When I rode up to the corner of the University Ave & Park Blvd intersection on Saturday, July 25 to take-in and appreciate the awareness that the Ghost Bikes have brought to that deadly, car-centric intersection, I was saddened to ride up to what turned out to be a bike-less, naked, grey corner. It's disappointing to see that people's well-intentioned methods of physically memorializing a killed human being, can simply be scooped up, curbed, and tossed into the back of a City-owned truck like an abandoned shopping-cart.
City governments should be focused on protecting the well-being of it's citizens. Spending our tax dollars and wasting money to remove a safety-awareness-raising work of public art is backwards. Thank you City of San Diego Street Divisions for spending money to make a dangerous intersection more deadly---all so you can hide the weaknesses of your auto-centric, car-first, pedestrians/cyclists-last philosophy.
It's clear; Street Divisions, a City of SD department directed by an automobile-traffic-engineer, is determined to remove anything from the corner that is mildly associated w/ Atip and/or bike-safety (Source on Deputy Director's automobile-traffic-engineer background: Personal phone conversation before the original Ghost Bike Memorial was removed, 2008).
Fortunately, a permanent memorial is in the works. An awesome and super-fun fundraiser-event is being planned! Details very soon.
(The Ghost Bike that was removed appears above. Photo by Matt Lingo ( MattLingo.com ))
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