Madison's 12-year-old bicycle monitor program will have 10 civilian monitors on bike patrol this season, reports staff writer Elizabeth McBride. Some local cyclists chafe at the monitors and their capacity to issue citations to bikers who flout the law. "The punishment is all out of proportion to the hazard," grouses cyclist Scott Ellington, noting that half the tickets issued are for riders' failure to register their bikes. Art Ross, the city's pedestrian-bicycle safety coordinator, counters that offenders can opt to take a three-hour safety seminar in lieu of paying a fine. "It's not so much that people don't know the rules of the road," he says, "it's that they haven't had respect for the rules instilled in them." Ross remains the city's pedestrian-bicycle coordinator and a relentless bicycle-safety advocate.
Bellyaching 'bout bike monitors
From the Isthmus archives, May 4, 1990