track competes at New Mexico Collegiate Classic

By KRISTEN KELLER UCSB SPORTS

Two days of competition at the New Mexico Collegiate Classic have finished at the Albuquerque Convention Center where the UCSB women’s indoor track and field team competed against some of the top track and field programs in the country.

This meet at the University of New Mexico was highlighted by Mariana Lanz as she set a new standard in multiple events this weekend. On Friday, she went and beat the indoor 200-meter record with a time of 24.32. This time was good enough for her to have the best finish out of all Big West runners in this event, earning 16th out of 97 runners.

Along with that, Lanz topped the school record in the 400-meter dash with a time of 55.20.

Jessica Swalve competed in the pentathlon during this meet, coming in eighth out of 20 competitors. The only people to beat her came from Colorado, USC, Texas State and Kansas State. Madelyn Conte also had a great performance in the 60meter hurdles. The freshman finished the race in 10th with a time of 8.83 seconds.

Not only did these three have good meets, but other Gauchos competed well against these top programs. Jessica Boyd had a great showing in the 60meter dash, coming across the finish line with a time of 7.75 seconds. Lanz not only did well in her sprints, but also in the triple jump with freshman teammate Kennedy Johnson. The two finished with jumps of 11.79 meters and 11.84 meters, respectively. Emma Barthel’s performance in the long jump is also one to brag about as she finished in 27th out of 69 jumpers with a distance of 5.65 meters.

The Gauchos will have next week off from competition before they head to Flagstaff, Arizona to compete in the NAU Tune-Up hosted by Northern Arizona on Friday, Feb. 17. Kristen Keller is the associate athletic director for communications and digital strategy at UCSB. email: sports@newspress.com

More Inside

For more Sports, see page B4.

distance, be alert and watch speed,” she said.

At the same time, she noted, the Santa Barbara Police Department has a continued presence on State Street to curb these behaviors.

The Santa Barbara County Association of Governments has gotten involved as well.

Its Traffic Solutions Division put on its first ever E-bike Awareness Day on Jan. 19, and the city collaborated with Traffic Solutions to produce a 5-minute e-bike safety video. On Traffic Solutions’ website, residents are encouraged to take the E-Bike Safety Pledge and learn more about e-bike safety tips.

MoveSBC, meanwhile, will hold a community-wide e-bike safety event on Sunday, Feb. 12

“MoveSBC continues to offer bike and pedestrian safety instruction K-12 within Santa Barbara County, including the Santa Barbara Unified School and Hope School Districts, and are including in their curriculum e-bike safety tips, too,” Councilmember Sneddon said.

In addition, the California Highway Patrol is working on e-bike safety messaging and curriculum for the entire state, she said.

Whether these efforts are paying off, or it’s something else, the number of reported bicycleand pedestrian-related accidents appears to be dropping — even as the number of people riding regular bikes and e-bikes is rising.

“Over the past few years, State Street has had more people of various ages and abilities riding e-bikes and regular bikes,” Councilmember Sneddon said.

“There has been more bike-riding citywide, too. As the link between Downtown, Waterfront, Eastside and Westside neighborhoods, State Street functions as the spine of the city’s bicycle network, which was identified in the 2016 Bicycle Master Plan.”

Yet despite this increase in ridership, “since the opening of State Street Promenade to pedestrians and bicyclists in May 2020, we have seen a decrease in pedestrian- and bicyclerelated collisions,” she said. “Prepandemic, State Street averaged around 12 vehicle-only collisions per year and during the pandemic the number of vehicle-only collisions decreased to two.”

This despite the dramatic increase in the number of people riding e-bikes.

“Since the city launched the public bikeshare program with BCycle in 2021, there have been 33,293 riders with over 801,000 miles traveled on BCycle EBikes, with 226 e-bikes and 452 docks/racks in circulation (as of December 31, 2022),” she said.

Yet in the 801,000 miles traveled, “there have (only) been four documented collisions (one rider fell off the bike when it was stationary on the State Street Promenade).”

This seems remarkable given the lack of restrictions for riding Class 1 or Class 2 e-bikes under California law, aside from helmet requirements for those 18 and under. These e-bikes can be ridden on multi-use paths and city streets, and users are not required to have a driver’s license to operate them. A Class 3, which can go up to 28 mph, does require that the user is 16 or older and all riders need to wear a helmet.

“While the numbers are encouraging there is always room for improvement,” Councilmember Sneddon said. “I brought it up at Council because I feel we need to be moving more quickly.” email: nhartsteinnewspress@ gmail.com