On The Road
by: Bill Oetinger 4/1/2010
Spring Cleaning, Part 2
Last month, I started off with the intention of checking a few old items off my list: old column topics that refuse to die. As it turns out, the first item on my list last month ran on long enough, and was serious enough, that I didn't feel like splicing any other items onto it. This month, I hope to dispense with the rest of my list of old topics… to finish off my theme of Spring cleaning: airing out my house and sweeping all the old stuff out the door.
Let's begin with a couple of items from the same column I mentioned last month: More Loose Ends(from February, 2009). That was a follow-up on a few earlier columns whose topics keep wanting to dance back on stage for more encores. Some of the topics still had legs then and they still have legs now.
In that column, I rehashed my Cheap Seal Blues essay from December, 2008, wherein I discussed the deplorable state of road paving in Sonoma County. In the rehash piece, I was able to supply some detail about the county finishing last in an annual survey of roads in the larger Bay Area (a ranking produced by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission).
Now, a year later, I can report that Sonoma County has once again finished last among all the Bay Area counties in the quality of its road paving. In particular, our rural back roads are rated worst of all. These are the roads we cyclists ride the most; the roads we cherish as our cycling preserve. There are lots of them; they are scenic as can be and all sorts of fun for ups and downs and twisty curves. But the paving on many of them is a minefield.
Nothing new in all of this. Sonoma County has been at the bottom of the barrel for as long as the MTC has been cranking out the rankings. And don't expect that to change anytime soon, what with the parlous state of the economy (at all levels).
But I don't really want to beat that dead dog one more time today. It is what it is, and we simply have to live with it, for the time being. What I wanted to say, this time around, is that I have gained some grudging respect and sympathy for the hard-working, cash-strapped Sonoma County works crews and administrators who have the daunting task of maintaining all of those glorious miles of meandering byways we love so much.
Last February, in the month my Loose Ends column rehashed the Cheap Seal column, the guest speaker at our Santa Rosa Cycling Club meeting was Steve Urbanek, whose title is Pavement Preservation Manager for the Public Works Department. Steve is a genuine good guy who wants to do the right thing. He's sincere and committed and dedicated. He's simply stymied by a lack of funds. He used lots of charts and graphs to show us what a fiscal pickle we're in, and without breaking it all down into more detail than we had time (or expertise) for, we all generally accepted his arguments as to why his department makes the decisions it does (i.e.: some sort of chip seal instead of new asphalt). I still have some reservations as to why it has to be the way it is, but for the moment, I’m giving Steve and his staff the benefit of the doubt.
He did point out that new chip seal jobs are going to receive a top coat of a slurry substance -- I forget its official name -- which will create a less abrasive and more durable finish. We've seen some of this, and it is better than the raw chip they were doing last year. It's not great, but it's better. In a question-and-answer session, I asked him about three roads that were chipped last year with really coarse aggregate. (Pepper, Crane Canyon, and West Sierra, if you know your local roads up here. I discussed these in my original column.) I implored him to never use that particular type of aggregate again, and so far, they haven't.
For whatever it's worth--and to me, it's worth quite a bit--Steve and his crew showed their departmental heart is in the right place last Spring by getting a copy of the route for our club's Wine Country Century and then going out and patching or repaving pretty much every yard of lousy pavement, all the way around the course, just before the event. They didn't repave all 100 miles, but they hit all the worst spots, and there were a lot of them. It was a big project.
So, for now, I'm cutting them some slack. I know they want to do better, and if and when the economy ever turns around, perhaps they will.
Okay then, who's next? Back to More Loose Ends, to where I revisited my September, 2008 essay, The Tyranny of Extremism. The original piece was about a paved path in eastern Santa Rosa where a local homeowners' association is disputing the rights of cyclists to use the path and has posted signs saying bikes are prohibited. My follow-up noted that documents had come to light in the City archives that clearly show an easement granting public access to the trail, including access for bikes. Supposedly, with those documents in hand, the City would prevail upon the homeowners association to remove the signs. Now, more than a year later, that has still not come to pass. Cyclists are using the path every day, but the offensive signs are still there.
I recently fired off an e-mail to Chris Culver, head of the Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition, to find out if there is anything new to report on this tired old stand-off. She copied to me a recent update she had sent out…
"The City Attorney continues to pursue resolution of the dispute with those who oppose the public's right to continue cycling on a section of the bike path between Annadel State Park and Oakmont. The opposition, which includes the Villages at Wild Oak Owners' Association, has not accepted the City's generous proposals for a cooperative resolution. They also have yet to agree to the City's condition for mediation of the dispute, which is that any negotiated settlement must include the public's decades-old right to continue riding bicycles on the path. If the opponents will not mediate under these conditions, the City will be forced to file suit to preserve public cycling access. We hope that does not have to happen. In the meantime, do not hesitate to continue to ride the path. Just remember that regardless of how others may behave toward cyclists, we should always be safe, courteous, respectful and considerate of the rights of the pedestrians and equestrians who also enjoy this route."
As I noted in my last rehash of this one, the leader of the Owners' Association was quoted in our local paper: "Just because it's the law doesn't mean we have to obey it!" Or words to that effect. What a hardhead! I'll let you know when -- if ever -- this one is resolved.
On a related topic, I think -- I hope! -- I can report more satisfactory progress. In my Us Vs. Them column of July, 2009, I reported on another bike path where its eventual paving was being stalled by another group of NIMBY's. This one was on the western side of Santa Rosa. The path runs along the top of the levee next to Santa Rosa Creek. It's currently gravel but has been slated for paving for several years, with federal funds set aside for the project ages ago. But thanks to the obstructionism of one woman and a few supporters who have rallied 'round her, the project has been stuck in a bureaucratic limbo for years. Please read my prior column to get the full story on this one. It's a revealing and spooky window into the minds of some bike haters.
I had said in my July column that the County Board of Supervisors had finally finished with all their reviews and were going to get on with the project, and that it was scheduled for paving last September. Not so fast: the opponents somehow managed to snag the process again and it was delayed into the autumn, into the wet season, beyond any time that paving could have been done. Finally though, on October 20, we received this note from Ken Tam of the Sonoma County Regional Parks Department…
"Good news. This morning the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors voted 5-0 to approve the construction contract bid award to Gentry General Engineering. As always, Chris Culver did a fantastic job speaking to the Board and refuting Sheila Heim's comments. Sheila Heim attended the meeting and spoke in opposition to the project. She made a lot of accusations and told the Board that she is working with an attorney to litigate. She was the only person who spoke against the project. The group that she now represents is called 'Friends of the Santa Rosa Creek Preserve.' She either created a new group or changed the name, which was originally 'Save Santa Rosa Creek Trail.' She mentioned that her group is disorganized at the moment and is in the process of getting organized. Supervisor Kelley reminded the Board members that a public hearing was already held and the Board approved the project previously; the requested board action was to approve the construction contract."
At this point, the path is scheduled for paving as soon as it dries out, which ought to be in a month or so. But then, I said that last year too, didn't I? I'll keep you posted on how this one turns out as well.
This next topic goes back to a column I wrote in November of 2008 called The One-Percenters. It was about the ugly phenomenon of road rage directed at cyclists. One part of the piece centered on an especially egregious episode of harassment several of us endured along Spring Hill Road, north of Petaluma. We were buzzed by a large pick-up going very fast, and one rider was clipped on the side of the helmet by the rearview mirror on the truck. (At the time, I said no one was injured, but it now appears that Steve may have suffered permanent hearing impairment as a result of that blow to the side of his head.)
We never had a chance at a license number and could only give a superficial description of the truck in the police report that was filed. End of story, right? Not quite. We were aware of at least one other incident involving a similar truck on the same road, and wondered if it might be the same sicko. I speculated in my column that he was probably local to that road. A few months later, I got an e-mail from one of my club mates who lives down Petaluma way. While in a bike shop in that town, he overheard another rider describing a similar harassment incident with the same type and color of truck and on the same road. This fellow has in fact been buzzed by what appears to be the same truck three times now, including one incident where he was run off the road, onto the gravel shoulder, while towing his child in a Burley trailer.
But here's the kicker: the last time it happened, he and his riding companion saw the truck turn up a local driveway. They had a possible address for the creep! That's where I get back in the frame. My club mate brought me together with the guy from Petaluma. Once I had the address, it was easy enough to pop it into Google Maps and see what we had. Sure enough, satellite images show the property, and you can even see a white pickup by the house. I also rode down there and checked the place out. It's a large property--a 71-acre ranch--with multiple houses set well back from the road. And there were, when I saw it, not one but two white pick-ups, one apiece at each of two houses. Further googling yielded the name of the property owner and his business name and his e-mail address, etc. Quite a bit of information, in the end. (Google is so cool.)
I'm not going to "out" this guy in print at this point for a variety of reasons. First of all, there are too many things we can't know or prove at this point. Even if there were only one white pick-up there, it might not be the one used in the assorted incidents; with two white pick-ups, one might be the bad one and the other might be totally innocent, and you would still never know who was driving which one on any given day. I have this quaint belief in our judicial system: that bit about being innocent until proven guilty, beyond a reasonable doubt. Even though I'm about 90% certain this is the lair of our bad boy, I'm not going to be party to some vigilante railroading. Plus, frankly, I don't want to expose myself or this website to possible legal action for libel or slander.
However, with the assistance of Chris Culver at the Coalition (who has been keeping a log of these incidents), we have turned all our information over to the appropriate law enforcement agencies. So far, not much has happened, at least not that I know about. In answer to an e-mail from me, I received this short note from Jonathan Sloat, Public Information Officer for the Santa Rosa Area CHP office: “I forwarded all information to our Neighborhood Patrol Team, as well as our Investigations Sergeant, who will be following up on it. I will let you know what the outcome is when they pay a visit.”
That was dated March 1, which is several weeks after we reported the address of the alleged truck-bully, and over a year after our own encounter with him. I'm not holding my breath on any significant resolution to this issue. And for now, that’s where I have to leave all of these assorted points of friction between cyclists and those who don’t like them. I’m not an investigative reporter, nor a police officer, nor a lawyer or politician. I don’t have the time, energy, or authority to pursue these matters any further. If and when any of the stories breaks with something new to report, I’ll pass it along. Meanwhile, I’m going back to riding my bike and back to writing about riding, in the more positive and life-affirming ways that I prefer.
Finally, a lighter item to wrap this up, also harking back to that More Loose Ends column, in particular to the final item in that column, which I put under the subhead, Very Loose Ends. I told a story about having been crapped on by a buzzard while riding… only the, ah, loosey-juicy substance splattered about my person didn't quite fit what I thought a load of buzzard crap ought to look and smell like. One of my readers -- who claims to know about birds -- sent me a note afterward, suggesting that I had not in fact been crapped upon, but that the big bird was regurgitating food from its crop, something they will do when they are frightened.
I must say, I am so pleased to know that, rather than having been crapped on by a buzzard, I was cropped on by one. Doesn't buzzard barf seem a lot less icky? I was going to say it's a toss-up, choosing between the two, but perhaps that is not the best choice of words in this case.
Bill can be reached at srccride@sonic.net