He’s Smoothing the Road for Bicyclists

Don Harvey is a man with a mission.

His quest: to make life easier for those who, like him, would depend on bicycles for daily transportation.

“We think it’s a reasonable way to get to work,” said Harvey, 63, executive director of the 2,500-member Orange County Bicycle Coalition. “We think that those who are inclined to use bicycles for transportation should be encouraged and helped in any way.”

Harvey and his group have scored several victories for the cause, including recently convincing county officials to map out more than 1,000 miles of future bike lanes.

Harvey’s own love affair with two-wheelers began in 1973 when he moved from West Los Angeles to Newport Beach and had to drop out of a volleyball league.

“I had to find something else to do,” he said. “The idea of getting around under my own power kind of appealed to me.”

So Harvey bought his first bike, a Continental, for $95. And for each of the next several years he rode as much as 4,000 miles, making solo tours of Orange County’s open areas on weekends.

In 1979, Harvey took his first cross-country trip, a two-month trek to his sister’s house in New Jersey. And about the same time, he sold his car to begin riding his bike on his daily 40-mile round-trip commute to McDonnell Douglas in Huntington Beach, where he was an aerospace engineer.

Other major trips followed: an 1,800-mile bicycle tour of Northern California and Oregon, a three-week ride through the Swiss and Austrian Alps, a tour of the Colorado Rockies and a 750-mile race through the countryside of France.

Then, in 1991, he got involved with a group of cyclists opposing a plan to make Pacific Coast Highway six lanes through Huntington Beach. About 250 of the protesters, including Harvey, showed up at a public hearing on the matter, eventually winning. And from that struggle emerged the Orange County Bicycle Coalition.

The organization fought successfully for bike lanes on Laguna Canyon Road following the completion there of the new San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor now under construction.

It has, for years, managed to keep open the roughly 26 miles of bike trails along the Santa Ana River during various improvement projects by the Army Corps of Engineers.

And recently, Harvey was instrumental in creating the Orange County Transportation Authority’s Commuter Bikeways Strategic Plan, a 70-page document adopted last year outlining the needs of cyclists in Orange County, including some 1,072 miles of bike paths which the agency eventually plans to build with Measure M funds.

“Don helped educate a lot of us sitting around the table on the needs of cyclists,” said Sabrina Schaffer, an analyst for the OCTA who chaired the committee on which Harvey sat for more than a year. “He’s a very devoted and knowledgeable advocate.”

Not all of Harvey’s goals have been realized, however.

Yorba Linda and La Habra still have not added bike lanes to Imperial Highway, despite the organization’s urging. And Harvey said he’s still talking to Caltrans planners about building bike lanes on the shoulders of the Foothill Transportation Corridor, scheduled for completion in 1999.

“The shoulders have lots of room,” he argued, referring to the safety factor. “I don’t think it’s [inevitable] that cars hit everything they overtake; otherwise, telephone poles and trees would take quite a beating.”

In fact, last year a car going 50 mph hit Harvey as he was bicycling from Valencia to Carmel. He was hospitalized with a brain injury, broken ribs and broken collarbone.

“My helmet was broken,” he said. “Without the helmet, my skull would have been broken.”

Harvey’s cycling has been interrupted at least until summer, when he hopes to regain enough stamina to ride again. In the meantime, he drives daily to bicycle coalition headquarters in Orange to continue his lobbying.

“I’m not in the business of making people ride bikes,” he said, “but a certain percentage will ride them and I’m trying to make things nicer for those who do. That will make things nicer for everybody. Every bike on the road is one less car.”

Street Smart appears Mondays in The Times Orange County Edition. Readers are invited to submit comments and questions about traffic, commuting and what makes it difficult to get around in Orange County. Include simple sketches if helpful. Letters may be published in upcoming columns. Please write to David Haldane, c/o Street Smart, The Times Orange County, P.O. Box 2008, Costa Mesa, CA 92626, send faxes to (714) 966-7711 or e-mail him David.Haldane@latimes.com. Include your full name, address and day and evening phone numbers. Letters may be edited, and no anonymous letters will be accepted.