Sausalito

The Marin County Bicycle Coalition responds to Saturday's fiasco at City Hall... and discusses next steps for Bridgeway

PBAC members decide they're done wasting their time with a city government that puts parking and loading above safety

Saved at least for now. Two big stories from Marin (and Richmond!)

Sausalito's core is finally getting a tiny bit of bike love

Sausalito remains a free city today, at least when it comes to parking for tourist rental bikes. Instead of adding fees for tourist bike parking, the city will add racks to accommodate 300 more bikes for the expected crush of two-wheeled summer tourists.

While Marin County has been designated a "national model" for bicycling and walking, one of four counties that have received a $25 million grant from the Federal Nonmotorized Transportation Pilot Program (NTPP), Sausalito has been notably hostile to the influx of cyclists who come over the Golden Gate Bridge, particularly tourists who rent bicycles in San Francisco.

Growing tension over how, or even whether, Sausalito can accommodate the flood of summer tourists riding rented bicycles into the village spawned a plan by one city councilman to convert four auto parking spots to bike parking. Subsequently, there has been talk of a one-dollar tax on rental bikes to defray costs. But as the Tuesday Sausalito City Council session dragged late into the night, bikes were punted to the April 6 meeting.

What do you do when hundreds of cyclotourists descend on your bucolic village, clogging sidewalks with rented bikes? The Sausalito City Council is trying to quell a virulent public debate with a tried-and-true solution: install a lot of bike racks.

Amalia Pittier of Caracas, Venezuela spent a sunny day riding a rented bike across the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito with her two traveling companions, stopping to buy lunch and spend money shopping for gifts they will take home to family and friends. Little does this tourist know she's at the center of a local controversy because she and her friends are among the estimated 250,000 visitors annually who rent bikes to ride over the bridge for a day of sight-seeing before they climb on an evening ferry for the return trip.