The HAWK signal on San Pablo at Dartmouth was finally turned a couple months ago. This provides the critical link in Albany’s most relaxed cycling network. It allows riding between the Bay Trail and the Ohlone Greenway, and all points between, with only six blocks on street, all of them on Dartmouth, which has among the fewest motorists of any Albany street.
This network is shown on the new maps below. The maps are sponsored by the Albany Little League and the Albany Berkeley Soccer Club because using the network, it is also possible to ride to and from the Albany Little League fields and the soccer and softball fields at the west end of Codornices Creek with minimal exposure to motorists as well.
Let your family and friends who have been interested in biking, but not if it means mixing it up with lots of motorists, know there is a network for them now. In fact, it is one of the most comfortable networks connecting homes to destinations in the urban East Bay.
Clicking on the map images below brings up higher resolution, scalable versions.
Great work!
Looks great! Excited to start coming to some meetings to participate!
I don’t understand why the route encourages sidewalk riding on that section of San Pablo – it’s terrible. Much easier to turn into the village at the signal off Buchanan and then ride up to the bike path next to Habit. Drivers in the Village aren’t going fast and there are plenty of stop signs. Very safe. The sidewalk is a bad idea.
Thank you Lin. It is indeed a bit hard to portray the situation on a map at this scale.
The section of sidewalk recommended for riding is between Village Creek (just north of Sprouts) and the southwest corner of Marin and San Pablo. There is no cycling path making this connection currently. CalTrans, recognizing that some people would likely ride the wrong way on San Pablo from the north end of the cycletrack by Sprouts, approved the cycletrack on the condition Albany make riding that sidewalk segment legal to reduce the likelihood of people riding the wrong way. I have not checked if Albany has done so, but if not it is violating the agreement with CalTrans as I understand it.
Last Monday, the Council adopted an update to the City’s five year Capital Improvement Plan. This update includes a project to extend the cycletrack from Village Creek to Marin so it connects to the east end of the Buchanan path. This is listed in the Plan as a currently unfunded project. There are a number of grant sources that could pay for it (less any required local match, which is typically 10% to 20% of the project cost). This grant application would presumably compete well because it closes a short gap and is part of a marquee project (CalTrans is touting it approval of the San Pablo cycletrack as a first).
AS&R is encouraging city staff to apply for a grant from the state’s Active Transportation Program cycle 4 funds, which will disburse over $400 million over the next few years. AS&R has not heard back from staff affirmatively that it will do so. You can write citycouncil@albanyca.org if you would like to encourage Council to direct (and staff to proceed with) preparation and submittal of grant applications to improve this key link in Albany’s most relaxed cycling network.
Preston and Lin- Albany’s Transportation Commission made sidewalk riding legal on the west side of San Pablo between the cycletrack and the Marin Extension some time ago. The south sidewalk of Dartmouth, between San Pablo and Kains, was also made legal for cyclists at the same time. This enables cyclists to approach the push button for the HAWK signal.
I love this map, I love the thought behind it, and I love the fact that you guys were succesfully pushing to get that safe connection between the Bay trail and the Oholone Greenway!
The one thing i disagree on is the “safe” circle in and out of the UC Village. It’s not safe at all for kids, which is bad, because there are plenty of kids in the UC Village.
What I don’t understand is, why during that recent development on Monroe when Sprouts, the Elderly home etc were built, no bike path OUT of the Village connecting to the path on San Pablo and on Buchanan was built? The development with the addition of that huge parking increased car traffic on Monroe by a lot, and all the buses don’t help. I just don’t feel safe biking on the road there with my kid, but unfortunately it is also the one spot in Albany where having her bike on the sidewalk is very inconvenient also, with all the people getting from there car to the shops and back. Unfortunately Eight and Harrison don’t feel very safe either, with the homeless encampments taking up much of the space and a lot of shards and debris on the road. And Eight and Jackson (which admittedly is not colored as a safe route) don’t feel very safe either, with all the (illegal) through traffic, with many cars that don’t obey to the very low speed limit.
I wish I knew who to contact about that, because I feel that they are right now potentially repeating the same mistake on Jackson while they are rebuilding Ocean View elementary school. Ocean View school has attracted an astounding amount of car traffic in the morning and afternoon, when parents are dropping of there kids, and somebody biking out of the Village in that direction had to cross that “loop of cars” twice. I really hope they come up with a better solution this time (e.g. a two-way bike path across the street), but it doesn’t look that way.
Also, the only elementary school that is not on the map, is Cornell, which is funnily enough the one my daughter is attending. And in fact I still haven’t found out which is the most relaxed way to get there (from the UC Village, with a kid). Riding sidewalk at least part of the way on Marin or Solano seems almost unavoidable to me. I have tried Cornell or Talbot to Dartmouth, but honestly I don’t like riding on the street there, and crossing Marin without switching to the crosswalk, which is only on one side, is terrible. Any suggestions?