Is Santa Fe a Bicycle-Friendly Calamity or Community?

I wrote a letter to the Santa Fe New Mexican, copying Santa Fe's Mayor Gonzales and 1st District councilor Sig Lindell the other day after blowing a fuse while reading the followup story about Irena Ossola, who was left close to death and with massive upper body injuries after a motorist made a left turn in front of her on West Alameda near the Siler roundabout as she was on a training ride. Apparently, the SFPD did not cite the motorist and I wondered why. Letter below, after this rant.

While investigating that crash, I learned from a Santa Fe cyclist that League Cycling Instructor Gary Schiffmiller, shortly after writing this bicycle safety editorial to the New Mexican, was hit by a motorist. Gary was injured but fortunately not in need of the emergency helicopter ride to an ICU (not sure of his exact condition; I've only heard a couple indirect reports). In that case it seems the motorist was cited. Good. Unfortunately for the cycling community, the cyclist who just updated me on Gary's condition indicated that a colleague of hers was hit and seriously injured two weeks ago while cycling by yet another careless motorist.

And of course, Outside Magazine trashed Santa Fe's motorists and Santa Fe's Finest after one of its writers, Aaron Gulley, was whacked by a motorist while, ahem, riding safely on “the biggest bike lane in Santa Fe.”. Adding insult to injury, he was cited rather than the motorist because by the time the cops got there to write it up it was dark and of course his fun bike had no lights.

Go figure. The hits, as they say, just keep on coming.

The good news is the St. Francis underpass for the Acequia Trail is open and cyclists have yet one more car-free option. That allowed a little less adrenaline to flow in my and my better half's veins when crossing St. Francis Drive/Cerillos Road on our tandem, rather than my previous experience trying to carve a zigzag line while not dropping a tire into the train tracks or getting hit by a car not understanding why a cyclist can't cross tracks at an oblique angle. We took the underpass and then crossed to the Rail Trail and only had to cross Cerrillos as pedestrians once. Whew.

The bottom line is that it is easier to build stuff like trails than change roadway attitudes. But cyclists will always need and are entitled to the roads, not just the trails. As long as Santa Fe's motorists and cyclists have trouble coexisting due to things like Driving While Cellular or "I didn't see her", or much of the public treating traffic laws as user-optional, life for cyclists will have these terrible stories.

As someone with decades of experience as an advocate, LCI, and county transportation board member (not to mention, a lifelong cyclist and motorcyclist), I've twice recommended Santa Fe as a Bicycle Friendly Community in my review to the League of American Bicyclists. Its a good place, but not sure I would recommend higher than silver (or even silver) after this spate of crashes unless we see some changes in how policy is translating to roadway safety.  The good news is that the City Different is about to get a new police chief as the existing gentleman retired so this is a good time to speak up. And, we shall see how the new administration treats cycling. Mayor Gonzales was pretty pro-cycling. I think it is time for cyclists to descend on City Hall after the elections and pound a few cleats on the table demanding that the future chief, as well as the city administration, take the safety of cyclists, pedestrians, and other vulnerable users absolutely seriously. That means taking out the ticket book. I would be the last person to claim that cyclists should be treated like prima donnas entitled to special treatment. Rather, cyclists and pedestrians are the canaries in the coal mines. If we are getting splattered all over the roads, something is seriously wrong with the picture.

Carnage and Culture, as Victor Davis Hanson titled his book.

We cannot count on building our way out of traffic violence with total grade separation of users as our systems are far too integrated. We have to change attitudes. That is a lot harder as it means we have to work on changing accepted thinking that has taken decades to develop, i.e., that cars are used as casually as the kitchen toaster and with little thought to their unintended lethality when misused. Meanwhile, we keep finding ingenious ways to misuse them with driver distractions. We tend to stovepipe safety, i.e., MADD, New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence, etc. Its time we took an integrated approach to public safety.. Everything matters.

Related reading: Patrick O'Grady, "How to sell cycling when ‘street smarts’ keep buyers indoors?"


Now that letter....

Dear Will (Webber) (copy Mayor Gonzales, Councilor Lindell, 1st District, and Bill Nesper, Exec. Director, LAB)

regarding the followup Irena Ossola story http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/all-i-want-this-christmas-is-to-get-back-on/article_315bcc43-277c-545d-ad94-6c37dcc05eb7.html#comments


I read the Irena Ossola story and its bizarre that not even a traffic ticket was issued to the motorist for failure to yield right of way to an oncoming vehicle and causing tremendous injury, practically death, to a bicyclist. Your story does not indicate if it was SFPD or the SF County Sheriff that responded and investigated the crash. I don't know where the city/county jurisdictional boundary is on W. Alameda so don't know who was responsible. I would like to write a letter to the responsible law enforcement party but did not recall seeing that ever identified in the New Mexican. Do you have a copy of the police report and therefore an idea of who did the investigation and why the left turning motorist was not cited?

Just reading that story is infuriating to me as a bicyclist. The lady was almost killed and no one held accountable by law enforcement for a careless act behind the wheel. To vulnerable users, this is unacceptable.

I have twice been an outside reviewer of Santa Fe's Bicycle Friendly Community application (in my capacity as a League Cycling Instructor, nearby cyclist, and a longtime member of the Los Alamos County Transportation Advisory Board) and both times recommended the city as a bicycle friendly community. These incidents, however, scare bicyclists off the road because there is apparently no holding people accountable for deadly acts. We should expect fair and effective law enforcement protection from the cognizant authorities.

Given that my wife and I now own a home in Santa Fe (1st District) and I support our city with our tax dollars, not to mention our enthusiasm for Santa Fe, and we now bicycle on our city and county roads, I have a serious investment in how this plays out.

thanks for any help on this,

Khal Spencer