The closure of The Embarcadero Sunday in SF was great. Props to the Examiner for covering it. We at Walk Oakland Bike Oakland WOBO are working hard on our proposal for a Sunday Streets or Ciclovia program, please JOIN US to get involved!

Take Back Your Streets and Public Space!

Street closure a boost for San Francisco

By: Brent Begin  

04/26/09 10:55 PM

Out of control: Sunday Streets was a hit as cars and trucks vacated The Embarcadero to make room for activities, bicyclists, walkers, families and balloon animals.

The closure of The Embarcadero from AT&T Park to Aquatic Park Sunday brought San Franciscans and city visitors alike out to walk, skate, dance and bike their way along the waterfront.

Alan and Jacqueline Hansen took a break from riding their bicycles with sons Mitchell, 9, and Thomas, 14, to sit on the grass and have a picnic. The family came up from Redwood City to enjoy the closure of one of San Francisco’s main thoroughfares and had a blast.

“It’s so much safer this way,” said Jacqueline, who donned her bicycle helmet while soaking up the sun. “I’m not always comfortable having [my kids] ride their bikes in traffic.”

Next to Cupid’s Span, the large bow and arrow dominating a swathe of the Embarcadero near the Bay Bridge, a yoga instructor watched her students perform downward dogs and warrior poses in unison. Meanwhile, Jeff Marshall, who teaches a kite-making workshop in The City, was flying one of his creations overhead.

“This is a step in the right direction,” Marshall said of the closure. “We could all slow down a little.”

By noon, the roadway was completely clogged with bicyclists. Dozens pedaled behind a Pied Piper of sorts, Amandeep Jawa, whose mobile sound system blared everything from Madonna to Bill Withers’ “Lovely Day.”

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Good news if you work at AC Transit and ride or want to ride – and hopefully nearby workers can access these racks as well!  AC has been a leader in the nation on the use of bike racks on buses, this is just another solid step for the agency’s staff to get out on the road on two wheels.

AC Transit unveils new bicycle racks at downtown Oakland headquarters

When last I wrote, we had discovered and reported a pothole on Grand Ave and Bay Place and the city had checked it out to see what they could do. The result: it’s fixed! When it comes to road hazards, it pays to be a squeaky wheel. Here’s what it looks like now:

A massive improvement, obviously. This month’s Pothole of Shame is on Webster St, between 34th & 35th (below the 580 overpass):

Seriously, this one is huge. What’s worse, it’s at the bottom of a downhill on the busy Webster Street Bike Route. Yuck.

Now you know that the City will respond quickly and get the job done right, click here to report potholes to the Oakland DPW. Until then: watch out!

By Shannon Tracey

On Wednesday, March 25, Councilmember Nancy Nadel hosted a community meeting to involve her constituents in the upcoming decisions about Federal Stimulus funding. With many more potential infrastructure and business development projects in Oakland than can be funded through the stimulus package, Oakland’s city council will have to make some difficult decisions when applying for grants in the months ahead. The funding that has not already been allocated will be distributed through grants, and will focus on economic development as well as infrastructure. Oakland’s budgetary situation is grim, so these grants are critical opportunities for the city to make ends meet and keep providing vital services for our community.

After presentations by city staff and community members about the state of Oakland’s infrastructure and economic needs, “Group discussion” by neighborhood began. Nadel and staff facilitated four small-group brainstorms to gather specifics about where and what needs improvement within District 3. WOBO members from the Grand Lake neighborhood helped “bike lanes on Broadway” on the priority list and many groups mentioned the need for improved transit options for commuting and other trips. The final “share” offered Nadel quite a list of priorities for stimulus funding – and everyone present seemed excited about holding another community meeting soon.

• If you live in Nancy Nadel’s district (West Oakland, downtown, and north Lake Merritt), email Carletta Starks at clstarks@oaklandnet.com to get on the list for future community meeting announcements.
• If you live in another district, find your Councilmember here and find out if he/she is hosting a community meeting, and if not, ask him/her to! We need to let our Councilmembers know what our priorities are, and encourage them to include bikes and pedestrians in their stimulus funding plans.
• Click here to find out more about Oakland’s Bike Plan – that is, the places where the city has already decided to install bike improvements and should be encouraged to fund and implement.

Nancy Nadel (left) participating in the National Mayor's Ride in 2005

Hello Walk Oakland Bike Oakland enthusiasts!

I’m writing to follow up on your interest in participating in WOBO’s bike counting effort in support of our Bike Broadway Campaign.

To remind you, WOBO is working to get the City of Oakland to create safe bicycle lanes on the Broadway corridor. Data about how much this corridor is used will help us make the case that even with the high rate of bicyclist-related accidents and poor pavement conditions, bicyclists rely on Broadway.

Training: All volunteers who participate in the count must attend the training so that we can be sure we’re all coordinated in our methods. The training will be from 5-6pm on Sunday May 3rd, at 23rd and Broadway (where we’ve been having our most recent WOBO meetings)

Counting: We’ll be conducting the counts at 7 key intersections along the corridor on Wednesday morning and afternoon May 6th and Saturday May 9th. To do this, we need at least 14 volunteers for each time slot. You don’t have to do all three time slots to participate– just doing one is fine (although we’d be super appreciative if you signed up for more than one slot!)

Please email me if you wish to participate. Let me know:
a) That you can attend the May 3 training from 5-6pm
b) Which of the following counting times you can commit to:

* Weds, May 6 7am-9am
* Weds, May 6 4pm-7pm
* Sat, May 9 9am-12noon

Also, please round up a friend to help too and send me his/her availability and contact information (email, phone #)

Thank you for helping make Oakland safer for bicyclists!

Carli Paine
WOBO Board President
carli@walkoaklandbikeoakland.org

Folks riding down Broadway, minus bike-lanes (we're workin' on it!)

Bike to Work Day is just over a month away and we’d love your help in making WOBO’s part of the event a huge success! There’s lots to do and something for everyone – whether you like to do your work behind the scenes, meet the people or both. If you want to make your mark on Bike to Work Day (BTWD), here are some great opportunities:

• Pedal Pools ride coordinator for District 3 or District 5 (email Alec)
• Staff for a WOBO Energizer Station (we’ll have 2) (email Dominic)
• Staff for WOBO’s table at the BTWD pancake breakfast from 7-9a (email Alec)

For additional information on volunteer opportunities with WOBO, email Dominic or check out our volunteer opportunities Googledoc.

In the bicycle master plan, 38th avenue is slated to have bike lanes from Foothill Blvd. to Brookdale Ave. Community members were asking the city for traffic calming measures to reduce speeding and sideshow activity on the very wide street. A petition for traffic islands was circulated and signed by the community.

CEDA engineers designed islands and brought their design to the Jefferson NCPC where the community included WOBO members. The proposed islands were very small, all pavement, and very low so that delivery trucks would be able to make left turns over the islands. The engineers showed an alternative plan of median islands on either side of the intersections. The proposed medians conflicted with the bicycle master plan because they were too wide and would have prevented the installation of bike lanes. The design also included only pavement with no space for plants.

WOBO volunteers got involved. They pushed for another redesign despite resistance and time constraints from city staff. Our WOBO volunteers also worked with Councilmember Ignacio De La Fuente’s staff to convince Public Works to allow the engineers to include space for planting in the design. Thanks to the efforts of our WOBO volunteers, the engineers redesigned the medians again. This time they were narrower, to accommodate the planned bike lanes and included 4’ x 8’ areas of soil for landscaping. In August of 2008, the medians were installed.

Our volunteers continued to work with Ignacio’s office to get funding to purchase plants for the median islands. On Saturday, April 4, a group of community members, including WOBO volunteers, planted native, drought tolerant plants in the median islands. Councilmember De La Fuente and Richard Fuentes, a staff member from his office, were on hand to assist! Once established, the plants selected should require little maintenance and no supplemental water. The volunteers received much praise and many thanks from neighbors who were walking and driving by. It’s small projects like this one that will cumulatively make Oakland a better place to walk, bike, and live.

What have you been doing to make your neighborhood more walkable and bikeable? Send us your stories and photos.