Just down from his shop, Tom Moran has owned Sea Mist rentals for 30 years, and he has signs warning customers of the risks they are about to take, beginning with pedestrians and sand that blows onto the trail, causing spinouts.
When it gets hot, thousands of people cross the bike path on their way to the surf, many of them lugging so much beach gear you'd think they were building villages at the water's edge. On some days, lifeguards tell me, they spend more time responding to bike path accidents than pulling swimmers to safety. Injuries slight and serious are common.
"Oh, yeah, you name it," says Capt. Scott Grigsby.
His boss, Mickey Gallagher, adds: "You see head injuries, dislocations, broken bones."
Nice.
As we look out from the operations tower, just south of the Santa Monica Pier, there are as many pedestrians on the bike path as cyclists. At times, groups of four or five stroll abreast of each other, taking up most of the path as cyclists approach from both directions.
"You see this woman walking and doing the arm exercises?" Gallagher asks.
Yes, and I also see a dog walker with an outstretched leash, making it look as though the bike path were an obstacle course.
None of this catapults the issue to the top of our list of regional concerns. But how hard is it, really, to enforce regulations and prevent accidents? Southern California does a lousy job of accommodating bikes on city streets. You'd think we could at least get it right at the beach, but hazards abound.
Santa Monica Police Officer Richard Carranza says he thinks City Hall should send someone out with brochures telling pedestrians to stick to the walkway and cyclists to the bike path in places where both exist. Cyclists, by the way, are often on the wrong trail too. Every once in a while, Carranza says, police do a sting and write tickets.
But as I discover in interviews with pedestrians lollygagging on the bike path just a stone's throw from the designated walkway, many of them have no idea they aren't supposed to be there.
"We didn't know," says British Airways flight attendant Nina Smith, who is strolling with colleague Maria Lindos.
They're standing near a red painted symbol with a cross through a pedestrian symbol, but it's worn by elements and obscured by sand.
Barbara Stinchfield, director of Santa Monica's Department of Community and Cultural Services, says better signs are being designed and the city is preparing the brochures Officer Carranza spoke of.
