Bicyclists-Obeying-the-Traffic-Laws Week

The Editor

The Berkeley Daily Planet

Berkeley, CA

To the Editor:

Your recent story, "Car-free downtown could be a

reality for Berkeley" (Daily Planet, March 19) was

very interesting.

The car-haters crowd wants to cordon off ten city

blocks in downtown Berkeley at the end of "Try Transit

Week" on Sept 7 and 8. The head of the bicyclists

lobby asserts that "This would return the streets to

the community." I guess that if you have the gall to

drive a car in Berkeley, then you are not "part of the

community." The example of car-free Sundays in Golden

Gate Park in San Francisco is cited. However, many

people go to downtown Berkeley to shop, not to commune

with nature. Unfortunately, this proposed plan blocks

off auto access to four parking garages and one

parking lot. I can see massive confusion and hostility

with a "car-free day" downtown Berkeley with a large

and permanent loss of business customers from Oakland

and other areas. Isn't Berkeley already enough of an

irritating maze for car drivers, with its many one-way

streets and dead-ends?

Maybe the progressive City of Berkeley could also

sponsor a "Bicyclists Obeying the Traffic Laws Week"

at the same time. We could try having bicyclists stop

at stop signs and not run red lights. If that proved

to be a success, then we could institute bicyclists

obeying traffic laws all year round. What a concept.

Bicyclists are, by in large, an extremely

self-righteous lot, asserting that the traffic laws

don't apply to them.

Perhaps our two-wheeled buddies need to grow up and

act like responsible adults instead of acting like

spoiled children who've lost their trainer wheels.

P. S. thank you for publishing Steve Margyary's

brilliant satiric letter on March 20. Let's see more

of his writings.

Yours truly,

James K. Sayre

20 March 2002