Comments on: Pedaling Toward Cleaner Cities –When Will Ojai Catch Up?

By: pete lafollette

pete lafollette — Sun, 18 May 2008 18:40:33 +0000

Remembering my pedaling was not always carefree in Ojai. Big
menacing SUV’s yelling at me to get the !**! out of their way,
and this was when I was pulled over on the side of the road
looking at the creek. Driving is a mindset that Americans
need to grow out of. For the most part locals recognize the two wheeled lifestyle as a friendly and healthy sub-culture to an otherwise increasingly L.A. resembling place-anyone worried about not appearing cool on a bicycle, please recall a
eccentric physicist with wild bushy hair seen bicycling everywhere!

By: Suza

Suza — Fri, 16 May 2008 22:13:22 +0000

Thanks phalarope, I am going to use your observations in my next editorial for the OVN’s.
It’s all about a paradigm shift. American motorists think that driving is a right. Wrong! Driving is a privilige, NOT a right…to be continuid…some visitors just dropped out of the sky!

By: phalarope

phalarope — Fri, 16 May 2008 20:03:11 +0000

Ojai has a long, long way to go, and not just in the number of bicycles on the street. Roads are narrow, many automobile drivers (and, unfortunately, motorcyclists) are impatient and intolerant, and some drivers are downright aggressive and hostile in their behavior toward cyclists. I’ve seen bad behavior from some cyclists, too, but most of them are just trying to get where they’re going, and get there in one piece.
There’s something about being behind the steering wheel of a car that can bring out the worst in some (otherwise pleasant) people, and until this changes there will never be as many bicycles on the road as there could be.
By the way, I applaud the decision by the City and the Green Coalition’s Kenley Neufeld to seek to turn the Ojai Trolley into a free ride.