The San Diego Coun­ty Bicy­cle Coali­tion is call­ing the city’s 12 bike deaths this year “pre­ventable” and “call­ing for more bike-friend­ly infra­struc­ture across the region.” In the lat­est tragedy, writes Bri­an White, “Lau­ra Shinn was killed last week along Per­sh­ing Dri­ve while rid­ing her bike to work at SDSU. She was struck from behind by dri­ver Adam Milavetz, who pled not guilty to charges includ­ing DUI and mur­der.”

Advo­cates are demand­ing bet­ter infra­struc­ture to pro­tect peo­ple on bikes. “ ‘Pro­tect­ed bike lanes help because there are phys­i­cal bar­ri­ers between a car and a cyclist,’ said Eliz­a­beth May­er, Pro­grams Man­ag­er for BikeSD. ‘These greater infra­struc­tures are going to allow, not just phys­i­cal bar­ri­ers, but also visu­al reminders for dri­vers to know that it’s a bike lane. It’s not a shoul­der. It’s a bike lane.’ ”

Despite con­cerns about reduced park­ing for local busi­ness­es, numer­ous stud­ies from around the world show that “replac­ing on-street park­ing with a bike lane has lit­tle to no impact on local busi­ness, and in some cas­es might even increase busi­ness.” Accord­ing to May­er, hav­ing to park far­ther away from your busi­ness of choice is a small price to pay for pro­tect­ing human life. “The pri­or­i­ty of valu­ing our cit­i­zens no mat­ter how they choose to com­mute is what our City of San Diego needs to do.”