Lack of Bike Paths Along Beaches Tied to Demand

In Los Angeles County, cyclists who prefer Class I beach paths can ride from Santa Monica to Torrance, a distance of 22 miles.

In Ventura County, cyclists are in for a much shorter trip--more than 18 miles shorter, to be exact. The county’s longest Class I beach path--defined as a separate bike right-of-way protected from autos and trucks--is a meandering, often-congested 3.9-mile strip in the city of Ventura. The county’s second-longest beach path is a puny one-mile concrete-and-asphalt sliver in Oxnard.

“L.A.’s beach path connects cities, but ours connects parking lots,” Tom Gonzalez of Oxnard said derisively.

No other Class I beach paths exist in the county, not even in the seaside city of Port Hueneme or on miles of beaches in unincorporated areas. “It would be nice to be able to ride from Ventura to Port Hueneme without worrying about cars and traffic lights,” said Nancy Hogan, 36, of Ventura. “They have it in L.A. Why hasn’t it been done here?”

The answer: no public demand or outcry. “It takes a squeaky wheel to get greased,” said Andy Oshita, county parks manager. “Ventura County has been relatively quiet.”

In L.A., organized cyclists make a lot of noise. At the start of the cycling craze in the ‘60s, a group of Manhattan Beach cyclists began a grass-roots movement that led to construction in 1973 of the first segment of the Santa Monica-to-Torrance bike path. Local, state and federal agencies were persuaded to contribute funds.

Over the years in Ventura, no organized efforts were made to take greater advantage of the county’s 41 miles of coastline. (A recent attempt to unite Ventura County bike clubs failed when the Ventura County Bike Alliance disbanded.)

Why the indifference? Theories abound: “This was a sleepy little county,” a county official said; politicians and bureaucrats “lacked foresight,” a state official said; and, with many wide-open rural roads, the county did not need a Class I beach path the way Manhattan Beach or Venice did.

In the past few years, an ever-expanding inland network of Class I paths has been built in the county and more are planned. But there are no plans to build additional Class I paths along the beaches, which is unfortunate, said Terry Blank, a senior planner for the California Department of Transportation, “because there’s funding to do these type of projects.”

Even a grandiose intercity coastal bikeway is considered possible by experts. “It would be quite an undertaking, but if the (county Transportation) Commission got a task force together and you got a group of (cyclists) together who wanted it,” Oshita said, “you could construct” a Class I beach path linking Ventura, Oxnard and Port Hueneme.

A project like that would face such engineering obstacles as gaping river mouths and narrow, eroding shorelines, but the most difficult hurdle would probably be human in nature: homeowners with a not-in-my-back-yard attitude. In the mid-1980s, the city of Ventura considered extending its 3.9-mile beach bike path an additional two miles south but residents of the adjacent property voted it down. They probably would not react much differently today.

There is a move afoot to connect Ventura’s beach path with the 9 1/2-mile Ojai Valley Trail, considered one of the state’s best multiuse Class I paths. The city of Ventura has commissioned a $90,000 study to determine the best route to link the trails, which are five miles apart, but no money has been sought for construction.

Recently, Simi Valley was awarded $450,000 by the state to finish a segment of its cross-valley bikeway. The money was generated by Proposition 116, which encourages the use of non-polluting transportation. The city of Ventura is expected to apply next year for Prop. 116 funds to connect the trails.

If the project becomes a reality, it will create a Class I path nearly 20 miles long. Something for L.A. County cyclists to envy.