The city of Berkeley is implementing initiatives that would alter the city’s streets to make them safer for bicyclists.
According to the city’s bike plan, officials want the city to model a bike-friendly city where riding a bike is safe, a convenient form of transportation and a recreation for people of all ages.
Plans include modifications in bicycle boulevards and roadways. Hearst Avenue has one of the highest bike collision rates in the city, according to Dave Campbell, program director of the East Bay Bicycle Coalition.
Campbell attended a meeting of the Berkeley Transportation Commission’s Bike Subcommittee on June 25 to help plan a redesign to make Hearst more bike friendly. Campbell said bike safety advocates discussed a “road-diet” for Hearst at the meeting, meaning it would go from being a four-lane avenue to a two-lane avenue to make room for bikes lanes on the sides.
“By far the most exciting (aspect of the meeting was) green paint on the bikeways to remind motorists to look for bikers on the roadway,” Campbell said.
According to city spokesperson Mary Kay Clunies-Ross, the city has made a long-standing commitment to cyclists since the bicycle has become a more common mode of transportation.
UC Berkeley students who use their bikes to travel around campus and the city say they are glad Berkeley is implementing these projects.
“I feel like people don’t know about bike safety when riding,” said Clara Mathews, a member of BicyCAL, the UC Berkeley bike cooperative. “I think (the bike-friendly initiatives) will be helpful.”
BicyCAL is a student co-op that aims to empower UC Berkeley students to integrate the bicycle into their lives, according to its Facebook fan page.
Berkeley’s bike plan also includes modifications in bicycle pathways popularly used by bikers, roller skaters and pedestrians.
The transportation division of the city Public Works Department also initiated a plan last fall to complete the West Street Pathway in North Berkeley between Cedar-Rose and Strawberry Creek parks.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ju4XkQIxvJk&w=560&h=315]
This pathway is also meant to improve bicyclist and pedestrian safety, according to the city transportation division web page. The city plans for the pathway also show that yield and advanced crosswalk warning signs will be installed in order to make drivers aware of the pathway.
According to the city website, this action is being partially funded by Measure B, a half-cent transportation sales tax administered by the Alameda County Transportation Commission.
Although the city has not decided on a start date for this project, the construction of the West Street Pathway will take nine to 10 weeks of work, according to
Clunies-Ross.
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Yeah, because traffic doesn’t suck bad enough in Berkeley. The solution couldn’t possibly be for bicyclists to avoid major thoroughfares–after all, that would be restricting somebody’s rights.
If navigating the East Bay didn’t often necessitate driving through Berkeley, this would not be an issue. But like it or not, there is commuter traffic in this city, and all the “encouraging” in the world is not going to get Danville residents who work at UC to bike here. With all due respect to the person who finds the prospect of green lines on city streets exciting, the needs of motorists should be considered as well.
What are you talking about? There’s nothing at all in this article or video about turning arterial streets like University, Shattuck, Ashby, etc, into bike routes. The people in the video even state explicitly that they enjoy riding on the neighborhood Bike Blvds in Berkeley so as to avoid mixing it up with fast moving traffic.
When bicyclists do ride on major streets they are not there because they LIKE it, they do it because those streets are much more efficient, have fewer stops, are more straightforward, and they take people directly to their destination (i.e., the same reason people drive their cars there).
Keep in mind that each commuter in a bike is just as legitimate as each commuter in a car, possibly even more so since the cyclist is costing the city a lot less. Therefore they are entitled to the same expectation of safety and convenience that motorists take for granted. And yes, I can assyure you 1000% that no bike facilities around here will ever be built without first laboriously taking the needs of motorists into accoOunt.
Does Berkeley have or will it consider Sharrows?
Berkeley does use sharrows for situations when there is not enough road width for at least a 6′ bike lane. The Hearst Ave plan referenced in this article, for instance, includes sharrows for part of the route going downhill, as bike and car speeds along that section will be almost the same.
Hippie bikers! Who cares?! Bikes are for wimps
DRILL BABY DRILL! ‘MURRRRRICA!
p.s. close the borders
more out of control cyclists running down innocent pedestrians. yay.
I was wondering how someone could spin this as a negative…
4,000 pedestrians a year are killed by cars, and 59,000 are injured by cars. Bikes don’t make that kind of mayhem.
http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/ped_bike/
so it’s okay for bicyclists (like chris bucchere) to run down and kill innocent pedestrians, as long as more people die from other causes?
do you support the murder chris bucchere and the violent website strava ?
No, just more people biking to the grocery store or picking up their kids after school on a tandem. Much more banal than the media would have you believe.
Riding a bicycle doesn’t change a person’s nature. Every time I see someone doing something ridiculous while cycling I think “well, at least they are not driving a car”.