Path of Dissension

For as long as locals can remember, the Lower Arroyo Seco has been an oasis of rustic calm, where neighbors once plucked wild greens for salads and you can still spot rabbits just a mile from the Pasadena Freeway.

But a proposal by the city of Pasadena to build a paved bicycle path through a 1.75-mile stretch of the park has sparked a bitter and noisy backlash among horseback riders, joggers and others who fear that the canyon will be overrun by mountain-biking speed demons and hordes of ill-mannered outsiders.

On Saturday, more than 100 opponents marched through the canyon--atop horse, on foot, tugging dogs on leashes--to protest a move they portray as nothing less than the loss of a way of life.

“This is a rare commodity in all of Southern California. There’s probably no place like the arroyo,” said Richard Davis, a semiretired consultant who lives nearby and walks in the canyon daily. He bore a sign calling the park “All We’ve Got.”

The hubbub over the proposed bikeway, part of a broader program underway to renovate the arroyo and increase the number of people using it, has prompted grumbling that opponents are treating the park as if it were their private preserve.

Marked in the past by screaming matches, the debate reached a new urgency after the City Council gave preliminary approval last month to a draft plan. It is widely assumed around City Hall that opposition to the bikeway inspired vandals who tore up thousands of feet of irrigation pipes along a stretch of the arroyo where the bike path was rumored to be under construction. Bikeway opponents have denied any ties to the vandalism.

“It gets really personal really fast, and that’s what scares me,” said biking activist Dennis Crowley, who is promoting a separate Pasadena-to-Los Angeles bicycle freeway.

“Some equestrians are quick to say, ‘You don’t belong here,’ ” said bicycling enthusiast Alan Armstrong. “It’s like they’re reverting to the days of the Old West.”

Equestrians, many of whom rent stable space nearby, say the stakes are high in the arroyo war because horseback riders are being squeezed out of favored wild-land areas elsewhere by housing development and ever-growing ranks of back-country bicyclists.

They say horses are easily spooked by the bikes, which are banned from the park now.

“There’s enough bike paths in the area. They don’t need another one. They don’t need to take this away,” said Tina Hagan, a horseback rider who lives nearby in Highland Park.

Officials caution that the proposal still must be studied for its environmental impact and is far from final. They note that, as currently envisioned, horses and bicycles would not have to share a path.

The bikeway, up to 12 feet wide and paved with hardened natural materials, would be built on the opposite side of the channel. And there will be no asphalt, officials said.

“We would never be that insensitive to that area.” said Cynthia Kurtz, assistant city manager.

But opponents say it will be hard to keep the bicyclists on the trail. They also fear that the paved surface would be a magnet for graffiti taggers and others. A flier advertising Saturday’s protest called the path “an open invitation to Roller-bladers and boomboxes.” Residents who live on the bluffs above the arroyo have voiced fears of crime.

That kind of talk has prompted concerns that opposition to the bike path targets youth.

“Some of the hysteria focuses on what I think is an anti-kid bias. And I think that’s dangerous,” said Greg Jones, chairman of the city’s Recreation and Parks Commission.

The debate has overshadowed the rest of the arroyo fix-up, which includes the restoration of natural streams and an effort to plant the sorts of native trees and shrubs that disappeared decades ago after the construction of a concrete flood-control channel.

Next month, the city will unveil a stream restoration near the Colorado Street Bridge as well as the planting project. The stream restoration diverts some rain runoff from the concrete to create a pair of flowing waterways. It was carried out with Browning-Ferris Industries as a condition for the company’s federal permit to enlarge a landfill in the San Fernando Valley.

The planting program, sponsored by the Arroyo Seco Foundation, aims to clear out nonnative plants that have taken over and restore native shrubs and trees, such as walnuts and sycamores. The pipes tossed into the channel by the vandals were to be used to irrigate the new plantings. Police are still investigating the Feb. 27 incident, which caused an estimated $6,000 in damage.

The goal of both programs is to return the arroyo closer to its original state. Still to be decided is the fate of the 50-foot-wide flood control channel. Under consideration are proposals ranging from covering it to removing it.

“We really feel the arroyo’s been neglected,” Kurtz said.

Although the park is also favored by archers and fishermen who practice casting in a pond, city officials consider it underused.

Residents and regular users of the Lower Arroyo would prefer that the park remain a lesser-known and tranquil treasure.

“The mountains are gone--the mountain bikes and motorbikes have taken over. The forest is getting paved over,” said Mary Ferguson, a Montecito Heights retiree who strolls the arroyo daily.

“The little places you can go to are overrun with skateboarding and Roller-blading. [The arroyo} is a serene place.”