Cyclists riding in the evening should make sure they are following all the road laws on Thursdays and every other Monday and Friday.
The Tucson Police Department is continuing its bicycle and pedestrian enforcement campaign, but is only doing it a few days a month between 4-7 p.m.
Unlike the first major enforcement campaign, the officers are writing more warnings and handing out lights and helmets.
“It’s not good PR sending a 10-year-old home with a ticket and walking their bike,” said Tucson Police Department Sergeant Jerry Skeenes at the Tucson Pima County Bicycle Advisory committee meeting on Wendesday.
Skeenes also said that officers will be patrolling Fourth Avenue tomorrow because they have received complaints about bicycles, pedestrians and motor vehicles.
Skeenes said the department hopes to stretch the enforcement though the summer.
Check back soon for a schedule of TPD’s enforcement dates and times.
Bike path opening to cyclists
In the coming days Pima County will add a sign allowing cyclists to use the unpaved south side of the Rillito River Path between Mountain Avenue and Campbell Avenue. The decision to open the path was made because the construction on the the north side of the path between Hacienda del Sol and Country Club has closed that section of the path. Crews are adding a paved path to the section.
Given the closure, cyclists’ only option would have been crossing the Campbell Avenue bridge. Once the construction on the north side is complete, the county will close the south side to add a paved and dirt path, which will be open to cyclists once it is completed.
It’s good to hear they’re planning to give out more warnings, and even better to hear they’re going to be giving out helmets and lights. This sounds actually productive, unlike the last campaign. Giving cyclists the same $200 ticket which was created for drivers of much more dangerous 1 ton automobiles is just stupid.
The article says: “Cyclists riding in the evening should make sure they are following all the road laws on Thursdays and every other Monday and Friday.”
Shouldn’t that be all of the time?
I do not understand this. Of course it should be all the time. I don’t understand the difference between the appropriate time to enforce a law and the inappropriate time to do it. Cops blow by unlit bikes all the time…what message does that send? Watch out on Thursdays, though, in the months that have an ‘r’ in them or they will get ya.
“It’s not good PR sending a 10-year-old home with a ticket and walking their bike,”
Memorial BMX parks are not good PR , either.
Give them a ticket, let them go learn about lights and helmets and correct riding as a family at diversion school.
Sporadic enforcement is bad.
The argument often made is that their are gray areas. The vast majority think cyclists should not ride the wrong way or without lights.
What less people agree on is whether you have to come to a complete stop with your foot down or whether it is OK to yield to traffic and proceed through. Or if it is OK to ride on the sidewalk for 5 feet to get to a bike rack.
Both of those could get you a ticket.
Some people think that is fine and some thinks bikes aren’t cars and should sometimes be treated a little different.
This program has improved so much since a few years ago that I’m having trouble criticizing it now. I agree that some bike violations should always be enforced, like riding at night without a light, reckless red light/stop sign running, and for God’s sake, wrong-way riding. Some of the stuff I see my fellow cyclists do just makes me shake my head in shame and wonder.
But now that Skeenes is handling this program it seems like it actually has the objective of making things safer for cyclists rather than simply enriching the coffers of City Hall, like it did back when Sgt. Tim Beam was running the show. That guy had zero interest — I mean zero interest — in doing one single thing other than catching as many stop-sign violators as possible in a given period, and ticketing every last one of them. It was a much different program than the one Skeenes is running, and I am thankful for that.
Agreed. Bikes are very different: they are a hell of a lot more vunerable out there. The haphazard-by-design style of enforcement does not represent the seriousness of that vunerability. And we want that seriousness represented when bad things happen to us. This style says cops don’t see bikes as important enough for consistent enforcement.
How can we expect the rest of the street to care?