As CL reported earlier this month, Alan Snel, Tampa (and Tampa Bay's) leading bicycle advocate over the past eight years, has left the Bay area to resume his career as a newspaper reporter, writing about the business of sports for the Las Vegas Journal-Review.
Right before Thanksgiving, Snel sent us this missive that he wanted CL to pass on to the readers, especially those cyclists in the area concerned about the leadership void that he leaves now.
Six years ago I wrote a letter to the Florida Department of Transportation's Tampa office. I wrote that based on my two years of bicycling around the Tampa/Hillsborough County area, it was plain to see that the Tampa/Hillsborough area was the most dangerous place to ride a bicycle in the U.S.
Sadly, tragically and regrettably, the high number of bicyclists dying on the streets of the Tampa/Hillsborough County area proved my letter prophetic.
12 bicyclists are dead in Hillsborough County in 2012.
A dozen bicyclists were also killed in Tampa/Hillsborough in 2010. As Andy Clarke of the League of American Bicyclists said, the high number of bicyclists dying on the roads here is appalling.
This article appears in Nov 22-28, 2012.