Two Pacific Beach breweries, Karl Strauss Brewing Co. and Amplified Ale Works, recently teamed to brew something special, a new milky stout Pathway Ale, to help raise funding for the PB Pathways project.
A portion of the proceeds from the sale of the new ale, introduced on March 16 at Amplified Ale at 4150 Mission Blvd., was donated to support the community improvement project organized by beautifulPB.
BeautifulPB is a public nonprofit charity focused on creating a sustainable and more beautiful Pacific Beach. The goal of the PB Pathways project is to build a network of safe neighborhood routes encouraging people to walk, bike, or skate, making PB a safer and friendlier place for non-vehicular transportation.
The event was also another stop along the way in an ongoing series of “Bike on Tap” informal functions hosted in various neighborhoods by the San Diego County Bike Coalition.
The bike coalition is a nonprofit advocating for protecting the rights of all people who ride bicycles. They promote bicycling as a mainstream, safe and enjoyable, safe and viable form of transportation and recreation.
The current focus for beautifulPB is PB Pathways, a network of safe neighborhood routes encouraging people to walk, bike or skate to their destinations with traffic-calming measures and other safety features.
BeautifulPB is working to implement a number of community projects and programs with the goal of realizing a Pacific Beach eco-district. An eco-district is a long-range plan that incorporates methods aimed at making the area more environmentally sustainable and economically viable.
PB Pathways routes are being implemented in phases. Phase one pathways installation is now complete on two north-south corridors on Cass and Fanuel streets, and two east-west corridors on Law Street and Reed Avenue/Pacific Beach Drive.
Phase two pathways are being planned as well as more infrastructure improvements to improve safety for pedestrians, bikers and skaters.
At the March 16 fundraiser, Beach & Bay Press asked guests about their experience cycling in and around PB.
“If you know what you’re doing, you can get around pretty easily,” said Oscar Medina, of Circulate San Diego, a regional grassroots group lobbying to make neighborhoods more walkable and bikeable. “But if you’re a tourist, or someone from a different part of the county, riding along the major corridors is still pretty scary.”
Why scary?
“They’re (bikes) pretty close to cars that are coming pretty fast,” answered Medina.
Medina said he’d like to see “more bike infrastructure” physically separating bikes from cars to give both “their own space.”
San Diego County Bike Coalition executive director Andy Hanshaw, who rode his bike to the fundraiser from downtown San Diego, noted, “[The coalition] is working to make biking better and more accessible, more connected for everybody. That’s our mission. That’s our plan. That’s our goal.”
Hanshaw added the city “has great plans to do good things (for biking). We just need to push for them, and we need your (public’s) support.”
Paola Alvarado, project coordinator for Circulate San Diego, talked briefly on Vision Zero, a program aimed at eliminating all traffic fatalities and serious injuries by 2025. She noted PB has three extremely dangerous intersections: La Play and Ingraham; Mission Boulevard and Garnet; and Cass and Garnet.
A detailed map and information on PB Pathways is available at beautifulpb.com.
For more information about bicycling, visit www.sdbikecoalition.org. Beer for bikes What: Amplified Ale Works and Karl Strauss Brewing Co. recently introduced the new Pathway Ale Milky Stout and $1 from each pint will go to Phase II or PB Pathways.
Where: Amplified Ale Works is located at 4150 Mission Blvd.