The Modoc Road Pathway [especially the really expensive(!) section that is clearly marked and runs from Via Senda to Las Positas where it turns south to end at Hendry’s Beach] has become extremely dangerous for pedestrians and even runners. 

Individuals on electric bikes — particularly younger individuals, (i.e., teenagers but also young adults) — are (a) not using the bike lane on the adjacent street, (b) often speeding along much(!) faster than 20mph, and (c) do not ride single-file when there are two or more riding together, particularly when they are in conversation two- (and even three-) abreast. The most dangerous section of the walkway runs adjacent to Modoc Road from Las Positas to Via Senda.

The police department has been contacted and says they are too short-staffed to patrol the walkway (even by regularly driving by!?), and also says that any safety signage has to be okayed by private land owners adjacent to Modoc Road.

The latter requirement seems to me not to be true, however, since Santa Barbara City clearly has often sent Santa Barbara City crews to maintain the 2-foot wide curbed plant-bed that runs adjacent to the pathway all along Modoc Road.

The lack of any sort of safety signage — such as all(!) bikes yielding the right-of-way to pedestrians, and a mandatory speed limit for all(!) motor-powered transport devices including electric power skateboards, and electric-power bicycles as well as motorcycles and motorbikes — is an invitation to serious injury and even death. 

Do we all have to wait for that to happen before any action at all is taken by the City of Santa Barbara?

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