Crossing major streets on your favorite bike boulevards is about to get a lot easier. Thanks to new type of pedestrian signal called a HAWK beacon, people biking and walking won’t have to play chicken to get across major arterial streets. The East Bay currently has HAWK signals installed or under construction at:
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Alvarado-Niles Road near Union City BART (open)
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San Pablo Avenue at Dartmouth in Albany (open)
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Mission Blvd at Blanche in Hayward (open)
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Ashby Avenue at Hillegass in Berkeley
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Broadway at Lawton in Oakland
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Grand Avenue at Lenox and Bellevue in Oakland
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San Pablo Avenue at Virginia in Berkeley
While this new traffic device will make some of your busiest bike crossings much easier, some of these locations are designed primarily for pedestrians rather than for bicyclists. Because of this, last week advocates from Walk Bike Berkeley gathered at Virginia Street and San Pablo Avenue to act as a human traffic signal, assisting families with kids in crossing San Pablo safely on their way to school. Walk Bike Berkeley is pushing for staff in Public Works to deliver safer bike crossings. (Photo by Melanie Curry, Streetsblog CA)
How it works
A pedestrian HAWK beacon looks similar to a pedestrian crossing signal, but works differently, so make sure to stay alert and watch for cars as always when crossing a busy street. Unlike a typical signal, a HAWK beacon stays dark when there is nobody biking or walking there to activate it. When you stop and activate the signal by bike or by pushing the pedestrian button, the signal will turn yellow and red. When the light is red for cross traffic, you will get a pedestrian signal to start walking or biking.
Once the pedestrian signal starts its countdown, the vehicles on the arterial will see a flashing red to indicate that they can proceed when the crosswalk is clear. Make sure to always stop and check for cars because cross traffic now has a stop sign rather than a red light. As always, it is never a good idea to blow through an intersection! Stop and take turns with vehicles like you would at any stop sign.