You are allowed to start getting excited about Albany’s potential new two-way cycle track on San Pablo Ave between Buchanan St and Dartmouth Ave bikeways as well as Albany’s commitment to test bike lanes on other sections of what is a very busy state highway. You are also allowed to challenge Albany for compromising your safety in the name of car parking in areas where parking occupancy is 50% at best. Merchants in Albany, like in many cities, are scared to death to give up a parking space in order for you to safely ride to their store. It’s a complicated issue for traditional traffic engineers and planners to figure out. They need your help!
Here’s what Albany is proposing, moving from South to North:
- From the Berkeley city line, green supersharrows up to Dartmouth St;
- From Dartmouth to Marin, bike lanes;
- From Marin to Clay Street, green supersharrows;
- From Clay Street to the El Cerrito city line, bike lanes;
- At the Washington St off-set bikeway crossing of San Pablo, they are proposing a median two-way cycle track connector-quite nifty!;
- At the Dartmouth St off-set bikeway crossing of San Pablo, they are looking at several options to get bicyclists across safely; and
- As a design alternative, have a south-bound bike lane on San Pablo Ave between Buchanan and Marin.
This graphic shows the “super sharrow” design that would be used between Buchanan and Washington.
In a related development, the company working on the UC Village infill project has settled a lawsuit with Carbon Neutral Albany and as part of the settlement, is proposing a two-way cycle track on San Pablo Ave, between Dartmouth Ave and Buchanan Street, to connect these two east-west bikeways along the edge of the new development. This from the press release of the Albany Strollers & Rollers:
“Developers of the University Village Mixed-Use Project for the University of California, Berkeley, have proposed a two-way cycle track along San Pablo Avenue in a new site plan. This plan also includes Sprouts Farmers Market as the anchor retail tenant for the project. A cycle track is a bikeway physically separated between the road and the sidewalk that insures maximum safety for the cyclist and is intended to encourage people to bicycle to Sprouts.
Albany Strollers & Rollers (AS&R) has been seeking inclusion of excellent cycling access in the project for over five years. UC Berkeley reiterated its commitment to this goal in a recent settlement agreement.
“AS&R commends UC Berkeley for fulfilling its cycling facility commitment by the best means possible,” said Preston Jordan, cofounder of the cycling and pedestrian advocacy group. “This will not only serve the community, but will enliven the development making it even more of a place to go.”
What you can do:
Contact the Albany City Council and let them know you want safe bike lanes on San Pablo Ave to the fullest extent possible. Also let them know that you support a two-way cycle track on San Pablo Ave between Dartmouth Ave and Buchanan St. Here are your City Councilmembers:
Marge Atkinson
Michael Barnes
Peter Maass
Mayor Peggy Thomson
Joanne Wile
All can be reached at cityhall@albanyca.org. Thank you for your help and support of this needed bikeway in Albany.