The Albany Recreation & Community Services Department is having our city’s annual Albany Local Week, September 20th -26th, where you get points for doing your business in town!
This year you’ll get points for parking your bike on the 25 “Bike Bike Racks” that Albany Strollers & Rollers helped fund around town.
Locations include the Albany/Berkeley border on Solano Avenue, Albany Children’s Center, Albany Fresh Produce, Albany Taproom, Be Fit Personal Training, BevMo!, Bikes on Solano, Bridgewater Condominiums Visitor Parking, Bua Luang Thai Cuisine, Gathering Tribes, Grazzy Burgers, Hamro Aangan – Indo-Nepalese Cuisine, Innate Chiropractic, Jewel’s Terrace Park, K2Tog: Knitting the
World Together, Metta Traditional Thai Massage, Prins Chiropractic, Daniel Winkler & Associates, Inc., Royal Cafe,T324, Tay Tah Cafe, St. Alban’s Episcopal Church and Zarri’s Delicatessen.
Get your Albany Local Week Scorecard here and write in your Bike Bike Racks to rack up the points!!
The Albany Recreation & Community Services Department is having our city’s annual Albany Local Week, September 20th -26th, where you get points for doing your business in town!
This year you’ll get points for parking your bike on the 25 “Bike Bike Racks” that Albany Strollers & Rollers helped fund around town.
Locations include the Albany/Berkeley border on Solano Avenue, Albany Children’s Center, Albany Fresh Produce, Albany Taproom, Be Fit Personal Training, BevMo!, Bikes on Solano, Bridgewater Condominiums Visitor Parking, Bua Luang Thai Cuisine, Gathering Tribes, Grazzy Burgers, Hamro Aangan – Indo-Nepalese Cuisine, Innate Chiropractic, Jewel’s Terrace Park, K2Tog: Knitting the
World Together, Metta Traditional Thai Massage, Prins Chiropractic, Daniel Winkler & Associates, Inc., Royal Cafe,T324, Tay Tah Cafe, St. Alban’s Episcopal Church and Zarri’s Delicatessen.
Get your Albany Local Week Scorecard here and write in your Bike Bike Racks to rack up the points!!
The Albany Recreation & Community Services Department is having our city’s annual Albany Local Week, September 20th -26th, where you get points for doing your business in town!
This year you’ll get points for parking your bike on the 25 “Bike Bike Racks” that Albany Strollers & Rollers helped fund around town.
Locations include the Albany/Berkeley border on Solano Avenue, Albany Children’s Center, Albany Fresh Produce, Albany Taproom, Be Fit Personal Training, BevMo!, Bikes on Solano, Bridgewater Condominiums Visitor Parking, Bua Luang Thai Cuisine, Gathering Tribes, Grazzy Burgers, Hamro Aangan – Indo-Nepalese Cuisine, Innate Chiropractic, Jewel’s Terrace Park, K2Tog: Knitting the
World Together, Metta Traditional Thai Massage, Prins Chiropractic, Daniel Winkler & Associates, Inc., Royal Cafe,T324, Tay Tah Cafe, St. Alban’s Episcopal Church and Zarri’s Delicatessen.
Get your Albany Local Week Scorecard here and write in your Bike Bike Racks to rack up the points!!
You may know Street Level Cycles as the non-profit that offers free and low-cost bike tuneups every year at
the Albany Arts & Green Festival. Of course, they are a full-service community bicycle shop that combines a do-it-yourself studio with a youth education program, creating a space where members of the community can learn to fix their bicycles while supporting local vocational training.
They rely on donations of bikes and parts to use to fix up bikes that they sell to folks to you and me…and you can always drop them off there from Wednesday-Sunday from noon-6 pm. But on Saturday August 29th they’ll make it even easier for you to donate your bike – they’ll pick it up at your house!
Why donate?
By donating your bike you will:
-Support job-training for local youth
-take part in up-cycling, the greenest form of recycling
-Receive a tax-deductible donation receipt
So if you were wondering what to do with that old bike that no one uses now…here’s a perfect solution. So call or email them!
Spend the afternoon at a Pop-up Park on Solano Avenue!
Tables & umbrellas will be set in two parking stalls adjacent to Gordo’s and Domino’s for a day of community, music and relaxation. Grab a burrito, tacos, pizza, ice cream or anything from local businesses as we transform two boring parking spaces into an inviting parklet.
Afterwards, roll up the hill to pump up your tires at Albany Strollers& Rollers’ brand new public bike pump before heading to the final Bike About Town ride!
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!
You see Street Level Cycles every year at the Albany Arts & Green Festival when they offer free bike tuneups to you and your family !
You might not know that they’re a full-service community bicycle shop that combines a do-it-yourself studio with a youth education program, creating a space where members of the community can learn to fix their bicycles while supporting local vocational training.
You can always donate bikes, parts and components, which they use to build bikes and sell to support their shop and their programs.
But TODAY ONLY – JUNE 4th, Street Level Cycles/Waterside Workshops is holding a “Bike Donation Pick-up Day” for East Bay residents. Before the Pick-up Day, you will be able to call and schedule a pick-up from their home or business.
What are you waiting for? Find your old bike & parts and give them a call at (510) 644-2577!
Do you, a friend or family member want to ride your bike more but don’t feel confident enough?
Here’s a FREE bicycle skills class RIGHT IN OUR BACKYARD, courtesy of Bike East Bay!
In addition to the regular first-Mondays classes at UC Berkeley, they have now set up a free Urban Cycling 101 Day 1 classroom workshop for adults and teens at the Albany Library/Community Center on Saturday, July 16th, from 1-3pm. Complete details and registrations are available here.
The class is FREE but it’s mandatory to register here.
Albany Strollers & Rollers will again be providing Free Bicycle Valet Parking at two locations: 1800 Solano Ave (Wells Fargo) and 1245 Solano (the “Pumpkin Patch” near Masonic.)
We’ll also have an information table by our western lot near Masonic.
WE NEED YOU TO MAKE THIS A SUCCESS!
If you’d like to help park bikes at either lot or volunteer at AS&R’s info table, please contact Amy Smolens.
All volunteers who work at least a 4-hr shift or pick up & return rental racks will get free lunch provided by a Solano Avenue restaurant, probably Tay Tah or Zaytoon. Whichever one is is, it’ll be delicious!!
Have Valet Parking experience? Mac McCurdy, BVP coordinator extraordinaire, is ready to pass on his trade secrets to train another coordinator. Would you like to be trained by pros like Mac and Sylvia Paull, to fill this important role and add to your LinkedIn bio? And YES, I have a special prize/perk in mind for the person who volunteers for this!
Since 1974 Solano Avenue and the cities of Albany and Berkeley have hosted the Solano Avenue Stroll, the East Bay’s largest street festival! The Solano Avenue Association and AS&R invite you to see what makes Solano Avenue a wonderful place. The Stroll features over five hundred vendors including 50 entertainers (there’s always great music!,) 50 food booths, 150 government and non-profit agencies, 150 juried hand-crafters, a 75 entry parade, state of the art mechanical rides and much more!
Come visit the unique and popular professional services, restaurants, and shops already here on Solano Avenue.
250,000 participants and event guests visit from all over the west coast.
This family event promotes the unique traits of Solano Avenue, helping independently-owned businesses, artists, and community organizations to thrive by exposure and fundraising.
Please see the press room to stay tuned-into what’s hot at this years event!
Brought to you by the Cities of Albany and Berkeley; and with the help of our generous sponsors, SAA members, and volunteer board of directors.
Due to an overstock of bikes, we are having an As-Is Bike Blowout Sale! We have hundreds of as-is bikes, frames, parts, and accessories that all must go! Complete bikes as low as $10! Unique and rare bikes deeply discounted! Don’t miss it!
More info at their Facebook event link!