From Scott Eicher and the Chamber…

The Chamber will present a Candidates Forum on Tuesday evening, October 5, 2010 in the Soule Park Golf Course Banquet Room from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Admission is free and the public is invited. Coffee, tea and water will be provided.

There are six candidates running for three seats. Paul Blatz and Carol Smith are incumbents. The other candidates are Dimitri Corbin, Leonard Klaif, Dennis Leary and Carlon Strobel.

The format will be the same as it has been in previous years: pre-selected questions from the Chamber followed by audience questions. This is your opportunity to take part in the democratic process; we want you to submit questions for the candidates. Please send your questions directly to Scott Eicher at ceo@ojaichamber.org.

You can sponsor this event! For $100 you (1) can display your banner at the event; (2) will be mentioned at the opening and closing of the event; (3) will be listed in all advertising and on all posters/flyers for the event; (4) can place marketing material at the event. To be a sponsor, email Scott directly at ceo@ojaichamber.org or call 646-8126.

I was on a favorite cycling blog this morning and found this interesting post from controversial fashion photographer Terry Richardson. Enjoy.

“When you fall down… you get back up though… you always do.” from Terry Richardson on Vimeo.

via iaminlikwithmybike and terry’s diary

The worst President in the history of the US

Too Strong? Nah…

We now have two months until we know what happens in the mid-term elections. If Democrats, liberals, progressives, independents and those who voted for the first time ever in ‘08 show up on November 2nd, Obama’s party will retain control of the Senate and the House. It’s that simple. If you don’t show up, then the Republicans are likely to gain one or both chambers of Congress.

Of course, I have to say Obama and the Democratic leadership certainly aren’t helping the cause. the health care and the economic “reforms” that have been passed are shams(Don’t start arguing, this article isn’t about those so-called reforms and I don’t feel like getting bogged down in that minutia right now.) The end of combat operations in Iraq is a bright spot, well more like a lighter gray spot, but if you dig beneath the surface you discover that there are still 50,000 troops in Iraq purportedly there to “support” Iraqi armed forces with another 4,500 special forces there for “anti-terrorism” purposes. 4,500 highly trained killers is a pretty strong force especially when you consider that there are another 75,000+ mostly ex-special forces personnel working for much more money as private contractors also in Iraq. Am I missing something? I thought “combat operations in Iraq ended” back in 2003. Whatever, I’m just glad no one came out wearing a codpiece this time.  The occupation still continues.

Noam Chomsky said that Obama is turning out to be either the third term of Bill Clinton or the third term of George W. Bush depending on your lever of optimism vs. pessimism. As a progressive, it does seem that Obama and the Democratic leadership are working for the exact same people BushCo was. The “clients” are definitely not liberals or progressives, as Rahm Emanuel and now Robert Gibbs have made abundantly clear. Don’t mind me though, I guess I’m just a member of the “professional left”, which in my case means that I’m freelance(code for unemployed with no unemployment insurance benefits despite paying double the FICA taxes).

Despite Obama’s and the leadership’s perceived weakness and their overt animosity toward progressives, my guess is that we’ll retain the House and probably the Senate by thin margins. Nate Silver’s, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT seems to agree. However, the degree to which that matters is up for debate. When we won huge margins after 2006 and after 2008 we did very little with them when compared to what should have been done. If fact, it seemed like we behaved as if we were still in the minority. After 2006, when we should have ended the war in Iraq which was the reason the electorate threw out the Republican majority, the Democratic leadership thought it would be smarter to triangulate and continue the atrocity in hopes of more political gains in the form of the Presidency in 2008. Thanks to the Obama campaign which actually won one of advertising’s most prestigious awards for Marketer of the Year we won even larger margins in Congress and the Presidency. The Obama campaign, or the iObama campaign as I call it because the usual winner of that advertising award tends to be Apple, was a thing of beauty that left just enough unsaid to make liberals and progressives think we would finally see a return to some form of sanity on policy issues ranging from trade and regulating the economy to health care to the end of two wars. Most serious progressives I know were slightly suspicious but we still held out HOPE for something like an FDR-style CHANGE. Clearly, the thinking went, that level of CHANGE was warranted. The feeling among young and old, first-time voters after 8 long years of the dumbest shit anyone had ever seen in the form of BushCo was near euphoria. Euphoria is fantastic when you’re selling iPads, but it’s awfully difficult to maintain. Now the euphoria among the first timers has definitely leached away. Virtually none of those first time ‘08 voters showed up during the primary in June and a whole lot of liberals, progressives and Democrats failed to show up as well. If that trend continues this November, get ready for the new Republican majority with the added new fun feature – Tea Party overdrive!

Anyway, the real question is are Obama and the Democrats better than the the alternative of McCain and Palin? Probably. Bush and the Republicans very nearly destroyed this country. In fact, I’m not sure the jury is in on that yet. Of course, he started out after 40 years of disastrous free market idolatry had hollowed out our economy and eliminated our manufacturing base, off-shored most of our decent jobs and created the largest trade deficit since the end of the Ottoman Empire. Rampant laissez faire humbuggery has allowed a casino capitalism to develop that is actually worse then what existed before the Great Depression. All of this was done on a bipartisan basis with many of the worst changes coming under a Democratic President, Bill Clinton. Meanwhile, the number of foreclosures now is worse both in terms of real numbers and per capita then they were during the Great Depression. Unemployment, if measured using U6 numbers is approaching Great Depression levels, especially if one considers that many jobs considered full time now are for low wages. Wages, by the way, that have not effectively gone up since 1973.

Obama and the leadership seem unwilling to acknowledge these facts. There are policy changes that can be undertaken to fix most if not all of this mess. Of course, those are progressive policy changes which the White House seems to be allergic to. Instead of lifting the cap on Social Security, re-instating the wall between commercial banks and investment banks, enacting a Securities Turnover Excise Tax(STET) to curb speculation and eliminating tax loop holes for corporations we are actually left wondering(incredibly) if Bush’s misbegotten tax cuts on the richest people in the country will be allowed to expire!  With more then 40 million people on food stamps and 50+ million on medicaid we are being told that weak, 1% GDP quarterly growth numbers means that the economy is recovering from this recession! It’s useful to realize that these anemic “growth” numbers over the last couple of quarters can easily be attributed to the actions of just the 6 large investment banks on Wall St who are literally gambling with 0% interest money from the Fed. Worse, this incredibly weak growth in GDP can actually be attributed to the BP oil spill and the added expenditure to pretend to clean that up!

So that’s where we stand before this mid-term election. An economy still in shambles(just look at today’s unemployment numbers) Once again we’re being told that we have to turn out to vote and that we must vote for the Democrats or else the Republicans will ruin everything. Assuming that there is indeed something left to ruin, I will turn out to vote like I have for the last 23 years. If the Democrats lose the House and/or the Senate, Obama’s chances for a 2nd term drop substantially. While I am disappointed in Obama and his reliance on hacks and Clinton retreads such as Emanuel, Geithner, Summers et al., I’m not ready to hand the country back to the likes of Sara Palin. Obama has not been all I had HOPEd for(yet?), but I know where the real blame lies. There are a couple of propositions that need attention(Yes on 19 and NO on 23) and voting against Elton Gallegly for Tim Allison for US House of Representatives of CA-24 will be a great pleasure. I hope you will turn out to vote too.

If you can think of no other reason to turn out in November, then simply show up to

LEGALIZE IT!

Here’s a thoughtful editorial from Michael Shapiro on the Weldon Canyon Dump and the Ojai Valley Defense Fund.

For those who miss it, be sure to keep an eye on the Press Releases section over in the right sidebar of every page of the site. While I moved press releases off the main content area on the home page, there’s still some interesting reading and local news on a regular basis over on the side there.

From evan (7:49pm):

From reader Carol Lynn:
“Woman driving car hit 2 pedestrians headed north toward Barts, crossing street in front off park across from Ojai Liquor/Carrows…Life Line Ambulance still at scene as of 10 minutes ago.” (7:19pm)

Hi Ojai, from San Francisco… just checked my email and was able to post these contributions.

*The following “Guest Editorial” was published in the September 1, 2010 edition of the Ojai Valley News under a different headline chosen by the paper.

 *THE WELDON CANYON DUMP & THE OJAI VALLEY DEFENSE FUND – WOULD THE DEFENSE FUND HAVE PREVENTED THE WAR?

By Michael Shapiro

 Among the numerous attempts by outside industries and the Ventura County Planning Division bureaucracy to foster large-scale, environmentally ruinous industrial projects in and/or near the Ojai Valley, perhaps none was as egregiously horrid and potentially devastating as the attempt by Waste Management, Inc. to construct a monstrous, mega-landfill (a massive garbage dump!) to be located just a quarter-mile in from the end of the divided section of Highway 33, adjacent to Casitas Springs and the entrance to the Ojai Valley.   I’ve always believed that if the executives at Waste Management and the personnel down at the County Planning Division knew in advance that the citizens of the Ojai Valley possessed a vast, potent, million-dollar environmental defense fund that could bankroll the hiring of attorneys, environmental consultants and effectively organize politically to oppose such projects, that the County and Waste Management would have never progressed as far as they did towards development of such an ill-conceived and environmentally destructive project as the Weldon Canyon dump in the first place.  Unfortunately, Ojai did not have such a fund in place, and we paid dearly in time, energy, stress and the finances it ultimately took for not being prepared in advance.

The Ventura County Planning Division failed miserably in questioning the deeper and broader efficacy and environmental soundness of citing such a landfill at the entrance to the Ojai Valley’s air shed — the area considered to be the gateway to a larger closed-loop system where the sum total of all pollutants on any given 24-hour period are collected and stored – making the Ojai Valley’s air-quality the second worst in all of Ventura County.  They never adequately factored-in that when fully operational, perhaps as many as one-thousand extra diesel polluting garbage trucks per day would make the trip up and down Highway 33 – to and from the 101- spewing their carcinogenic diesel exhaust, much of which would then be carried right up into the Ojai Valley most every day.  Nor did they take into account the myriad of other pollutants, i.e. — tons of dust particles, unsavory and potentially dangerously rotting, toxic, bacteria-laden micro-organisms that are also part of any such land-fill operation and which would also be carried into the Ojai Valley daily by the prevailing winds coming up from the Pacific Ocean.  

Indeed, it was the norm to attempt to cite landfills in areas where the population demographics were often lower on the socio-economic scale and thus thought to be in areas less likely to fund any seriously organized opposition to their projects.   It was thought that “the Avenue” and the various sub-divisions adjacent to it, as well as Casitas Springs and even the Ojai Valley itself, fit into what was conceived as a “safe-bet” for developing such a massive landfill project due to lack of meaningful, organized and/or well-financed opposition.   Unfortunately, no one among the planners at the County or the engineers at Waste Management contemplated that vast numbers of citizens from within the Ojai Valley would rise-up to organize to effectively fight their project.  The Coalition to Stop Weldon Canyon Dump! quickly organized and worked tirelessly and valiantly to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund our legal defense team at the Environmental Defense Center (EDC); long-time Ojai resident (the late) Carl Huntsinger organized the Ojai Citizens for Clean Air (OVACA) to fund an additional $50-thousand environmental study which confirmed the catastrophic effects of the dump upon the Ojai Valley’s air quality; several star-laden Rock concerts, cases of Dump Weldon! Wine, visible support from countless movie stars and more  – all these combined efforts eventually defeated the plans of both Waste Management and the County Planning Division to approve construction of the dump.

Waste Management and the County planners had believed that the people of the Ojai Valley would be a “push-over” and that we lacked the financial and/or organizational/political sophistication to wage any serious opposition to them.   Additionally, the Weldon Canyon dump project was a deeply entrenched, special interest corporate development plan that stood to make hundreds-of-millions of dollars in profits upon winning approval.   Even the Bonsall family that owned the pristine and beautiful Weldon Canyon property was counting on earning millions-of-dollars simply from leasing the property to Waste Management.   The seemingly endless amount of the multi-millions-of-dollars in profits that both Waste Management and the Bonsall family were counting on – together with the huge sums of money that the Ventura County Resources Management Department hoped to earn from Waste Management’s application, permit and “dumping fees” – provided all of them with a huge financial incentive to wage a prolonged effort to develop and open the dump regardless of the fact that it posed seriously grave dangers to the Ojai Valley’s air-quality and the fact that from an overall solid waste perspective, Ventura County had no need whatsoever for such a polluting colossus in the first place. 

It took huge sums of money to defeat the combined forces of wealthy corporate interests and their allies and promoters within the County Planning Division.  Eventually – so effective and successful was the Dump Weldon! Coalition’s efforts in persuading the powers that be about the evidence and proof of the dangers, the folly – and the complete lack of need for such a huge landfill project – that on the eve of the vote by the County Supervisors to grant Waste Management their Conditional Use Permit (CUP), one of the largest corporations in the world withdrew their application knowing they were heading down to defeat.  However, our rejoicing in victory was short-lived: Within a year, Waste Management announced that they were going to make an end-run around the standard legal procedure for developing such massive industrial projects by putting the issue on the ballot as a California State Ballot Initiative.    Suddenly – the Dump Weldon! Coalition, together with Carl Huntsinger’s Ojai Valley Association for Clean Air (OVACA) and our legal team at the EDC – had to morph from an effective environmental coalition force within the County Planning process to an effective political election campaign organization!  Struggling to raise additional finances against the more than one-million-dollars that was thought to be allocated by Waste Management (who organized the typical, industry-backed, cynically-named organization called Citizens for Environmental Solutions) – our campaign message prevailed and though outspent, we nevertheless were able to defeat the Weldon Canyon Landfill project by an almost 3-1 margin in the County-wide, general election.

The lessons of Weldon Canyon are clear:  Unless and until our Ojai Valley citizens permanently fund potential, future environmental battles – thus effectively arming and protecting ourselves – in advance – from any number of ill-conceived, polluting, industrial projects that could spell ruination for our greater Ojai Valley, our traditional way of life, and threaten Ojai’s basic economic vitality – we will always be in potential danger of being overrun by industrial development of one kind or another.   I’m convinced that the existence of an Ojai Valley Defense Fund will serve to protect us from future “Weldon Canyon Dumps” and all other projects that could endanger our Shangri La.   It’s like possessing our own version of a nuclear bomb:  Hopefully we’ll never have to use the financial clout from the Defense Fund because it will always be there – armed and ready – serving as a powerful deterrent.  Indeed – if all those “out there” among the potential industrial developers and Ventura Count planners understand and appreciate that Ojai is now (metaphorically speaking) armed and dangerous – then they’re less likely to attempt developing their projects that negatively impact Ojai in the first place.   And that’s why I’m giving the Ojai Valley Defense Fund my absolute, unconditional support and why I’m urging all who cherish and value the Ojai Valley’s environmental health and economic stability to do the same.  Personally, I’ve been through far too many costly, exhausting, difficult and challenging battles on behalf of protecting the Ojai Valley.  I’m convinced that the Ojai Valley Defense Fund is our ultimate “protective shield” for years to come.

*An independent television and film producer and former corporate business executive, Michael Shapiro has been a resident of Ojai for 20-years.  During that time he has been a founder and Co-Chairperson of the Ojai Playwright’s Foundation; Co-Chair of the Dump Weldon! Coalition; First VP of the Ojai Valley Land Conservancy and Co-Chair of the Stop The Trucks! Coalition.

Nominating your most beloved peacebuilder just doesn’t GET any easier than this! Nominations are open through Sunday the 5th, and then the public voting begins!

I’m ready to make a nomination!

Hi Ojaians!

I am happy to announce that the 2^nd Annual California Bear Dance Ceremony will be held on Saturday, September 11^th.  The California Bear Dancers with spiritual leader and elder Henry Ortega have been invited by the Barbareno/Ventureno Band of Mission Indians (Chumash) to perform a ceremony with our community. They are here to bring healing to the community and are committed individuals who bring the healing power of bear medicine.

This years event will be in honor of “GRATITUDE”. This ceremony is dedicated to our Ojai black bear, Elliot/Suawasuniset who’s life was taken on 10/10/09. The ceremony will take place at Casa De La Luna, in Meiners Oaks. The Danza Azteca Mayahuel will open the event at 5pm with a traditional Aztec dance performance and the ceremony will go until 10pm.

I invited Julie Tumamait, our local Chumash elder and community leader, to share a few words about this years event.  She shared this: “I wish for the community, especially the younger members of our valley to come and pray for each other and for all those who have lost a loved one to bring their name to the circle and give thanks that we are all better to have known them. We are all connected in one way or another in this valley and we need to support one another.”

Thank You Julie, for organizing such a wonderful event. This is truly a gift for the community.

The Event is FREE to the public. Bring your chairs, blankets, food and water. This is a time to pray and let go of negative feelings that don’t serve you, and to honor those who have passed on to Spirit.

In Joy,
Ali-Sun Trees

If you travel on Grand Avenue, you’ve probably noticed the new shared-lane bicycle arrows, or “sharrows” (a word coined from “share” and “arrows”). These internationally recognized pavement markings, along with soon-to-come “Share the Road” signs and other visual cues, are intended to remind drivers of their legal obligation to share the road.

Ojai’s Grand Avenue, aptly named with its splendid views of the mountains, is one of the most beautiful roads in Ojai. Grand Avenue to the East End is a scenic drive and a magnificent walking/bicycling/equestrian route for locals and visitors alike.

In the 1950s, when I was a student at San Antonio School, I rode my bicycle on Grand Avenue and all over the valley without ever worrying about being hit by a car. Over the years, with increasing congestion on Ojai Avenue, Grand is no longer the road less traveled. During peak traffic hours, when children are going to school and adults are rushing to work, Grand becomes a speedway—a thoroughfare for more than 6,000 car trips a day.

With these first sharrows on Grand Avenue, Ojai has taken a step in the direction of such other bike-friendly cities as Portland, Denver, New York, Seattle, and Chicago. Sharrows are appearing all over California including cities like Berkeley, Long Beach, Ventura, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Cambria and San Luis Obispo.

The sharrows were one of about thirteen alternatives that were researched and evaluated by the Planning Commission Complete Streets sub committee and City staff over several months time, including several publicly noticed meetings.

The concept of sharrows is relatively simple: share the road, with civility, neighborliness, and mutual respect. Look people in the eye, recognize them, give them a nod to show that you see them, and even say hi. Here in Ojai, the sharrows remind us to enjoy the journey—not just careen our way to the next destination.

As is to be expected with anything new, reactions have been mixed. One longtime Ojai resident wrote, “I just saw it, and it looks great! I ride my bike down there all the time and it’s awesome. Makes me feel safer. Good job!”

At the other end of the spectrum, one resident was angry about the sharrows. In his opinion, we have made motorists into “second-class citizens” by giving priority to the cyclists.

Several parents called to express disappointment that we hadn’t installed designated bike lanes instead. A man described how some drivers honked at him when he took an 8 a.m ride toward Topa Topa School to test the safety of the route for his child. One woman yelled at him to get out of the way, and when he pointed down toward the sharrows on the pavement she accelerated and nearly clipped him off his bicycle.

Perhaps some of our police on bicycles could monitor the traffic on Grand Avenue before and after school while motorists adjust to the new sharrows.

In the coming days, as we observe the pros and cons of sharrows, please keep in mind that the Grand Avenue sharrows are only one element of a larger, complete alternative-transportation-friendly bicycle/pedestrian/equestrian street plan that the City of Ojai (i.e., various citizens working with our City staff, elected officials, and planning commissioners) is developing.

Nationwide, sharrows are one of the elements supporting the U.S. Department of Transportation’s new stated goal that the needs of pedestrians and cyclists must be placed alongside, not behind, those of motorists. Sharrows were federally approved and adopted after research by the DOT revealed that the markings significantly increase the safety of bicyclists and reduce improper bicycle behavior such as riding on the sidewalk, riding on the wrong side of the street, not hand signaling when turning, and failing to heed stop signs.

Questions and Answers about Sharrows
Q. What exactly is a sharrow?
A. A sharrow, or shared lane marking, is a white stencil of a bicycle with an arrow, intended to show both motorists and bicyclists the minimum distance that cyclists should ride from parked cars to avoid being hit by a suddenly opened car door. Although it is the motorist’s responsibility to check before opening a door, riding too close to parked cars is a common mistake that can still lead to serious injury.

Q. What’s the difference between a sharrow and a bike lane?
A.  Bike lanes provide a 4-to-5-foot-wide dedicated lane for bicyclists. Under circumstances where the street is wide enough (or residents agree to remove one or both parking lanes), they are usually the safest solution for children and people unaccustomed to riding in traffic. Sharrows are on-street legends that reinforce the existing rules of the road. They are not separate bike lanes: motorists can still drive over the sharrows. Sharrows tell motorists that they should expect to share the lane with bicyclists, while they indicate to bicyclists the best place to ride in the lane.
Bike lanes are one of several design options that may be revisited down the road. Bike lanes on Grand would require the removal of car parking on one side of the street and restriping of the street.

Q. Why sharrows on Grand Avenue instead of bike lanes?
A.  Due to the straightness of Grand Avenue, speeding on this street is a huge concern. The wider and straighter the street, the more drivers tend to speed. Cars parked on both sides of the street actually make the street look narrower and may help to slow traffic. The decision to implement sharrows was made with the hope that keeping the parking lane on both sides, plus the addition of sharrows, would narrow the appearance of Grand Avenue—which has elsewhere been shown to help slow down traffic.

The City is also looking at ways to make the intersection of Summer Street, North Signal, and Grand (including the blind curve as Signal turns into Grand) safer for pedestrians and cyclists.

Q. As a cyclist, what should I do in the presence of these markings?
A. The markings are placed as a guide to where cyclists should be riding. In general, cyclists should ride through the center of the sharrows. However, if there are no cars in the parking lane they can choose to ride there. And, by law, a cyclist is also free to move left, into the main part of the travel lane, when it is safe to do so.

Q. As a motorist, what should I do in the presence of the sharrows?
A. Slow down and drive carefully. Because the travel lane on Grand Avenue is too narrow for safe side–by–side travel by motorists and cyclists, drivers should slow down and either wait for a cyclist to turn off the roadway or wait until the cyclist can move into the adjacent parking lane. Keep in mind that the cyclist may not want to weave in and out of the car parking lane and has a legal right to stay on the sharrows.

Q. Can’t cyclists just look into parked cars as they ride and see if someone is about to open the door?
A. Cyclists, like all road users, need to constantly scan the entire roadway for safety. Checking every car for a driver is hard to do without compromising attention paid to the road. Also, it’s often impossible to see drivers due to headrests, tinted windows, large vehicles blocking the view of other parked vehicles, etc. Drivers should check their side-view mirror or look back prior to opening their door. Although it is the driver’s responsibility to open the door only when safe (California Vehicle Code Section 22517), it is the bicyclist who ultimately pays the price.

Q: Can I drive my car over these markings, or is this a bike lane only?
A: Unlike a bike lane, which cars can drive in only when making a right turn, you may drive over these markings. They are meant to highlight that it is a shared roadway, point out to bicyclists the minimum distance to stay from parked cars, and instruct motorists to expect to see bicyclists out in the lane.

Q: Bicyclists riding over these markings often end up in the car travel lane. Aren’t they supposed to move to the right?
A: Not always. The move-to-the-right rule is part of California Vehicle Code Section 21202, which also allows a number of exceptions to the rule. One of those exceptions allows bicyclists to avoid conditions that make it unsafe to continue along the right side. It also provides the following list of examples for those conditions: “ . . . including, but not limited to, fixed or moving objects, vehicles, bicycles, pedestrians, animals, surface hazards, or substandard width lanes.” It goes on to define a substandard-width lane as “a lane that is too narrow for a bicycle and a vehicle to travel safely side by side within the lane.”

As with all slower-moving vehicles, cyclists are required to ride as far to the right as is practical. However, slower moving vehicles are not required to compromise their safety in order to allow a faster vehicle to pass.

The driver who honks and yells at a cyclist to get out of the way when streets are narrow or cars are in the parking lane is violating the California Vehicle Code. According to Section 21202, cyclists are to stay to the right except to pass other cyclists or vehicles, to prepare to make a left turn, or when necessary to avoid conditions (including fixed or moving objects, surface hazards, or substandard-width lanes too narrow for a bicycle and vehicle to travel side by side) that make it unsafe to continue along the right. Moving to the left in the lane to avoid car doors, for instance, even if it means taking the entire lane, is permitted by the CVC.

To summarize,  in all situations where the lane is too narrow for a bicycle and an overtaking motor vehicle to travel safely side by side, the motor vehicle is required by law to slow down, whether or not there are sharrows on the road. The sharrows are there as a reminder to cars to slow down and share the road. In a location like the Arbolada where there are no sharrows, cars must still legally slow down to accommodate cyclists. If the slow speed of a group of students on bicycles, for example, is a problem for a motorist, it is the motorist who by law must take a different route, not the bicycle. The law does not require a cyclist to take a different route so cars can go faster. In a location like Ojai Avenue, where cars are often parked on both sides of the street, bicycles can ride in the entire travel lane to avoid car doors, potholes, etc.

Next time you see a bicycle on the road, remember that bicycling benefits motorists by reducing the number of cars on the road and freeing up parking spaces. More bicycles mean cleaner air and water, less reliance on oil, and improved public health and property values. It’s our hope that, like the Ojai Valley Trail, the sharrows on Grand Avenue will be a catalyst for change—the first of many further new elements that, over time, have the potential to make Ojai a world-class bicycle/pedestrian/equestrian-friendly city.

Suza Francina is Chair of the Transportation Committee of the Ojai Valley Green Coalition and a representative to the Planning Commission Complete Streets Subcommittee.

Note: A slightly different version of this article published in the Ojai Valley News, September 1, 2010, “Bikes, Cars, Sharing the road: Pavement Markings on Grand Avenue designed to promote bicycle use, safety.”

The author gratefully acknowledges and thanks her editors,  Sonia Nordenson and David E. Moody PhD.,  and the Planning Commission Complete Streets  Subcommittee, in the writing of this article.