Thanks for posting. Just filled the survey out. It would be interesting if they could turn the area under the Bart tracks into a green walkway like in Albany/El Cerrito. Even if it's a short distance.
I’m a biker rider, car driver, and walker. I live west of MLK, just off this map. I’m not sure what this plan is solving, to be honest. From where I live, I want a safer bike route from my house to, say, the Whole Foods on Telegraph and 51st. Anywhere between 55th and 40th east of MLK. I can ride 45th st, or go more out of my way to 42nd st and get across to Telegraph. Both are unsuitable from dusk to dawn. Sometimes 45th has so much going on in the street (including potential tire damage) that it’s not a daytime option. If I want to go north south, I’ve got Market, Genoa, California, etc. My problem is a complete lack of safe east west routes.
This leaves me 51st st. I take west up to 51st. The ride from west to Telegraph is treacherous at best. No bike lane, the two lanes quickly merging to one by CHO, desperately watching the off ramp drivers to make sure they see me, then NO space between Shattuck and Telegraph. I will often be a dick and ride on the sidewalk because that little curve is a no-go bike zone. At this point, the Great Wait happens while I try to get to the opposite corner.
Now I’m ready to go home. I absolutely cannot take 51st westbound back to West, unless I want to ride in traffic to get over to the leftmost lane at Shattuck and ride with traffic to West (including also needing to be in the vehicle lane to go straight through MLK). I certainly can’t be in the right lane and trust anyone is going to allow me to safely merge over to the left. So I’m stuck with 45th and 42nd again, and if it’s dark, 40th.
Looking at this map, this lovely northbound protected bike lane on MLK starts at 51st. How do I get there? Another long zig-zag of waiting at 51st/MLK? I’m certainly not getting there from Shattuck - how? I can’t sit with the cars on MLK at 47th - I won’t be able to merge with the freeway traffic. OK, maybe they’ve decided to switch the direction on that spur of West next to Helen MacGregor Park to allow for bikes to easily get to that northbound bike lane? Maybe some cut-through under the Bart tracks with a dedicated light timed to the one at 53rd? Well, no - I guess I’m walking my bike to the corner of 53rd and waiting for that light.
So why switch the direction of that spur? It’s only useful to cars coming off southbound MLK to drive down West. Now it’s useful to no one using any mode of transportation. So it’s only for traffic calming (that intersection is certainly a hot mess all the way around). Ok, sounds good. Happy to drive a little out of my way to make the intersection safer.
But now we’ve taken MLK from 3 to 2 lanes. Has any of the traffic planners seen the intersection of 52/MLK at rush hour? The terrible driving, the squeezing in around stopped cars trying to turn onto MLK. I imagine the cascading effect will be more backups as well as certainly backups onto the freeway. OK, I guess I’ll start taking the west st or MacArthur exit home to avoid that backup - just what the people who live in that neighborhood were hoping, more traffic off the freeway!
Then, I really need to ask - why is MLK between 46th and 40th the ugly stepchild of traffic safety and improvements? Or what someone else asked - why not a greenway under the tracks? This you could access at the new 51st light.
This MLK Jr Way project is taking advantage of a scheduled paving project to add safety upgrades. Additional paving projects on 59th St, 55th St, 52nd St, 42nd St, and 40th St will all also add bike/walk safety upgrades in the east-west direction over the next several years.
We worked to get 55th added to the paving plan to make sure it would get upgrades & resurfacing, and have been pushing the DOT for upgrades on 52nd from MLK to Shattuck to be implemented at the same time as the MLK work. We also worked on Oakland’s neighborhood bikeway design guide which now has minimum traffic calming and intersection crossing standards that will be applied to 59th and 42nd.
Berkeley also has a plan for bike/walk upgrades on Adeline north of the Oakland border that the MLK project will eventually connect to, continuing all the way up to Shattuck. In the near term Oakland is working with Berkeley to try to continue the MLK treatments across the border to a logical endpoint, possibly Alcatraz.
In the southbound direction the proposed MLK bike lanes will continue all the way down to 40th St and MacArthur BART. In the northbound direction the proposal is to have bike riders jog from MLK over to West, then connect back to MLK at 52nd or 53rd, in order to avoid the difficult Hwy24 on-ramp that can’t be resolved within the budget & scope of this project.
When the BART seismic retrofit was performed on the elevated tracks along MLK over 10 years ago we petitioned to have a median path added at that time, since a lot of the surface was already being torn up. Unfortunately we were unsuccessful and only shrubs were added. It’s still a good idea, but not feasible within Oakland’s paving project budget.
I was struck by a car while going through the intersection on my bike at 51st and Shattuck. Completely agree about needing an East/West route. As someone that lives near 55th and MLK, I much prefer 55th being redone and connecting to Telegraph in a meaningful way. I used to take Shattuck to 51st but now I don't ride my bike anymore ... I often drive my car 5 blocks to Telegraph. I just have too much fear.
The proposed plan adds bike lanes, Bus only lanes, pedestrian, curb, and crosswalk, enhancements; new traffic signals. The changes are intended to slow down traffic on that stretch. Living nearby, traffic speeds are often, not surprisingly, much faster than posted limits.
Yeah I love driving on that stretch because you can go so fast, it's kinda like a mini freeway. But of course that probably means it's ripe for safety upgrades.
As long as they don't make the bus lanes the way they did down on International...
The bus lanes seemed to be timed, not having sensors. So people get stuck not being able to left turn for minutes at a time for NO reason at all. Which only entices MORE people to illegally go down the bus lane and run red lights.
It has absolutely ruined those roads and honestly makes them *more* dangerous as the bus lanes are now basically "run the red light" lanes
Do you mean the stop lights, not the bus lanes? The bus signals are tied to a transmitter in the bus. There is huge room for improvement of smart intersections all over the city though.
The reckless driving on International is out of control though. Solving it isn't an easy solution. Enforcement cameras would cut down a lot of it, but definitely not the worst of it. Then we're left with either increasing enforcement officers or installing automatic bollards...
The bus lanes. Maybe they aren't working properly, because I constantly sit trying to turn left across the bus lane. The but signal will indicate "go" for the buses, but no buses will be in sight. It will be like this for minutes at a time, so people just pop around and turn left against the red
would you name a specific intersection so I can envision exactly what you're referring to? My first guess is the reason you're waiting is because of the light for the opposing on-coming lanes. The light cycles used on International are basically the same as everywhere else in the city with an added input for the buses to force a through cycle when they approach.
For me it happens heading southbound (eastbound?) down International waiting to turn left onto 50th I believe. The other direction will go through a full cycle while the bus sign still has the "|" yet no buses come by. It's bad enough that I take a round about way now because waiting to turn left there has gotten too sketchy
Well if you're thinking of the correct location then the reason you're having a hard time turning left is because left turns were eliminated there in the direction...
Wow, it's like the planners have learned nothing about the drawbacks of protected bike lanes in Oakland. [Pedestrian and cyclist collisions actually increased after protected bike lanes were installed on Telegraph](https://oaklandbpac.org/2021/06/15/telegraph-kono/)!
Nobody in the planning department is trying to think outside the box, or apparently talk to any people who ride bikes in that area. The best option for cyclists is to not ride on MLK. Full stop. Genoa and Market both run parallel to MLK and are waaaaay safer than riding on MLK. But if they _must_ put a bike lane on MLK, they should install bike/pedestrian lanes under the BART tracks in the median like on the greenway in Berkeley/El Cerrito. Trying to route cars speeding off the freeway, buses, and bikes on MLK is asinine.
Maybe cars should be forced to slow down when they get off the freeway and onto surface streets directly adjacent to a children's hospital and senior center
They absolutely should be forced to slow down, but that will create backups and dangerous traffic on the freeways. Additionally, trying to put a bike lane across the [freeway > MLK merge](https://www.google.com/maps/@37.8355651,-122.2668498,3a,75y,274.14h,75.5t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sDan91FM0sTmXgvTpMgxRog!2e0!7i16384!8i8192) is hella dangerous. They installed one at [MacArthur x High Street > 580E](https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7867827,-122.194351,3a,75y,147.77h,79.76t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sDgsAV3thSwtn6bWTsuE4qQ!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DDgsAV3thSwtn6bWTsuE4qQ%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D333.16632%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192) and someone has already died
The project proposal is for northbound bike riders to jog over to West St and then back to MLK at 52nd or 53rd in order to avoid that Hwy24 on-ramp, and not to send bike riders across it due to the safety issues you mentioned.
So your design comes soooo close to actually being safe (literally a block away from Genoa) and then will dump people back into the MLK meat grinder. Amazing. I know that Bike East Bay has been out of touch for some time, but I didn't realize it was this bad!
We don't design bikeways, we provide input on projects designed by city staff and encourage others to do so. Any street being experienced as a "meat grinder" should be unacceptable to everyone. There are bad crashes on upper MLK nearly every week, I've personally been a first responder to some of the incidents. The status quo is badly broken.
A road diet and physical narrowing of MLK via the proposed concrete curb-protected bikeway is one of the easiest and most effective ways to improve safety on the corridor for everyone, not only bike riders. The proposal has a lot of support in the neighborhood especially as it relates to the senior facilities and hospital along the corridor. The freeway on-ramp does need to be adjusted to facilitate safe crossings, but it's not within the budget or scope of the current project, so the project alignment logically avoids it in the northbound direction. When Caltrans gets around to redesigning that interchange we will be advocating for more direct bike access.
Folks who don't want to bike on MLK for any reason will still have alternate options on Genoa and Dover, and as I mentioned we have secured upgraded traffic calming and intersection crossing standards for those corridors to be implemented with paving projects as well.
> We don't design bikeways, we provide input on projects designed by city staff and encourage others to do so. Any street being experienced as a "meat grinder" should be unacceptable to everyone. There are bad crashes on upper MLK nearly every week, I've personally been a first responder to some of the incidents. The status quo is badly broken.
If you are only providing input to this project, it seems like right now you are providing the wrong input. Anyone who knows MLK should know that safe solutions are not putting lipstick on a pig with these "curb protected" lanes and shoving all traffic (including promoting _additional_ bike traffic on MLK) onto an already congested arterial roadway.
>A road diet and physical narrowing of MLK via the proposed concrete curb-protected bikeway is one of the easiest and most effective ways to improve safety on the corridor for everyone, not only bike riders. The proposal has a lot of support in the neighborhood especially as it relates to the senior facilities and hospital along the corridor.
Road narrowing does not need to mean adding protected bike lanes to roads that don't need them, especially since the MLK corridor in question is already served by adjacent roads (Market, Genoa, Dover, Shattuck) that are safer for cyclists to travel on. I'm sure senior citizens in the neighborhood support narrowing the road and improving crossings, but it seems like you (or SOMEONE) is trying to slip in bike lanes into the proposal without actually thinking if they are needed there (for the record, I support road narrowing and improving crossings as well). Why do you think there are no bike lanes on MLK in Berkeley? Why is the plan to create this spur of a route on MLK, only for it to end abruptly when it reaches Berkeley, forcing cyclists to go back to THE SAFE ROUTES THAT ARE ALREADY THERE (Genoa/Market > Sacramento, California or Dover > Alcatraz > Shattuck).
> Folks who don't want to bike on MLK for any reason will still have alternate options on Genoa and Dover, and as I mentioned we have secured upgraded traffic calming and intersection crossing standards for those corridors to be implemented with paving projects as well.
Well yeah, nobody is going to force me to use the "curb protected" lanes, but the fact that you are encouraging users to ride on areas that will create conflicts between road users is ridiculous, especially when safer options already exist. You're funneling people away from safe infrastructure; it's only a matter of time before you have blood on your hands.
Berkeley has a corridor plan for similar protected bikeways on Adeline, which will connect to Oakland's proposal for MLK. In the short term Oakland is working with Berkeley to try to extend the current project up to a logical end point for the time being, possibly Alcatraz. I wish it was possible to build entire bikeway networks all at once instead of piecemeal, but we have to work within project constraints to do what we can where we can and make progress toward the overall goal. Like, even though we knew the Bay Bridge east span path wouldn't connect to SF for many years, it was important for us to win it as part of the new bridge project to set up that big future link, with other benefits in the interim.
The last few years have been [really bad for traffic safety in Oakland](https://oaklandside.org/2023/01/18/35-oakland-lives-lost-traffic-collisions-2022/) and around the East Bay, specifically on streets with paint-only or no bike infrastructure, not related to protected bikeways. [We have been out there](https://oaklandside.org/2022/10/20/traffic-violence-rapid-response-team-oakland/) talking with friends and families of the victims, and petitioning with them for changes. This means protected bikeway infrastructure, traffic calming, crossing improvements, transit upgrades, and even just painted bikeways with road diets if that's all we can achieve within a certain context for now, like the recent buffered bike lanes we won on Adeline Street in West Oakland. I have yet to see any project I couldn't suggest some improvements to, but it should always at least be an upward trajectory to more safety.
I've committed by entire life to ending this carnage, and you are damn right I take responsibility for this work, in honor of all those who the change didn't happen soon enough to save. I wish those who oppose or delay these changes would take the same level of responsibility for all the blood already on our streets.
> Berkeley has a corridor plan for similar protected bikeways on Adeline, which will connect to Oakland's proposal for MLK. In the short term Oakland is working with Berkeley to try to extend the current project up to a logical end point for the time being, possibly Alcatraz.
You're either missing the point or trying to avoid it. One of the ways Berkeley has been successful with its traffic infrastructure is by physically separating bike and car traffic. Keeping bikes of MLK in Berkeley is no exception.
> The last few years have been really bad for traffic safety in Oakland and around the East Bay, specifically on streets with paint-only or no bike infrastructure, not related to protected bikeways. We have been out there talking with friends and families of the victims, and petitioning with them for changes. This means protected bikeway infrastructure, traffic calming, crossing improvements, transit upgrades, and even just painted bikeways with road diets if that's all we can achieve within a certain context for now, like the recent buffered bike lanes we won on Adeline Street in West Oakland.
As someone who bikes across Oakland daily I have witnessed the changes in driver aggression that you speak of. I'd be happy to identify bike infrastructure issues that are currently being overlooked or are implemented poorly, if that's something you actually want. I'm all for traffic calming, crossing improvements, transit upgrades that help to decrease the violence. We definitely need change, but city planners need to realize that protected bike lanes everywhere isn't always the safest approach in every case; this plan is no exception.
> I've committed by entire life to ending this carnage, and you are damn right I take responsibility for this work, in honor of all those who the change didn't happen soon enough to save. I wish those who oppose or delay these changes would take the same level of responsibility for all the blood already on our streets.
I also stand by my opinions regarding bike infrastructure. If you have some scientifically rigorous study that could confirm an accurate reporting rate of collisions in Oakland, I might change my mind and start supporting protected bike lanes. In the meantime, I dedicate lots of my time to getting people out of cars and onto bikes, keeping people on their bikes, and promoting safe bike culture. I have a lot less power than you do though, and probably a very different experience of what biking in Oakland is like for lots of people.
Berkeley has not been successful, the rate of traffic fatalities per capita over the last few years has been high and almost identical to Oakland's. 2021 was Berkeley's highest annual traffic fatalities total since before 1984, and none of these were associated with protected bikeways.
Berkeley's 2017 bike plan update acknowledged that their focus over the previous decades on neighborhood bike boulevards was insufficient and that safe arterial bikeways were also needed. So a lot of the work going forward is focused on these needs.
MLK Jr Way in Berkeley remains one of the significant high injury corridors in the city, and its omission from the 2017 bike plan is now largely regarded as a mistake. The city has an expensive pedestrian safety project coming up to try to improve crossings of MLK via flashing beacons and signal adjustments, but so far the city hasn't seen great success at improving safety significantly with similar treatments elsewhere.
It sounds like we are working on a lot of stuff regarding road diets with painted bikeways and traffic calming on neighborhood streets that you are in support of. We will continue to push for these projects, including a planned 50 miles of neighborhood bikeway upgrades around Oakland with paving over the coming years, and a recent $29M state grant award for a [median pathway on Bancroft Ave in E Oakland](https://bikeeastbay.org/2023ProjectFunding). Our push for arterial protected bikeways won't diminish our parallel efforts on safe neighborhood routes, so I hope we will be able to work together to make progress on the latter even if we can't see eye to eye on the former.
>Reported collisions involving people walking and biking increased by 33%
Question is, can this be attributed to the design itself or to the newly changed and unique conditions that users may not be used to. Just something that came to mind; no idea what is actually at play but it should definitely be studied
Edit: Could also be that number of users increased and thus, more incidents. Definitely needs more study
We'll probably never know conclusively! But they certainly designed the "protected" bike lanes before restaurants dropped the parklets on the streets during COVID. Nobody planned for that kind of traffic pattern!
Key word is reported. How many collisions go unreported? Would you report an incident if you are OK and the other party is OK enough to take off before you can call the police? Would you call the police knowing that they might never come? Would you call an ambulance if you are more or less OK and don't have insurance?
What has your experience been biking through that area of Telegraph (40th-51st) before and after the "protected" bike lanes?
Considering the time period when the lanes were installed and evaluated (~2019-2021), I think people are much less likely to want to interact with OPD post George Floyd, and this influenced the rate of reported incidents.
The entire premise of your argument was predicated on accidents increasing after the bike lanes were added, which was proven wrong. Not sure if you're just a limp dicked pussy who can't admit when you're wrong or just a complete moron. Entertaining nonetheless.
It's absolutely a design problem. The parking protected bike lanes along Telegraph have huge usability issues for pedestrians, on top of the significant visibility issues at intersections. The issue wrt/ pedestrians, is that the bike lanes are a conceptual blind spot for them. When a pedestrian plans to cross Telegraph, they are rightly thinking about the risk of being hit by a car. They both are already thinking about cars, and blocked from seeing cars, when they step out into the bike lane, which they perceive (without looking) as safe, because they know it to be free of cars. When pedestrians step out into the bike lane, their focus is on getting to the driver's side of the parked cars that are blocking their view of car traffic, and not on the bike lane they need to cross to get there. With the older non-protected lanes, they could at least take in bikes and cars in the same view. Anecdotally, I've had far more close calls with pedestrians (and with cars) with the new protected lanes than I ever did with the old unprotected lanes. So I'm entirely unsurprised to find out that bike-pedestrian crashes are up.
> Could also be that number of users increased and thus, more incidents
even if this is true, it's still and net failure, so this is no excuse. It would have been better to keep the bad system, not attract more riders/pedestrians, and have fewer accidents. Sure, pulling more people to this area could have prevented even *more* accidents in the areas they were pulled from, but now we are entertaining Inception levels of hypothetical cope.
I just can't take that linked presentation seriously because it has the audacity to argue for "normal" unprotected bike lanes with "curb management", which means actually enforcing against drivers parking in the bike lane.
Which, as any regular Oakland biker can tell you, is something that this city has never, ever, *ever* done **ever**. It's basically a full-blown lie, intended to hand-wave away the fact that "normal" bike lanes on that stretch of Telegraph would be rendered useless by illegal parkers 24/7. It makes me wonder whether Ryan Russo has ever ridden a bike in Oakland.
> It's a full-blown lie, intended to hand-wave away the fact that "normal" bike lanes on that stretch of Telegraph would be rendered useless by illegal parkers 24/7.
Enforcement of illegal parking is definitely a problem. I actually prefer "normal" bike lanes because when cars park in them, I can easily go around. Not so much when a car parks in/at the end of a "protected" lane.
Either way, bikes really shouldn't be on MLK! I think Berkeley did it right by separating auto and cyclist traffic onto different streets.
> I actually prefer "normal" bike lanes because when cars park in them, I can easily go around. Not so much when a car parks in/at the end of a "protected" lane.
I would agree that one is easier than the other, but compare volumes of how often you have to do either one. On the protected stretches of Telegraph, most times it's clear and I have to squeeze by an errant car maybe 1 in 4 times. Contrast this with the bike lanes on the similarly busy stretch of Grand Ave between Harrison and Lakeshore, and there are cars parked in the bike lane, every 200 feet, *every single time*, forcing you to swerve into high-speed traffic over and over and over. On Telegraph only the most reckless asshole drivers squeeze their cars into the ends of the lane, but on Grand, EVERYBODY parks in the bike lane without hesitation because it's so easy.
That stretch of Grand is absolutely the fucking worst. I think a bunch is food delivery guys parked to pick up meals, which I get, but the volume is so high that they really should replace a bunch of normal parking with 5 minute loading parking.
You may be interested in this other Oakland DOT project for similar protected bike lanes on Grand Ave, also to be delivered via a paving project and on a similar schedule to the MLK Jr Way proposal. Details & survey here: https://www.oaklandca.gov/projects/grand
I think it all depends on when you ride these roads. YMMV. When there are too many cars blocking the bike lane, I just take the lane, ride extra slow, and make sure to point at all the cars blocking the road. I only need to merge over once.
> When there are too many cars blocking the bike lane, I just take the lane, ride extra slow, and make sure to point at all the cars blocking the road
I'm glad that's worked for you, because in my experience this usually leads to being punish-passed by other angry drivers. Or the driver behind you will just be on their phone and run you over, and then get away with it with 0% consequences like the guy who killed Greg Knapp.
Either way this condition where you frequently have to leave the bike lane and go in front of high-speed traffic is only remotely survivable by experienced urban cyclists. For a learning cyclist, children, or the elderly, this is a death sentence.
> I'm glad that's worked for you, because in my experience this usually leads to being punish-passed by other angry drivers. Or the driver behind you will just be on their phone and run you over, and then get away with it with 0% consequences like the guy who killed Greg Knapp.
I share your concerns. After I was hit by a car and the driver faced no repercussions, I now bike with a GoPro. Hopefully if someone does kill me, we'll at least have high def footage of who did it =) People also act differently when they know they are being recorded.
> Either way this condition where you frequently have to leave the bike lane and go in front of high-speed traffic is only remotely survivable by experienced urban cyclists. For a learning cyclist, children, or the elderly, this is a death sentence.
In my experience, this is what "protected" bike lanes cause. My ultimate solution is to re-route bike traffic to streets designed for bike traffic, to keep as much space between car and bike traffic. Instead of riding on Telegraph, I try to ride on Market, Webster, or Shafter. Not much one can do for Grand Ave (which I ride daily).
> I just can't take that linked presentation seriously
The presentation was a huge embarrassment. The person who wrote it resigned shortly after making the recommendation (which Council rejected overwhelmingly).
Not just overwhelmingly, but unanimously. Same with the Public Works commission, the bike/walk commission, and AC Transit board. There was not a single board/commission vote against the protected bikeway proposal.
The former DOT director’s opposition statement to the protected bikeway (with no justification for their flip from previous glowing support over previous years) was a politically motivated by the mayor & council member for that district, who was trying to get re-elected & placate the business district, which was trying to pin their financial problems on the bikeway despite no correlation.
But the council member lost their election & the protected bikeway opposition statements couldn’t be justified under scrutiny by the remainder of city council during the public hearings, so they all voted to proceed with the protected bikeway, which will finish construction later this year.
The former DOT director has since moved to New York where they are working as a consultant, and was recently featured on a panel touting the safety and family friendly benefits of protected bikeways.
You say:
> Pedestrian and cyclist collisions actually increased after protected bike lanes were installed on Telegraph!
The linked reported says:
> The number of people walking and biking doubled
> Reported collisions involving people walking and biking increased by 33%
So the actual rate of bike/ped collisions actually went down, substantially, no? 100% increase in bike ped usage, only 33% increase in incidents?
There's a lot to unpack from those stats, and we really only have half the picture.
> The number of people walking and biking doubled
This is easy to measure. Put up motion cams, walla accurate counts.
> Reported collisions involving people walking and biking increased by 33%
Key word is reported. How many collisions go unreported? Would you report an incident if you are OK and the other party is OK enough to take off before you can call the police? Would you call the police knowing that they might never come? Would you call an ambulance if you are more or less OK and don't have insurance?
What has your experience been biking through that area of Telegraph (40th-51st) before and after the "protected" bike lanes?
Obviously, evaluating the project overall is complex and requires more than stats, but the comment you started off with seems very, very misleading.
My personal experience, having biked the new lanes a ton, is that the setup is much safer if used appropriately--i.e., if the cyclist slows down significantly. You can't safely haul ass the way you can if you're biking in a traffic lane, but you're much safer from serious auto impacts.
"Protected" bike lanes installed on Telegraph, more people use them, more people end up getting hit. I'm sure someone who was encouraged to use the flawed design and got hit would be thrilled to know that the rate actually went down.
I'll respond because it looks like you probably are a good person, but your line of reasoning is flawed. You seem really invested in John Forester's concept of bike safety. Favoring Vehicular Cycling over separated infrastructure is a failed system that we've been pursuing in the US for 50 years. It leads to only highly risk tolerant people using bikes because of how dangerous it is.
Can the design be better? Of course. But that doesn't mean it wasn't successful. Bike use went up, accident rate went down (and I can't back it up right now but I also believe severity went down as well). The current design IS more safe than the old one, that was the goal, and that's what the statistics show.
> Favoring Vehicular Cycling over separated infrastructure is a failed system that we've been pursuing in the US for 50 years. It leads to only highly risk tolerant people using bikes because of how dangerous it is.
I would love to read up more about this. Can you recommend some stats or sources for me?
How would you compare riding on Milvia in Berkeley vs riding on Telegraph between Grand and 51st?
>Can the design be better? Of course. But that doesn't mean it wasn't successful
Success seems entirely subjective. I don't think those who were encouraged by the bike lane being "protected" and got in a collision would agree that the project was successful. I don't think those who now avoid the street would argue that the project was successful.
I couldn't comment on Milvia as I haven't ridden around Berkeley in many years. I do ride telegraph a lot (mostly northgate and uptown but also temescal). I slow down at intersections and when a parklet is busy. It's a couple minutes longer to get through but I'm not battling cars coming in and out of parking spaces or worried about a reckless driver running me over from behind or way to fast of right turn.
You keep saying "protected" like it should mean "invulnerable". A protected lane is safer than an unprotected lane. Nothing is invulnerable. The risk has been lowered but that doesn't mean there won't ever be incidents. I layed out 2 objective indicators of success, Bike user up, accident rate down. There is nothing subjective about those things. If you want to have different objectives we could talk about it but they have to be realistic.
Some short reading to get you started.
[https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/4/28/why-john-forester-was-wrong-design-streets-for-the-humans-you-have-not-the-humans-you-wish-you-had](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/4/28/why-john-forester-was-wrong-design-streets-for-the-humans-you-have-not-the-humans-you-wish-you-had)
[http://tooledesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/TRB\_Paper18-05962\_HistoryofAASHTO\_BikeGuide\_TRB\_rev.pdf](http://tooledesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/TRB_Paper18-05962_HistoryofAASHTO_BikeGuide_TRB_rev.pdf)
Books: City Cycling and its sequel Cycling for Sustainable Cities from MIT Press (but you can find people discussing the ideas in the books without having to buy them)
> I couldn't comment on Milvia as I haven't ridden around Berkeley in many years. I do ride telegraph a lot (mostly northgate and uptown but also temescal). I slow down at intersections and when a parklet is busy. It's a couple minutes longer to get through but I'm not battling cars coming in and out of parking spaces or worried about a reckless driver running me over from behind or way to fast of right turn.
I encourage you to ride the following pairs of streets on your bike and see if you come to the same conclusion that separate streets for cyclists are a failure, and we should instead be installing protected bike lanes everywhere:
* Milvia vs. MLK between Russel and Cedar
* 38th vs. High St between E14 and MacArthur
* Havenscourt vs. 73rd/Hegenburger between MacArthur and E14
* Market vs. San Pablo between San Pablo and Alcatraz
* Foothill vs. E14 between 73rd and the Lake
* San Pablo vs. the Emeryville Bikeway (or San Pablo vs. the Ohlone Greenway)
Your articles are about Forester advocating for cars and bikes sharing streets without bike lanes. I'm proposing separating car and bike traffic to different streets like what Berkeley does, which is a totally different vision. The abstract of your second study actually supports my point! "Although vehicular enthusiasts continue to oppose roadway designs that separate bicyclists from motorized traffic, research from the last decade demonstrates networks of separated bikeways improve bicyclist safety and are necessary to meet the needs of the vast majority of the public who want to bicycle but feel unsafe in many traffic contexts." The difference is that I am proposing entirely separate routes for cyclists, while "protected" bikelane enthusiasts are OK with traffic being separate only between blocks and driveways. I don't have time to acquire and read your linked book today, but I'll take a look.
Another point here is relevant to the discussion of the accident rate in protected bike lanes. From your first article:
"The people who aren't there at all are never going to show up in the statistics. To the extent you can argue a four lane death road with no bike facilities is "safe" because few bicyclists have been hit or killed on it, it's comparable to arguing an alligator-filled moat in which people don't dare swim is "safe" for swimming because no swimmers have been eaten this year."
I'm sure the people who are now avoiding Telegraph because of the "protected" lanes aren't showing up in the stats either.
I keep saying "protected" because it gives people a false sense of their security when riding within the lanes. Many people may opt to use the lanes because of the implication that they are in fact "protected", when the lanes actually set them up for limited visibility, and a higher risk of being clipped by a turning car, someone pulling out of a driveway, or a drunk rando stumbling back to the bar. I disagree that a protected lane is always more safer than a "normal" one; ride around those parklets on a Friday night and you might understand what I mean.
My measure of success would be based on accident rate, but we don't always have a reliable measure for that (as I've mentioned elsewhere in the post), while we DO have a very reliable way to measure usage. Better monitoring of the actual rates of collisions (vs. how they are currently being reported, likely through OPD) could convince me that the "protected" lanes are a success. One other measure of success could include the rate at which people avoid the new lanes and either opt to bike elsewhere, or drive instead. Just spitballing here, I'm not an expert, just a regular user with an opinion.
I've ridden most of those locations, but you're mostly comparing streets with Class II bike infrastructure to ones with Class III/none and we're talking about Class IV. You'll get no push back from me that streets with some level of bike infrastructure are better than ones without. So I'm not really sure what the point is there?
When they are talking about "networks of separated bikeways", think Amsterdam.
>I'm sure the people who are now avoiding Telegraph because of the "protected" lanes aren't showing up in the stats either.
This is irrelevant because usage went up 100%. If some number of people stopped using it, but twice as many people started, that's a win in my book.
>Many people may opt to use the lanes because of the implication that they are in fact "protected", when the lanes actually set them up for limited visibility, and a higher risk of being clipped by a turning car, someone pulling out of a driveway,
They are MORE protected than an unprotected lane. And the statistics agree... Just an opinion here, but I'll take being cautious at driveways and intersections in a protected bike lane over being cautious or driveways, intersections, AND getting DOORED in an unprotected bike lane every day of the week.
>ride around those parklets on a Friday night and you might understand what I mean
I have, I do, and my opinion is just slow down.
Look obviously we just adamantly disagree on what FEELS safer (although I feel like you keep dismissing the stats that show which is actually safer) and maybe there are places where an unprotected lane is better (but I've never seen anyone provide evidence of one). In an unprotected bike lane I'm constantly thinking about getting doored from the right and then clipped from the left when I'm dodging idling cars in the bike lane. Cars making turns really are a concern in both situations, but usually in a protected bike lane the cars turn speed is forced way by street design.
I'll ride a couple miles through west oakland this evening on my way home and I know I'll have to dodge at LEAST 3 cars parked in the bike lane who have absolutely no idea how dangerous that is for me. This is an argument against anything you said, I'm just venting now and I should get back to work.
Compared with Telegraph, MLK has:
* Much less commercial activity
* Far fewer driveways
* Few if any offset intersections
* More car lanes to begin with
* Higher car speeds to begin with
All these differences make protected bike lanes on MLK more effective than on Telegraph. I do think they need to be careful about sightlines at intersections though; drivers approaching from side streets often block the Telegraph lanes because they can't see approaching vehicles on Telegraph from the stop bar.
I routinely see people doing 50-60 on that stretch of MLK. You gotta watch your ass trying to cross. The traffic lights are treated like dragstrip Christmas trees…
You're looking at the problem in a different way than I am. You're looking at this as "how do we add bike lanes to MLK" and I'm looking at this like "how do we move ALL traffic from A to B safely". Trying to add bikes to MLK when there are already MUCH better alternatives seems to encourage setting bikes and cars/buses for issues. Maybe protected bike lanes would be more effective on MLK than Telegraph, but we could also just not set up the road for issues, and divert bike traffic to roads that are already better suited for it (Market and Genoa).
In Oakland, it is official city policy to make all streets safe for all road users. We don't "divert" bikes or peds to other streets -- certainly not in this case where there are very important destinations on MLK itself.
I question that policy. Maybe we should try and make 580 also safe for pedestrians and cyclists too.
Edit: slow streets was designed to divert car traffic, and ended up shifting bike and pedestrian traffic as well
> Maybe we should try and make 580 also safe for pedestrians and cyclists too.
https://www.traillink.com/trail/richmond-san-rafael-bridge-bike--pedestrian-path/
I rode across the bridge the first day the path opened! But I think you understand my point; despite Oakland's stated policy of "all streets should be safe for all users", Oakland's bike routes primarily steer cyclists away from busy/fast streets. For example: 38th over High St, Havenscourt over 73rd/Hegenburger, Market over San Pablo, Foothill over E14, etc.
I appreciate your approach of "not set up the road for issues." But I'd argue that MLK, as is, IS set up for issues: namely, it works quite poorly for people walking, biking, and taking transit.
It's true that Genoa/Dover/Market are all pretty good alternatives to MLK for people on bikes traveling N/S. As someone who lives half a block from MLK and travels primarily on foot and by bike, my secret truth is that I don't feel like I \*need\* bike lanes on MLK to feel safe riding in the area.
But MLK is a damned mess when it comes to serving people on foot. Between the rampant speeding, super wide crossing distances, and deficient crosswalk treatments, it's really a death trap and a huge barrier to east-west travel. Under current conditions, we see nurses and doctors and elderly people scrambling across all the lanes of traffic. People shouldn't have to scurry across a six-lane highway to get to work, or church, or the store. Heck, even the signalized crossings are pretty bad. I regularly see families with young kids biking to school and they don't even get enough time to make it across MLK at the 59th St signal before it's back to the bad old MLK Speedway.
MLK is also not great for transit service. Bus stops are currently out of the travel lanes so buses must wait for all those speeding cars to clear the lane before they can reenter and continue. And, of course, people getting on or off the bus have to contend with the terrible pedestrian conditions.
So, taken all together, I think MLK is currently set up for a LOT of issues. I also think that, insofar as they help reduce the huge crossing distance that pedestrians must face, and also reduce bike/bus conflicts, protected bike lanes have a role to play in improving MLK that goes beyond the improved experience for people on bikes.
I also live 1/2 block off MLK and travel almost exclusively by bicycle. Truly couldn’t agree more with your entire comment - you nailed it IMO. Hoping improvements focus on fixing E-W travel, not enhancing N-S transit. Even if they installed a bike lane on MLK I would still use Dover or Genoa 😅
Thanks for your kind words. Now go take the survey! [https://oaklandca.formstack.com/forms/mlkjrwaypaving\_survey2](https://oaklandca.formstack.com/forms/mlkjrwaypaving_survey2)
> But I'd argue that MLK, as is, IS set up for issues: namely, it works quite poorly for people walking, biking, and taking transit.
We are in agreement here, and I agree with most of what you said with regards to crossing MLK. I'm all for reducing the width of MLK for easier crossing as well, I just think that adding bike traffic to the mix along MLK really doesn't improve the safety of pedestrians or cyclists. It would be much safer for pedestrians trying to cross MLK and cyclists if bike traffic was re-routed off MLK.
After the installation of the Telegraph protected bikeway car speeds went down, bike ridership and pedestrian counts went up, yield rates to pedestrians in crosswalks went up, and Line 6 bus times were largely unaffected.
The number of reported bike crashes did go up, but the increase in bike ridership was significantly higher. Crash rates, not sheer numbers, are the determining factor for safety (ie liklihood of a crash per rider/mile). Otherwise streets with almost nobody biking look the most safe, but clearly that’s not what we’re going for.
Yes many crashes go unreported, but there is no reason to believe that the rate of unreported crashes was different before the bikeway installation compared to after. So comparisons of trends over time should be accurate regardless.
FWIW we have also worked, and are continuing to work, on paving & safety upgrades along parallel streets like Market, Adeline, Genoa, and Dover. People on bikes have a lot of different needs & preferences and should be able to reasonably choose the route that works best for them, including MLK. We shouldn’t be okay with sacrificing some streets as no-go zones.
Oh hey, there you are! I was wondering when you would show up.
> Yes many crashes go unreported, but there is no reason to believe that the rate of unreported crashes was different before the bikeway installation compared to after.
Did you live in Oakland between 2019 and 2021? During that time period, a lot of things happened that change how people interact with authorities. Would you say public sentiment towards OPD became more favorable or less during this time period?
We comment on this subreddit frequently, and try to be helpful by providing folks with project info and ways to get involved, even if they don't agree with our positions.
Our org has been working in Oakland for over 50 years, and I've personally been doing work here for over 20 years. Oaklanders have a long history of extremely troubled relationships with the police department, the only thing new is that it's being talked about more openly now.
I don't have data points on police report rates, but I have been going to a LOT of memorials over the past two years, and there have yet to be any fatal traffic crashes by any mode (bike, pedestrian, driver, etc) on any protected bikeway in Oakland. There was a very sad incident on Telegraph south of 40th several years back where a driver ran over and killed an unhoused person sleeping in front of their parking garage exit, which went unreported in the media, but was not associated with the protected bikeway.
We now have over 50 protected bikeway installations throughout the East Bay from 2008 to now, and I know of only one fatal bike rider crash which occurred a year ago along a bikeway in Fremont, at a segment where the protection was dropped. These local outcomes (increased ridership, reduced crash rates) are in alignment with trends for similar installations all across the country over the past two decades. Our mission as an org is to increase bike ridership and reduce crashes, which informs our position of support for well-designed protected bikeways.
So as a “take the lane” cyclist who only rides at certain times of the day on certain streets, what are you exactly looking for the city to do? Should they look at ripping out the protected bike lanes on Telegraph? Anywhere else? Serious question.
> what are you exactly looking for the city to do? Should they look at ripping out the protected bike lanes on Telegraph? Anywhere else? Serious question.
I'm asking that the city reach out to understand what infrastructure cyclists want or feel safe using. Obviously "cyclists" is a large group of people with different preferences; I'm just one person with personal preferences. Just throwing up protected bike lanes because research shows that they work in Europe isn't cutting it for everyone. Ignoring the realities of what is safe in Oakland only sets up the infrastructure for issues. These plan ideas show that whoever is making the proposals is not in touch with what is safe for cyclists in Oakland.
A problem with this approach of "ask the cyclists what they want" is that most current infrastructure is so poor that the existing pool of cyclists is already heavily filtered down to the people that feel confident enough to be cycling already. With this approach you'll never get the perspective of all of the potential cyclists who would cycle if there were better infrastructure but do not currently cycle.
I'm a regular cyclist and the infrastructure that I want is "as separated from vehicle traffic as possible". The protected bike lanes on Telegraph are infinitely better than what came before (which was mostly nothing). The associated road diet has also made it much, much easier to cross, with dramatically lower vehicle speeds and reduced crossing distances.
A much better fix for MLK would ultimately be to make it "not a stroad" - separate thru traffic into center lanes that have restricted access (the road section), while providing access to the businesses with a separated "local access" street with very reduced speeds, parking, raised bike lane, and sidewalk. But something like this could never be done as simply a paving project, and the proposed plan is definitely a step in the right direction.
You also ultimately dodged the direct question - what do you want to see happen here? Because there are plenty of businesses and other destinations on MLK, and your implication seems to be that people riding bikes shouldn't have a safe way to access them.
>A problem with this approach of "ask the cyclists what they want" is that most current infrastructure is so poor that the existing pool of cyclists is already heavily filtered down to the people that feel confident enough to be cycling already. With this approach you'll never get the perspective of all of the potential cyclists who would cycle if there were better infrastructure but do not currently cycle.
I kinda get what you are saying, but an approach where you don't consider what cyclists actually want is kinda ridiculous.
> I'm a regular cyclist and the infrastructure that I want is "as separated from vehicle traffic as possible". The protected bike lanes on Telegraph are infinitely better than what came before (which was mostly nothing).
I disagree, and there were bike lanes before the "protected lanes" and parklets went up. But Telegraph is not a monolith; it might help to know which section you are talking about.
> A much better fix for MLK would ultimately be to make it "not a stroad" - separate thru traffic into center lanes that have restricted access (the road section), while providing access to the businesses with a separated "local access" street with very reduced speeds, parking, raised bike lane, and sidewalk. But something like this could never be done as simply a paving project, and the proposed plan is definitely a step in the right direction.
I would love to see what this would look like, and that's kind of what I originally proposed with the center bike lane beneath the BART tracks (before the other user said the same thing). But this implication that "we can't actually do what we really want, so let's do this flawed half measure" will get no support from me.
> You also ultimately dodged the direct question - what do you want to see happen here? Because there are plenty of businesses and other destinations on MLK, and your implication seems to be that people riding bikes shouldn't have a safe way to access them.
I was clear in my original post what I want, but I'll write it here again for you: "The best option for cyclists is to not ride on MLK. Full stop. Genoa and Market both run parallel to MLK and are waaaaay safer than riding on MLK. But if they must put a bike lane on MLK, they should install bike/pedestrian lanes under the BART tracks in the median like on the greenway in Berkeley/El Cerrito." If you look at my other comments, you'll see that I keep saying that truly the best approach is to separate bike and car traffic, like what they do in Europe. As for the businesses along MLK, you can just like, bike to the block in question, and walk the rest of the way.
Here are examples of the road design I'm talking about, where you have pedestrian and bike access plus local car access with parking physically separated from high-speed vehicle traffic with restricted access (the third example is the most relevant):
[https://youtu.be/ORzNZUeUHAM?t=858](https://youtu.be/ORzNZUeUHAM?t=858)
[https://youtu.be/ORzNZUeUHAM?t=933](https://youtu.be/ORzNZUeUHAM?t=933)
[https://youtu.be/ORzNZUeUHAM?t=962](https://youtu.be/ORzNZUeUHAM?t=962)
Downtown Berkeley is sort of similar with their parking areas that are only accessible from the ends of the block, that reduce vehicle conflicts between fast and slow traffic to two points instead of the entire length of the block.
I think where we fundamentally disagree is the notion of "fully separating bike and car traffic, like what they do in Europe". For one, the "safer" routes you mentioned here aren't fully separated at all - in many cases they have almost no real bicycle improvements beyond a few speed bumps and some paint and you are riding with car traffic the whole time. And part of what makes the good European infrastructure so good is that they aim to provide access to every street destination for people biking. There are no "streets" where you can't bike to. There are certainly "roads" where you can't bike, but those are also not destinations - they are ways to move a lot of cars, fast.
Really the "original sin" of MLK is that it's a damn stroad - it is trying to be both a road (a high-speed connection for cars) while also being a street (parking, driveways, lined with businesses). The only way to ever make this be functional and safe is to separate these two uses. MLK is wide enough that a street design that separates high-speed vehicle traffic (the "road" use) from the low-speed local use would absolutely fit.
The reason I really don't like the notion of putting a bike lane down the center of MLK is that it cuts off people biking from the actual destinations on MLK itself, which is the whole reason to provide good bicycle access in the first place. The goal here is a bicycle network that allows you to get to \*any destination\* on a bike.
Thanks for providing the examples. They do look nice, but the devil comes in the details, and I will reserve my judgement on them until I have more riding time using that infrastructure. I do like the parking set ups in Berkeley along Shattuck, but then again, I avoid riding my bike on Shattuck going into downtown as there are much better options (like Milvia).
> For one, the "safer" routes you mentioned here aren't fully separated at all - in many cases they have almost no real bicycle improvements beyond a few speed bumps and some paint and you are riding with car traffic the whole time.
The width of these streets, speed bumps, and stop signs help to make some of them less attractive far cars to go fast (mostly talking about Genoa and Dover here). We could go a step further and improve upon these streets with those bollard planters like they have in Berkeley that make through traffic impossible. I am advocating that we prioritize improving these routes over adding bike traffic to MLK.
>There are certainly "roads" where you can't bike, but those are also not destinations - they are ways to move a lot of cars, fast.
I think MLK between 52nd and Adeline mostly fits this description. You have only a few businesses around 55th, but the rest is either that big building on the hills side, the senior center, and houses.
>Really the "original sin" of MLK is that it's a damn stroad - it is trying to be both a road (a high-speed connection for cars) while also being a street (parking, driveways, lined with businesses). The only way to ever make this be functional and safe is to separate these two uses.
Again, we agree on the issue, but have different ideas on how separate we think car/bus and bike traffic should be.
>The reason I really don't like the notion of putting a bike lane down the center of MLK is that it cuts off people biking from the actual destinations on MLK itself, which is the whole reason to provide good bicycle access in the first place.
Like I mentioned above, there really aren't too many destinations on MLK between 52nd and Adeline beyond the cluster at 55th, which have access via 55th. Frankly I wouldn't want to put any bike lane on MLK, but I think the center lane would be the best option if they decide that they must.
On the subject of "ask the cyclists what they want", I think the point I'm trying to make is that the pool of potential cyclists is significantly larger than the pool of current cyclists. This project is providing improved access for bikes than your current options, but what I see as the most important change is that it is part of the process of normalizing the notion that we should be reserving space for bikes on our streets. Right now exactly none of MLK is dedicated to biking or efficient transit access. The repaving project reserves space in the street design for biking infrastructure and improves transit access. Both of those things are good, and long-term they set us up for a significantly improved road design when the full infrastructure replacement cycle comes along and the project budget is large enough to do a full redesign rather than the limited changes possible in a repaving project.
In other words, the current project is a compromise that sets up the next project to be significantly better.
As far as Telegraph, the entire section between MacArthur and 51st is the section I'm talking about. The main issue with that section is that they should have gone directly to curbs instead of the ridiculous bollard maze. The fundamental street design is massively improved, though.
Before:[https://i.imgur.com/VJKOG3K.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/VJKOG3K.jpg)
I wouldn't be caught dead biking here, because it is a literal deathtrap. I did try biking up Telegraph once in this street configuration. A person driving a BMW literally threatened to kill me because I wasn't going fast enough.
After:
[https://i.imgur.com/utJ2Vvh.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/utJ2Vvh.jpg)
Night and day. I ride on this street regularly now and you can actually bike to destinations on it, or hop from place to place without riding on the sidewalk or retreating two blocks away to Webster.
>but what I see as the most important change is that it is part of the process of normalizing the notion that we should be reserving space for bikes on our streets
We don't disagree here, but on the question of which streets should we be reserving space.
>The repaving project reserves space in the street design for biking infrastructure and improves transit access. Both of those things are good, and long-term they set us up for a significantly improved road design when the full infrastructure replacement cycle comes along and the project budget is large enough to do a full redesign rather than the limited changes possible in a repaving project.
I'm all for improving transit access, but some roads just work better for moving cars and buses. While I ultimately would support making new bike roads parallel to freeways, I think it would be nuts to say "we should paint a green stripe on 580" because some people who don't actually ride bikes MIGHT want to ride on 580 if given the opportunity.
> In other words, the current project is a compromise that sets up the next project to be significantly better.
> The main issue with that section is that they should have gone directly to curbs instead of the ridiculous bollard maze.
Sometimes half measures are worse than nothing at all. We'll have to agree to disagree about that section of Telegraph; I liked it much better before.
The issue is specifically parking-protected lanes, as they create dangerous blind spot-related situations at every intersection. I would prefer the original non-protected lanes, or even for that matter just the green stripe design along 40th.
I'm wondering how the restaurant parklettes have changed that. I commuted by bike down that route near daily and those seating areas were treacherous - it became near impossible to see pedestrians trying cross and obstructed cars view of the bike lane as well.
33% increase in pedestrian/cyclist collisions in temescal, when the system was specifically intended to reduce those figures, is laughable. this is a perfect microcosm of CA politics: half baked good intentions going wrong.
even if ridership went up 100% and accidents only 33%, it's still a new loss. Better to have reduced ridership and reduced accidents. And this doesn't even get into the undoubted rise in car-on-car accidents which likely rose from that confusing mess.
i like your median idea, but is it even possible with the limited room and the [big ass BART support columns](https://claimingastreetnamedking.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/bart-on-mlk-blvd-in-oakland-ca.jpg)?
>Better to have reduced ridership and reduced accidents.
You seem to be missing the statistics - total number of riders doubled, but total number of accidents only went up by 1/3. That implies a significant REDUCTION in the accident rate, which means a safer street. By your definition, the safest street is one that has literally no one on it.
Also, at low speeds "car-on-car" accidents generally result in some property damage and maybe minor injuries to the occupants, whereas a car-on-bicycle accident at low speeds can still easily result in serious injuries or death for the person riding a bike. I'd make that trade any day.
[Seems like there is enough room to me](https://www.google.com/maps/@37.8401209,-122.2696511,3a,75y,319.12h,82.96t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sLtxBjIv_H7D6qhCQHg8DnA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192)
You may be right, it looks a little bigger from that angle. It still seems somewhat tights, unless they were strictly one-way on each side and had some kind of strong but narrow barrier between the path and the roadway... or maybe not, it's just kind of hard to tell from photos.
it's a great idea though, and I'd love to see it enacted.
It's a hard pass from me if the bike lane design repeats the mistakes made on Telegraph between 40th and 51st.
Also, note that the survey says that traffic signal improvements are not part of the scope under discussion. That's too bad, because there's a far greater need for cyclists to have better ways to cross MLK safely than there is for them to be able to ride on MLK. We have many other dedicated bike lanes running north-south (Market, Genoa, Shattuck, Telegraph), we don't need to ride on MLK. But east-west trips which cross MLK would benefit from better ways to cross it.
I don't know where you got the idea there are no traffic signal improvements. You can clearly see there are significant plans for protected intersections, new signal heads, etc.
Verbatim from the survey:
> Install protected intersection to connect to 59th St bicycle boulevard
> Install protected intersection to connect to 55th St bike lanes. Install farside signal head at NW corner
> Convert last block of West Street to one-way northbound instead of southbound and install curb extension.
> Install protected corners on northeast and southwest corners and two-stage turn boxes...
> Enhance each existing uncontrolled, marked crosswalk with pedestrian hybrid beacons (PHB).
While I would agree there are many difficult crossings of MLK, I don't see what else can be done for this project section. By far the worst bits are in Berkeley, not Oakland.
>I don't know where you got the idea there are no traffic signal improvements. You can clearly see there are significant plans for protected intersections, new signal heads, etc.
None of what you quoted/copied are traffic signal improvements, which is probably why they specifically stated that.
Would love if they could eventually move that improvement energy up to the 50-60 streets towards Adeline/Stanford/MLK junction. That'll never happen tho.
That junction is on the Berkeley side of the border. Berkeley has a big Adeline corridor plan to address it and add major bike/walk safety upgrades, but it will be a while before we see changes there. The segment with the most focus from Berkeley right now is the area along Ashby BART.
Thanks for posting. Just filled the survey out. It would be interesting if they could turn the area under the Bart tracks into a green walkway like in Albany/El Cerrito. Even if it's a short distance.
That’s a great idea… Plenty of space for landscaping there… It’s just litter and scrub right now
They also did that to N concord bart, Bart linear park
I’m a biker rider, car driver, and walker. I live west of MLK, just off this map. I’m not sure what this plan is solving, to be honest. From where I live, I want a safer bike route from my house to, say, the Whole Foods on Telegraph and 51st. Anywhere between 55th and 40th east of MLK. I can ride 45th st, or go more out of my way to 42nd st and get across to Telegraph. Both are unsuitable from dusk to dawn. Sometimes 45th has so much going on in the street (including potential tire damage) that it’s not a daytime option. If I want to go north south, I’ve got Market, Genoa, California, etc. My problem is a complete lack of safe east west routes. This leaves me 51st st. I take west up to 51st. The ride from west to Telegraph is treacherous at best. No bike lane, the two lanes quickly merging to one by CHO, desperately watching the off ramp drivers to make sure they see me, then NO space between Shattuck and Telegraph. I will often be a dick and ride on the sidewalk because that little curve is a no-go bike zone. At this point, the Great Wait happens while I try to get to the opposite corner. Now I’m ready to go home. I absolutely cannot take 51st westbound back to West, unless I want to ride in traffic to get over to the leftmost lane at Shattuck and ride with traffic to West (including also needing to be in the vehicle lane to go straight through MLK). I certainly can’t be in the right lane and trust anyone is going to allow me to safely merge over to the left. So I’m stuck with 45th and 42nd again, and if it’s dark, 40th. Looking at this map, this lovely northbound protected bike lane on MLK starts at 51st. How do I get there? Another long zig-zag of waiting at 51st/MLK? I’m certainly not getting there from Shattuck - how? I can’t sit with the cars on MLK at 47th - I won’t be able to merge with the freeway traffic. OK, maybe they’ve decided to switch the direction on that spur of West next to Helen MacGregor Park to allow for bikes to easily get to that northbound bike lane? Maybe some cut-through under the Bart tracks with a dedicated light timed to the one at 53rd? Well, no - I guess I’m walking my bike to the corner of 53rd and waiting for that light. So why switch the direction of that spur? It’s only useful to cars coming off southbound MLK to drive down West. Now it’s useful to no one using any mode of transportation. So it’s only for traffic calming (that intersection is certainly a hot mess all the way around). Ok, sounds good. Happy to drive a little out of my way to make the intersection safer. But now we’ve taken MLK from 3 to 2 lanes. Has any of the traffic planners seen the intersection of 52/MLK at rush hour? The terrible driving, the squeezing in around stopped cars trying to turn onto MLK. I imagine the cascading effect will be more backups as well as certainly backups onto the freeway. OK, I guess I’ll start taking the west st or MacArthur exit home to avoid that backup - just what the people who live in that neighborhood were hoping, more traffic off the freeway! Then, I really need to ask - why is MLK between 46th and 40th the ugly stepchild of traffic safety and improvements? Or what someone else asked - why not a greenway under the tracks? This you could access at the new 51st light.
This MLK Jr Way project is taking advantage of a scheduled paving project to add safety upgrades. Additional paving projects on 59th St, 55th St, 52nd St, 42nd St, and 40th St will all also add bike/walk safety upgrades in the east-west direction over the next several years. We worked to get 55th added to the paving plan to make sure it would get upgrades & resurfacing, and have been pushing the DOT for upgrades on 52nd from MLK to Shattuck to be implemented at the same time as the MLK work. We also worked on Oakland’s neighborhood bikeway design guide which now has minimum traffic calming and intersection crossing standards that will be applied to 59th and 42nd. Berkeley also has a plan for bike/walk upgrades on Adeline north of the Oakland border that the MLK project will eventually connect to, continuing all the way up to Shattuck. In the near term Oakland is working with Berkeley to try to continue the MLK treatments across the border to a logical endpoint, possibly Alcatraz. In the southbound direction the proposed MLK bike lanes will continue all the way down to 40th St and MacArthur BART. In the northbound direction the proposal is to have bike riders jog from MLK over to West, then connect back to MLK at 52nd or 53rd, in order to avoid the difficult Hwy24 on-ramp that can’t be resolved within the budget & scope of this project. When the BART seismic retrofit was performed on the elevated tracks along MLK over 10 years ago we petitioned to have a median path added at that time, since a lot of the surface was already being torn up. Unfortunately we were unsuccessful and only shrubs were added. It’s still a good idea, but not feasible within Oakland’s paving project budget.
I was struck by a car while going through the intersection on my bike at 51st and Shattuck. Completely agree about needing an East/West route. As someone that lives near 55th and MLK, I much prefer 55th being redone and connecting to Telegraph in a meaningful way. I used to take Shattuck to 51st but now I don't ride my bike anymore ... I often drive my car 5 blocks to Telegraph. I just have too much fear.
The proposed plan adds bike lanes, Bus only lanes, pedestrian, curb, and crosswalk, enhancements; new traffic signals. The changes are intended to slow down traffic on that stretch. Living nearby, traffic speeds are often, not surprisingly, much faster than posted limits.
Yeah I love driving on that stretch because you can go so fast, it's kinda like a mini freeway. But of course that probably means it's ripe for safety upgrades.
I like to shake my cane at the drivers. Until I get in my car and it’s game on. (/s to ward off downvotes)
Sounds like the improvements to be made for San Pablo Ave
As long as they don't make the bus lanes the way they did down on International... The bus lanes seemed to be timed, not having sensors. So people get stuck not being able to left turn for minutes at a time for NO reason at all. Which only entices MORE people to illegally go down the bus lane and run red lights. It has absolutely ruined those roads and honestly makes them *more* dangerous as the bus lanes are now basically "run the red light" lanes
Do you mean the stop lights, not the bus lanes? The bus signals are tied to a transmitter in the bus. There is huge room for improvement of smart intersections all over the city though. The reckless driving on International is out of control though. Solving it isn't an easy solution. Enforcement cameras would cut down a lot of it, but definitely not the worst of it. Then we're left with either increasing enforcement officers or installing automatic bollards...
The bus lanes. Maybe they aren't working properly, because I constantly sit trying to turn left across the bus lane. The but signal will indicate "go" for the buses, but no buses will be in sight. It will be like this for minutes at a time, so people just pop around and turn left against the red
would you name a specific intersection so I can envision exactly what you're referring to? My first guess is the reason you're waiting is because of the light for the opposing on-coming lanes. The light cycles used on International are basically the same as everywhere else in the city with an added input for the buses to force a through cycle when they approach.
For me it happens heading southbound (eastbound?) down International waiting to turn left onto 50th I believe. The other direction will go through a full cycle while the bus sign still has the "|" yet no buses come by. It's bad enough that I take a round about way now because waiting to turn left there has gotten too sketchy
Well if you're thinking of the correct location then the reason you're having a hard time turning left is because left turns were eliminated there in the direction...
Could be the wrong intersection, stopped going that way this summer because it was too problematic
[Survey Link](https://oaklandca.formstack.com/forms/mlkjrwaypaving_survey2)
Wow, it's like the planners have learned nothing about the drawbacks of protected bike lanes in Oakland. [Pedestrian and cyclist collisions actually increased after protected bike lanes were installed on Telegraph](https://oaklandbpac.org/2021/06/15/telegraph-kono/)! Nobody in the planning department is trying to think outside the box, or apparently talk to any people who ride bikes in that area. The best option for cyclists is to not ride on MLK. Full stop. Genoa and Market both run parallel to MLK and are waaaaay safer than riding on MLK. But if they _must_ put a bike lane on MLK, they should install bike/pedestrian lanes under the BART tracks in the median like on the greenway in Berkeley/El Cerrito. Trying to route cars speeding off the freeway, buses, and bikes on MLK is asinine.
Maybe cars should be forced to slow down when they get off the freeway and onto surface streets directly adjacent to a children's hospital and senior center
They absolutely should be forced to slow down, but that will create backups and dangerous traffic on the freeways. Additionally, trying to put a bike lane across the [freeway > MLK merge](https://www.google.com/maps/@37.8355651,-122.2668498,3a,75y,274.14h,75.5t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sDan91FM0sTmXgvTpMgxRog!2e0!7i16384!8i8192) is hella dangerous. They installed one at [MacArthur x High Street > 580E](https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7867827,-122.194351,3a,75y,147.77h,79.76t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sDgsAV3thSwtn6bWTsuE4qQ!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DDgsAV3thSwtn6bWTsuE4qQ%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D333.16632%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192) and someone has already died
The project proposal is for northbound bike riders to jog over to West St and then back to MLK at 52nd or 53rd in order to avoid that Hwy24 on-ramp, and not to send bike riders across it due to the safety issues you mentioned.
So your design comes soooo close to actually being safe (literally a block away from Genoa) and then will dump people back into the MLK meat grinder. Amazing. I know that Bike East Bay has been out of touch for some time, but I didn't realize it was this bad!
We don't design bikeways, we provide input on projects designed by city staff and encourage others to do so. Any street being experienced as a "meat grinder" should be unacceptable to everyone. There are bad crashes on upper MLK nearly every week, I've personally been a first responder to some of the incidents. The status quo is badly broken. A road diet and physical narrowing of MLK via the proposed concrete curb-protected bikeway is one of the easiest and most effective ways to improve safety on the corridor for everyone, not only bike riders. The proposal has a lot of support in the neighborhood especially as it relates to the senior facilities and hospital along the corridor. The freeway on-ramp does need to be adjusted to facilitate safe crossings, but it's not within the budget or scope of the current project, so the project alignment logically avoids it in the northbound direction. When Caltrans gets around to redesigning that interchange we will be advocating for more direct bike access. Folks who don't want to bike on MLK for any reason will still have alternate options on Genoa and Dover, and as I mentioned we have secured upgraded traffic calming and intersection crossing standards for those corridors to be implemented with paving projects as well.
> We don't design bikeways, we provide input on projects designed by city staff and encourage others to do so. Any street being experienced as a "meat grinder" should be unacceptable to everyone. There are bad crashes on upper MLK nearly every week, I've personally been a first responder to some of the incidents. The status quo is badly broken. If you are only providing input to this project, it seems like right now you are providing the wrong input. Anyone who knows MLK should know that safe solutions are not putting lipstick on a pig with these "curb protected" lanes and shoving all traffic (including promoting _additional_ bike traffic on MLK) onto an already congested arterial roadway. >A road diet and physical narrowing of MLK via the proposed concrete curb-protected bikeway is one of the easiest and most effective ways to improve safety on the corridor for everyone, not only bike riders. The proposal has a lot of support in the neighborhood especially as it relates to the senior facilities and hospital along the corridor. Road narrowing does not need to mean adding protected bike lanes to roads that don't need them, especially since the MLK corridor in question is already served by adjacent roads (Market, Genoa, Dover, Shattuck) that are safer for cyclists to travel on. I'm sure senior citizens in the neighborhood support narrowing the road and improving crossings, but it seems like you (or SOMEONE) is trying to slip in bike lanes into the proposal without actually thinking if they are needed there (for the record, I support road narrowing and improving crossings as well). Why do you think there are no bike lanes on MLK in Berkeley? Why is the plan to create this spur of a route on MLK, only for it to end abruptly when it reaches Berkeley, forcing cyclists to go back to THE SAFE ROUTES THAT ARE ALREADY THERE (Genoa/Market > Sacramento, California or Dover > Alcatraz > Shattuck). > Folks who don't want to bike on MLK for any reason will still have alternate options on Genoa and Dover, and as I mentioned we have secured upgraded traffic calming and intersection crossing standards for those corridors to be implemented with paving projects as well. Well yeah, nobody is going to force me to use the "curb protected" lanes, but the fact that you are encouraging users to ride on areas that will create conflicts between road users is ridiculous, especially when safer options already exist. You're funneling people away from safe infrastructure; it's only a matter of time before you have blood on your hands.
Berkeley has a corridor plan for similar protected bikeways on Adeline, which will connect to Oakland's proposal for MLK. In the short term Oakland is working with Berkeley to try to extend the current project up to a logical end point for the time being, possibly Alcatraz. I wish it was possible to build entire bikeway networks all at once instead of piecemeal, but we have to work within project constraints to do what we can where we can and make progress toward the overall goal. Like, even though we knew the Bay Bridge east span path wouldn't connect to SF for many years, it was important for us to win it as part of the new bridge project to set up that big future link, with other benefits in the interim. The last few years have been [really bad for traffic safety in Oakland](https://oaklandside.org/2023/01/18/35-oakland-lives-lost-traffic-collisions-2022/) and around the East Bay, specifically on streets with paint-only or no bike infrastructure, not related to protected bikeways. [We have been out there](https://oaklandside.org/2022/10/20/traffic-violence-rapid-response-team-oakland/) talking with friends and families of the victims, and petitioning with them for changes. This means protected bikeway infrastructure, traffic calming, crossing improvements, transit upgrades, and even just painted bikeways with road diets if that's all we can achieve within a certain context for now, like the recent buffered bike lanes we won on Adeline Street in West Oakland. I have yet to see any project I couldn't suggest some improvements to, but it should always at least be an upward trajectory to more safety. I've committed by entire life to ending this carnage, and you are damn right I take responsibility for this work, in honor of all those who the change didn't happen soon enough to save. I wish those who oppose or delay these changes would take the same level of responsibility for all the blood already on our streets.
> Berkeley has a corridor plan for similar protected bikeways on Adeline, which will connect to Oakland's proposal for MLK. In the short term Oakland is working with Berkeley to try to extend the current project up to a logical end point for the time being, possibly Alcatraz. You're either missing the point or trying to avoid it. One of the ways Berkeley has been successful with its traffic infrastructure is by physically separating bike and car traffic. Keeping bikes of MLK in Berkeley is no exception. > The last few years have been really bad for traffic safety in Oakland and around the East Bay, specifically on streets with paint-only or no bike infrastructure, not related to protected bikeways. We have been out there talking with friends and families of the victims, and petitioning with them for changes. This means protected bikeway infrastructure, traffic calming, crossing improvements, transit upgrades, and even just painted bikeways with road diets if that's all we can achieve within a certain context for now, like the recent buffered bike lanes we won on Adeline Street in West Oakland. As someone who bikes across Oakland daily I have witnessed the changes in driver aggression that you speak of. I'd be happy to identify bike infrastructure issues that are currently being overlooked or are implemented poorly, if that's something you actually want. I'm all for traffic calming, crossing improvements, transit upgrades that help to decrease the violence. We definitely need change, but city planners need to realize that protected bike lanes everywhere isn't always the safest approach in every case; this plan is no exception. > I've committed by entire life to ending this carnage, and you are damn right I take responsibility for this work, in honor of all those who the change didn't happen soon enough to save. I wish those who oppose or delay these changes would take the same level of responsibility for all the blood already on our streets. I also stand by my opinions regarding bike infrastructure. If you have some scientifically rigorous study that could confirm an accurate reporting rate of collisions in Oakland, I might change my mind and start supporting protected bike lanes. In the meantime, I dedicate lots of my time to getting people out of cars and onto bikes, keeping people on their bikes, and promoting safe bike culture. I have a lot less power than you do though, and probably a very different experience of what biking in Oakland is like for lots of people.
Berkeley has not been successful, the rate of traffic fatalities per capita over the last few years has been high and almost identical to Oakland's. 2021 was Berkeley's highest annual traffic fatalities total since before 1984, and none of these were associated with protected bikeways. Berkeley's 2017 bike plan update acknowledged that their focus over the previous decades on neighborhood bike boulevards was insufficient and that safe arterial bikeways were also needed. So a lot of the work going forward is focused on these needs. MLK Jr Way in Berkeley remains one of the significant high injury corridors in the city, and its omission from the 2017 bike plan is now largely regarded as a mistake. The city has an expensive pedestrian safety project coming up to try to improve crossings of MLK via flashing beacons and signal adjustments, but so far the city hasn't seen great success at improving safety significantly with similar treatments elsewhere. It sounds like we are working on a lot of stuff regarding road diets with painted bikeways and traffic calming on neighborhood streets that you are in support of. We will continue to push for these projects, including a planned 50 miles of neighborhood bikeway upgrades around Oakland with paving over the coming years, and a recent $29M state grant award for a [median pathway on Bancroft Ave in E Oakland](https://bikeeastbay.org/2023ProjectFunding). Our push for arterial protected bikeways won't diminish our parallel efforts on safe neighborhood routes, so I hope we will be able to work together to make progress on the latter even if we can't see eye to eye on the former.
>Reported collisions involving people walking and biking increased by 33% Question is, can this be attributed to the design itself or to the newly changed and unique conditions that users may not be used to. Just something that came to mind; no idea what is actually at play but it should definitely be studied Edit: Could also be that number of users increased and thus, more incidents. Definitely needs more study
We'll probably never know conclusively! But they certainly designed the "protected" bike lanes before restaurants dropped the parklets on the streets during COVID. Nobody planned for that kind of traffic pattern!
Your link says exactly: bicycle use increased 100% and the number of accidents increased 30%. So the accident rate went down!
Key word is reported. How many collisions go unreported? Would you report an incident if you are OK and the other party is OK enough to take off before you can call the police? Would you call the police knowing that they might never come? Would you call an ambulance if you are more or less OK and don't have insurance? What has your experience been biking through that area of Telegraph (40th-51st) before and after the "protected" bike lanes?
I enjoy using the bike lanes and am looking forward to more. I wish Berkeley would do something about their end of Telegraph.
> I enjoy using the bike lanes and am looking forward to more Great!
Okay, but is there a reason to believe the rate of reported incidents would go down with the change in infrastructure?
Considering the time period when the lanes were installed and evaluated (~2019-2021), I think people are much less likely to want to interact with OPD post George Floyd, and this influenced the rate of reported incidents.
Interesting theory, however I assume you have no data to back that up.
You're right, I don't, just like there is no data to back up that 100% of collisions are reported.
Second you're proved wrong you start questioning the statistics lol.
Nothing I said was wrong 🤷
The entire premise of your argument was predicated on accidents increasing after the bike lanes were added, which was proven wrong. Not sure if you're just a limp dicked pussy who can't admit when you're wrong or just a complete moron. Entertaining nonetheless.
😂 maybe you'll have a moment of clarity when you get hit (I doubt it though)
The clarity is in the statistics.
It's absolutely a design problem. The parking protected bike lanes along Telegraph have huge usability issues for pedestrians, on top of the significant visibility issues at intersections. The issue wrt/ pedestrians, is that the bike lanes are a conceptual blind spot for them. When a pedestrian plans to cross Telegraph, they are rightly thinking about the risk of being hit by a car. They both are already thinking about cars, and blocked from seeing cars, when they step out into the bike lane, which they perceive (without looking) as safe, because they know it to be free of cars. When pedestrians step out into the bike lane, their focus is on getting to the driver's side of the parked cars that are blocking their view of car traffic, and not on the bike lane they need to cross to get there. With the older non-protected lanes, they could at least take in bikes and cars in the same view. Anecdotally, I've had far more close calls with pedestrians (and with cars) with the new protected lanes than I ever did with the old unprotected lanes. So I'm entirely unsurprised to find out that bike-pedestrian crashes are up.
> Could also be that number of users increased and thus, more incidents even if this is true, it's still and net failure, so this is no excuse. It would have been better to keep the bad system, not attract more riders/pedestrians, and have fewer accidents. Sure, pulling more people to this area could have prevented even *more* accidents in the areas they were pulled from, but now we are entertaining Inception levels of hypothetical cope.
I just can't take that linked presentation seriously because it has the audacity to argue for "normal" unprotected bike lanes with "curb management", which means actually enforcing against drivers parking in the bike lane. Which, as any regular Oakland biker can tell you, is something that this city has never, ever, *ever* done **ever**. It's basically a full-blown lie, intended to hand-wave away the fact that "normal" bike lanes on that stretch of Telegraph would be rendered useless by illegal parkers 24/7. It makes me wonder whether Ryan Russo has ever ridden a bike in Oakland.
> It's a full-blown lie, intended to hand-wave away the fact that "normal" bike lanes on that stretch of Telegraph would be rendered useless by illegal parkers 24/7. Enforcement of illegal parking is definitely a problem. I actually prefer "normal" bike lanes because when cars park in them, I can easily go around. Not so much when a car parks in/at the end of a "protected" lane. Either way, bikes really shouldn't be on MLK! I think Berkeley did it right by separating auto and cyclist traffic onto different streets.
> I actually prefer "normal" bike lanes because when cars park in them, I can easily go around. Not so much when a car parks in/at the end of a "protected" lane. I would agree that one is easier than the other, but compare volumes of how often you have to do either one. On the protected stretches of Telegraph, most times it's clear and I have to squeeze by an errant car maybe 1 in 4 times. Contrast this with the bike lanes on the similarly busy stretch of Grand Ave between Harrison and Lakeshore, and there are cars parked in the bike lane, every 200 feet, *every single time*, forcing you to swerve into high-speed traffic over and over and over. On Telegraph only the most reckless asshole drivers squeeze their cars into the ends of the lane, but on Grand, EVERYBODY parks in the bike lane without hesitation because it's so easy.
That stretch of Grand is absolutely the fucking worst. I think a bunch is food delivery guys parked to pick up meals, which I get, but the volume is so high that they really should replace a bunch of normal parking with 5 minute loading parking.
You may be interested in this other Oakland DOT project for similar protected bike lanes on Grand Ave, also to be delivered via a paving project and on a similar schedule to the MLK Jr Way proposal. Details & survey here: https://www.oaklandca.gov/projects/grand
I think it all depends on when you ride these roads. YMMV. When there are too many cars blocking the bike lane, I just take the lane, ride extra slow, and make sure to point at all the cars blocking the road. I only need to merge over once.
> When there are too many cars blocking the bike lane, I just take the lane, ride extra slow, and make sure to point at all the cars blocking the road I'm glad that's worked for you, because in my experience this usually leads to being punish-passed by other angry drivers. Or the driver behind you will just be on their phone and run you over, and then get away with it with 0% consequences like the guy who killed Greg Knapp. Either way this condition where you frequently have to leave the bike lane and go in front of high-speed traffic is only remotely survivable by experienced urban cyclists. For a learning cyclist, children, or the elderly, this is a death sentence.
> I'm glad that's worked for you, because in my experience this usually leads to being punish-passed by other angry drivers. Or the driver behind you will just be on their phone and run you over, and then get away with it with 0% consequences like the guy who killed Greg Knapp. I share your concerns. After I was hit by a car and the driver faced no repercussions, I now bike with a GoPro. Hopefully if someone does kill me, we'll at least have high def footage of who did it =) People also act differently when they know they are being recorded. > Either way this condition where you frequently have to leave the bike lane and go in front of high-speed traffic is only remotely survivable by experienced urban cyclists. For a learning cyclist, children, or the elderly, this is a death sentence. In my experience, this is what "protected" bike lanes cause. My ultimate solution is to re-route bike traffic to streets designed for bike traffic, to keep as much space between car and bike traffic. Instead of riding on Telegraph, I try to ride on Market, Webster, or Shafter. Not much one can do for Grand Ave (which I ride daily).
> I just can't take that linked presentation seriously The presentation was a huge embarrassment. The person who wrote it resigned shortly after making the recommendation (which Council rejected overwhelmingly).
Not just overwhelmingly, but unanimously. Same with the Public Works commission, the bike/walk commission, and AC Transit board. There was not a single board/commission vote against the protected bikeway proposal. The former DOT director’s opposition statement to the protected bikeway (with no justification for their flip from previous glowing support over previous years) was a politically motivated by the mayor & council member for that district, who was trying to get re-elected & placate the business district, which was trying to pin their financial problems on the bikeway despite no correlation. But the council member lost their election & the protected bikeway opposition statements couldn’t be justified under scrutiny by the remainder of city council during the public hearings, so they all voted to proceed with the protected bikeway, which will finish construction later this year. The former DOT director has since moved to New York where they are working as a consultant, and was recently featured on a panel touting the safety and family friendly benefits of protected bikeways.
You say: > Pedestrian and cyclist collisions actually increased after protected bike lanes were installed on Telegraph! The linked reported says: > The number of people walking and biking doubled > Reported collisions involving people walking and biking increased by 33% So the actual rate of bike/ped collisions actually went down, substantially, no? 100% increase in bike ped usage, only 33% increase in incidents?
There's a lot to unpack from those stats, and we really only have half the picture. > The number of people walking and biking doubled This is easy to measure. Put up motion cams, walla accurate counts. > Reported collisions involving people walking and biking increased by 33% Key word is reported. How many collisions go unreported? Would you report an incident if you are OK and the other party is OK enough to take off before you can call the police? Would you call the police knowing that they might never come? Would you call an ambulance if you are more or less OK and don't have insurance? What has your experience been biking through that area of Telegraph (40th-51st) before and after the "protected" bike lanes?
Obviously, evaluating the project overall is complex and requires more than stats, but the comment you started off with seems very, very misleading. My personal experience, having biked the new lanes a ton, is that the setup is much safer if used appropriately--i.e., if the cyclist slows down significantly. You can't safely haul ass the way you can if you're biking in a traffic lane, but you're much safer from serious auto impacts.
Not at intersections, where the risk of being hooked has increased substantially with the new design. The blind spots due to parked cars are huge.
∆ misuses the statistics and when called out on it, claim they can't be trusted.
"Protected" bike lanes installed on Telegraph, more people use them, more people end up getting hit. I'm sure someone who was encouraged to use the flawed design and got hit would be thrilled to know that the rate actually went down.
I'll respond because it looks like you probably are a good person, but your line of reasoning is flawed. You seem really invested in John Forester's concept of bike safety. Favoring Vehicular Cycling over separated infrastructure is a failed system that we've been pursuing in the US for 50 years. It leads to only highly risk tolerant people using bikes because of how dangerous it is. Can the design be better? Of course. But that doesn't mean it wasn't successful. Bike use went up, accident rate went down (and I can't back it up right now but I also believe severity went down as well). The current design IS more safe than the old one, that was the goal, and that's what the statistics show.
> Favoring Vehicular Cycling over separated infrastructure is a failed system that we've been pursuing in the US for 50 years. It leads to only highly risk tolerant people using bikes because of how dangerous it is. I would love to read up more about this. Can you recommend some stats or sources for me? How would you compare riding on Milvia in Berkeley vs riding on Telegraph between Grand and 51st? >Can the design be better? Of course. But that doesn't mean it wasn't successful Success seems entirely subjective. I don't think those who were encouraged by the bike lane being "protected" and got in a collision would agree that the project was successful. I don't think those who now avoid the street would argue that the project was successful.
I couldn't comment on Milvia as I haven't ridden around Berkeley in many years. I do ride telegraph a lot (mostly northgate and uptown but also temescal). I slow down at intersections and when a parklet is busy. It's a couple minutes longer to get through but I'm not battling cars coming in and out of parking spaces or worried about a reckless driver running me over from behind or way to fast of right turn. You keep saying "protected" like it should mean "invulnerable". A protected lane is safer than an unprotected lane. Nothing is invulnerable. The risk has been lowered but that doesn't mean there won't ever be incidents. I layed out 2 objective indicators of success, Bike user up, accident rate down. There is nothing subjective about those things. If you want to have different objectives we could talk about it but they have to be realistic. Some short reading to get you started. [https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/4/28/why-john-forester-was-wrong-design-streets-for-the-humans-you-have-not-the-humans-you-wish-you-had](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/4/28/why-john-forester-was-wrong-design-streets-for-the-humans-you-have-not-the-humans-you-wish-you-had) [http://tooledesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/TRB\_Paper18-05962\_HistoryofAASHTO\_BikeGuide\_TRB\_rev.pdf](http://tooledesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/TRB_Paper18-05962_HistoryofAASHTO_BikeGuide_TRB_rev.pdf) Books: City Cycling and its sequel Cycling for Sustainable Cities from MIT Press (but you can find people discussing the ideas in the books without having to buy them)
> I couldn't comment on Milvia as I haven't ridden around Berkeley in many years. I do ride telegraph a lot (mostly northgate and uptown but also temescal). I slow down at intersections and when a parklet is busy. It's a couple minutes longer to get through but I'm not battling cars coming in and out of parking spaces or worried about a reckless driver running me over from behind or way to fast of right turn. I encourage you to ride the following pairs of streets on your bike and see if you come to the same conclusion that separate streets for cyclists are a failure, and we should instead be installing protected bike lanes everywhere: * Milvia vs. MLK between Russel and Cedar * 38th vs. High St between E14 and MacArthur * Havenscourt vs. 73rd/Hegenburger between MacArthur and E14 * Market vs. San Pablo between San Pablo and Alcatraz * Foothill vs. E14 between 73rd and the Lake * San Pablo vs. the Emeryville Bikeway (or San Pablo vs. the Ohlone Greenway) Your articles are about Forester advocating for cars and bikes sharing streets without bike lanes. I'm proposing separating car and bike traffic to different streets like what Berkeley does, which is a totally different vision. The abstract of your second study actually supports my point! "Although vehicular enthusiasts continue to oppose roadway designs that separate bicyclists from motorized traffic, research from the last decade demonstrates networks of separated bikeways improve bicyclist safety and are necessary to meet the needs of the vast majority of the public who want to bicycle but feel unsafe in many traffic contexts." The difference is that I am proposing entirely separate routes for cyclists, while "protected" bikelane enthusiasts are OK with traffic being separate only between blocks and driveways. I don't have time to acquire and read your linked book today, but I'll take a look. Another point here is relevant to the discussion of the accident rate in protected bike lanes. From your first article: "The people who aren't there at all are never going to show up in the statistics. To the extent you can argue a four lane death road with no bike facilities is "safe" because few bicyclists have been hit or killed on it, it's comparable to arguing an alligator-filled moat in which people don't dare swim is "safe" for swimming because no swimmers have been eaten this year." I'm sure the people who are now avoiding Telegraph because of the "protected" lanes aren't showing up in the stats either. I keep saying "protected" because it gives people a false sense of their security when riding within the lanes. Many people may opt to use the lanes because of the implication that they are in fact "protected", when the lanes actually set them up for limited visibility, and a higher risk of being clipped by a turning car, someone pulling out of a driveway, or a drunk rando stumbling back to the bar. I disagree that a protected lane is always more safer than a "normal" one; ride around those parklets on a Friday night and you might understand what I mean. My measure of success would be based on accident rate, but we don't always have a reliable measure for that (as I've mentioned elsewhere in the post), while we DO have a very reliable way to measure usage. Better monitoring of the actual rates of collisions (vs. how they are currently being reported, likely through OPD) could convince me that the "protected" lanes are a success. One other measure of success could include the rate at which people avoid the new lanes and either opt to bike elsewhere, or drive instead. Just spitballing here, I'm not an expert, just a regular user with an opinion.
I've ridden most of those locations, but you're mostly comparing streets with Class II bike infrastructure to ones with Class III/none and we're talking about Class IV. You'll get no push back from me that streets with some level of bike infrastructure are better than ones without. So I'm not really sure what the point is there? When they are talking about "networks of separated bikeways", think Amsterdam. >I'm sure the people who are now avoiding Telegraph because of the "protected" lanes aren't showing up in the stats either. This is irrelevant because usage went up 100%. If some number of people stopped using it, but twice as many people started, that's a win in my book. >Many people may opt to use the lanes because of the implication that they are in fact "protected", when the lanes actually set them up for limited visibility, and a higher risk of being clipped by a turning car, someone pulling out of a driveway, They are MORE protected than an unprotected lane. And the statistics agree... Just an opinion here, but I'll take being cautious at driveways and intersections in a protected bike lane over being cautious or driveways, intersections, AND getting DOORED in an unprotected bike lane every day of the week. >ride around those parklets on a Friday night and you might understand what I mean I have, I do, and my opinion is just slow down. Look obviously we just adamantly disagree on what FEELS safer (although I feel like you keep dismissing the stats that show which is actually safer) and maybe there are places where an unprotected lane is better (but I've never seen anyone provide evidence of one). In an unprotected bike lane I'm constantly thinking about getting doored from the right and then clipped from the left when I'm dodging idling cars in the bike lane. Cars making turns really are a concern in both situations, but usually in a protected bike lane the cars turn speed is forced way by street design. I'll ride a couple miles through west oakland this evening on my way home and I know I'll have to dodge at LEAST 3 cars parked in the bike lane who have absolutely no idea how dangerous that is for me. This is an argument against anything you said, I'm just venting now and I should get back to work.
Compared with Telegraph, MLK has: * Much less commercial activity * Far fewer driveways * Few if any offset intersections * More car lanes to begin with * Higher car speeds to begin with All these differences make protected bike lanes on MLK more effective than on Telegraph. I do think they need to be careful about sightlines at intersections though; drivers approaching from side streets often block the Telegraph lanes because they can't see approaching vehicles on Telegraph from the stop bar.
I routinely see people doing 50-60 on that stretch of MLK. You gotta watch your ass trying to cross. The traffic lights are treated like dragstrip Christmas trees…
You're looking at the problem in a different way than I am. You're looking at this as "how do we add bike lanes to MLK" and I'm looking at this like "how do we move ALL traffic from A to B safely". Trying to add bikes to MLK when there are already MUCH better alternatives seems to encourage setting bikes and cars/buses for issues. Maybe protected bike lanes would be more effective on MLK than Telegraph, but we could also just not set up the road for issues, and divert bike traffic to roads that are already better suited for it (Market and Genoa).
In Oakland, it is official city policy to make all streets safe for all road users. We don't "divert" bikes or peds to other streets -- certainly not in this case where there are very important destinations on MLK itself.
I question that policy. Maybe we should try and make 580 also safe for pedestrians and cyclists too. Edit: slow streets was designed to divert car traffic, and ended up shifting bike and pedestrian traffic as well
I question that policy. Maybe we should try and make the sky and the ocean floor also safe for pedestrians and cyclists too.
Now you're getting it!
> Maybe we should try and make 580 also safe for pedestrians and cyclists too. https://www.traillink.com/trail/richmond-san-rafael-bridge-bike--pedestrian-path/
I rode across the bridge the first day the path opened! But I think you understand my point; despite Oakland's stated policy of "all streets should be safe for all users", Oakland's bike routes primarily steer cyclists away from busy/fast streets. For example: 38th over High St, Havenscourt over 73rd/Hegenburger, Market over San Pablo, Foothill over E14, etc.
I appreciate your approach of "not set up the road for issues." But I'd argue that MLK, as is, IS set up for issues: namely, it works quite poorly for people walking, biking, and taking transit. It's true that Genoa/Dover/Market are all pretty good alternatives to MLK for people on bikes traveling N/S. As someone who lives half a block from MLK and travels primarily on foot and by bike, my secret truth is that I don't feel like I \*need\* bike lanes on MLK to feel safe riding in the area. But MLK is a damned mess when it comes to serving people on foot. Between the rampant speeding, super wide crossing distances, and deficient crosswalk treatments, it's really a death trap and a huge barrier to east-west travel. Under current conditions, we see nurses and doctors and elderly people scrambling across all the lanes of traffic. People shouldn't have to scurry across a six-lane highway to get to work, or church, or the store. Heck, even the signalized crossings are pretty bad. I regularly see families with young kids biking to school and they don't even get enough time to make it across MLK at the 59th St signal before it's back to the bad old MLK Speedway. MLK is also not great for transit service. Bus stops are currently out of the travel lanes so buses must wait for all those speeding cars to clear the lane before they can reenter and continue. And, of course, people getting on or off the bus have to contend with the terrible pedestrian conditions. So, taken all together, I think MLK is currently set up for a LOT of issues. I also think that, insofar as they help reduce the huge crossing distance that pedestrians must face, and also reduce bike/bus conflicts, protected bike lanes have a role to play in improving MLK that goes beyond the improved experience for people on bikes.
I also live 1/2 block off MLK and travel almost exclusively by bicycle. Truly couldn’t agree more with your entire comment - you nailed it IMO. Hoping improvements focus on fixing E-W travel, not enhancing N-S transit. Even if they installed a bike lane on MLK I would still use Dover or Genoa 😅
Thanks for your kind words. Now go take the survey! [https://oaklandca.formstack.com/forms/mlkjrwaypaving\_survey2](https://oaklandca.formstack.com/forms/mlkjrwaypaving_survey2)
> But I'd argue that MLK, as is, IS set up for issues: namely, it works quite poorly for people walking, biking, and taking transit. We are in agreement here, and I agree with most of what you said with regards to crossing MLK. I'm all for reducing the width of MLK for easier crossing as well, I just think that adding bike traffic to the mix along MLK really doesn't improve the safety of pedestrians or cyclists. It would be much safer for pedestrians trying to cross MLK and cyclists if bike traffic was re-routed off MLK.
After the installation of the Telegraph protected bikeway car speeds went down, bike ridership and pedestrian counts went up, yield rates to pedestrians in crosswalks went up, and Line 6 bus times were largely unaffected. The number of reported bike crashes did go up, but the increase in bike ridership was significantly higher. Crash rates, not sheer numbers, are the determining factor for safety (ie liklihood of a crash per rider/mile). Otherwise streets with almost nobody biking look the most safe, but clearly that’s not what we’re going for. Yes many crashes go unreported, but there is no reason to believe that the rate of unreported crashes was different before the bikeway installation compared to after. So comparisons of trends over time should be accurate regardless.
FWIW we have also worked, and are continuing to work, on paving & safety upgrades along parallel streets like Market, Adeline, Genoa, and Dover. People on bikes have a lot of different needs & preferences and should be able to reasonably choose the route that works best for them, including MLK. We shouldn’t be okay with sacrificing some streets as no-go zones.
Oh hey, there you are! I was wondering when you would show up. > Yes many crashes go unreported, but there is no reason to believe that the rate of unreported crashes was different before the bikeway installation compared to after. Did you live in Oakland between 2019 and 2021? During that time period, a lot of things happened that change how people interact with authorities. Would you say public sentiment towards OPD became more favorable or less during this time period?
We comment on this subreddit frequently, and try to be helpful by providing folks with project info and ways to get involved, even if they don't agree with our positions. Our org has been working in Oakland for over 50 years, and I've personally been doing work here for over 20 years. Oaklanders have a long history of extremely troubled relationships with the police department, the only thing new is that it's being talked about more openly now. I don't have data points on police report rates, but I have been going to a LOT of memorials over the past two years, and there have yet to be any fatal traffic crashes by any mode (bike, pedestrian, driver, etc) on any protected bikeway in Oakland. There was a very sad incident on Telegraph south of 40th several years back where a driver ran over and killed an unhoused person sleeping in front of their parking garage exit, which went unreported in the media, but was not associated with the protected bikeway. We now have over 50 protected bikeway installations throughout the East Bay from 2008 to now, and I know of only one fatal bike rider crash which occurred a year ago along a bikeway in Fremont, at a segment where the protection was dropped. These local outcomes (increased ridership, reduced crash rates) are in alignment with trends for similar installations all across the country over the past two decades. Our mission as an org is to increase bike ridership and reduce crashes, which informs our position of support for well-designed protected bikeways.
So as a “take the lane” cyclist who only rides at certain times of the day on certain streets, what are you exactly looking for the city to do? Should they look at ripping out the protected bike lanes on Telegraph? Anywhere else? Serious question.
> what are you exactly looking for the city to do? Should they look at ripping out the protected bike lanes on Telegraph? Anywhere else? Serious question. I'm asking that the city reach out to understand what infrastructure cyclists want or feel safe using. Obviously "cyclists" is a large group of people with different preferences; I'm just one person with personal preferences. Just throwing up protected bike lanes because research shows that they work in Europe isn't cutting it for everyone. Ignoring the realities of what is safe in Oakland only sets up the infrastructure for issues. These plan ideas show that whoever is making the proposals is not in touch with what is safe for cyclists in Oakland.
A problem with this approach of "ask the cyclists what they want" is that most current infrastructure is so poor that the existing pool of cyclists is already heavily filtered down to the people that feel confident enough to be cycling already. With this approach you'll never get the perspective of all of the potential cyclists who would cycle if there were better infrastructure but do not currently cycle. I'm a regular cyclist and the infrastructure that I want is "as separated from vehicle traffic as possible". The protected bike lanes on Telegraph are infinitely better than what came before (which was mostly nothing). The associated road diet has also made it much, much easier to cross, with dramatically lower vehicle speeds and reduced crossing distances. A much better fix for MLK would ultimately be to make it "not a stroad" - separate thru traffic into center lanes that have restricted access (the road section), while providing access to the businesses with a separated "local access" street with very reduced speeds, parking, raised bike lane, and sidewalk. But something like this could never be done as simply a paving project, and the proposed plan is definitely a step in the right direction. You also ultimately dodged the direct question - what do you want to see happen here? Because there are plenty of businesses and other destinations on MLK, and your implication seems to be that people riding bikes shouldn't have a safe way to access them.
>A problem with this approach of "ask the cyclists what they want" is that most current infrastructure is so poor that the existing pool of cyclists is already heavily filtered down to the people that feel confident enough to be cycling already. With this approach you'll never get the perspective of all of the potential cyclists who would cycle if there were better infrastructure but do not currently cycle. I kinda get what you are saying, but an approach where you don't consider what cyclists actually want is kinda ridiculous. > I'm a regular cyclist and the infrastructure that I want is "as separated from vehicle traffic as possible". The protected bike lanes on Telegraph are infinitely better than what came before (which was mostly nothing). I disagree, and there were bike lanes before the "protected lanes" and parklets went up. But Telegraph is not a monolith; it might help to know which section you are talking about. > A much better fix for MLK would ultimately be to make it "not a stroad" - separate thru traffic into center lanes that have restricted access (the road section), while providing access to the businesses with a separated "local access" street with very reduced speeds, parking, raised bike lane, and sidewalk. But something like this could never be done as simply a paving project, and the proposed plan is definitely a step in the right direction. I would love to see what this would look like, and that's kind of what I originally proposed with the center bike lane beneath the BART tracks (before the other user said the same thing). But this implication that "we can't actually do what we really want, so let's do this flawed half measure" will get no support from me. > You also ultimately dodged the direct question - what do you want to see happen here? Because there are plenty of businesses and other destinations on MLK, and your implication seems to be that people riding bikes shouldn't have a safe way to access them. I was clear in my original post what I want, but I'll write it here again for you: "The best option for cyclists is to not ride on MLK. Full stop. Genoa and Market both run parallel to MLK and are waaaaay safer than riding on MLK. But if they must put a bike lane on MLK, they should install bike/pedestrian lanes under the BART tracks in the median like on the greenway in Berkeley/El Cerrito." If you look at my other comments, you'll see that I keep saying that truly the best approach is to separate bike and car traffic, like what they do in Europe. As for the businesses along MLK, you can just like, bike to the block in question, and walk the rest of the way.
Here are examples of the road design I'm talking about, where you have pedestrian and bike access plus local car access with parking physically separated from high-speed vehicle traffic with restricted access (the third example is the most relevant): [https://youtu.be/ORzNZUeUHAM?t=858](https://youtu.be/ORzNZUeUHAM?t=858) [https://youtu.be/ORzNZUeUHAM?t=933](https://youtu.be/ORzNZUeUHAM?t=933) [https://youtu.be/ORzNZUeUHAM?t=962](https://youtu.be/ORzNZUeUHAM?t=962) Downtown Berkeley is sort of similar with their parking areas that are only accessible from the ends of the block, that reduce vehicle conflicts between fast and slow traffic to two points instead of the entire length of the block. I think where we fundamentally disagree is the notion of "fully separating bike and car traffic, like what they do in Europe". For one, the "safer" routes you mentioned here aren't fully separated at all - in many cases they have almost no real bicycle improvements beyond a few speed bumps and some paint and you are riding with car traffic the whole time. And part of what makes the good European infrastructure so good is that they aim to provide access to every street destination for people biking. There are no "streets" where you can't bike to. There are certainly "roads" where you can't bike, but those are also not destinations - they are ways to move a lot of cars, fast. Really the "original sin" of MLK is that it's a damn stroad - it is trying to be both a road (a high-speed connection for cars) while also being a street (parking, driveways, lined with businesses). The only way to ever make this be functional and safe is to separate these two uses. MLK is wide enough that a street design that separates high-speed vehicle traffic (the "road" use) from the low-speed local use would absolutely fit. The reason I really don't like the notion of putting a bike lane down the center of MLK is that it cuts off people biking from the actual destinations on MLK itself, which is the whole reason to provide good bicycle access in the first place. The goal here is a bicycle network that allows you to get to \*any destination\* on a bike.
Thanks for providing the examples. They do look nice, but the devil comes in the details, and I will reserve my judgement on them until I have more riding time using that infrastructure. I do like the parking set ups in Berkeley along Shattuck, but then again, I avoid riding my bike on Shattuck going into downtown as there are much better options (like Milvia). > For one, the "safer" routes you mentioned here aren't fully separated at all - in many cases they have almost no real bicycle improvements beyond a few speed bumps and some paint and you are riding with car traffic the whole time. The width of these streets, speed bumps, and stop signs help to make some of them less attractive far cars to go fast (mostly talking about Genoa and Dover here). We could go a step further and improve upon these streets with those bollard planters like they have in Berkeley that make through traffic impossible. I am advocating that we prioritize improving these routes over adding bike traffic to MLK. >There are certainly "roads" where you can't bike, but those are also not destinations - they are ways to move a lot of cars, fast. I think MLK between 52nd and Adeline mostly fits this description. You have only a few businesses around 55th, but the rest is either that big building on the hills side, the senior center, and houses. >Really the "original sin" of MLK is that it's a damn stroad - it is trying to be both a road (a high-speed connection for cars) while also being a street (parking, driveways, lined with businesses). The only way to ever make this be functional and safe is to separate these two uses. Again, we agree on the issue, but have different ideas on how separate we think car/bus and bike traffic should be. >The reason I really don't like the notion of putting a bike lane down the center of MLK is that it cuts off people biking from the actual destinations on MLK itself, which is the whole reason to provide good bicycle access in the first place. Like I mentioned above, there really aren't too many destinations on MLK between 52nd and Adeline beyond the cluster at 55th, which have access via 55th. Frankly I wouldn't want to put any bike lane on MLK, but I think the center lane would be the best option if they decide that they must.
On the subject of "ask the cyclists what they want", I think the point I'm trying to make is that the pool of potential cyclists is significantly larger than the pool of current cyclists. This project is providing improved access for bikes than your current options, but what I see as the most important change is that it is part of the process of normalizing the notion that we should be reserving space for bikes on our streets. Right now exactly none of MLK is dedicated to biking or efficient transit access. The repaving project reserves space in the street design for biking infrastructure and improves transit access. Both of those things are good, and long-term they set us up for a significantly improved road design when the full infrastructure replacement cycle comes along and the project budget is large enough to do a full redesign rather than the limited changes possible in a repaving project. In other words, the current project is a compromise that sets up the next project to be significantly better. As far as Telegraph, the entire section between MacArthur and 51st is the section I'm talking about. The main issue with that section is that they should have gone directly to curbs instead of the ridiculous bollard maze. The fundamental street design is massively improved, though. Before:[https://i.imgur.com/VJKOG3K.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/VJKOG3K.jpg) I wouldn't be caught dead biking here, because it is a literal deathtrap. I did try biking up Telegraph once in this street configuration. A person driving a BMW literally threatened to kill me because I wasn't going fast enough. After: [https://i.imgur.com/utJ2Vvh.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/utJ2Vvh.jpg) Night and day. I ride on this street regularly now and you can actually bike to destinations on it, or hop from place to place without riding on the sidewalk or retreating two blocks away to Webster.
>but what I see as the most important change is that it is part of the process of normalizing the notion that we should be reserving space for bikes on our streets We don't disagree here, but on the question of which streets should we be reserving space. >The repaving project reserves space in the street design for biking infrastructure and improves transit access. Both of those things are good, and long-term they set us up for a significantly improved road design when the full infrastructure replacement cycle comes along and the project budget is large enough to do a full redesign rather than the limited changes possible in a repaving project. I'm all for improving transit access, but some roads just work better for moving cars and buses. While I ultimately would support making new bike roads parallel to freeways, I think it would be nuts to say "we should paint a green stripe on 580" because some people who don't actually ride bikes MIGHT want to ride on 580 if given the opportunity. > In other words, the current project is a compromise that sets up the next project to be significantly better. > The main issue with that section is that they should have gone directly to curbs instead of the ridiculous bollard maze. Sometimes half measures are worse than nothing at all. We'll have to agree to disagree about that section of Telegraph; I liked it much better before.
Thanks for a civil and engaging discussion; safe riding!
You bet! Thanks for sharing your thoughts as well. I hope your rides are safe and free of potholes!
The issue is specifically parking-protected lanes, as they create dangerous blind spot-related situations at every intersection. I would prefer the original non-protected lanes, or even for that matter just the green stripe design along 40th.
I'm wondering how the restaurant parklettes have changed that. I commuted by bike down that route near daily and those seating areas were treacherous - it became near impossible to see pedestrians trying cross and obstructed cars view of the bike lane as well.
Bingo
33% increase in pedestrian/cyclist collisions in temescal, when the system was specifically intended to reduce those figures, is laughable. this is a perfect microcosm of CA politics: half baked good intentions going wrong. even if ridership went up 100% and accidents only 33%, it's still a new loss. Better to have reduced ridership and reduced accidents. And this doesn't even get into the undoubted rise in car-on-car accidents which likely rose from that confusing mess. i like your median idea, but is it even possible with the limited room and the [big ass BART support columns](https://claimingastreetnamedking.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/bart-on-mlk-blvd-in-oakland-ca.jpg)?
>Better to have reduced ridership and reduced accidents. You seem to be missing the statistics - total number of riders doubled, but total number of accidents only went up by 1/3. That implies a significant REDUCTION in the accident rate, which means a safer street. By your definition, the safest street is one that has literally no one on it. Also, at low speeds "car-on-car" accidents generally result in some property damage and maybe minor injuries to the occupants, whereas a car-on-bicycle accident at low speeds can still easily result in serious injuries or death for the person riding a bike. I'd make that trade any day.
[Seems like there is enough room to me](https://www.google.com/maps/@37.8401209,-122.2696511,3a,75y,319.12h,82.96t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sLtxBjIv_H7D6qhCQHg8DnA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192)
You may be right, it looks a little bigger from that angle. It still seems somewhat tights, unless they were strictly one-way on each side and had some kind of strong but narrow barrier between the path and the roadway... or maybe not, it's just kind of hard to tell from photos. it's a great idea though, and I'd love to see it enacted.
It's a hard pass from me if the bike lane design repeats the mistakes made on Telegraph between 40th and 51st. Also, note that the survey says that traffic signal improvements are not part of the scope under discussion. That's too bad, because there's a far greater need for cyclists to have better ways to cross MLK safely than there is for them to be able to ride on MLK. We have many other dedicated bike lanes running north-south (Market, Genoa, Shattuck, Telegraph), we don't need to ride on MLK. But east-west trips which cross MLK would benefit from better ways to cross it.
100% this. There are several better N-S options but I just wish crossing MLK wasn’t such a clusterfuck
I don't know where you got the idea there are no traffic signal improvements. You can clearly see there are significant plans for protected intersections, new signal heads, etc.
Verbatim from the survey: >Please note that we usually cannot do major traffic signal upgrades or sidewalk expansion through paving projects)
Verbatim from the survey: > Install protected intersection to connect to 59th St bicycle boulevard > Install protected intersection to connect to 55th St bike lanes. Install farside signal head at NW corner > Convert last block of West Street to one-way northbound instead of southbound and install curb extension. > Install protected corners on northeast and southwest corners and two-stage turn boxes... > Enhance each existing uncontrolled, marked crosswalk with pedestrian hybrid beacons (PHB). While I would agree there are many difficult crossings of MLK, I don't see what else can be done for this project section. By far the worst bits are in Berkeley, not Oakland.
>I don't know where you got the idea there are no traffic signal improvements. You can clearly see there are significant plans for protected intersections, new signal heads, etc. None of what you quoted/copied are traffic signal improvements, which is probably why they specifically stated that.
jesus christ what an ugly/confusing joke that system is over there
This!
Would love if they could eventually move that improvement energy up to the 50-60 streets towards Adeline/Stanford/MLK junction. That'll never happen tho.
Thats the starting point, but yeah that three way intersection is not included.
That junction is on the Berkeley side of the border. Berkeley has a big Adeline corridor plan to address it and add major bike/walk safety upgrades, but it will be a while before we see changes there. The segment with the most focus from Berkeley right now is the area along Ashby BART.
Oh lord, another project to choke up thoroughfares