The paths will link parts of town that cyclists could previously only get to by riding on bumpy roads in need of repair that are also heavily used by motor vehicle traffic.

I’m hoping Emeryville will catch on, and make more of an effort to link itself to the Berkeley paths so I can use these new routes!

You can read more about the details of the expansion in the article from today’s Contra Costa Times.

photo courtesy of: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nafmo/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

San Francisco got a new bike lane! It’s the first new bike lane in the city in three years, and it’s green! SF Streetsblog has a great video of the press conference about it. In it, Mayor Newsom informs us that we currently have 45 miles of bike lanes in the city, and over the next six months want to stripe six more miles. The city will also be installing five bike racks per day.  And they’re painting the pavement different colors so everyone can see it’s a bike only zone. Some of those painted areas will be in front of the cars at stop lights, so that cyclists can be easily seen by cars at lights, and will get to go first when the light changes green. On top of that, they’re changing the timing of traffic lights so that bikes have enough time to get through.

Maybe it’s more like twelve steps forward, two steps back? Wow. Good job, San Francisco!

By why the sudden increase? As it turns out there was an injunction in place that prevented the city from making cycling improvements. Since that injunction, there has been a 53% increase in cycling. Mayor Newsom asks us to imagine what the increase could look like if we had bike lanes everywhere. He states that our goal is to increase the percentage of bike commutes in the city from the current 6% to 10% of commutes.

The lifting of the injunction is for sure yet, and the Mayor warns us that we may have to undo our improvements if the injunction isn’t permanently lifted. But there’s an air of optimism around the event–I think we’ll be seeing a total lifting of the injunction, and a lot more bicycle advocacy in San Francisco.

You can also read more about the new bike improvements at the San Francisco Citizen blog.

The Bicycle Boulevard system is great because it’s really just a series of road that are specially designated as bike paths.  They’re typically roads that see a low volume of traffic but are wide enough to leave plenty of room for cylcists to coexist with any cars that do happen to drive there.  The Bicycle Boulevards in the East Bay have few stop signs, and often have bridges or cut-through paths where appropriate. These modifications allow a cyclist to keep cruising at a decent speed, without having to take back roads that have a stop sign every block, or a bike path that can be slow and congested with joggers, walkers, roller bladers, and the like.

The City of Berkeley’s website has great details about where the Bicycle Boulevards are located, and how to understand the signage along the routes.  If you’re commuting in the East Bay, I encourage you to try and find your way via the Bicycle Boulevard system. It’s well marked, and can get you pretty much anywhere you need to go around Emeryville and Berkeley.