Extra

This is a response to the 9/27 article about city plans to remove stop signs, apparently to spare bicyclists the inconvenience of stopping. 

I'm no great fan of stop signs. Probably some of them are overkill and should be removed after genuine consultation with neighbors (not just pro-forma consultation with the results preordained). However, in my experience, living about fifty years in Berkeley, most bicyclists (kids and adults) do not stop at stop signs anyway, and I doubt that police have the time or interest to ticket them for not stopping. Removal of a stop sign should be based on auto traffic, not on cyclists who barely pay attention to the signs. 

Just to be evenhanded about this, many car drivers also don't stop at stop signs, but at least they usually slow down a bit and glance both ways, most of the time.