Countywide : Bicycle Coalition to Urge Mail Protest

The Orange County Bicycle Coalition, which represents local bike riders, will this weekend be encouraging the cycling community to protest the closure of parts of the Santa Ana River Trail.

“We’ll be passing out leaflets to get the support of bicyclists,” said Paul E. Pirtle, a member of the coalition. “We’ll have representatives handing out the leaflets near the trail, just south of the San Diego Freeway in Costa Mesa.”

The leaflets will urge cyclists to write protest letters to the County Board of Supervisors and members of Congress. They are scheduled to be distributed today, Sunday and Monday.

The Santa Ana River Trail extends along the banks of the Santa Ana River starting in Anaheim and ending at Huntington Beach. Construction work on the river, directed by the Army Corps of Engineers, has closed parts of the river trail in the Huntington Beach-Fountain Valley area.

Michael M. Mott, chairman of the bicycle coalition, has charged that county government and the Corps of Engineers are not moving quickly enough to reopen the river trail, a popular route for cyclists.

“The schedule to reopen the Santa Ana River Trail in the lower reaches of the flood project has slipped from a couple of months to a year, perhaps more,” Mott said.

He also has accused government agencies of ignoring the safety of bike riders in designing a replacement trail along the river.