[GPSCC-chat] Ellen Fletcher passes away - longtime PA bicycling activist

[Gerry Gras]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	[transitionpaloalto] Ellen Fletcher passes away - longtime PA
bicycling activist
Date: 	Thu, 08 Nov 2012 13:51:31 -0800
From: 	Bart Anderson <bart at cwo.com>
To: 	transitionpaloalto at yahoogroups.com



/*From Annette Puskarich:*/

RIP Ellen Fletcher

     Former Palo Alto city council member Ellen Fletcher passed away
     yesterday after a battle with cancer. Ellen was a long time advocate
     for safer pedestrian and bicycle routes in our city. I hope that the
     new Adobe Creek pedestrian/bicycle bridge can be named in her honor.
     http://www.paloaltoonline.com/square/index.php?i=3&d=&t=19419

     Ellen Fletcher

She wrote a piece about herself last May for the Bike Leagure
http://blog.bikeleague.org/blog/2012/05/why-i-ride-18-for-40-years-of-btwd-smiles/

     I was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1928 and was sent to England 10
     years later. I don’t remember seeing anyone ride a bicycle in
     Berlin, but almost everyone, or so it seemed, rode a bicycle in
     England.

     So I started riding, too. As I grew up I enjoyed riding my bike so
     much I took many pleasure rides, as well as the regular rides for
     various errands.

     I moved to New York City in 1946 at the age of 17. The extreme
     crowding on public transit soon enticed me back on a bike, a rarity
     in the City in those days. I was the only one using the bike racks
     at Hunter College “uptown” in the Bronx all year round.

     Moving to the California suburbs in 1958 with a baby, I thought my
     biking days were over. But it wasn’t long before I was again back on
     the bike, at least for short trips. But those short trips expanded
     greatly, partly for ideological reasons during the Arab oil boycott.
     Although I still owned a 1964 Plymouth Valiant until a few months
     ago, I rarely used it, filling my gas tank no more than once a year.
     The rest of my trips were by bike or with my bike on transit.

     When my son entered elementary school here in Palo Alto I
     volunteered to be “Safety Chair” for the PTA. That got me started in
     bicycle advocacy. Bike lanes, under and over crossings at major
     obstacles, bikes on trains and buses and the Nation’s first bicycle
     boulevard.

     At one point when the City Council balked at adopting some bike
     improvement policies in its General Plan, I decided to run for a
     seat on the City Council myself and served on the Council for twelve
     years, from 1977 to 1989.

     I don’t remember when or where I started serving at Energizer
     stations on Bike to Work Day. Probably when BTWD started in the
     seventies (I’m not sure when that was). I’m skipping it this year
     due to my deteriorating physical condition.

     Now at the age of 83, I have terminal lung cancer and can no longer
     pedal. I now have an electric motor in a trailer, the RideKick, to
     get me around, still on my bike. I’m so grateful because otherwise
     I’d have to rely on others for rides.

     I’m so glad I can still get around by bike!