Cyclist and wheelchair-rider efforts have really gone a long way.
Our 6,000-plus petition was delivered to the MTC along with 6,600
individual communications. Needless to say, many at the MTC are impressed
with the cyclists' energy and determination.
While the MTC is expected to recommend a Bay Bridge bike path on the new bridge, that
does not solve the problem of the West Span. Senators Lockyer and Kopp hold
the critical ability to fund the path--and now is by far the best time to do so.
Picture a glistening streak of glass in the sky over San Francisco, floating amongst the cables of the Bay Bridge. Picture bicycles and pedestrians freely traveling on the bridge, a crystaline skyway with the best view in all the Bay Area.
A bridge that casts no shadow, and may cost as much as 93% less than the original Caltrans estimate of $300 million (at $20 million). The bridge may be possible, says Caltrans West Span Project Manager and Engineer Brian Maroney. The bridge is cheaper because it takes advantage of suspension rather than fixing to the side, and because it is not designed for trucks (although the glass could itself hold vehicles).
The idea was born of a new glass bridge being built in Redding, California, by world-renowned architect Santiago Calatrava. Espresso fountain dribbling over cristal sculptures at the plaza in the middle not included. Warning: bridge may cast a beautiful prism.
Caltrans is challenging BCDC's authority to require bike access. It all boils down to whether bicycles are a mitigation for the damage of the automobile. (YES!). The historic vote on June 5th has been postponed until July 17th, after the legal forces have fully fought it out. At that meeting, only two out of 22 commissioners indicated that they wanted to strike the bike access, Vice Chair Siracusa (citing a rather irrelevant letter from the CTC) and John Barna (whose alternate is the Caltrans director!), who in fact requested the letter from the CTC. Bill Bliss provided a stunning scale model of a possible design for cyclists to share the roadway. Bike the Bridge! representatives crossed the Antioch bridge on the way to Sacramento to testify about Senator Kopp's Seismic retrofit bill SB60. How can four feet of bike lane be legal on a toll freeway crossing when 12 feet on the Richmond is illegal? Ask your friendly Caltrans, accountable to no voter!
Cyclists held a major protest May 31st in anticipation of the June 5th BCDC vote. Over 100 cyclsits at both ends of the bridge confronted the injustice and destructive discrimination of the unconstitutional Caltrans prohibition of the pollution solution. On the East side, over 20 cyclists stormed the tolls, some even payed and have receipts. CHP were totally outnumbered, and were aware that we wanted to symbolically cross the line. Many walked away from the ticketing uncited. In all, 15 got citations at different times, all are fighting their tickets (most were blatantly false citations). We were on Channel 5, Channel 2, Channel 7 (best coverage), the Tribune, and the front page of the Marin Independent Journal, to name a few.
In a Caltrans-requested letter from Golden Gate Transit, given to BCDC regarding bike access to the Richmond-San Rafael bridge, GGT claimed only 122 riders used the 40 bus service across the bridge in the year of May 1996 to April 1997. Bike the Bridge! knows of many more cyclists who testified that they use the bus to commute--sometimes 4 cyclists at a time--and many more who find it too inconvenient but would bike the bridge. We have actively revealed the error which is at least 20-100 times off.
A regular Dumbarton bridge commuter reports that vehicle counting strips appeared on the Dumbarton, possibly to be used to discredit bridge biking need, since the Dumbarton gets a much smaller number of riders than the Bay Bridge would (it is very far from cities and BART).
Jason Meggs, East Bay coordinator of the Bike the Bridge! Coalition, while on the 15th floor of Caltrans District HQ for an 8AM meeting with West Span Project Manager Brian Maroney, was confronted by an offish-seeming see-no-evil Denis "Mullitoveragain" Mulligan, who ordered Meggs not to show him the video of the bay bridge bike race in which Meggs crossed the bridge in a total biking time of just 15.5 minutes, sharing a lane. Mulligan claimed he would report Meggs, who contested that due to the lack of signage, the ride was legal. Meggs furthered that if Caltrans really cares about the public safety, they will cover the grates on the Bay Bridge, the Richmond-San Rafael bridge, and the Grand Avenue overpass to the Bay Bridge so no cyclist is killed while forced to cross. Copies of the video talk show including cyclists storming the Richmond-San Rafael bridge toll plaza are available on special request (see order form). Please donate generously and share with friends.
The BAC, a group of 1,000 area businesses, wants to see higher tolls on the bridges and stated that if only 1700 cars were removed, congestoin would be greatly alleviated. Guess how many people would bike on the bay bridge each day? Cyclists can go a long way towards alleviating congestion! When tolls were free as part of a settlement last month, Bay Bridge congestion went through the roof and almost hit the glass bridge. Raising tolls should have the opposite effect: discouraging unnecessary travel while making drivers finally pay a little of their own share of the damage and subsidy of the automobile. Good job, BAC!
Ready to suffer extortion at the hands of conngestion engineers? Measure B is a half-cent sales tax in Alameda County designed to pay for transportation projects that can't be funded otherwise. But almost all went to pay for unneeded freeways that compounded congestion problems. Meanwhile cyclists don't have safe routes to the bridges, BART is unaffordable, and AC Transit is DYING!!! It's the death of the trolleys all over again for the profits of the CARrupt few. Cyclsts and transit activists came out strong and are turnign things around. It's CRTICALLY important that people from outlying regions speak at the upcoming hearings. See Calendar for details.
Friday, June 27, Biggest SF Critical Mass ever--BIKE THE BRIDGE! across Golden Gate and then... the Golden Triangle?
Saturday, June 28th, 1997, the 11th Protest ride at the Richmond-San Rafael bridge. 11:30 AM Larkspur Ferry and Richmond BART. Who can meet up with whom??
Tuesday, July 2nd, Mary King meets with toll-trolls Lockyer and Kopp. Hold your breath!
Wednesday, XXX Bike the Bridge! meeting, Eastbay, 2295 Shattuck at Bancroft two blocks south of Berkeley BART
July 17 Finally, the big BCDC vote on Richmond Bridge!
ALL MEASURE B HEARINGS
When we've won all the bridges, cyclists will come from around the world to bike the Golden Triangle and the Emerald Figure eight.
Until then, we have to keep fighting.
Bike the Bridge! members have been spending a lot of time and money on this project, meeting regularly with legislators, traveling to Sacramento, and giving out information to thousands of cyclists each month.
There's still a lot to do. Please join in wherever you can. Help if possible with donations or labor. You can officially join and receive a newsletter for $5.00 or the cost for you to cross all the bridges on bike, whichever is larger. :)
Dear friends hoping to one day bike, hike, skate, or wheelchair across the BAY BRIDGE:
We've been VERY busy trying to see this through. We've done a great job at the MTC, but what seems like an obvious choice, at only 1-5% of the total project, is still meeting with resistance at the top, mostly due to uncertainty about funding.
Senators Kopp and Lockyer have the power to make or break equal access. It's up to us to show them how much people want it and how much it will help our region as a whole. Tolls may be needed to pay for the path. They are opposed to tolls in general and Kopp, astoundingly, wants cyclists to pay for the path ourselves through user fees (neglecting that we're paying for the retrofit through the bond of proposition 192, to name just one example of general funds used exclusively for motorists--and neglecting how many motorists would like the option to bike, and the reduced congestion and reduced pollution).
You are strongly encouraged not only to write a letter *immediately* but to solicit businesses and organizations and your local Chambers of Commerce to write letters.
A sample letter:
===================================================
"We urge that the Bay Bridge seismic reconstruction project include a bicycle/pedestrian path. We believe that such a facility would offer several benefits to [name of city] residents: * A healthful and accessible new recreational opportunity. * A contribution to the reduction of Bridge congestion. * In conjunction with related development projects (such as Treasure Island conversion and the Eastshore Path), a new gateway through which tourists and Bay Area residents can visit the East Bay and patronize [name of city] businesses. A bicycle/pedestrian path has aleady been endorsed by the City Councils of Berkeley and Emeryville, by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, and by the Bay Bridge Design Task Force's own Engineering and Design Advisory Panel. We are happy to add our endorsement for this worthy project."===================================================Ideally, our allies would send this resolution -- on their own stationery -- to all of the following recipients:
*The Hon. Quentin L. Kopp Chair, Senate Transportation Committee 2057 Capitol Building Sacramento, CA 95814 fax: (916) 327-2186 * The Hon. Bill Lockyer Senate President Pro Tempore 2032 State Capitol Sacramento, CA 95814 fax: (916) 323-2234 *Mary King Chair, Bay Bridge Design Task Force Metropolitan Transportation Commission 101 Eighth Street Oakland, CA 94607 fax: (510) 464-7848Mary King is for the path, but needs help to see this through.She's meeting with Kopp and Lockyer on July 2nd. Please don't delay.
---- There is an email forum for those interested in bridge access. To join, send the message "subscribe ba-bridge-access" to majordomo@cycling.org. If you'd like to get less email, "subscribe ba-bridge-access-digest" instead. You get all the messages rolled into one. ----P.S. You may enjoy the teevee show, "Unlock the Gridlock", featuring many advocates of light and high speed rail, mass transit, and nonmotorized transportation:The Chronicle will publish parts.Also, today there is a radio show with cyclists in "hostile territory" (Gene Burns) KGO AM-810 during the "DRIVE TIME" from 3-4pm. Call-in # from anywhere in the bay area from S.F., East Bay, San Jose it's 808-0810. Feel free to be a friendly motorist who thinks bikes help cars.KQED will broadcast it on 88.5 FM on Sunday, June 29, 1 PM BayTV (Channel 35 on most cable stations) will air it on Friday, July 4, from 2 to 4 PM
P.P.S. If you MUST email, here are the addresses:
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Bill Lockyer senator.lockyer@sen.ca.gov -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Quentin Kopp senator.kopp@sen.ca.gov -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Honorable Supervisor Mary King info@mtc.dst.ca.us -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- P.P.P.S. Yes it's true that there's an independent estimate that puts the path at only 20 million dollars including a glass-floor 12-foot path suspended OVER the top deck of the west span. Think of it: a shard of crystal shooting through the upper cables of the bridge from San Francisco to Treasure Island, with the best view in the world! (Note that basic access on the East span, expected to be rebuilt, can cost *nothing* if we're allowed to use the shoulder as on the Antioch bridge (but here, with more space). Other cost cutting ideas include: allowing bikes to use the fairly wide sidewalk through the tunnel, and restriping the west span (with it's very wide lanes) to make enough room on the north side, top deck for a path. Sincerely, Jason Meggs East Bay Coordinator Bike the Bridge! Coalition P.O. Box 15071 Berkeley, CA 94701-6071 (510) 273-9288 Message (510) 643-5722 Work (510) 665-9099 FAX /bike/