Why the Eagle Rock Chamber of Commerce Voted Against Bike Lanes

It’s a little past 5 p.m. on Thursday and Eagle Rock Chamber of Commerce President Michael Nogueira is preparing to go home after a hard day’s work at Sir Michael’s, his party rentals business on Eagle Rock Boulevard. Moments earlier, he parked a catering truck in the store’s driveway, backing it with practiced precision—never mind that the right side of the vehicle slightly scraped the outer wall of a flower shop next door, sending flakes of plaster flying.

As Nogueira stands on the sidewalk, facing the boulevard, a man driving a sparkling white Mercedes sedan waves casually at him. “Alatorre,” says Nogueira, returning the greeting. Minutes later, a man riding a bicycle cruises south on the boulevard, and Nogueira perks up.

“He doesn’t need a bicycle lane,” does he? Nogueira asks, instantly answering his own question: “No, he doesn’t.”

If Nogueira gets his way, no biker in Eagle Rock will get to ride in a bike lane, and he’s hardly the only member of the community to oppose plans by the Department of Transportation to create a bike lane along both sides of Colorado Boulevard by July next year, reducing the number of vehicular traffic lanes on each side from three to two.

There’s a reason why Nogueira has bikes on his mind today: Last week, on Tuesday, April 23, the executive board of the Eagle Rock Chamber of Commerce held a closed session at the Solheim Lutheran Home, where it voted unanimously, 17-0, to oppose the installation of bike lanes on Colorado at the expense of traffic lanes.

Among those who voted against the dedication of an entire traffic lane to bicycles was Bryan Paul, general manager of Eagle Rock Plaza, Nogueira said.

“We’re not saying we don’t want the bikes—we’re saying why give up one lane for them,” Nogueira explains. “This is a big city and the bigger it gets the more people are going to rely on cars.”

The reason the executive board of the Eagle Rock Chamber of Commerce is against dedicated bike lanes is that “we don’t see bike lanes helping business in any shape or form,” Nogueira said, conceding that the only businesses that might benefit would be cafés.

“Will bike lanes slow down traffic?” he asked. “Yes, big time—maybe bumper to bumper. Will the city give us more parking in exchange for bike lanes? No. Will it give us more turning lanes? No.”

The issue of turning lanes might appear to be the newest wrinkle in the simmering bike lanes controversy in Eagle Rock and Highland Park. And on the face of it, it might even seem irrelevant—if not also a distraction from the core issues at hand.

But as Nogueira tells it, turning lanes are inextricably tied to the larger issue of how traffic on the “island” stretch of Colorado between Eagle Rock Boulevard and Townsend, will be impacted by bike lanes.

“Let’s say we have two lanes of traffic and I want to turn left in my truck on Colorado to go to Colombo’s,” says Nogueira. “I have to wait for a break in the fast lane on the other side, while I’m blocking the fast lane on this side.”

Emergency vehicles, too, will be impacted by bike lanes, according to Nogueira. That’s because when an emergency occurs, motorcars are required to pull over to the right—which is going to be difficult because the far right bike lane will be out of bounds to them.

“You’re going to have a traffic jam,” says Nogueira, adding that the spillover of traffic onto Hill Drive (where Nogueira and Chamber Corresponding Secretary Kaye Beckham live) is another concern.

There are safety issues, too—such as the prospect of motorists opening the doors of parked vehicles smack into an oncoming rider, Nogueira pointed out. But the bottom line is: “We have to look at whether bike lanes are going to help us any in business.”

Nogueira doubts bikers are likely to ride all the way from Pasadena, for example, to eat in Eagle Rock restaurants. “Really?” he asks rhetorically, adding: “Come on!”

The best way forward, Nogueira recommends, is to conduct independent studies about the number of bikers who actually use Colorado right now.

“We have cameras, don’t we? Put them out there and see how many bikes go down Colorado,” he says.

Asked how he reconciles the fact that as president of the Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council he voted for bike lanes recently, Nogueira replies: “I did vote on it at the time. Now I’m hearing from my chamber and I’ve got to look at it both ways.”

The other point a lot of folks don’t understand is that there aren’t many people in Eagle Rock who are both residents and business owners like him, Nogueira says.

“How many in TERA or on the neighborhood council have a business and live here?” he asks.

Nogueira said he will soon issue an e-mail blast to all 129 of the Chamber members, informing them of the executive board's decision. Subsequently, he expects the Chamber to write a letter to the Department of Transportation, apprising it of the Chamber's opposition to exculsive bike lanes.

Because the Chamber’s vote was in closed sessions, details are of course unavailable. Meanwhile, there are theories as to what might have transpired behind those closed doors.

“I’m glad to hear that the Chamber’s leadership is informing its members of the decision they’ve made on their behalf,” says David Greene, vice president of the Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council. “In my experience, it's better for these decisions to come from the bottom up—at the Neighborhood Council, for example, we listened to residents and business owners before we voted unanimously to support buffered bike lanes on Colorado.”

Adds Greene: “Our vote reflected the overwhelming support we heard for bike lanes. I'll be interested to hear the reaction of Chamber of Commerce member businesses to their leaders' decree, since I know some are strong bike lane supporters."