At long last, the Uptown Bike Station opened this week adjacent to BART’s 19th Street Station. The Bike Station offers free, secure bike parking between the hours of 7 am and 9 pm and a range of bicycle-related services – similar to bike stations at Fruitvale, Ashby, Embarcadero, and Downtown Berkeley. 19th Street Station has […]
A striking video was posted to the Bike East Bay Facebook page on Tuesday depicting illegally parked cars clogging Oakland’s new buffered bike lane along Broadway. The video, submitted by Volvap Egroeg, shows parents at Oakland Technical High School using the entire block of the bike lane as a pick up zone. Cyclists, displaced from […]
Los Angeles is famous for freaking out when it rains. Recently, Noah Deneau, an electrical engineer from Austin, Texas, graphically illustrated the effect of rain on the rate of traffic crashes in Los Angeles. The results provide a telling snapshot of the perils of driving (and walking and biking) when it’s raining in LA. Deneau […]
It should come as no surprise that the holidays are one of the most dangerous times to head out on the road. Not only are more people driving–some estimates suggest it could be as much as 50% more–but people are also driving a longer average distance than usual. Although Thanksgiving ranks as the single most dangerous […]
During the height of California’s highway boom from the 1950s through the 1970s, Caltrans bulldozed through hundreds of neighborhoods to construct freeways. The economic and environmental toll on these communities was far-reaching: while freeways benefitted the development of outer-ring suburbs, their expensive construction divided and blighted existing neighborhoods, displaced thousands of residents, and contributed to […]
For the vast majority of people, signal timing is not an exciting subject. Apart from traffic engineers and a select group of superwonks, few people pay attention to or advocate for better signal timing. Whereas the physical designs (and deficiencies) of streets are tangible, signal timing is less discernible. It’s not uncommon for communities to […]
Lane widths might seem like a boring, esoteric aspect of traffic engineering, but they really matter for creating safe, livable streets. Noted city planner and urban designer Jeff Speck recently published a convincing piece on CityLab against a transportation feature that nearly all of us confront on a daily basis: 12-foot travel lanes. Over the […]
Oakland recently hosted Oaklavia, an open streets event that invites people to walk, bike, dance, play, and socialize in the streets. It’s a terrific, if underappreciated event that both showcases the city’s vibrancy and the potential for stress-free (or low-stress) walking and biking on the city’s streets. At the same time, Oaklavia reinforces […]
Last Friday, Governor Brown vetoed SB 1151, a bill that would have increased traffic fines in school zones and used these funds for active transportation investments. The bill had unanimous, bipartisan support in both houses and all legislative committees and was a strong priority for Safe Routes to Schools advocacy groups. This veto is extremely […]
By now you’ve probably already heard that the Three Feet for Safety Act went into effect on Tuesday. The bill, which was finally signed by Governor Brown last year, was the result of significant work from groups like the California Bicycle Coalition and at one point our very own Bill Dullea, who testified on behalf […]
