Bicycle pedestrian coalition urges city for safer roads

This month alonethe regionhas seenthree bicycle deaths.

In response, the bicycling community gathered to discuss what needs to be done to prevent senseless deaths.

The Velo PasoBicycle Pedestrian Coalition helda Saturday meeting.

The coalitionfocused on making El Pasosafe forbicycling through education and outreach.

Bicyclistsfrom throughout the borderland gathered at the downtown library.

They saw friends they hadn’t seen in awhile and caught up on bike routes, but the mood soon changed.

A moment of silence.

“We’ve had two pedestrian deaths in the region in the past couple of weeks we’ve had three cyclists die in the region” said Scott White of the coalition.

“We are here to talk about bicycle driver pedestrian safety and we want to make the roads safer for everybody,” said White.

The coalition has a plan they hope can start the change.

“We want to bring in educational programs, we want to reach out to the community in terms of advocacy programs,” said White.

“There are some many authorities that are responsible for the roads out there. The city is responsible for certain roads, the state is responsible for so many roads and the county is responsible for so many roads, so it’s important that all these agencies work together,” said White.

Getting officials involved may be helpful, but cyclists here say many times it depends on the driver.

“We believe in a lot of cases these things were avoidable if people had just been paying attention,” said White.

Velo Paso is urging the city to form a safe streets task force. It would be composed of people from all over thecity includingUTEP, Fort Bliss and the medical community to advise and advocate for safer streets in our city.