From the earliest days, East Bay Bicycle Coalition leaders strove to offer members and the general public maps of safe, efficient bicycling routes in the East Bay. The idea was, writes Tom Willging in the 40-year history of EBBC he’s compiling for next month’s Biketopia celebration, “that maps encourage people to ride by pointing out the ways and means for getting around on bicycles.”
So within four months of EBBC’s founding in March 1972, the first issue of Ride On offered members a free copy of its East Bay Bikeways map (also available for 25 cents to nonmembers at local bike shops, book stores, and camping equipment stores). This was a “study map,” meant to spark discussion about what streets to make official bike routes, where to put in striped bike lanes and where to request bike paths separated from the roadway. The map included routes in Berkeley, Oakland, Alameda and San Leandro.
Fourteen years later EBBC published the Bicycle Commute Map for the East Bay. Unfortunately, that map only included routes through Albany, Berkeley, Oakland, Alameda, San Leandro, Hayward, and Union City. Bike routes in Contra Costa County and the far reaches of Alameda County, those distant, suburban lands east of the hills, remained as little-known and as unmapped as the Americas of 1491.
“We had a lot of board meetings and talked ad nauseam about the maps,” former EBBC board chair (1983-1985), later secretary, and – eventually – cartographer, Charlie Bryant told Tom Willging during an interview earlier this year. “Everyone had lots of ideas, but nothing ever happened.”
Finally in 1992, Bryant got fed up. He traded his role as EBBC board secretary for the role of EBBC cartographer and took charge of mapping bicycle routes east of the hills. His first order of business, he recalls, was to develop the symbology of the map – solid lines for recommended routes; dashed lines for routes for experienced riders; dotted lines for off-road paths; red lines for DON’T GO THERE; an arrow for a small hill; four arrows for a mega hill.
“I was not super familiar with this area. I have to confess a lot of the scouting for this map was done by car,” Charlie, who is now planning and building director for the city of Emeryville, said. “It was not intended to be a map of existing, signed bike routes because they were sporadic and illogical. I pretty much ignored existing routes. If a route worked, I included it. I did go out and ride [some of the routes] on my bike with my daughter, who was 3 then and is 24 now. She very bravely rode on the back of the bike.”
Working on weekends and evenings at home and during lunch hours in his office at the Oakland Planning Department, Charlie laid out the map, typed every word on the map, and designed its cover with rudimentary computer software. Then he sent a draft out to local bike clubs for comment and included their recommendations in the final map. After review and final approval from the EBBC board, the map was published.
“The Bicycle Transportation Map of the East Bay was prepared by bicyclists for bicyclists,” Charles S. Bryant wrote in the About This Map inset. “It represents the collective knowledge and wisdom of numerous individuals and organizations, compiled over a period of several years by the East Bay Bicycle Coalition.”
Eighteen years later, EBBC maps continue to be a volunteer effort by and for bicyclists, representing the best of our collective knowledge and wisdom.