This month marks five years since California closed one of the lanes of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge to allow bicycle and pedestrian access.
The pilot project has now ended and Caltrans recommends closing the bike path for most of the week. But cyclists are doing everything they can to maintain their 24/7 ride through the Bay Area.
On a cool, clear day like Saturday, the ride across the bridge was inviting enough, even if not for the message they were trying to convey.
More than 100 cyclists made the trip from the Richmond BART station, all the way to Marin County. Nathalee Lomeli of Berkeley was a first-time bridge rider.
“It was beautiful. It’s a beautiful day,” she said. “It was nice to see everyone in the community come together to keep this track open and it was just a good moment. If it’s gone, I wouldn’t be able to experience it anymore, you know what I mean?”
But critics of the bike path have long complained about how empty it seems as cars pile up during the weekday commute. Last year, a UC Berkeley study revealed how much – or little – usage was actually taking place.
“And so right now there are 21 cyclists commuting in the morning in a three-hour window. And yet there are 18,000 cars during that three-hour window,” said John Grubb of the Bay Area Council, a business advocacy group which supports more traffic flows over the bridge.
“You know, I’m not sure what numbers they were expecting,” said Warren Wells, policy director for the Marin Bicycle Coalition. “There was never a clear measure of success or failure for this pilot. They never said, if we have this many people per day, we’ll keep it. If we have less, we’ll get rid of it.”
So the cycling community on both sides of the Bay turned out Saturday to respond to a proposal — endorsed by Caltrans, Marin County and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission — to move the barriers Monday through Thursday, closing and reopening bicycle access providing a maintenance and emergency lane.
Wells said they can’t allow cars to use the lane because opening it to car traffic would invite more drivers, which violates state environmental laws. But he thinks that’s the ultimate goal and doesn’t believe this current proposal is the end of it.
“It’s being presented as yet another compromise,” Wells said. “Oh, the trade-off is that drivers get this four days a week and motorcyclists, half of you who ride it on the weekend, get your lane.” So I expect that in a few years there will be another compromise where the compromise we reach is halved by another compromise. It doesn’t take Nostradamus to predict that.”
And even those who only use it on weekends aren’t happy when it shuts down during the week.
“I don’t understand why they’re closing this down just to make a shoulder lane that doesn’t make traffic any better,” said rider Amanda Carson. “It just cuts off access to the North Bay. It’s really the only way you can get here from the East Bay.”
“For me, this bridge is all about the connection,” says cyclist Mary Norton. “And even if there are ten cyclists crossing a day, it’s so important to have that access to reduce the number of cars – rather than just being a hard shoulder.”
It is fair to point out that the creation of the cycle path did not result in the loss of a lane on the bridge.
The track had been closed since the early 1970s, when it was closed to make room for an emergency water line to Marin County during a severe drought. After that, the road was never opened to traffic again, but was instead used as a maintenance track.
The final decision on the new plan rests with the state Bay Conservation and Development Commission, and those pushing the proposal say they hope to see a decision sometime in December.
