If you have been getting out and about the O in the last few weeks, since the City adopted the heinous budget that slashed all kinds of services and staffing, you’ve seen some of the below signs posted meekly in desolate medians, begging for attention and love.

This park will receive little maintenance due to a shortage of funding. We need your help…. call Public Works call center at 615-5566

Well, now is your time.  Your time to shine and show you care.  Step up in your neighborhood, grab your rake and maybe plant a few plants.  Take back that concrete.  It’s time.

Neighbors have been doing this for years of course throughout Oakland.  I’ve been blown away by the 40th Street plantings year after year.

Personally, I’m eyeing a couple of glaring bare patches in the MacArthur median, near Broadway.  Who wants to join me?

(more…)

I was struck to hear about this amazingly creative bike access too developed by the City of Long Beach.  When I think of Long Beach, I generally think of cargo ships.  Sorry, NorCal bias.  But I should know better!  Long Beach has an amazing BikeStation, parking thousands of bikes each month and a growing bicycle advocacy community and bike route system.  A perfect example of a City taking real leadership on cycling, I know Oakland will get there soon with our help. This would be a great treatment to use througout much of Oakland more urban streets, where bikes, cars, and buses will all have to share space.

From the good people at BikeLongBeach.org
Pilot Project: Painted Bike Lane with Sharrows on 2nd Street  
In an effort to coax cyclists off the sidewalks and into the streets where they belong, green painted bike lanes with sharrows will be installed on 2nd Street in Belmont Shore along with modified “Share the Road” signs. 

This treatment will be installed between Livingston and Bayshore Avenue to raise motorists’ and cyclists’ awareness that the right hand lane should be shared by both cars and bicycles. Riding a bicycle on the sidewalk is unlawful in Belmont Shore and any Long Beach business district, but cyclists often do so because they don’t feel safe riding their bicycles in the street. There is not room to install a painted bike lane on 2nd Street, and motorists as well as cyclists are often not aware that the right traffic lane should be shared. This treatment is designed to raise and reinforce that awareness.

Riding home the other day, I was please to see the barriers on Lakeside, in front of the Boathouse near 14th & Oak, gone.  New sealant down on the road.  The new bike lane must be right around the corner……

But if you look closely in the picture below, the street is stenciled with those little white tabs for THREE car lanes, instead of the TWO that are in the plans and drawings.

Repave and stenciled for no bike lanes - what gives

WOBO will be working with the city and the good folks on the Measure DD committee to make sure this critical link in the City’s bike network gets done.  Sometimes, when I ride home from work, I really wonder if the city just has it in for me.  But I’ll save that for another post.

<update, city staff say the 6 foot bike lane is going to be painted in by the end of the week, and that there will be a press event next week to celebrate the work here, we’ll post more information asap>

If you have a question about Measure DD projects or access to the Lake, call 238-3389.

The article below, from an NBC affiliate in Asheville, N.C., is a reminder that some drivers (a minority of them, I believe) have bike rage issues. There is no possible version of this incident where a reasonable person would have considered violence against a cyclist, much less pulling a gun on one. Thankfully, most motorists want to (and do) co-exist peacefully with cyclists.

When people are predisposed to anger at cyclists, often it’s because they perceive cyclists as a group as being unsafe or breaking the same traffic laws that motorists are expected to obey. The thing is, I’m not a “cyclist” or a “motorist”, I’m a person. If we’re going to combat the hate out there, we have to do it on a human level.

One way we can do this, and help protect ourselves in the process, is by following the traffic laws (whether we agree with all of them or not) and being as courteous and respectful to motorists as we hope they’ll be to us. I know that a great many of us are already doing this. I’m just saying that consciously and conspicuously being a friendly, law-abiding cyclist goes a long way towards changing a bike-negative person’s perception of those who bike. Can you imagine what it would do to a “hater” if you stopped at a stop sign they expected you to run and then flashed them a smile and waved them on? It might just blow their mind.

I’m not saying that doing this will completely prevent people with issues from acting out (because crazy is as crazy does), but the more we can use our example to change the minds of people who think cyclists are bad, rude or dangerous, the better it is for all of us. When we’re out on the road, we’re helping create the culture of the road, which means we’re also able to change it.

Gandhi put it well: “An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.” You don’t attack the haters with hate, you confront them with love… bike love.

As for the hows of riding safely, you can get the skinny on urban riding (and some solid practice doing it) with one of the East Bay Bicycle Coalition’s great FREE bicycle safety classes. Who doesn’t like free?

Be safe out there. Here’s the article [NOTE: I did a little digging to see if the "child seat" was a bike seat or not, and according to this article it was a child's bike seat.]:

Charles Alexander Diez

The shooting happened Sunday morning on Tunnel Road. Officers said the victim was riding with his wife and had his 3-year-old son in a child seat attached to his bicycle when a driver approached him. Police said the driver, Charles Diez, claimed he was upset that the victim was bike riding with his child on the heavily traveled Tunnel Road. Diez pulled a gun and opened fire, hitting the victim in his bicycle helmet, according to police. They said the bullet penetrated the outer lining of the helmet but did not actually hit the victim’s head. Police arrested Diez and charged him with attempted first degree murder. His bond was set at $500,000. Diez has been a firefighter with the Asheville Fire Department since 1992, according to officials. On Monday, they confirmed he has been placed on paid investigative leave pending the outcome of this investigation. For the source article, click here.

“Fresh”

New Thinking About What We’re Eating

Stories about real people changing how we grow & eat food, featuring Will Allen, Michael Pollan and other people working to make our food system healthier, more sustainable and more accessible. FRESH celebrates the farmers, thinkers and business people across America who are re-inventing our food system. www.freshthemovie.com

Please bring some food to share for the potluck. Please also bring your ideas on what it will take to build a powerful and inclusive green movement in Oakland and beyond for the discussion after the film.

Today is the big day! Your chance to ride with Oakland’s legendary Scraper Bikes. It’s the 2nd Annual Bike 4 Life – Healing from Killin, Bike Ride for Peace. The ride – led by the Scraper Bikes – starts at 2pm at Lakeside Playground (468 Perkins St.), and at 3pm the party kicks off at DeFremery Park (1651 Adeline Street). Expect food, prizes, a skateboard exhibition, turf dancing, and performances by the Trunk Boiz, Queen Deelah and special guests! You can check out the event flyer here. Holla!

Join WOBO and neighbors from the Harrison-Oakland corridor in a City-sponsored community planning workshop tonight (July 23), from 6:00-8:30pm. Give input on the latest plans for bike lanes, sidewalk improvements and other amenities!

Details: Westlake Middle School, Cafeteria at 2629 Harrison @ 27th Street (across from Oakland’s Whole Foods Market). Click here to see the event flyer (pdf format).

For those of you looking for some bike love this weekend, there a couple of great options tomorrow (Sunday, 7/19). In the East Bay, enjoy the last day of the Bay’s Bicycle Film Festival here in Oakland! I’ve contacted the organizer about the group ride from San Antonio Park to Michaan’s Auctions Movie Theater in Alameda and he’s confirmed that the ride route will include the Park Street Bridge and not the icktastic Posey Tube. There’s a bike polo tourney at San Antonio Park before the ride and (obviously) films after – you can get the rundown of Sunday’s BFF events here.

If you want to hop across the Bay, tomorrow is the second and final Sunday Streets in the Mission (the last two Sunday Streets, in Aug. and Sept., will be along the Great Highway). The event runs from 10a-2p, and after the streets surrender their car-free status, the good vibes keep flowing at the after party at Valencia Cyclery.

Yesterday eight WOBO members got trained on the use of SF Dept of Public Health’s Pedestrian (PEQI) and Bicycle Environmental Quality Index (BEQI) tools.  Both will allow WOBO to demonstrate what the on-the-ground conditions for bicycling and walking are based on a careful analysis of streets, major projects, and neighborhoods. We are excited to use this in the coming months, starting in the Estuary planning area!  Stay tuned for upcoming volunteer opportunities for the PEQI and BEQI.

WOBO members getting trained on Bike and Ped enrionmental tools

from Tuesday’s blogpost:

To learn more about the PEQI and BEQI visit http://www.sfphes.org/HIA_Tools_PEQI.htm (check out the user’s manual on the left hand side) and http://www.sfphes.org/HIA_Tools_BEQI.htm

Thanks to Vice Mayor De La Fuente whose staff set this up and who will be conducting a pilot project this summer where interns and volunteers will use the BEQI/PEQI to collect walkability and bikability data around the Central Estuary Specific Plan Area in Oakland (for more info visit www.oaklandnet.com\central_estuary_plan).

WOBO volunteers will have a number of opportunities to use this tool, including help with the Estuary Plan, the Lake Merritt BART Plan, Broadway Auto Row Plan, and the massive Kaiser project set for 20th and Webster.

Oakland’s first Kidical Mass

A social ride or families with kids of all ages.
This is your opportunity to get to know some other families who are moving around Oakland by pedal power.

Saturday July 18
Meet up at Mosswood Park (Corner of MacArthur and Broadway)
10am by the play structure
Leave when it feels right
Ride to Willard Park (2720 Hillegass Ave, Berkeley, CA)
Have lunch and hang out

See the proposed route at:
http://www.mapmyride.com/route/us/ca/oakland/376124761062769359

Bring the kids on the the trail-a-bike, the trailer, the Xtracycle, or however you happen to make it work and enjoy the comradierie of others who are doing the same. This ride is about 3 miles. Expect a leasurely pace and relaxed atmosphere. We will, hopefully, spend a few minutes talking about the future of Oakland Kidical Mass. So please be ready to share ideas for fututre rides.

Questions contact:
Mark
mark@walkoaklandbikeoakland.org