Bicycle riding on our loop trail is all about safety, not rights. Frankly I think bicyclists are the primary ones responsible for safety. Here are ways we could improve safety by using the three “E”s for safety, engineering, educating, and enforcing, but in the end we’re safest if we act safer than others.

    We know engineering has made bikes dangerous. My bike tips over without me. It’s engineered for an unstable relationship. When I lose my grip, it’ll dump me at the first bump in the road, as I learned when it found a speed bump and hurtled me over my handlebars.

    Bike engineering is improving. Adult tricycles are available but need better styling. Eventually I’ll choose a human-electric hybrid that switches to full electric power so I won’t wobble up hills.

    The trail is engineered dangerously. It was built in 1994. DOT considers it transportation but wouldn’t design a new one with narrow lanes up the pipeline bridge, blind turns, and extreme turns such as the one near the paddling shed on a downhill slope over a dirt-covered bridge.

    We could add bike lanes. Why not? We have an equestrian lane paralleling the trail from Odabashian Bridge to Wilshire St. We could add grassy dog lanes. We could add viewing spaces on bridges. We could engineer earphones with shrill beeps to warn of approaching unstable vehicles.   

   Educating loop users helps. Cyclists could shout out rules as we whiz by. Instead of being friendly, we could yell, “Down with civility! Up with safety!”

    “Stay to the right” isn’t sufficient awareness. Children hearing my bell turn their heads left to see it and instinctively pull their handlebars into my passing lane. A woman in a large group walked on the left side of the bridge over the Wenatchee River. She moved right every time I rang my bell and slowed, but it took three rings before she crossed back over the line so I could pass safely. 

    People should know a bicyclist died on the trail in 2009 when two bicyclists collided. Bicyclists know it. He was thrown from his bicycle and the impact snapped his spine. The investigating East Wenatchee officer, Bruce Nash, concluded neither biker was at fault. He said, “For the amount of traffic we have down there, it’s surprising we don’t have more [accidents].”

    Enforcement always reduces accidents and increases safety. We could ticket people like the one deliberately walking toward me on the right side. We should limit speeds to 10 mph during daylight hours on weekends in Walla Walla Park. Visitors crossing the trail don’t think of themselves as meandering through a velodrome.

    The trail is an asset and bicyclists ride it because it’s addictive (as my wife will attest), energetic and ecological. But bicyclists know we take more risks to ride than pedestrians, and it gets riskier as we age and traffic increases.

    Pedestrians on the trail don’t have that same risk awareness, so they’re less alert. Sure we can engineer, educate and enforce the bicycle experience to make it safer, but in the end bicyclists need to admit we’re the ones most at risk so we should behave the safest.  Perhaps that’s why I believe bike riding on the trail is more about safety than it is about rights. It’s safety first for my wife, grandchildren, dogs, ducks and me.

    But it’s more than just my age. These discussions are about the ancient universal societal issue of choosing rights over safety.  In the long run, safety always limits rights. Ride safely, not righteously.