The City of Berkeley celebrates the Grand Opening of the East Touchdown Plaza/Berkeley Animal Shelter. The East Touchdown Plaza is a public plaza with an embedded bicycle map of Berkeley and seatwalls, a pedestrian promenade, art panels and new Bay-Friendly landscaping). There will be refreshments, display tables, a few events and tours of the new building. And, of course, Mayor Tom Bates will say a few words.
Join the Berkeley Parks, Recreation & Waterfront Departments and the East Bay Bicycle Coalition in celebrating another beautiful piece of the Berkeley bikeway network.
It’s time for the Albany Arts & Green Festival again!
Our free Bicycle Valet Parking service at the Arts & Green Festival is always popular!
photo courtesy Matt McHugh
As AS&R does every year, we will provide FREE bicycle valet parking, sponsored by Bua Luang Thai Cuisine, so you can enjoy the festival without worrying about your bike.
Come visit our booth to find out about what’s going on for cyclists and pedestrians here in Albany!
For the 6th straight year, non-profit bike workshop Street
Level Cycles will provide free or low-cost bike tuneups, so if you have an old bike that you want to get road-ready, come on down!
Street Level Cycles has graciously donated free bike tuneup services at the Arts & Green Festival since 2008
photo courtesy Matt McHugh
CAN YOU VOLUNTEER TO HELP US? ALL VOLUNTEERS WILL GET A CHIPOTLE BURRITO FOR LUNCH AND THE FIRST 15 TO VOLUNTEER WILL GET A SPECIAL COUPON FROM BUA LUANG THAI CUISINE.
We need people to park bikes and work at our table. Please email Amy Smolens to help out!
Thanks, Bua Luang, for supporting our community with your sponsorshp!
WanThe EBBC is proud to present the 3rd annual Pedalfest in collaboration with Jack London Square, Bay Area Bikes and New Belgium Brewing Co.
This fantastic outdoor festival brings out the best in cycling – with contests, classes, games, and shows throughout the day. Here is a sampling of some of the awesome things you can expect from Pedalfest 2013:
* Handmade and vintage bikes
* BMX competition
* Whiskeydrome: cycling daredevils
* Pedal-powered food and beverage
* Rock the Bike: a pedal-powered music stage
* New Belgium Beer Garden
* Bike trivia dunk tank
* Bicycle vendors, artisans and more!
* Oaklandish bicycle parade
* Kids bike rodeo | Bike tune-ups with the Bikemobile
* Cyclecide pedal-powered carnival rides!
* Bike Folding Race
* Free EBBC bike valet
* Free SF Bay Ferry rides when you bring your bike
Get more details and see last year’s photo gallery at pedalfestjacklondon.com
We can’t wait to see you there! Come out and volunteer to help with our valet bike parking, outreach, pouring beer, and helping out with our activities, or just come enjoy the festival and raise a (beer) glass to a great event celebrating our rich and diverse bike culture here in the East Bay. All proceeds from the New Belgium beer gardens go to benefit the bicycle advocacy work of the East Bay Bicycle Coalition.
Want to ride or BART and ride from Albany? Write something in the ‘comments’ below.
Have an old bike sitting in your garage? As part of the City’s Safe Routes to School Program, Albany Middle School students are asking for donations of used bikes (any size) to fix up and donate to students of all ages before Bike to School Day on May 7th. Drop off used bikes at Albany Middle School between 2pm-5pm on Wednesday, April 2nd. Email greenalbany@albanyca.org for more information.
Albany Strollers & Rollers is excited to be teaming with our neighbors to the north, Rich City Rides, to provide FREE Bicycle Valet Parking at the two-day Berkeley Kite Festival.
Come on down and enjoy the festival!!
Come on down and enjoy the Festival where the earth, wind, and sky combine to create an unequaled festival experience. Food, music, arts & crafts, a new “kids’ zone,” food – and yes… plenty of kites!! Lots to do for the whole family!
We’ll take care of your bikes while you have fun!
During the past 29 years, the Berkeley Kite Festival has developed a soaring reputation as one of the premier free family festivals on the West Coast.
And we’ll take care of your bicycle while you and your family enjoy all the activities the BKF has to offer! We’re expecting 1000 bikes over the course of the weekend so come join the fun.
Want to help out? We can still use a few volunteers to help park bikes – the cool thing is that you get to see the kites flying while you’re at our table!
Thanks.
Albany Strollers & Rollers is excited to be teaming with our neighbors to the north, Rich City Rides, to provide FREE Bicycle Valet Parking at the two-day Berkeley Kite Festival.
Come on down and enjoy the festival!!
Come on down and enjoy the Festival where the earth, wind, and sky combine to create an unequaled festival experience. Food, music, arts & crafts, a new “kids’ zone,” food – and yes… plenty of kites!! Lots to do for the whole family!
We’ll take care of your bikes while you have fun!
During the past 29 years, the Berkeley Kite Festival has developed a soaring reputation as one of the premier free family festivals on the West Coast.
And we’ll take care of your bicycle while you and your family enjoy all the activities the BKF has to offer! We’re expecting 1000 bikes over the course of the weekend so come join the fun.
Want to help out? We can still use a few volunteers to help park bikes – the cool thing is that you get to see the kites flying while you’re at our table!
Thanks.
Give your input to improve the Greenway by El Cerrito BART stations!
Come help our neighbor to the North, El Cerrito, shape its (and your) bicycle and pedestrian future!
The primary goals of this project are to:
*Improve bicycle and pedestrian routes to transit, commercial nodes and housing
*Bring new vibrancy to the areas around the BART stations
*Increase safety and accessibility for BART riders and Greenway users
*Improve the integration of the El Cerrito Plaza and El Cerrito del Norte BART Stations with the surrounding community.
Here are some of the 96 BikeLink lockers at nearby El Cerrito Plaza BART
On Tuesday November 10 the City of El Cerrito will host a community meeting to review the preferred plan for the Ohlone Greenway at the El Cerrito del Norte and El Cerrito Plaza BART station areas. This is the last of several outreach efforts to engage the public in the process of re-designing the Ohlone Greenway at two key areas in the City. At the meeting, community members will have a chance to voice their opinion on the preferred plan to create gateway elements and outdoor gathering spaces around the Greenway and BART stations, improve the mixed-use bicycle and pedestrian path and intersection crossings, and other enhancements.For more info, go here.
Do you or your family ride to the Tom Bates ball fields, the Bay Trail, César Chávez Park, Emeryville or anywhere else passing along Gilman and the I-80 interchange? Would you rather have a safer, more pleasant ride? Here’s an opportunity to give input so that happens.
In 2014, Caltrans gave the City of Berkeley permission to move ahead with plans for double-roundabouts at the I-80 and Gilman Street interchange, located in West Berkeley near the boundary with the City of Albany. 
Such roundabouts are not friendly to active transportation. Consequently an active transportation overpass of I-80 and the West Frontage Road is proposed as part of the project. This project element is not shown on the schematic to the right because it was a late addition.
Unfortunately the overpass is to the south rather than north of Gilman. In this position it will require users to go more than a thousand feet out of their way after navigating the congestion on Gilman and crossing through motorist traffic on that street to reach the overpass.
As if that is not bad enough, the Alameda County Transportation Expenditure Plan also includes building a railroad underpass on Gilman. This information has not been included in or mentioned as part of the context for the current project in the publicity so far. This underpass will make the active transportation overpass even less desirable to reach by those it would otherwise best serve.
There is another option that should be studied – placing the overpass north of Gilman. This could connect to the Codornices Creek path upon construction, or be built to facilitate such connection in the future. This would provide a motorist-separated approach that matches the overpass. It would allow people to ride from Hearst and Milvia in Berkeley all the way to the Bay Trail entirely on cycling paths except for the few low motorist-volume blocks of Dartmouth between the Ohlone Greenway and San Pablo. It would also directly connect the two sports complexes at either end. For these reasons, Albany’s Active Transportation Plan is the only one that shows an overpass in this area, and it shows it at Codornices Creek not Gilman.
The project engineering consultant has said the northern crossing was not studied because it would require some right-of-way from Golden Gate Fields. However there is precedent for garnering land from Golden Gate Fields for active transportation facilities. The East Bay Regional Park District successfully used eminent domain to secure property from Golden Gate Fields along the shoreline for the Bay Trail.
The Alameda County Transportation Commission, City of Berkeley, Caltrans, and the Consultant Team will prepare traffic studies, community outreach, preliminary engineering studies, and CEQA/NEPA environmental review studies. AS&R invites you to attend the first community meeting to share your thoughts on the Gilman Street interchange project! And if your thoughts include studying a northern alignment for the active transportation overpass, please let them know.
Want to ride to the meeting from Albany? Leave a comment here with a suggestion and make it happen!
Fallen Cyclist Joe Hurlimann was taken from us last week near North Berkeley BART just after sunrise. “He was a Berkeley native who still lived in his childhood home, an avid gardener and stamp collector who had a PhD from Cal in plant pathology. He worked at UCB for 31 years, and at Truitt & White in West Berkeley for 61 years,” Emilie Raguso. Full Berkeleyside article here.
SPOKES would like to put a Ghost Bike at the scene and invites community to bring flowers and honor his life while we make public our concerns about the safety of cyclists and pedestrians in Berkeley, the East Bay, Bay Area California, and in the US. If anyone has time to give an hour or two to help organize we’d like to set the Ghost bike and then gather Hearst Street Park @ Sacramento with a brief respite. If you have access to Bagels, Cheeseboard / Arizmendi/ Peet’s coffee, Trader Joes / Berkeley Bowl (juices) , Spokes will Bring bike racks and tables. Public officials Berkeley Police , California Bike Coalition, Bike East Bay are invited to speak and Bike East Bay . Media Welcome!
Go to the Facebook page for any updates.
If anyone wants to propose a ride from Albany, please write in “comments” to this event – thanks.
Albany has a chunk of change to spend on improving creek access and quality. And it has to start spending it within a year or two to avoid substantial financial complications (its bond money from a measure passed in the 90’s, and the duration is running out). So the City has scheduled a public discussion at City Hall starting regarding which project(s) to pursue.
There are a couple that would improve active transportation: 1) path from Tenth to Eighth Street along Codornices Creek and 2) a bridge across Cerrito Creek at Adams. The potential project at Codornices Creek would close the last gap on the Codornices Creek path from San Pablo to the soccer fields west of Fifth Street (the path from San Pablo to Tenth is about to be built as part of the senior housing under construction there).
Help connect Adams Street in Albany…
The potential project at Cerrito Creek would allow people to walk east-west along Cerrito Creek from San Pablo to Pierce. Among other, this would benefit Albany High School students living on Pierce that currently ford the creek at Adams.
…with Carlson Blvd in El Cerrito and Richmond!
Amazingly, it would also remove the only barrier along a regional north-south cycling route stretching from near downtown Richmond to the West Oakland BART station and beyond. Most of the other cities along this route (Oakland, Emeryville, Berkeley, El Cerrito, and Richmond) have completed their segments and the only other city (Richmond) has completed a large portion of it contiguous with El Cerrito and approved a plan to complete the rest. In contrast, Albany has completed almost none of its segment.
Bridge the gap!
Consequently Albany is the only gap along the existing nine mile long route and the soon to be 12 mile long route. A bridge over Cerrito Creek between Adams and Carlson would literally bridge that gap.
If either of these active transportation projects, or other aspects of creeks is of interest to you, please attend the meeting to learn more and provide your input. Thanks.
