Bikes, property rights collide
Residents of gated community say inattentive cyclists spurred their decision to restrict path
Dolores DeVito, who has lived in Oakmont for 10 years, walks her bike Friday afternoon on a path that runs between Oakmont and Annadel State Park through Wild Oak, a gated community bordering Oakmont. Residents of Wild Oak have posted the path with no-trespassing signs.
SCOTT MANCHESTER / The Press DemocratPublished: Saturday, August 16, 2008 at 3:42 a.m.
Last Modified: Saturday, August 16, 2008 at 4:15 p.m.
A bucolic little bridle path near Oakmont long favored by cyclists avoiding Highway 12 is now marked by "No Bicycles" signs. That has put it at the center of a tussle over property rights, bicycling's rising popularity, and pedestrian and cyclist safety.
"It's a huge issue for cycling. It's restricting accessibility at a time when more people are trying to get out of the cars, and Highway 12 is a huge safety issue," said Christine Culver, executive director of the Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition.
The path and its three new signs are owned by Villages at Wild Oak, a private, gated community of 60 homes. The path links Channel Drive, a popular cycling route through Annadel State Park, to Oakmont, which is part of Santa Rosa.
Cycling advocates and Wild Oak residents have met for months about the issue, which the residents say was spurred by near-collisions on the path between walkers and cyclists.
"The bicyclists, most of them, are very nice," said Maryann Schact, a resident whose home overlooks the bridle path, which connects the Wild Oak community to a church parking lot on a separate property.
"But a lot of them come tearing down through here, often in a group, and they don't give you any warning," said Schact, who said both she and her husband have had to jump from the path to avoid cyclists.
Those involved in the discussions say it's been an amicable, productive process and agree on dangers posed by Highway 12.
"To push people out there would not be the right thing to do," said William McClintock, president of the Villages at Wild Oak Homeowners Association's board of directors.
The discussions have produced at least two options to create an alternative route, though one involves Santa Rosa acquiring an easement through a privately owned RV park. The other, involving a creek and an existing bridge, would require addressing environmental issues and federally required access for disabled people.
But as the issue drags on, tales of incivility have arisen.
McClintock said he was told a cyclist "accosted" a female resident with "language I wouldn't want to repeat."
Culver, meanwhile, said she heard that a Wild Oak resident harassed a cyclist with language "that makes me blush."
With no resolution in hand, Wild Oak homeowners this month put up signs prohibiting bicyclists and trespassers.
"Ultimately, the intent was to stop the cyclists because we felt there were other options . . . and we spent a lot of time identifying what those other options were," McClintock said.
"We're feeling like we want to reinforce our private-property rights and withdraw permission to ride," he said.
Oakmont resident James Dennis, "car-free" for a decade, is among cyclists who plan not to take that lying down, and promised to keep cycling the path to and from Santa Rosa.
"In order for the Wild Oak people to get in and out of their community, they go through my community. From that alone, it seems I should get access through theirs."
Ruth Tucker Bogart, a member of the bicycle coalition, uses the path too and calls herself "a committed cyclist."
But Tucker Bogart is also a member of the Villages at Wild Oak board of directors.
"I do see both sides of the issue," she said. "I'm also a pedestrian and I'm hearing-impaired, and it is kind of scary having bicycles approach you from the rear very quickly.
"I don't see it so much as a conflict or an adversarial situation so much as it is a lot of people or a lot of groups working together to try and solve a common problem," she said.
But breaking the logjam, say both Culver and McClintock, will fall to Santa Rosa officials.
That's complicated a bit by jurisdictional issues, said Fabian Favila, a Santa Rosa transit planner and project manager for the city's Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan.
Beyond privately owned Wild Oak, and Oakmont's inclusion in Santa Rosa, there is state-owned Annadel, he said. An RV parking lot that offers a similar access route between the park and Oakmont is also privately owned, and signs prohibit bicyclists from that property, too, Favila said.
"We're trying to broker something that's a win-win," he said.
Culver said she favors the city buying the easement to connect Channel Drive to Oakmont through the RV park.
That's an option, said Favila, but "first, the city has to look and see whether it has any money, and then we have to see whether the owner will entertain that."
An update on the issue is set for a meeting of Santa Rosa's Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Board next Thursday.
"It's really going to take action from that body to move forward," Culver said.
You can reach Staff Writer Jeremy Hay at 521-5212 or jeremy.hay@pressdemocrat.com.
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