Great news! Oakland is preparing to repave and stripe bike lanes on upper Broadway from 38th St. to Broadway Terrace and we need you to contact the City and tell them they have your support for this important bikeway project. Volunteers have done much hard work to garner public support for this project over the past two years and it’s time for a final push to “Complete the Broadway Bikeway.”
This stretch of Broadway is a key gap in the Broadway bikeway between Rockridge and the Uptown. Bike lanes exist south of 38th Street and the City currently is finishing the bike lanes on Webster and Franklin Streets downtown. In addition, mitigation monies from the Caldecott 4th Bore Tunnel are being used to stripe bike lanes on Broadway along Highway 24 all the way up to the K over crossing of the freeway and back down Tunnel Road into Berkeley. The bike lanes and repaving on upper Broadway should be completed by 2013. Here’s the plan: the City has already mailed a flyer/post card about the project to businesses and neighbors along Broadway, asking for their response to the project by February 22, 2012. While this is going on, EBBC and Walk Oakland Bike Oakland are mobilizing to garner additional public support for the project. Here’s how you can help:
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Send an email to the City with your support, to bikeplanner@oaklandnet.com
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Ask your friends to also send an email of support to bikeplanner@oaklandnet.com
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Download the flyer/post card for the project and get a local business to sign and support the project
Staff are planning to bring the project to City Council for approval in May, 2012 and the resurfacing and bike lane striping is planned for completion in 2013. Bicycle wayfinding signs will also be installed, directing bicyclists to key destinations along the corridor. Yes, we plan another big media event in 2013 to celebrate the completion of the Broadway Bikeway! Project Specifics: The project will install bike lanes by removing one of the three travel lanes in each direction, bringing the 6-lane roadway down to 4 lanes, two in each direction with bike lanes.
There is plenty of room and capacity for this redesign. The project will not remove or otherwise affect any parking spaces. Due to congested conditions at the Broadway/51st St/Pleasant Valley Ave intersection, the project will not remove travel lanes in this area. At this intersection, shared roadway bicycle markings (aka “sharrows,”) will fill gaps to form a continuously marked bikeway. The evaluation of potential traffic impacts were studied as part of the Bicycle Master Plan and showed that the proposed design will not have significant impacts on motor vehicle traffic flow, either now or in the future. Great news indeed! We super-appreciate your help on this exciting bikeway project!