Yes, the Sharrows were painted on Foster/Hedwig on Monday (3/5/2019) by Orange County Public Works, and the no parking signs along the Bike Route were removed at the same time. The Bike Route signs remain and we believe they will continue to be in place along Foster/Hedwig, though that is a county decision.
The county found based on their research/engineering studies, etc. that this solution would improve overall cyclist safety and the RHA Board did support that finding. Other cities have found by emphasizing sharing the road with Sharrows to have increased awareness as well as safety along crowed roads where vehicles are frequently parked.
According to CA State law, cyclists are (and have always been) considered a vehicle and have rights to be in traffic lanes. This includes making left turns from the left turn lane (even at lights), etc. You can find some references here:
Cal Bike – California Bicycle Laws
and here: CA-DMV – Traffic Lanes at the bottom of the page
Locally, the city of Long Beach has been using Sharrows for years, especially in the crowded Belmont Shore area.
4 Responses
Any chance you can make the link available right here to the minutes to the public meeting in which it was decided that the RHA Board supported the finding that this solution would improve overall cyclist safety? Perhaps also you could link to the earlier meeting minutes (not sure of the date, it was perhaps a year or more ago) where the public comments convinced the Board NOT to remove the No Parking signs. I am very curious what changed in the interlude, and I tremble to think that the earlier comments and reasoning were disregarded.
Hi Mark.
The RHA Board did have public discussions about the parking restrictions on Foster/Hedwig following a presentation by the County. For a multitude of reasons the RHA Board sided with the County findings and did not favor keeping the 2 hour parking restrictions in place.
I believe you are referring to the RCSD Board meetings where public comments opposing removing the parking restrictions were made and the RCSD Board voted in favor of keeping them in place. Ultimately, the County Board of Supervisors took the County Traffic Engineering traffic study findings and research and voted to remove the parking restrictions along Hedwig/Foster at their December 2018 meeting.
The RCSD meeting minutes can be found on their site: http://Rossmoor-CSD.org
My husband and I have been living in Cypress since July 2017 while our home on Foster has been under construction. This comes as a surprise to us and wonder if there were any surveys done to those residents on Foster Road. If so how were the surveys conducted? We were also wondering why this was not put out to the entire community on a ballot. Who ultimately made this decision to add the sharrows on hedwig and Foster Road if it wasn’t the residents.
Hi Connie.
Here’s some background on the parking restrictions that were put in place in early 1980’s by way of a request from the LAUSD to the County when there were dozens of students riding from Rossmoor to Oak.
The concept of removing the parking restrictions was started a number of years ago (I want to say at least five or six years ago, maybe longer), when a fair number of Foster residents – as I recall most lived in the middle and south end of the tract – asked the RHA why they could not park in front of their homes especially in the mornings when few if any children rode in the bike route any more. Granted most of these residents knew about the parking restrictions when they moved in and still, they asked a valid question.
The RHA approached the County on behalf of these residents to ask about the restrictions and if and how and should the parking restrictions be removed. The County requested that the residents of Foster/Hedwig be surveyed to see if there was an interest by the overall residents of the street, rather than just these few. The RHA went door-to-door to the almost 200 homes along Foster to complete this survey, as signed petitions. If I recall we got over 120 responses and 65% of the residents said they would like the restrictions removed. All of these signed and dated petitions, both for and against, were submitted to the County.
The County then commissioned a traffic study regarding the bike route. Months passed and the engineering report was completed. After some discussion about the validity of the rider count – the RHA and LAUSD felt the counts were too low – the County ordered a second survey with similar results.
Along with the traffic survey, the County Traffic Engineer’s report also stated that the use of parking restrictions to create a part time bike lane was no longer part of the current safety standards and practices for the state, in part because people still park on the street in violation of the restrictions. Modern bike lanes are fully separated from traffic. Further, no other residential street in Orange County has such a parking restriction for bike use.
The County proposed three solutions to Rossmoor. The first was to remove the parkways and trees along Foster to create a full-time bike lane, the second was to keep the restrictions and not add the Sharrows and the third was to remove the parking restrictions and add the Sharrows to the street.
As for community input, there were a number of town hall meetings held by a joint traffic committee to discuss the parking restrictions and bike line issue. This traffic committee had representatives from the RHA, RCSD, OCSD, LAUSD and the community. Recall this issue has been under discussion for years.
The RHA had a number of board meetings where the parking restrictions were discussed. The community and the PTA packed out the meeting room on at least two occasions. I believe that it was the joint traffic committee that brought the issue to the RCSD Board meeting(s) for more public input. The County engineers made at least one public presentation to each of the these two boards.
Based on strong community input, RHA rejected the idea of removing the parkways to create a full-time bike lane and passed a resolution supporting the option to remove the parking restrictions and adding the Sharrows.
As I recall, the RCSD said they wanted to wait and see before any changes were made and passed a resolution to that effect. You’ll have to go back to their meeting recordings for exact details.
The County took the RHA and RCSD resolutions as input in their decision process along with the County Traffic Engineering report and their own research and came to a decision to adopt the option to remove the parking restrictions and add the Sharrows as a safety measure. I believe there was also at least one Board of Supervisors meeting where the PTA/community spoke to the Board regarding the bike route. I did not attend any of the Supervisor Board meetings (I have a business to run, daytime hours are at a premium), so can’t tell you first hand on that. At least the RHA, RCSD, and LAUSD were directly notified prior to the December 2018 Supervisors meeting when they adopted the changes.
The RCSD does not have jurisdiction over the roads in Rossmoor, nor can they pass or change any ordinances regarding them. As they say on their website, they are a limited scope services district that manages the parks, recreation programs, street sweeping, street lighting, and the Rossmoor urban forest on behalf of the County.
All governance resides with the County Board of Supervisors – not the RHA and not the RCSD.
We (the RHA) are a community group and do our best to get the word out about our meetings and other events that effect Rossmoor and its quality of life. Anyone, member or not, can join our entirely free eNews list (https://OurRossmoor.com/enews) to get our email updates. Our meetings are open to the public and are held on the third Tuesday of each month except December at Rossmoor Park starting at 7:00 p.m.