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San Marino NIMBYs Freak Over Farmers' Markets, Bike Lanes

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At least one anonymous San Marino resident is not happy about the wealthy enclave's proposed 27-mile bikeway, and surprisingly, the opposition has nothing to do with traffic. Rather, opponents don't want to open up the neighborhood to through traffic from cyclists says the Pasadena Star-News. An anti-bike-plan mailer making the rounds warns ominously that "[t]his plan will tie San Marino's streets into a regional bicycle network enabling cyclists throughout San Gabriel Valley and beyond to access our amenities," like the bathrooms in their (public) parks. San Marino follows in the tire tracks of Beverly Hills, where residents are also fighting bike lanes for fear that people might use them. The mailer also voiced concern over "bicycle commuters and other adult riders" sharing bike routes with San Marino's schoolchildren, who are apparently free to bike to school unsupervised without a care in the world as it stands now. And while one mailer doesn't necessarily indicate the existence of an entire anti-bike movement, San Marino is a place that just shut down its first-ever farmers market "for fear of the 'riffraff' it could attract" (organic farmers? hippies? lovers of in-season fruit?), so it's not too unlikely that the opposition will build between now and June or July, when the bike plan proposal is expected to go to city hall.


· Presentation on proposed San Marino bike plan to go before traffic commission [PSN]
· 10 Insane Reasons Beverly Hills Homeowners Are Opposing Bike Lanes on Santa Monica Boulevard [Curbed LA]