Council, which earlier this month began hearing the legitimate case of these cyclists, and then had the good sense to take up their cause.

There is, no doubt, a certain power of persuasion in the arrival of more than 100 bicyclists at the council’s doorstep, as happened March 16. Previously, the council had held that there was little it could do to affect the outcome of state plans. But commuter patterns in the city, and life on PCH, is very much the business of the city fathers of Huntington Beach.

Rather than ducking their responsibility, they have decided to change their tune. A subcommittee of the council will meet with officials from Caltrans and other agencies in an effort to resolve the needs of the bicyclists, while still accommodating the demands of traffic.

But the council at least has made it clear that it now prefers a four-lane highway, and opts for safe access for the bicyclists. Mayor Pro Tem Grace Winchell properly recognized that bicyclists are doing their bit to reduce congestion and smog.

There is still a way to go, and the representation of bicycle riders on the committee might help. This re-striping has been in the works for a decade. But the council has abandoned the path of least resistance, which was to take the position that there was nothing it could do. This turnaround puts City Hall squarely behind the very lifestyle that makes Huntington Beach so attractive to so many in the first place.