Vicki Larson: Electric cars are fine but bikes offer a better present and future

I’ll admit it — when I wrote in support of the $20 million bike path on the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge almost four years ago, I wasn’t quite sure that my “build it and they will come” enthusiasm would actually pan out. I am aware that cycling isn’t always accessible to everyone, whether financially or physically or emotionally or some combination.

Still, coming back to Marin from visiting my youngest son, who calls the East Bay home, on Labor Day, I counted dozens of cyclists and pedestrians on the bridge, and I felt a tad smug.

This is happening, I thought to myself. Even if it’s not how people are going to get to and from work or entertainment or whatever on a daily basis, somehow, someway, some are drawn to a different way of experiencing the Bay (although some may have no other choice).

And, hopefully, someday, a different way to get to where they need or want to go. It’s wonderful that the government is encouraging people to buy electric vehicles by offering rebates and etc. Fossil fuels are destroying our planet — climate change is an existential crisis. But electric vehicles are still vehicles and while they go far in reducing our carbon footprint, they still are vehicles and thus, part of our seemingly never-ending road congestion and road rage. And accidents.

Have you noticed how pricey car insurance has gotten? That’s because the number of vehicle accidents, especially fatal vehicle accidents, jumped since the beginning of the pandemic, helping to push up car insurance rates.

I’m surprised there aren’t more accidents because I see near misses almost every day as I try to cross a main street near my house while walking my dog, even with the crosswalk lights flashing. The other day four cars blew through the crosswalk even though there was a teen patiently standing there waiting to cross. Not one driver even gave the little “sorry” wave some do after they realize what they’ve done. No, there were no waves. They never even saw him.

So it’s no wonder why some people have given up road cycling, fearing for their life. There were 1,410 vehicle accidents in Marin between 2011 and 2020 that involved at least one cyclist, killing nine cyclists, according to a recent study. I was so rattled when I was nearly hit by a car on my bike a few years ago in a crosswalk by the Mall at Northgate, a near miss that sent me flying off my bike and onto my left arm, breaking it — the first time in 60-plus years of living that I was ever in a cast and that still has limited my mobility — that I, too, almost gave it up.

While I worry about the teens zipping around town on those no-pedal assist fat-tire electric bikes that are really motor scooters — lately, I have seen police ticketing kids for ignoring the rules of the road — it proves that youths can easily get around without a parent driving them. It’s helping to get cars off the road.

Although it’s too soon to know if various proposed housing developments around the county will also help get cars off the road, most will be close enough for residents to walk, bike or access mass transit to parks, schools, shopping and other amenities.

My older son and his partner recently landed in Petaluma in a house that’s walkable and cyclable to much of what they want to do — grocery shop, dine out, people watch at a local coffee shop, listen to live music. It’s a huge quality of life boost, he says, especially after a few years of living in an Atlanta suburb that, yes, offered much larger housing that was way more affordable but was a 20-minute drive to get to anything.

And isn’t a better quality of life something most, if not all, of us want?

So I am encouraged by recent efforts around Marin to think about cyclists whenever there are upgrades being done to infrastructure.

Build it and they will come? It sure seems so. But we can actually start now, too.

Vicki Larson’s So It Goes opinion column runs every other week. Contact her at vlarson@marinij.com.