5/28/13 Cal Poly Pomona traffic study ignores bicycle safety - SGVTribune.com

www.sgvtribune.com/news/ci_23334077/cal-poly-pomona-traffic-study-ignores-bicycle-safety 1/4

Live Traffic: 10W 210W 57S 605S 710N 110N 60W

Most Viewed Most Emailed

1. Database: LosAngeles County schoolrankings based on APItest score data

2. Barbecue mishapignites house fire inCovina

3. Sheriff: Father put hisbaby girl in freezerbecause she wascrying

4. Suicide suspectedafter man plummetsfrom San Dimasfreeway overcrossing

5. Body found on campusof Covina continuationhigh school

6. Powerball ticket sold atAlhambra market wins$478,000

7. Drinking schemeinvolving women costsAzusa restaurant itsliquor license

8. Azusa Mayor Pro TemUriel Macias readiesfor deployment toAfghanistan

9. Foothill Transit shedsmanagement contractwith outside firm

10. 5 killed in NewportBeach when crashsplits car in half,catches fire

More News

Powerball ticket sold atAlhambra market wins$478,000

Azusa Mayor Pro Tem

Uriel Macias readies fordeployment toAfghanistan

Memorial Day services inPomona honor thosewho served

Glendale apartmentsscorched in raging early-morning fire

Arcadia approvesmedical office building atSanta Anita racetrack

Only 1-in-3 kids pass allparts of physical fitnesstest, says state

Memorial Day:Rosemead thanksveterans for sacrifices

Alhambra WWII veteranrevisits his prison inAustria to seek closure

Paparazzi at LAX maketheir living stalkingcelebrities

Mayor-elect Eric Garcettienters office amidtempered expectations

Recommend One person recommends this. Be the first of your

friends.

Recommend this on Google

Print Email Font Resize

Cal Poly Pomona traffic study ignores bicycle safety

Beau Yarbrough, Staff WriterPosted: 05/27/2013 09:32:22 PM PDTUpdated: 05/27/2013 09:33:24 PM PDT

Cal Poly Pomona students cross Temple Avenue onto the campus. A recent traffic study did not look at the safetyof pedestrians or bikers at the campus, where a student riding a bicycle was killed in February. (Thomas R.Cordova/Staff Photographer)

POMONA -- Traffic studies cited by Cal Poly Pomona administrators seeking to assuage student concerns afterthe on-campus deaths of a pedestrian and bicyclist make no mention of the safety of non-motorists.

In March, a week after the death of student bicyclist Ivan Aguilar, Cal Poly Vice President of Student Affairs DougFreer said the university has "consistently been reviewing and re-reviewing safety on the campus as it relates tovehicles, bicycles, pedestrians and the other ways students and faculty move around the campus. "

But the most recent traffic studies performed by the university, released in response to a Freedom of InformationAct request by the Los Angeles News Group, make no mention of either pedestrians or bicyclists, and focusinstead only on speed limits "" which the studies recommend raising in some locations.

Bicyclist and pedestrian matters are typically looked at in other reports, Freer said Friday.

"When we've done big projects, like the campus master plan, which we did back in 2000, we looked at pedestrianand bicycle demands," he said. "It's related to really big picture planning. "

The plans "look at the university holistically, so pedestrian flow is a small part of it," said Uyen Mai, executivedirector of public affairs.

The university is currently working on a new master plan, but simple fixes to bike safety issues may not bepossible, according to Mai.

"People aren't aware of the complexity" of adding speed bumps or adding bike lanes, she said. "The way thatKellogg Drive is classified, we can't put in speed bumps. " The road, as it is now, is not wide enough toaccommodate a bike lane. Adding a bike lane would probably cause traffic to back up onto Interstate 10, and thatwould cause a different sort of dangerous condition. "

The 75-page traffic study was released on March 20, three weeks after the Feb. 28 traffic collision that led to thedeath of Aguilar, who was bicycling on Kellogg Drive near South Campus Drive when he was struck by a car. Helater died of his injuries.

His death has given new urgency to long-standing concerns expressed by students, faculty and staff who say theuniversity has paid little attention to the safety of those not behind the wheel of a car.

The words "bicycle," "bicyclist" and "pedestrian" do not appear anywhere in the 2013 traffic study document.

It's the same story with the 2006-2007 traffic study, which was released a year after student Matthew Myers wasstruck and killed in a crosswalk on Kellogg Drive, a tenth of a mile west of University Drive, across from ParkingLot F-9. Clark reviewed that study as well.

This Site Web Search powered by YAHOO! SEARCH

Subscribe | E-Edition | Subscriber Services |

Login | Newsletter | Alerts | RSS

ShareShare

Home News Sports Money Opinions LA.COM Entertainment Info DirectoriesObitsAutosHomesJobsShoppingPlace AdMarketplace

5/28/13 Cal Poly Pomona traffic study ignores bicycle safety - SGVTribune.com

www.sgvtribune.com/news/ci_23334077/cal-poly-pomona-traffic-study-ignores-bicycle-safety 2/4

The posted speed limit on that stretch of road is 35 miles per hour, but the 17 year old student driving the FordMustang that struck him was going 47 to 49 miles per hour at the time of the collision, according to Cal Poly'sofficial summary of the accident, which was obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request.

"Matthew Myers sustained fatal injuries from the impact by the vehicle," the summary reads in part. "There was noevidence to suggest that he contributed to the cause of the collision in any way. "

The driver turned himself into the university's police station more than a month later and was charged withmisdemeanor manslaughter in Los Angeles County Juvenile Court in Pomona.

Although the 2006-2007 traffic study recommended keeping the 35 mile per hour speed limit at the site of Myers'death intact, it also indicated that 85 percent of motorists along that stretch were driving up to 45 miles per hourdown that stretch of roadway.

California law requires traffic studies to be conducted every five years for the purposes of setting, and enforcing,speed limits.

"The purpose of this speed zoning survey is to update the speed zones on the Cal Poly campus, as required bythe 2013 California Vehicle Code (CVC)," the 2013 study reviewed and signed off on by engineering ProfessorPeter J. Clark reads in part. "By having posted speed limits in compliance with the state laws as defined in theCVC, speed limits will be enforceable and the roadways should be safer. "

The university's focus on motorists, rather than bicyclists or pedestrians, was no shock to John Lloyd, anassociate professor of history who runs a bicycling blog, BoyOnABike.Wordpress.com, that has been critical ofthe university's unfriendliness to bicycles.

"I'm not surprised that the traffic studies didn't address pedestrian or bicyclist safety, disappointed, but not

surprised," he said. "The prioritization of automobile volume and speed over safety in street design is a problemthat extends beyond Cal Poly and has only recently begun to change, as more communities seek to become bike-and pedestrian-friendly. The U.S. is undergoing a shift away from automobile-only transportation planning, but it isstill in its infancy (as compared to Europe, for instance), so I'm not sure I'd fault Cal Poly exclusively. "

The university's traffic studies appear to follow the standard on how speed limits are set, he said.

"As a bicyclist, I don't think those established rules adequately consider the safety of vulnerable road users suchas bicyclists and pedestrians," Lloyd said.

Once a commuter school, Cal Poly now requires freshmen to live on the 385-acre campus, which both brings morerevenue to the university and, studies show, raises the chances that any given student will eventually graduate.

"Bicycle ridership is quite low for a university campus," the 2000 master plan reads in part. "This is partially aresult of the commuter nature of the campus. As additional on-campus housing is built, the demand for moredefined bicycle routes and bicycle racks for storage will become apparent. Currently, there are no bike lanesdesignated on the campus. "

University officials held a pair of traffic safety forums on April 18.

"We wanted to have a conversation with the campus community about their impression of both this incident andcampus safety in general," Freer said. "We tackled everything from people's impression of driving on campus, tobeing a pedestrian and riding a bike, and whether riding a skateboard or scooters were a good idea. "

The university is just beginning to compile the data from those forums, he said.

"Probably over the next month or two, we'll have all the data compiled from that, and then we'll probably have aconversation at the university level over what we want to do," Freer said. "We'll have a good game plan of whatwe're going to do by the end of summer. "

At the forums, Walter Marquez, Cal Poly's associate vice president for facilities, planning and management, saidthe university has limited resources that it can devote to additional safety measures for bicyclists and pedestrians.

"And that's why this forum becomes important to determine what the priorities are and where we should focus ourresources," Marquez told those in attendance.

Pressure is building on administrators to do just that:

On April 24, the Cal Poly's Academic Senate passed a resolution calling on the administration to redesign trafficthrough the campus "to enhance the safety of cyclists and pedestrians," including adding bike lanes, sidewalksand additional signage.

During a May visit to the campus, Cal State University Chancellor Timothy P. White said the university has theability to improve bicyclist safety on campus without breaking the bank as part of annual maintenance expenses.

"It doesn't cost any more money to paint your stripes differently" and create more space for bike lanes, he said.

And the school could theoretically go even further, he said: "Some of the greatest colleges in the world don't allowcars into the center of campus."

Return to Top

Recommendations

Los Angeles

notifies U.S.

Olympic Committee

of intent to bid on

2024 Games

11 people recommend

this.

Police seek leads in

case of missing

Covina man

109 people recommend

this.

Hacienda Heights

students walk for

autism

8 people recommend

this.

High School Girls

Basketball: Bishop

Amat faces major

hurdle in Long

Beach Poly

14 people recommend

this.

Facebook social plugin

Recommended for YouThe day the Golden Gate Bridge flattened

High School Baseball: Flintridge Prep ready to...