How can we improve your cycling experience in Mission Viejo?

Riding a bicycle in Mission Viejo can be dangerous! The danger comes from automobile drivers who are either distracted or drunk! The recent death of a fireman is a case in point. I ride here. A couple of years ago I was sent to the hospital by an old man who wasn’t paying attention.

Thanks for doing this! Sadly, you can't level out the hills in Mission Viejo for the bike trails. And tunnels wouldn't be fun. :-)

There are many things of the low hanging fruit variety that would make cycling in Mission Viejo a lot better for our residents. It starts with making sure the traffic lights are set so that a bicycle, at an average speed of 12 miles/hour can get across our intersections before the light turns red. Sadly this isn’t the case as I have on several occasions been in the middle of the intersection on a Sunday morning looking at the light that just turned red with drivers from the opposite direction starting up again. Intersections can be further improved a lot but this would help to begin with.

Most of our traffic lights are triggered by the metal of the cars as they approach the intersection. This already works not nearly as well for motorcycles and not at all for bicycles. The triggering mechanisms must either be adjusted to allow a bicycle to change the light to green or MV needs to install buttons a rider can reach from the bike lane, similar to what Irvine has done. Currently, there are many intersections where a rider must get off the bike, push it up on the sidewalk to get to the pedestrian light button. Then they must back up their bike down again into the bike lane to cross the intersection. With the height of our curbs this is not an eas6 undertaking.

Regarding the hills, they’re not so bad but preferred cycle pathways could be signed that lead riders on a trail that minimizes hills. I live just south of the YMCA and we mapped a path that gets us to Irvine with no climbs on the way out and just two very short climbs on the way home. A similarly near hillless path exists to the post office though I usually don’t bother and do the hill on Marguerite. I’m sure there are many more that could be identified.

A major problem is the speed at which drivers are permitted to travel along our streets (at this point we effectively have freeways dividing our city as those are the speeds i see there every day) and the fact that they seem to consider the solid lines between their lane and the bike path optional, i.e., they mostly disregard it and consider the bike lane part of their travel lane.

Left hand turns are extremely dangerous in this city, since a cyclist has to often cross three lanes with speeding cars to do so. Signage to direct them to cross the intersection and the cross it again (both going straight) would help.

A bike lane goes along Oso in direction of the freeway and then suddenly disappears at a point when drivers speed up and consider themselves already on the freeway. Cyclists aren’t able to safely cross to the continuing lane because they’re unable to see far enough to look for oncoming traffic because this happens in the middle of the turn into the on-ramp.

Similarly, the cycling lane situation/missing lane on La Paz at the freeway is appalling considering this area was recently worked on and the powers that be clearly did not consider ALL participants of the local roads. In addition, this area changes from very bright to quite dark under the freeway bridge so that drivers eyes are impaired and they literally are half blind and unable to see someone in their lane on a bike. Considering they’re all in a hurry and don’t expect bicycles to slow them down this is a, likely fatal, collision and lawsuit waiting to happen. What is required there is a protected bike lane.

ProtectIng the existing bike lanes along our roads would be a great enhancement and help make people feel safer as this would prevent drivers from veering into those lanes. Also, accepting that a bike lane is a bike lane and not a shoulder or parking area would go a long way. I see the bike lanes in my area ON A REGULAR BASIS converted to parking space which should be a huge No No.

Making sure that a bike lane is actually a lane along which a bicycle can travel safely would also help. In many places, the bike lanes include the curb and have a rut in the middle (between the cement of the curb and the asphalt of the street) that is dangerous to riders as their bicycles tires aren’t as wide as a car’s and could cause crashes. This is especially so on Muirlands where the bike lane in at least one place all but disappears under the riders wheels because of a storm drain.

Many more issues like this in our town but I’m glad the city is at least finally talking about improving the situation.

La Paz Road, when you are driving under the I5 in the right lane to the southbound I5 on ramp there is a major safety issue. In the right lane when you transition onto the on ramp you have just exited the darkness of the freeway above when you make a fairly sharp turn into the on ramp. There is a pedestrian walkway that makes a fairly sharp turn at that exact point. Someone on a bike on the walkway not paying attention could potentially not make the required sharp left turn and ride directly into oncoming traffic. This dangerous design problem could be addressed by the installation of a steel railing at that critical point. I would appreciate your thoughts on this issue.

Thanks,

Jim Desmond

I’m really happy that the city is looking at cyclist safety. I ride 2,000 - 4,000 miles/year and it scares and saddens me when I hear of riders getting hit by cars. Mission Viejo is a great place to ride and is one of the reasons I continue to live here.

I believe the home of the 1984 Olympic road cycling event should lead the country in road cycling safety. In that effort, the city should, on class II bike lanes (painted lanes on streets), further offset the bike lanes from traffic lanes with either rumble strips or closely placed reflective dots ( or a combination of each). This would give an immediate warning to distracted drivers who drift into bike lanes and present an extreme risk to cyclist.

I do really enjoy riding my bike on all of the local trails, but its a shame it was more difficult finding them than it needed to be, due to the lack of a trail map. If the city would have trail maps near parks more people would be able to go out and ride. Maps should highlight what the trail has to offer and who could go ride on those trails, like a sort of rating system. Trail maps should be available both on paper and on the MV website. I really think more people should be educated about the great local trails Mission Viejo has to offer and a map that shows fun biking trails would be the way to do it.

Bicycling on Monanoso is extremey dangerous when passing the islands that were added a few years back to slow down traffic. When passing areas where islands exist the bike lane disappears forcing cyclist to move into the traffic lane. I've have several close calls with drivers not realizing how much the road way narrows at these locations.

Oso and La Paz also have disappearing bike lanes.

It would be helpful to drivers and safer for bicyclist if bike lanes were marked. Several communities will paint in the pavement a bicycle on the to emphasize cyclist may be present.

Your designers for this project need to go out and ride around our community. Especially where problems areas were mentioned.

The major road ways in many of our cities are more dangerous. Traffic, driver distractions, and speed don't mix well with cyclist. I've seen in some communities where side walks along these major through affairs have a bike lane within the side walk.

Thanks for asking. My wife and I have lived here for 30 years and for safety reasons we often ride the neighborhood streets rather than the major roadways. It's just too dangerous. Oso parkway is pretty close to cycling on the 5 freeway. Oso is an excellent area for a combined wider sidewalk & cycle lane.

On high-speed roads like Antonio Parkway where the road curves cars tend to driving to the bicycle lane.
When visiting the Bay Area high-speed curves going into bicycle Lanes have speed bumps or cones so the cars can feel them as a crossover.

Where the bike lane goes down to less than 30 in across and the sidewalks are 15 feet across is very dangerous Alicia Parkway before the lake going west would be one of those places and also Oso La Paz

I want to second the comment about people parking in the bike lanes. Trucks from landscape companies do this all the time and what's really annoying is at least once a week I'm blocked by a truck delivering cars to the car dealerships on Marguerite. Can't we get them to drive the trucks onto the dealerships to unload them instead of having them block the bike lane?