Dick Spotswood: Richmond Bridge bike lane experiment must end
One of Marin’s most controversial infrastructure projects was installation of a bicycle and pedestrian path occupying one of three lanes on the upper deck of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge.
The bike lane opened in 2019. Its prime backers were and remain the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, East Bay cycling advocates and Richmond city officials. When the lane was installed, it was billed as the start of a four-year test to see if the path had any impact on the daily commute across San Pablo Bay.
Bike advocates claimed the lane would enable cyclists to commute to work, lessening reliance on autos. Further, MTC was eager to add the Richmond Bridge pathway as a segment in one of MTC staff’s pet projects: The Bay Trail that ideally will eventually circle and cross San Francisco and San Pablo bays.
From the get-go, auto commuters, truck drivers and bus passengers contended that a better use for the space was to reinstall the bridge’s third westbound traffic lane.
When the bridge opened in 1956, both the upper and lower decks had three traffic lanes. The westbound lane was lost when in 1977 a drought-induced water pipeline was placed on the upper deck. Once the pipeline was dismantled in 1982, it and the third lower deck lane were reserved for Caltrans maintenance. The lower deck lane finally reopened to traffic in 2018.
Traffic congestion on the transbay span is notorious. Those commuting from affordable East Bay homes to Marin employment endure a daily traffic nightmare. About 40,000 motorists cross the bridge westbound on a typical weekday. MTC estimates 40% (or 16,000) of them do so during the morning commute from Contra Costa to Marin.
The results are in. The evidence is clear. The Richmond-San Rafael Bridge bike-pedestrian path is a fiasco.
It’s been four years since it opened. According to MTC on “a typical weekday” there are only 118 Richmond Bridge bicycle trips.” Since each “trip” is one journey and presuming each cyclist makes a roundtrip, those 118 trips equal 59 people cycling in each direction. MTC indicates 19 hardy pedestrians use the 5.5-mile windy bridge path each weekday.
That’s right: 118 bike trips and 19 pedestrians on weekdays. During the morning commute, using the same 40% estimate that’s applied to motorists, 47 people commute by bike to Marin each weekday morning.
Cycling increases on typical Saturdays and Sundays. On average 334 bikes and 34 pedestrians make transbay “trips” on weekend days.
MTC should declare the test at an end. Compare low bike and hiker counts to the 16,000 working folks in vehicles and the result of the four-year test is obvious. Only 47 cyclists are using the bikeway during commute hours.
MTC needs to close the pathway on weekdays and as a courtesy to bike advocates, keep it open on weekends and holidays. Those 47 weekday cyclists who no longer can commute by bike, may easily be accommodated by adding a few additional runs on Golden Gate Transit’s bike-rack equipped Route 580.
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In a recent column regarding the Treehouse, a proposal to convert downtown Mill Valley’s shuttered Bank of America into a private dining club, I mentioned the nearby Outdoor Art Club, describing it a “woman’s club.” I was wrong.
Past OAC member Pam Keon replied, “The OAC was founded with the expectation that men would be full members. Although, over time, “gravity” has resulted in no men choosing to submit applications, nowhere in the current governing documents or the club’s self-descriptions is the 501(c)(3) restricted to women.
“Should an application for membership be received from any individual not self-identified as female, that application would be processed according to the same procedure used for all others.”
Columnist Dick Spotswood of Mill Valley writes on local issues Sundays and Wednesdays. Email him at spotswood@comcast.net.