By Emily Aguilar

EASTVALE– Eastvale, much like other cities, is experiencing a “quality of life issue.” The issue at hand is that citizens are not taking advantage of the opportunity to increase their fitness by riding bicycles instead of relying on their automobiles as their primary source of transportation.

According to Active Living Research, 50% of all car trips taken are to destinations that are three miles or less away from home,  while 65% of all car trips are taken to reach a destination that is under a mile away. It has become evident that cities, including Eastvale, need to develop an alternative transportation plan.

“We lack a bicycle master plan,” argues Manager of Public Works Department, George Alvarez. While bike lanes already exist in the city, studies show that cyclists are hesitant to use them.  One reason is that bicyclists fear they will be involved in a vehicle-cyclist accident; four such accidents occurred last year in Eastvale. This fear then compels bicyclists toward driving their car everywhere they go, instead of riding their bikes. In dealing with this issue, Alvarez has proposed a bicycle master plan to benefit the Eastvale community.

Since most of the city’s streets are two feet wider than the average street, the plan is to increase the width of the cycling lanes, which will give a more pronounced emphasis on the distance between the bike lane and the driving lane in order to assuage the cyclists’ fears of being in an accident. The lanes will be centered in areas near schools or near streets with a posted speed limit of 25 MPH.

In the past two years, the proposal to implement the bicycle master plan has been successful. In 2014, Southern California Association of Governments gave the project an $80,000 grant, and Alvarez has received positive feedback from two community workshop meetings.  On February 24, Alvarez and KTUA consultant John Holloway, who created the blueprint for the plan, attended a city council meeting where they introduced their idea before the council. They presented the plan’s advantages in hopes of being in good standing to receive more federal grant money to fund the project. The presentation clearly illustrated the bike master plan’s benefits, and Eastvale citizens Sydney Quage and Julia Rust, both of whom are avid bikers, expressed their concerns with biking in traffic. Having listened to the presentation, the council decided to approve the construction of the project.

The future looks promising for the bike master plan project, and so does Eastvale’s potential in fitness and alternative transportation.