Kids & Family

Swork Owner: Parking, Not Bike Lanes, is Eagle Rock's Big Issue

A leading small-business entrepreneur supports bike lanes—but believes the neighborhood's parking situation ought to be fixed first.

Trish Neal Vuagniaux, the owner of Swork Cofee on Colorado Boulevard, is among dozens of Eagle Rock business owners who have written letters to city authorities in support of the Department of Transportation’s plan to install bike lanes on Colorado Boulevard by reducing the number of auto traffic lanes on each side of the passageway from three to two.

And yet, says Vuagniaux, the whole issue of bike lanes does not address what she believes is the central problem for business owners: Not enough parking.

Paradoxically, Vagniaux is greatly bothered by the opposition to bike lanes, even though she wholeheartedly supports the idea of slowing down traffic on Colorado and making it more inviting to bike riders. At home she arm-wrestles about the issue with her husband Gilbert, a Swiss-born general contractor who opposes bike lanes. “He has to hustle from job site to job site quickly and he likes the way Colorado is a thoroughfare,” explains Vuagniaux, adding: “But he’s also not a biker.”

Vuagniaux recently talked to Eagle Rock Patch about her views regarding bike lanes and parking. Excerpts:

"The opposition I’m seeing from a lot of other business owners worries me. The signs they’ve put up on their windows send a kind of negative message into the community, especially at a time when people are trying to revitalize it and make it beautiful.

"There’s a lot of old-school thinking and I feel like if we all broadened our horizons a little bit, maybe we can improve the flow of traffic. Swork has been plied into three times because of people’s speeds.

"The other thing is that we have parking vultures in Eagle Rock who seem to have it out for us. Three City parking attendants meet every day on the corner of Caspar in front of Camilo’s and they figure out their plot for the day. Why does our little community have to have three Parking Enforcement cars? I go to Pasadena and I see one [Parking Enforcement] bike if I’m lucky.

"A customer one minute late out of Swork gets a parking ticket. Here we are focusing on bike lanes when we should really be focusing on why are we targeted in such a negative way.

"I’m a cyclist myself—I cycle 11 miles every Sunday morning. Unfortunately I don’t do it around here because I don’t feel safe. I drive to Dockweiler Beach with a good friend of mine and we bike to Redondo and come back. Basically, that’s Manhattan Beach—they have a wonderful bike lane that’s safe and very family-oriented.

"People really need to know that Eagle Rock is being raped by Parking enforcement. I don’t have this problem when I’m in Pasadena or South Pas. But you can’t be five minutes late in Eagle Rock. It’s a shame. There’s no long-term parking, unless you want to pay $4 in the parking lot behind us. And then you get kicked out of there for the Farmers’ Market—on Fridays you might as well not come to work.

"Recently that whole lot was closed off to businesses because it was rented out to a film production company for four days. And to add insult to injury, only maybe 10 or 15 cars were in there from the actual production crew.

"My employees have to park three or four blocks down the street. My general manager has four parking tickets already. And they’re $63 a piece. It’s like they’re after us. Plus you have to pay a dollar an hour for parking. Ever since the parking rates have changed, our sales have been affected. It’s awful. People don’t want to come into Swork. I bet you they make more money in Eagle Rock issuing tickets than they do in Pasadena.

"I think people should forget complaining against bike lanes. They’re really not going to hurt Eagle Rock. If anything, they’re going to make things safer and cars slow down. I know bike lanes are not going to solve the parking problem. But at least if more people bike around they don’t have to get into a car and potentially get a ticket. They wouldn’t have to worry about the parking vultures. So I’m all for slowing down traffic and making Eagle Rock a more pedestrian, family-oriented place.

"The other thing is that the Starbucks on Colorado has four 15-minute metered parking in front of their place so that people can stop and grab a cup of coffee and leave. Why is it that they get special preference? And they have free parking behind. That’s not fair, is it? I should have three 15-minute parking spots as well."


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