Sunday 4/22 Bike Campus Opening Event
We will celebrate the opening of the Bike Campus on Earth Day with lots of fun, festivities and education. There will be a Beach Bike Rodeo* aimed at middle school students and their parents, food, and raffle prizes. A coordinated collaboration with the City of Santa Monica, Santa Monica Bike Center and Santa Monica Spoke we will have bike safety checks with LCI’s (League of American Bicyclist Certified Instructors) at the different stations to teach safe bike traffic skills and obstacle avoidance techniques and to demonstrate how the community can use this great benefit to practice and improve their cycling skills on their own. You can bring your own bike or borrow one of ours.
Bike Rodeo Classes, raffles, food and festivities from 1:00-3:00pm
Information on how we can  “Bring CicLAvia to Santa Monica and the westsideâ€
At 3:00pm  Santa Monica Spoke will host another “Ride the BAP” to see and discuss more of the recent and upcoming bike infrastructure implementations.
We also hope to have our SMPD Bike Liaison Sgt McLaughlin in attendance.
The Santa Monica Bike Campus is located on a section of roadway no longer used that connected two parking lots just east of the beach bike path at Dorothy Green Park where Ocean Park Boulevard ends at Barnard way. The campus is painted with road markings and obstacle courses for teaching bike education classes and includes signage with instructions for self guided learning. It is painted with simulated vehicle lanes, street signage like stop signs, sharrows, crosswalks and bike lanes. It is used to teach lane positioning and obstacle avoidance as part of the curriculum of the League of American Bicycling’s Smart Cycling.
The facility is the first of its kind in Los Angeles. It is a dedicated space used to teach the road portion of the Confident City Cycling Skills by LCI’s (League Certified Instructors), as well as by the community with the self guided instruction signage and online videos. The area can also be used by local schools to teach bike skills in a safe space before introducing students to real traffic. This campus has long been envisioned by bike advocates in Santa Monica, Ron Durgin, GM of the Santa Monica Bike Center and Planning Commissioner Richard McKinnon, (BikeIt Day ) as well as us at Santa Monica Spoke. Last Year the City demonstrated its commitment to education by hosting a three day instructor training for League of American Bicyclist Instructors Certification. Santa Monica Spoke’s Director Cynthia Rose, Bryan Beretta and Mihai Piteu were certified as instructors along with a few members of the local community and 4 members from the City. We believe having an engaged City staff knowledgeable in cyclist rights and responsibilities as well as the many other skills learned in this training was a catalyst that helped us create a great Bike Action Plan that will serve the community well into the future. The City now offers monthly bike skills classes paid for by a safety grant coordinated by SM Bike Center’s Ron Durgin. The Confident City Cycling Classes, free for participants are taught here in Santa Monica, and also in West Hollywood and Burbank.
With the opening of this bike campus we can also hope to facilitate a traffic diversion program advocated by Santa Monica Spoke. This campus could now be used for bike education diversion program like Portland, OR or in Huntington Beach for bicyclists cited for moving violations like running stop signs and red lights to riding on sidewalks. In these programs, not unlike traffic school – a traffic safety class for cyclist is offered as a less expensive alternative to higher punitive penalties. But more importantly it offers offenders education instead of fees to help correct their behavior. Spoke had been working with former Cheif Jackman, exploring the implementation of such a program here in Santa Monica. We look forward to seeing this continue with the new Chief of Police Jacqueline Seabrooks.
“Bring CicLAvia to Santa Monica and the Westsideâ€
We will launch the campaign to bring this hugely successful Los Angeles event west. You will be able to sign up to get involved or just stay informed. Â We will have a map for you to help us in suggesting a route.
We are looking forward to a wonderful event this Sunday and hope you can join us to celebrate this next piece in the puzzle as we create a safer, more bikeable and walkable community.
*co-sponsored by Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District PTA Council
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I can still remember when we mentioned this bike campus idea in our round table meetings with city staff a few years ago when Rod Gould had become Santa Monica city manager. The idea was passed onto Barbara Stinchfield, who then took up the idea. I do think that Rod Gould had a lot to do with the idea becoming real – urging staff to move on it. Very satisfying.
I think that the opening of the Bike Learning Campus is a great initiative, as it encourages people to take up cycling. There should be a dedicated area for cycling enthusiasts to practice cycling, as it will help them to remain safe on the road.