The powers-that-be behind the proposed High Desert Corridor (HDC) held another community-outreach meeting last night at the Apple Valley town hall to report on the progress being made in this, the environmental impact, portion of the project.
There wasn’t much new news, other than the fact that they hope to have the environmental impact report and all the other work on this portion done by Fall 2013. (They tentatively envision the completion of the HDC to be around 2040.)
During the question-and-answer period, though, I was able to ask why they were thinking about incorporating utilities, energy generation, rail, and other things into the HDC, but no bike lanes? The presenter seemed shocked, rather stammering that they had briefly considered it but discarded the idea. Others in the audience seconded my suggestion.
Given CalTrans’ seeming antagonism toward cycling, there was an element of speaking truth to power in bringing up bike lanes. However, given the long time line on this project, it’s possible that if we as a community of cyclists keep after CalTrans about this and other bicycle-friendly efforts, we may eventually get them to act on our behalf.
Although the prospect of a bike path connecting the two HD communities is low, I do think there is potential for integrating existing bike paths with the proposed HDC routes within our city limits. Being able to ride across town safely on a bike path that parallels the HDC to a Car Pool or Metro station would be great.
I plan to focus on the Metrolink part of the proposals. Metro seems to be bike friendly. They state on their website that there are “designated storage areas” for bikes on their trains. I also spotted some cool bike lockers at the Palmdale Metrolink station while biking last weekend. They are fiberglass shells that can hold an entire bike. All you need is your own lock to secure the door. You can see photos here:
http://landolycra.blogspot.com/2011/04/useful-bike-lockers.html