About a year ago, on my morning commute through northwest Bakersfield, I passed an intersection where a pickup had stopped at the corner. A bicycle lay crumpled between its bumper and the curb. A police officer was talking with a kid who looked middle-school age, almost certainly riding to school. Thankfully, no ambulance was leaving. But change the speed or the angle by a little, and that family’s morning ends very differently. I think about that kid every time I hear someone dismiss the city’s bike lanes as green paint nobody uses.
The numbers aren’t in dispute. Smart Growth America’s 2026 “Dangerous by Design” report ranked the Bakersfield metro third-deadliest in the nation for people on foot, with 229 pedestrian deaths from 2020 to 2024, up from 153 in the previous five years. We have sat in the top 10 for years.
And the people killed on our wide and fast streets aren’t just pedestrians; more people riding in cars are killed each year than those killed while walking or cycling. Fast streets endanger everyone, including the drivers who are supposedly being inconvenienced. That isn’t by chance. It’s the predictable result of how we build roads.
So I applaud the council members and city staff who voted to do something about it, including the resolution prioritizing narrower travel lanes, buffered bike lanes and lower target speeds. Not every no vote was a vote against safety. Councilmember Larry Koman, for one, objected that the resolution was too restrictive, not that safer roads were a bad idea, and that’s a fair debate to have. But I’m frustrated that Councilmembers Zack Bashirtash and Ken Weir, along with Republican political strategist Kathy Abernathy, have made opposition to these safety efforts a rallying cry against other members of the City Council, even a reason to question the city manager’s leadership.
In ballot recommendations she sent out on Oct. 12, Abernathy mocks Councilman “Bicycle Bob” Smith for loving “green paint, bike lanes, reducing vehicle lanes & narrowing width,” then claims no one uses those lanes “unless it’s 3 am, riding without lights or helmet and inability to pass sobriety test.”
Set aside that this claim isn’t true. Think about what it implies: that the people being hit on our streets are homeless drunks, so why bother? Even when the pedestrian hit and killed is a drug addict or alcoholic, it is no excuse for being this callous. Those people are someone’s son, daughter, brother or father. They are not beyond help, and no one should be so dismissive about their deaths.
But it isn’t only them. It’s kids biking to school. It’s people out for exercise. A coworker of mine and his wife were jogging on a sidewalk in northwest Bakersfield when a drunken driver drove onto the sidewalk, striking them both, leaving them unconscious and driving away. They are fortunate to be alive.
Here’s what these critics miss: A bike lane makes a road safer even when no one is riding in it. Wide lanes invite speeding and inattention. Narrowing them slows traffic, and the striped buffer puts extra feet between moving cars and people on the sidewalk. Federal data cited by city staff show bike lanes on arterial roads cut car-bicycle crashes roughly in half. If anything, the city should go further and add bollards or other barriers, so a drifting driver hits a barrier before a person. That would also make riders feel safe enough to use the lanes more.
Now consider the money. Many roads in northwest and southwest Bakersfield were built with two lanes each way but enough pavement for three or four, on the theory that traffic would someday need it. At the pace we grow, that day is decades away, if it comes at all, and these roads will need rebuilding long before then. Where were the fiscal watchdogs when we paved all that unnecessary asphalt? Repurposing a few feet of it for the safety of everyone is a bargain by comparison.
Don’t take my word for it. Take the word of former Councilman Bruce Freeman, a Republican who spent much of his career in residential development and helped build many of the neighborhoods we’re talking about. At one of his last meetings, on Oct. 23, 2024, he went off script with a plea that the city change its standards for new development.
“Everybody knows, the wider the street, the faster they go,” Freeman said. “People slow down naturally when the street gets narrow.” His conclusion was blunt: “The only way we’ll make these streets safer is by narrowing the widths.”
He was just as blunt about the money: “We will go broke maintaining streets that are oversized for what their utility is.” That’s a conservative developer warning that our pattern of ever-wider streets and sprawling subdivisions doesn’t pay for itself. That is the real threat to the city’s balance sheet. If self-described fiscal conservatives want a fight over wasteful spending, there it is. Instead, they’re picking on the people trying to act on Freeman’s advice.
And when it comes to bike infrastructure itself, fiscal conservatives have been making the case for years. The Kern County Taxpayers Association, hardly a group of free spenders, has long pushed for a better network of bike and walking paths across the city, including more than 50 miles of trails along abandoned and underused rail lines. When the region’s leading fiscal watchdog says safe places to walk and bike are worth the investment, critics who call it waste should take note.
None of this is a liberal plot to take away anyone’s car. It’s about two things conservatives have always championed: freedom of choice and public safety. People should be free to choose how they get around, whether that’s driving, biking, walking or some mix, to save money on gas, to get some exercise, or to let their kids gain a little independence. But that choice only means something if every option is reasonably safe. Too often, it isn’t. A parent may hesitate to let a 12-year-old ride to school. A retiree may not be able to safely walk to the corner store. Someone who can’t afford a car, or can’t drive one, may be taking their life in their hands just crossing the street. Keeping people safe is among the most basic jobs of local government, and the right to get home alive shouldn’t depend on being encased in a car. Responsible spending, personal choice, public safety and strong families are supposed to be conservative values. Safe streets serve all four.
This should be a bipartisan issue. Nobody in Bakersfield, left or right, wants to bury a child, a neighbor or a coworker because a road was designed for speed instead of safety.
Bakersfield doesn’t have to be known as one of the deadliest places in America to walk or ride a bike. Let’s stop picking on the leaders trying to fix it, and start listening to people like Bruce Freeman who learned firsthand what our roads really cost.