(Drawing from Chico Enterprise Record, October 14, 1999)

My daughter's first ever visit to a Chico Farmer's Market was by bike. With her buckled into a car seat that was firmly secured into the bike trailer, she gazed intently at the scenery as we cruised along at a modest 5-10 miles per hour.

We used the bike lane on Warner Avenue, but we had no choice in slowing down traffic on Third Street for a few blocks.

The debate continues as to how to approach future transportation needs in Chico. As far as downtown is concerned, I am actually pretty pleased with how things work at the moment, and feel safer biking downtown than in other parts of Chico. The lights on Main an Broadway are timed at about 22 mph, so rarely do I see vehicles going much faster then 25 mph. Also, with so much bike and pedestrian activity downtown, I feel that drivers tend to drive more defensively than in other parts of Chico.

While I like Karen Goodwin's bold strategy of exercising her right to bike on any road in Chico--which she hopes will lead to drivers in other parts of town being just as aware of cyclists--I am not ready to take the bike trailer on to Mangrove/Cohasset, Park, Nord,or East Avenue any time soon.

What does the future hold for transportation in Chico? City planners must balance the needs for people to have convenient access downtown businesses, residential through traffic making their way down the full lengths of Main or Broadway, bikes and vehicles sharing the same streets (with pedestrians crossing these streets), and a growing population to boot. Other parts of Chico have additional challenges.

If rising oil and gas prices are indeed in the future, then the problem of too many cars may solve itself. Even if some of these vehicles are replaced by hybrids or electric vehicles, at least they will likely tend to be smaller.

In the mean time, please be aware of me and my daughter slowing down traffic a bit. We have a right to the road too, and we don't always have the luxury of a bike lane.