Originally Posted by genec
A fairly new MUP here in the San Diego area has been "mared" during it's short life by about 6 new "entries" created by motorists.
I am not sure how or why this happens, but the path has been violated in several places where motorists have left the roadway, crashed in through the chainlink fence, and then shortly later have crashed out through the chainlink fence.
The MUP is quite wide... perhaps some 14 feet, making for a nice two way path for cyclists. It is about 8 miles long and parallels a new freeway. The MUP has freeway like ramps for cyclists to use to connect with the main surface streets that run perpendicular to the MUP itself.
The motorist "breakthrus" are quite obvious as they rip the chainlink from it's mountings and bend it in the direction in which they have gone through. In a couple of cases this caused a somewhat dangerous condition as the chainlink was then a "flap" out into the path of cyclists on the MUP. One morning I was quite surprised to see a section newly torn out near a light controlled intersection... it was pretty obvious that someone failed to make the turn and went onto the MUP vice the nearby freeway ramp... made me wonder just how out of control some motorists must be at times to do this sort of damage.
I face this same risk for part of my morning commute.
I ride across the Dumbarton Bridge from Fremont CA to Menlo Park. The road that leads to the path on the bridge is the old retired highway 84. It is seperated from the new highway by about 6 feet and a chain link fence.
The road is not well traveled by cars or trucks, so I ride just to the right of the center line. I cannot count how many times the fence has been breached by cars running off the highway. Last winter, there were three crashes in one week.
Jeff, still fat