Accident data was compiled and mapped by William Hunter. The map indicates that better bike facilities are needed on arterial streets. The data also contradict census figures that found few cyclists venturing outside North Oakland.
Unmitigated suburban growth is the long-term impact of the Walnut Creek-San Ramon Valley Improvement Project (WC-SRV) proposed in the East Bay Municipal Utility District Draft EIR (Jan 1999). One of the many short-term impacts will be construction closures on the Iron Horse Trail. Bicyclists dependent on the trail for transportation purposes are not addressed in the DEIR; instead, trail users are assumed to be "recreational." Trails and parks are readily sacrificed to utility needs.
Construction of the 4.4 mile ultra-large diameter pipeline from Walnut Creek to Alamo is proposed to begin in 2001. Because of the lackadaisical manner in which bikeways get built or repaired, we expect the disruption to extend beyond the one and one-half years of pipeline work.
Pedestrian and bicycle traffic along the Iron Horse Regional Trail (or "Transportation Utility Corridor") south of its intersection with Danville Boulevard to Stone Valley Road would be seriously disrupted during construction. Portions of the trail where construction is occurring would be closed between "established detour points." The proposed pipeline would likely be located on the eastern side of the County right-of-way, and require removal of some vegetation thereby also impacting views. As well, the "alternative 5" alignment along Danville Blvd would also disrupt use of existing Class II bike lanes.
Significant visual, noise and bikeway disruptions are also in store for the northern end of the project. The EBMUD considers a portion of the Briones-Mt Diablo Trail that passes near the Walnut Creek treatment plant (also slated for expansion) "subordinate to the District's use of the property." Furthermore, Walnut Creek's Civic Park gets reamed by the installation of a huge 84" pipeline requiring obscenely overlarge construction equipment.
Other impacts will only be uncovered as individuals scrutinize EBMUD's WC-SRV proposal. Many local disruptions are in store for residents along the project corridor. Our preliminary review of the DEIR notes that it inadequately addresses the regional-scale cumulative impacts of dispersed growth, reduced water quality, and disruption of bicycle transportation. Copies of the DEIR are available at the following public libraries: Lafayette, Walnut Creek, Pleasant Hill and Danville. The 45-day public review period for comments ends at 5PM on March 15, 1999. Send written comments to Water Distribution Planning Department of EBMUD, 375 Eleventh St (Mail Slot #701), Oakland, CA 94607-4240.
-Robert Raburn
A developer has proposed car-free housing at 2161 Allston (between Shattuck and Oxford), with shopping and a pedestrian walk-through at the ground level. The Transportation Commission endorsed this design, but the Zoning Adjustment Board's Design Review Committee told the developer to "solve downtown's parking problem."
The Zoning Adjustments Board will probably require parking, when it acts on this building in March. Instead of shopping and pedestrian open space, the ground floor of the building will be taken up by a driveway and parking - unless there is political pressure for the car-free design.
We need letters NOW supporting car-free housing. In addition to writing the Zoning Board, it is very helpful to write to the Berkeley Voice. Just send e-mail to Hillspub@idiom.com with the subject line "Letter to the Editor"; the Voice prints virtually all letters.
For more information, see http://www.preservenet.com/EcoCity/2161Allston.htmlTHE ONE-CLICK ACTIVIST lets you send the Zoning Board and City Council an e-mail form letter instantly, if you do not have time to write one of your own. See http://www.preservenet.com/EcoCity/2161AllstonLetter.html.To receive Berkeley EcoCity Alerts, just send e-mail to EcoCity@preservenet.com.EcoCity Builders is a non-profit organization dedicated to rebuilding cities, towns and villages in balance with nature. This means building cities for people, not cars. Their projects include: planting gardens in the public realm, opening creeks after years in underground culverts (including Codornices Creek), and the Heart of the City Project for the redesign of downtown Berkeley.
A great chunk of Federal funds that have been a valuable source of funding for bicycle projects have been diverted by the California Transportation Commission (CTC) to the purchase of wetlands.
The enhancement funds are written into TEA-21, the new Federal Transportation Equity Act. These funds are intended to "enhance" highway projects, and have proven to be a far greater source of funds for bicycle projects than the state TDA (Transportation Development Act) bike/ped fund. Contrary to other TEA-21 funds, Enhancement funds are allocated by the states' transportation departments rather than regional planning agencies. The CTC has allocated $4 million for the purchase of Bair Island in San Mateo County and $6 million for the purchase of "an important wildlife corridor" in Southern California. The rationale for the use of transportation funds for this purpose is that preservation of these wetlands can be used as mitigation for environmentally damaging transportation (highway) projects yet to be built.
BIKE TO WORK Tuesday, May 18, 1999 will be a day of pedal power for thousands of Bay Area Commuters who participate in the fifth annual Bike-to-Work Day, sponsored by RIDES for Bay Area Commuters. Bike-to-Work Day encourages commuters to try alternatives to driving alone.Would you like to help with this year's event by organizing an "Energizer Station" in your community, putting up posters in your area, or publicizing the event at work?Helping with Bike-to-Work Week is a great way to have fun, meet other cyclists and promote the best way to commute to work!This year's event serves as a celebratory date for communities throughout the Bay Area to endorse our resolution supporting establishment of an Office of the Bicycle Coordinator in Caltrans District 4. On Friday, May 21 the EBBC will host the Northern California Bike Commuters' Ball near the 19th St BART. Mark your calendars now!If you are interested, contact Carolyn Helmke at RIDES, (510) 273-2073 or chelmke@rides.org
UNION CITY [BAD] NEWS From Gary Richard's column, in the San Jose Mercury News on 2/22/99. Q: Can you provide any good reasons why there are no bicycle lanes on the big, wide, newly constructed-reconstructed Union City Boulevard? -Jan Bossetto, HaywardA: The bike path has been incorporated into the wide sidewalk. Because of the design of the street, they didn't put the lanes next to traffic as is usually done.
OAKLAND [BAD] NEWS is that the City is yet again delaying progress on the Bicycle Master Plan. Planning staff seem incapable of identifying and scheduling the review and environmental processes necessary to meet the previous March 31 deadline for adoption. As a result, Oakland will not be eligible this year for State Bicycle Transportation Account funds to build the 7.7-mile Bancroft-Foothill bikeway connecting to San Leandro's newly reconfigured Bancroft Ave (4 to 3 traffic lanes w/Class II bikelanes). Other projects like Grand, Broadway, and Telegraph are also on hold despite a $130K commitment from the City Council. Not enough time to complete Oakland's plan? The original draft went out for review in November of 1997!
PLEASANT HILL City Council decided on 2/22/99 to re-install Class II bike lanes from Norse to Morello and keep the existing lanes on the rest of Viking Drive. Plans are to have everything in place by the end of March (but they do have plenty of signs to make and install). Permit parking for Viking Dr residents between CCBlvd and Ruth, and between Norse and Morello will be implemented as follows (excluding holidays and weekends):
No Parking Mon-Fri 7:00am to 8:30am
No Parking Mon-Fri 2:00pm to 3:30pm
No Parking any time between the schools
ASSEMBLY BILL 134 (Helen Thompson, Vacaville, Senator Perata, Coauthor) would adopt bicycle traffic control signals using bicycle symbols as the EBBC has proposed in many East Bay locations. You can follow state legislation at www.assembly.ca.gov.
IRON HORSE TRAIL under SR242 was closed for highway construction. Although the path was not completed, EBBC members and others used this route to commute to Diablo Valley College.
TEA-21 25% PROGRAM UPDATE The following bicycle projects have made the draft final list for the regional 25% program for TEA-21 funding. This program is administered by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and the final list will be out soon
(a) Iron Horse Trail safety & gap closure from Mayhew to Monument: $310,000;
(b) Alamo Canal Trail gap closure: $440,000;
(c) Iron Horse Trail undercrossing at Willow Ave.: $260,000;
(d) Iron Horse Trail gap closures Jones, Treat overcrossing: $500,000;
(e) Ninth St. bike path in Berkeley from Heinz St. to Emeryville city line: $400,000.
Next month's issue should report on the final list.
ALAMEDA COUNTY TEA-21 75% PROGRAM UPDATE The following projects have been selected for funding out of the 75% program for TEA-21 funding. Each of these projects are road rehabilitation or repaving projects and, under TEA-21 rules, can include up to 20% of their costs for "amentities" such as bike lanes and bike parking. City planning officials for each project need to be reminded of this and of the need to provide safer and more convenient bike facilities for each of these projects:
(a) Alameda County - Center/E. Castro Valley/ 150th Rehab and Stanley Blvd rehab.
(b) Dublin citywide street resurfacing
(c) Fremont - Paseo Padre, Fremont Blvd., Mowry, Decoto, Mission, Washington, Warm Sprs., Ardenwood, Niles, Stevenson.
(d) Hayward - A St., Hesperian, Industrial, Tennyson
(e) Livermore - Portola Ave., Stanley Blvd.
(f) Newark - Cedar Blvd and Cherry St.
(g) Pleasanton - Hopyard Rd., Santa Rita Rd.
(h) San Leandro - Marina/ Washington, Ardmore, Donna, Wayne, St. Mary, Oakes, Carpentier, Alvarado, Harrison, Huff, Chetland
(i) Union City - 7th St., Smith St., Alvarado-Niles, Decoto
If you live in one of these cities, please contact your city planning office and request bicycle improvements on these streets. Improvements can include bike lanes, wide bike shoulder, bike parking, signage, intersection signals.
WALNUT CREEK At the February 17 BAC meeting, it was announced that construction on a two-way bike path on southbound Oakland Boulevard was started onFebruary 1, 1999. This project has been pushed by the EBBC from the start. It was been necessitated by Caltran's moving the Ygnacio Valley Road off-ramp from I-680 and in the process eliminating the northbound Oakland Blvd. which bicycle access to the Walnut Creek BART station. City staff expects the construction of a 13-foot wide two-way bicycle path to be completed by April 1, 1999. On Saturday March 27, at 9:00 a.m., members of the Walnut Creek BACwill take a bicycle field trip of part of the city to consider future improvements to the City's bikeway facilities. Interested cyclists are welcome to join the tour by meeting at the City's Park Place meeting hall at Civic Drive and North Broadway.
PLEASANT HILL On Monday, February 8, 1999, the Pleasant Hill City Council considered changes to the format of their Traffic Safety Committee. While members of the EBBC pointed out that the make-up of the committee is stacked with city staff representing 60% of the membership, the council was only willing to change the time and meeting location ofthis committee. It formerly met in the mornings at the city's Police Department, which was at an inconvenient time and in non-conducive environment to elicit citizen input. We pointed out that neighboring cities such as Walnut Creek do not allow city staff to sit on their Transportation Commission. The City of Pleasant Hill also has yet to establish a Bicycle Advisory Committee.
The City Council has not yet addressed the issue of approving raised intersections for traffic calming on Pleasant Hill Road (see February RideOn article). City staff has recommended a new location of Cumberland Drive and Pleasant Hill Road rather than at Paradise Lane. It is expected that this issue will be calendared for a late March city council meeting. Call John Ruzek at (925) 939-5181 for furtherinformation on this situation.
GO GREENBELT! 1999 is scheduled for April 18-24 and will travel 480 miles around the Bay Area's Greenbelt of open lands. The ride helps raise funds for the Greenbelt Alliance, which works to protect the Bay Area's natural landscape. For more information, call 800-543-GREEN.
The following is a list of interesting, bicycle-related papers From the "TRB" conference, January 10-14, 1999
Dean Taylor, taylordb@ix.netcom.com and W. Jeffrey Davis
Taylor and Davis concluded: "When one can review `all' the published basic research in a paper of this size, it is obvious that significant research is required in almost all areas." Given brevity of bicycle transportation literature, it should not be too much to expect that our local Caltrans District 4 employ a professional who is familiar with the basic resources.
Bicyclists in the East Bay concur with Taylor and Davis. A recent correspondence from EBBC member Michael Jackson, CoCoCo Bicycle Coordinator, to Chris Morfas, CBC Executive Director reinforced the need for basic research in an appeal for how State Legislation could address bicyclists' needs. Michael called for "Establishment of a California Nonmotorized Transportation Studies program as either a component of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC-Berkeley..." He further noted that "There is a lack of basic data on bicycle facilities which is often used as a reason to deny requests to improve the bikeway and pedestrian network."
All bicycle transportation professionals will need to acquire a copy of Taylor and Davis' review article and become familiar with the "classic" bicycle traffic studies they review. We are embarking on new era of demand for bicycle facilities that should greatly augment the literature during the coming decade.
William W. Hunter, J. Richard Stewart and Jane C. Stutts
(abstract) This paper is a comparative analysis of bicycle lanes (BLs) versus wide curb lanes (WCLs). The primary analysis was based on videotapes of almost 4,600 bicyclists from 48 sites in Santa Barbara, CA; Gainesville, FL; and Austin, TX. The videotapes were coded to evaluate operational characteristics and conflicts with motorists, other bicyclists, or pedestrians. Bicyclist experience data were also collected separately through short oral surveys. These data were analyzed to learn about the age, riding habits and experience levels of the bicyclists riding through these intersections. Bicycle-motor vehicle crash data from the three cities were also analyzed to determine if there were parallels to the videotape data. Significant differences in both operational behaviors and conflicts were associated with BLs and WCLs but varied depending on the behavior being analyzed. Wrong-way riding and sidewalk riding were much more prevalent at WCL sites compared to BL sites. Examining the aggregated data, significantly more motor vehicles passing bicycles on the left encroached into the adjacent traffic lane from WCL situations compared to BL situations. Proportionally more bicyclists obeyed stop signs at BL sites; however, when a stop sign was disobeyed, the proportion of bicyclists with both "somewhat unsafe" and "definitely unsafe" movements was higher at BL sites. The vast majority of observed bicycle-motor vehicle conflicts were minor, and there were no differences in the conflict severity by type of bicycle facility. The proportion of bike/motor vehicle conflicts was similar by type of bicycle facility. However, bicyclists in WCLs experienced more bike/pedestrian conflicts, while bicyclists in BLs experienced more bike/bike conflicts. An initial model fitted to the intersection conflicts showed no differences in the bike/motor vehicle conflict rate by type of bicycle facility, but higher conflict rates for bicycle left turn movements.
The overall conclusion is that both BL and WCL facilities can and should be used to improve riding conditions for bicyclists. The identified differences in operations and conflicts appeared to be related to the specific destination patterns of bicyclists riding through the intersection areas studied and not to the characteristics of the bicycle facilities.
George Q. Allen, S. Gregory Lipton, Dave Dunneback, Susie Stephens
(abstract) After years of ISTEA funding emphasizing intermodal connections, numerous transit agencies have outfitted their entire, or nearly entire, bus fleets with bicycle racks. In September 1997, four bicyclists conducted the Rack and Roll Tour to learn how "intermodalism" is really working for bicycling. They traveled from Seattle to San Francisco with their bicycles to test to what extent public transit can be combined with bicycling to link more destinations than is possible with either mode independently. Added tour objectives were to increase public visibility of bicycling as a transportation mode and to rally support for ISTEA renewal. This report is the product of the tour. It describes the benefits of bicycle rack programs and provides other transit agencies with some of the background, considerations and performance measures they will need to implement rack programs. Primary findings for this report are assembled from transit agency questionnaires. Secondary findings are derived from interviews held by tour participants with bus drivers, bicyclists, bus passengers, elected officials and transit officials. This report includes the following findings: rationale for implementing programs--focus on customer needs; federal funding is critical; demand for racks often exceeds expectations and sometimes capacity; agencies prefer front-mounted, swing-down racks; bicycle rack-related accidents are infrequent; and bicycle racks on vanpool vans provide a valued customer service. In addition, bicycle racks on transit vehicles make a system more attractive to customers, send a positive message to the community and provide a valued customer service.