SF Streetsblog attended the Caltrain Joint Powers Board this morning in San Carlos. In the meeting, the board discussed declaring a fiscal emergency and scheduling public meetings for service cutbacks. Among the proposals brought up by Caltrain staff to save money or increase revenue:

• Fare hikes.
• Eliminate weekend service (!)
• $1 surcharge for bicycles.

A major problem with the proposed $1 surcharge is California state law currently does not allow a surcharge on bicycles. When Caltrain looked at a bike surcharge in years past, they decided the fee collection would cost more than the surcharge.

If Caltrain charges $1 per bike per trip, that’s an extra $40 per month for me. It’s likely I would just stop riding the train for nine or ten months out of the year and bike the whole distance, so they lose the $112.75 per month they currently get from me. Penny wise and pound foolish.

Elsewhere:

• SF Streetsblog.
• Mercury News.

A bike haikue from The Old Bag here. Via.

Remember that book Custom Bicycles: A Passionate Pursuit? This book is now available for purchase. Go buy it as a gift for Mothers’ Day for the mom cyclist in your life.

If you can wait a week or so, though, I will give you an opportunity to win this book for free. We’ll call it the Custom Bikes Virtual Alleycat 2009, and the prize is this beautiful coffee table book of Bike Porn. The race begins this Monday, so get your whip ready and pray for good weather. There are three books available for this giveaway so you have three chances to win!

Like the last virtual alleycat, this race will be a coast to coast tour of cycling blogs, with each checkpoint giving directions to the next checkpoint. A winner will be selected from among all those who win.

Watch for the contest on Monday morning!

[ A couple of people previously told me they would like to be a checkpoint on this alleycat, but I, umm, lost that list. Please contact me privately to ensure you make it on the list! Sorry and thank you! ]

Side note: Custom Bicycles: A Passionate Pursuit is not available on Amazon’s Kindle. Is a coffee table book with full color photos appropriate for a black and white electronic device like this?

For those looking for a charity bike ride: The 4th Annual Foothill Century takes place Sunday, May 17, 2009 to support the South Peninsula Hebrew Day School in Sunnyvale, California. The ride begins at the school near the corner of Fremont and Mary and features kosher food at all rest stops.

Details here.

People Power Santa Cruz director Micah Posner was ticketed for organizing a bike parade down King Street last November without a permit.

The Santa Cruz Sentinel, which describes Posner as “outspoken” (hah! He’s a mild mannered family guy who generally prefers diplomacy over confrontation), reports that the police claim the bike parade was ‘counter intuitive’ because (get this) “He’s inviting families to come out, with their kids, to ride in the street.” The horror! We can’t have families riding their bikes in the street in Santa Cruz!

The city attorney of this Silver level Bicycle Friendly Community backed up Santa Cruz police captain Steve “Because I Can” Clark by filing the paperwork.

Other parades, such as the huge parade of cars every summer weekend into Santa Cruz or the daily parade to 9-to-5 work sites, remain unpermitted, with police refusing to cite the organizers of these parades.

People Power Santa Cruz advocate converting King Street into a bicycle boulevard, using bike-traversable diverters to limit through traffic on King. King Street parallels Mission Street in Santa Cruz and is favored as a bike route to get across town. The bicycle boulevard concept for King Street is supported by People Power, Greenways to School, King Street Neighbors, Lower Escalona Neighborhood, the Community Traffic Safety Coalition, the Greater Santa Cruz Federation of Teachers, the Campaign for Sensible Transportation and Santa Cruzans for Responsible Planning.

Read more in the Sentinel. I’ve asked Micah if he can have the LAB revoke Santa Cruz’s “Bicycle Friendly Community” status.

Micah has also asked cyclists to write a letter to the editor explaining why a bike boulevard on King Street is a good idea. Read background on the King Street proposal in this PDF.

Please send to Twitter.

Alan posted his views on the safety of cycling, which I’m in general agreement with. It’s fascinating to me to see comments like this in the interesting discussion that follows Alan’s post.

• It is very likely that you will get hurt several times this year while riding your bike.
• I expect to be run over, just not today.

What do you think? Do you expect to be run over when bicycling?