One night a few weeks back, I made a left turn from McBean Parkway onto Orchard Village Road and was accosted the first time by those new gawd-awful giant white mega-reflectors.
I thought for sure some Southwest 737 would confuse our beloved parkway with Burbank Airport and land right on top of us. OMG, what the heck happened to Orchard Village Road? Had a giant pipe burst with a huge emergency repair underway? Was the president’s cavalcade planning a special dictatorial parade from Vallarta Supermarket to Henry Mayo? Some bad movie production temporarily hijacking our beloved street for a drag racing scene? What the heck was going on with this deranged debasement of what had been our city’s most beautiful street?
Orchard Village has long been the most beautiful boulevard in the valley. An elegant, wide boulevard, lined with perfectly trimmed, symmetrical Sycamore trees … a key gateway and beautiful invitation leading to the city center. A graceful, calming drive introducing for all who drive its path to the bucolic vistas of our beloved town.
And then, this mess! A shive in the spine of our city! A confused, on and off again, visually random series of giant reflector butt-paddles sticking up right and left, with indiscernible rhyme or reason, confusing motorists day and night, spanking our eyes to near blindness. Driving the “new” Orchard Village at night has become a 1,000-watt, reflective, rat-maze of a challenge.
This is self-inflicted destruction of public property, ironically installed by the management of said public property. A sort of intentional, infrastructural graffiti depressing all who pass by. A bloody nose on Scarlett Johansson’s perfect face.
Why?
The city received a grant from the Department of Transportation to install barriers or buffers to “protect and encourage” pedestrians and bicyclists and to discourage use of automobiles. Some propeller head playing far too many video games in his mom’s basement apparently invented these contraptions and sold the concept to agencies with too much taxpayer money to burn.
According to the city’s website, “Orchard Village Road was selected for this temporary demonstration project due to several factors – chiefly the lack of sidewalks for much of the road and its proximity to local neighborhoods, paseos, schools, bike lanes and bike paths – and will utilize the existing shoulder to install barriers to create a more comfortable space to walk and bike. The system is the first of its kind in the city and will provide a golden opportunity to assess and enhance future pedestrian safety measures without reducing existing traffic lanes.”
Yes, a “golden opportunity” to debase some of our most beautiful infrastructure.
Encouraging pedestrian and bicycle use on a street and land plan never designed for the same is “woke public works.” Orchard Village was purposely designed only for cars – and designed that way decades ago. Back then, Valencia was conceived as a town that would have graceful boulevards for cars, and “paseos” for pedestrians, bikes, and even “people movers.” Orchard Village was purposely built with no sidewalks and no accommodation for such — and unless the city wants to buy and tear down homes on each side of the street, there’s simply insufficient room for a public artery of this importance.
Force-feeding a bike lane where bike lanes shouldn’t go creates not only an amazingly bad appearance, but it also creates a huge public safety problem for our entire population while providing for bikes that are scarcely or never used.
What happens now when cars are backed up and an ambulance or fire truck needs to rush into Henry Mayo? No room. Sorry, that passing lane that used to be available is now an unused, stupid bike lane. Honk, honk, let’s go – but the ambulance gets stuck or slowed down.
What’s a few extra deaths exchanged for unused bike lanes?
These reflective barriers are Band-Aids on a wound that doesn’t exist. Beyond a waste of money and huge safety concern, they’re simply butt-ugly. Sorry for the bluntness, but scarcely has there been such a travesty committed in our otherwise beautiful city.
And fully unnecessary. In the Orchard Village area, paseos already exist in abundance and are infinitely safer than any surface street could ever be, regardless of Frankensteinian butt-paddles. Further, our city has 100-plus miles of paved trails and paths to take bikers and pedestrians alike to nearly any area one might wish to go – with zero risk of vehicular accidents.
The city has made a similar, but lesser mistake years before. Rockwell Canyon Road, by College of the Canyons, used to be two lanes, both directions. Under pressure by two-wheelers, the city restriped the heavily trafficked road down to one lane each way, shouldered by confusing in and out bike lanes. In my 20 years of traveling Rockwell Canyon every day I have never seen a bicycle use these designated lanes even once. What I have seen are LINES OF CARS BACKING UP FROM MCBEAN TO VALENCIA BOULEVARD.
Enough is enough! I’m sorry, fellow bikers, we must face reality that the SCV’s roads aren’t made for bikes and aren’t safe for bikes, no matter how much paint and dumb butt-paddles we stick on them. We continue to build more houses, more industry, bringing more cars. Face it. We’re a car town. Let’s save our money, let’s keep roads safe, and provide for efficient movement of vehicles through our town’s limited surface roads.
Meanwhile, the great news in all this is that we have existing solutions most towns would kill to enjoy. Our paseos and pathways can get people and pedalers almost anywhere, safely. Should the city want to spend money on bikers? Then build more pedestrian and bike-exclusive trails and pathways.
As others have quoted Ronald Reagan, “Mr. Mayor, tear down these butt-paddles!” And don’t dilly-dally! Do it next week. Next week! Just do it! My God, these things are butt-ugly and dangerous, and our city will hang if an ambulance gets stuck in the butt-paddle maze.
Gary Horton’s “Full Speed to Port!” has appeared in The Signal since 2006. The opinions expressed in his column do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Signal or its editorial board.
