Imagine if San Pablo Ave & 40th St looked like this:
You shouldn’t have to dodge right-turning cars on your bike commute on 40th St as you cross San Pablo Ave, and from W. MacArthur Blvd you shouldn’t have to get off your bike and walk across San Pablo Ave to get to the new bike lanes on Adeline St. Yet this is exactly what Emeryville expects you to do because their conservative city attorney has legal concerns and their traffic engineer is concerned about slowing down cars in order to make your bike commute safe. We need your help to change this.
We are asking for advance bike boxes to be reincorporated into 40th St at San Pablo and that a safe bike crossing of San Pablo at W. MacArthur be included in the project. Please contact these key Emeryville City Council members and let them know you want full bike accommodations in these two intersections.
Public Works Committee Members:
Other Three Council Members:
If you can attend a key meeting of the Public Works Committee on July 18, 9:00am at City Hall Garden Room, please join EBBC and Emeryville BPAC members in pushing for a better solution that allows you to stay on your bike and avoid having to dodge cars on your bike ride to work.
We appreciate Emeryville’s willingness to stripe green bike lanes at critical points in these intersections to highlight the presence of bicyclists-it helps bike safety, but much more is needed to get you safely across busy arterial streets. Emeryville originally included advance bike boxes with right turn prohibitions at San Pablo Ave & 40th St to get you safely across San Pablo Ave without having to dodge right-turning cars, but then removed them at the insistence of the traffic engineer and city attorney. We want the bike boxes put back into the plans. This intersection has the highest volumes of bike traffic in Emeryville.
These bike boxes were proposed in Emeryville’s Safe Routes to Transit grant application for $820,000. They have been removed from the project.
Equally frustrating are suggestions that bicyclists get off their bikes and walk across San Pablo to get onto Adeline St. and its new bike lanes where W. MacArthur intersects with San Pablo Ave. There should be a direct and safe bike connection between W. MacArthur Blvd and Adeline St, across San Pablo Ave. This intersection has the 2nd highest volumes of bike traffic in Emeryville. EBBC’s improved design for this bike crossing is shown above.
Imagine a traffic engineer telling a driver they need to get out of their car and walk half a block and then get back in their car to continue their commute? This is the level of inconvenience being designed into two new intersections in Emeryville for bicyclists. It’s time for you to be able to make everyday trips in Emeryville on the streets you ride, like 40th St and W. MacArthur. Contact your City Councilmember today!