Thursday, February 4, 2010

Mystery History -- Solved


Margaret wins with her 8:37 a.m. Tuesday guess "An early Pasadena Bicycling club taking a break from riding down in the Arroyo."

The photo description does not tell us the precise location, but sure enough these young men are members of the Pasadena Bicycle Club taking a break during one of their rides in 1887.

Pasadena has been a city of bikes since before it was incorporated!

Here's Arthur P. Smith (front) on a tandem with a friend.


And an early pioneer, Dr. Hiram Reid, and his wife Rachael heading to church with their grandchildren.


When Pasadena was incorporated in 1886, Dr. Reid was on the very first ballot for the City Commission (now known as the City Council). He also took the lead in the successful campaign to ban the sale of liquor in Pasadena, but I'll save that story for another time.

The elevated Dobbins Bikeway was awe-inspiring in its day.


And now here we are in 2010, and the Bicycle Master Plan has been updated in draft form.

The plan calls for increasing the proportion of people using bikes, decreasing the number of bicycle-involved accidents, making bike parking more secure and convenient, and creating a network of bikeways so every neighborhood will be close to an effective route.


So take a look, then plan on attending a community workshop Tuesday, Feb. 23, at 6:30 p.m. in the Council Chamber (room S249) at Pasadena City Hall. Your comments will be included in outreach for the update of the General Plan’s Mobility Element.

The last such meeting we had was well-attended.


Go here to see our "Pasadena: Geared for Bikes" video, the latest-greatest map of bikeways, a map of bike parking locations and more.

No Mystery History next Tuesday because I'll be out of the office all week.


Many thanks to Pasadena Public Library and the Transportation Department.

10 comments:

Bean said...

Oh, my, I never expected this. I didn't prepare anything, but let me thank my agent, the members of the academy and everyone who believes in the power of bikes. Thanks, PPIO

Margaret said...

Darn it, I signed in under my daughter's account. I'm the one who says thanks.

Cafe Pasadena said...

Congratulations to Margaret and/or Bean.

They are having a happy new year.

PIO, it's good to hear you will finally being leaving Citihal!

Bellis said...

Congratulations Margaret and Bean! I discounted the idea of cycling in the Arroyo on those very hard to ride penny farthings because I was imagining the paths the way they are now - sandy, rocky and rutted. But maybe they used Arroyo Boulevard.

I'd cycle from the west end of California Blvd to Caltech if there was a safe bike path, but both California and Del Mar are too dangerous.

Diana said...

Wasn't there once a wooden bicycle track near or at the Rose Bowl? I seem to recall that La Casita del Arroyo was built with wood salvaged from that track...

Mademoiselle Gramophone said...

Diana, The Dobbins Bikeway is what you are thinking of--as mentioned in the post.

In other news: I love spandex, googles, and having muscular calves.

Patrizzi Intergarlictica said...

Bless the late Dennis Crowley, too, on that ahead-of-its-time bikeway redux vision http://www.bicyclefixation.com/blog/archives/00000199.html

Petrea Burchard said...

Fantastic. I love the photo of the bikeway. I have a lot of biking friends to send this link to so they'll come to the meeting.

Pasadena Adjacent said...
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Pasadena Adjacent said...

This seems to be your week dear Margaret. Congratulations!

Dianna
the salvaged wood you speak of is the bike track created for the 1932 Olympics