For decades, people bicycling up Mount Diablo have used the safe residential streets of Diablo Country Club to get to South Gate entrance to the park, and avoid a dangerous, narrow windy stretch of Diablo Road. After years of contention over ‘hordes of cyclists’ in his neighborhood, one local homeowner has had enough of the bike traffic and wants to put up a gate. He filed a lawsuit in Contra Costa Superior Court asking that his publicly accessible road be declared private. Bike East Bay has filed court papers to defend your safe passage on these publicly maintained roads. Now we need to hear from you how many times you have bicycled through Diablo Country Club in the past decade plus.
Fill out this short Google Form Document with information about your past rides in Diablo Country Club
Have You Ridden Through Diablo Country Club?
If you have bicycled through Diablo Country Club on Calle Arroyo or Alameda Diablo at any time prior to 2013, please fill out this short Google Form Document explaining details of your bicycle trips thru Diablo Country Club, as best you can recall. We will follow up with you to evaluate if your public use of local streets in Diablo Country Club supports our legal defense. We are represented by Bay Area Bicycle Law, taking our case pro bono, with a goal of securing a court decision stating that the local streets of Diablo Country Club are publicly accessible and shall remain that way, for bicyclists, kids going to school, guests at the Country Club and people using a local US Post Office.
There is a long history of antagonism from some local residents toward the many thousands of people who bicycle through Diablo every year. In 2014, a lawsuit was filed by a few homeowners against a proposed nearby residential development called McGee Ranch, hoping to get the development to fund a new bikeway on Diablo Road, and get bikes out of their neighborhood. When the Court ruled unexpectedly that safety of bicyclists on Diablo Road legally matters and has to be studied, Bike East Bay filed an Amicus Brief in appellate court to defend the decision, and we continue to work with the Town of Danville to address bicycle safety issues on Diablo Road. Because that earlier case did not change the popularity of Diablo Country Club to access Mount Diablo, a few homeowners have launched this new lawsuit.
This issue is critical to many of our members and all cyclists because the route through the Diablo Country Club is the only safe alternative to the most dangerous sections of Diablo Road. This route is the only safe access to Mount Diablo State Park from the West and safe East/West access between Blackhawk and Danville via Diablo Road. Bike East Bay rarely goes to court, and when we do, it is for a compelling reason. We need your help.