To make Fresno a better, safer place for riding bikes, city needs mayoral push | Opinion
“Couldn’t have picked a nicer day for a bike ride.”
So remarked Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer, his unmistakable baritone coming from a few feet behind my left ear.
We were pedaling along Huntington Boulevard at about 12 mph on a 75 degree afternoon, part of a rolling procession of civic leaders and cycling advocates organized for National Bike Month.
Organizers of the ceremonial ride that started and ended at Fresno City Hall invited the mayor and the entire city council. Only Dyer, Luis Chavez and Mike Karbassi were game, Dyer and Chavez looking dressed for a fancy gym and Karbassi wearing a gray suit.
I was slightly disappointed Miguel Arias and Garry Bredefeld didn’t take part. If only for the possibility that everyone’s favorite council sparring partners might finish things off with a mano a mano sprint down P Street.
Alas, no one sprinted — or crashed. Though at one point Dyer had to pull over to the sidewalk and raise his bike seat several inches so his legs wouldn’t be in a permanent squat.
“Handles much better now,” he said.
It was good to see Dyer enjoying himself, if only because he might be inspired to use his mayor powers and platform to make Fresno a better, safer city for cycling.
Fresno has made strides in that area, to be sure. Still, it feels like any gains realized by new stretches of protected bike lanes get canceled out by inattentive drivers who stare at their cell phones rather than keep their eyes on the road.
“The city has a lot of potential to be wonderful for bike riding,” said Laura Gromis, who chairs Fresno’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee. “We just need safer streets, better infrastructure and awareness.”
Fresno’s growing bike trail network
Wednesday’s event began with a sobering reminder from Dyer that 28 pedestrians and seven cyclists were killed on city streets in 2022 — part of the impetus for Fresno getting a $400,000 federal transportation grant to develop a Vision Zero action plan.
Still, it should be noted that Modesto, a city with less than half of Fresno’s population, received $1 million for the exact same purpose.
In recent years, the city’s network of separated bike paths has started to grow beyond north Fresno. There’s the long-planned Midtown Trail, finally under construction several years after the 7.1-mile project was announced. A final draft of the 6.6-mile Fancher Creek Trail was published for public review in January. And when Veterans Boulevard opens later this year, a Class I bike path will run along the entire 6-mile corridor.
Meanwhile, more protected bike lanes (where cyclists are separated from traffic by bollards, planters or parked cars) are popping up around town with segments along Palm, Belmont and Barstow avenues scheduled to be installed over the next several months.
Protected bike lanes caused confusion and consternation from some Tower District residents and business owners, in part because the city did a terrible job of informing the public. But to cycling advocates, the pace of progress has been exceedingly slow.
“Palm Avenue was supposed to be a quick build, which in Fresno takes three years,” BPAC member Matthew Woodward said.
With its flat topography and wide roads, Fresno should be a cycling haven. Bikes, however, were never part of the thinking during the city’s piecemeal sprawl of the 1970s and ‘80s. Rather than accepted in the local culture, cyclists were considered outsiders and outcasts.
Today these attitudes are changing, helped by the growing popularity of motorized ebikes that require less effort to pedal. Which certainly makes things more pleasant as temperatures rise.
During the short pedal through downtown and adjacent neighborhoods, Dyer fretted that I was going to make fun of him, again, for riding an ebike.
Not this time, if only because the ebikes he and other dignitaries rode were part of a rideshare program of 200 ebikes taking shape in southwest Fresno and coordinated by the Fresno Metro Black Chamber of Commerce.
Yes, southwest Fresno is getting a rideshare program. Plus a new bike path along the Fanning Ditch and miles of new bike lanes funded mainly by the Transformative Climate Communities Program.
Fresno’s evolution from a car-dependent city to one where cycling and walking are encouraged and supported by elected leaders can’t arrive soon enough.
