Streetsblog San Francisco

Cyclists know all too well the frustration of traffic lights that only change when cars activate a ground sensor, but are not tripped when bicycles arrive. Now Marin County is about to give bike riders a green light. The county will install sensors at 31 intersections (PDF) in 10 cities so that a cyclist's arrival activates a traffic light change.

Traditional traffic signals come in two versions: fixed time lights for which everyone waits and demand-activated signals that use sensors that recognize when a car is waiting, usually through an electromagnetic sensor embedded in the pavement. As most city-dwelling bike riders know, if you hit a demand-activated light you either wait until a car arrives, press the pedestrian "walk" button to activate the signal or blow through the intersection on red. It's a safety issue for the county and groups that pushed the change, including the Marin County Bicycle Coalition.

The bike-friendly signal project will use three different types of sensors to spot waiting bicyclists, according to Pat Echols, Marin Public Works Senior Civil Engineer. Depending on the space and mechanics of a given intersection they will use an electromagnetic pavement sensor, similar to the ones for cars, or a wireless pavement sensor that uses microwaves to detect the bikes or lastly a real-time video camera that tells the traffic signal's computer that it sees a bicyclist waiting, according to Echols.

The video cameras do not take photos and are not used for traffic enforcement, but solely for spotting bikes or cars to activate a signal change, he said. These demand-to-activate sensors as they are known, may begin going in as early as this fall if all the approvals can be wrangled from each city and the state, according to Echols. But it is a tight window of time and the installation work may not start until next spring. But they are coming. Once underway the project should take two months to complete.

The County set aside $922,000 for the project, out of a $25 million federal pilot project to promote bicycling and walking in Marin County. Currently $20 million in projects (PDF) have been identified.

The lights include four intersections in Corte Madera, two in Fairfax, two in Larkspur, one in Marin City, two in Marinwood, three in Mill Valley, 10 in Novato, three in San Anselmo, two in San Rafael and two in Sausalito.

The Sonoma Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART) Board, in a 9-2 vote, has elected to use heavier, American-made rail cars instead of lighter, quieter, low-floored, European-made models that some of the directors originally favored.

A report on the various options, presented by SMART staff to the board Wednesday, noted that while the light cars "offer more operational efficiencies in comparison to an FRA-compliant design on a per vehicle basis," they would be much more difficult to purchase and implement, since the SMART's planned rail service "lies within a perfect storm of American rail service regulators."

For one, the light cars are not Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) compliant, and thus SMART would need to negotiate temporal separation from any freight service, which will soon begin operating again in the North Bay for the first time since 2001. Since the light cars would be produced abroad, they also would require a waiver of the Federal Transit Administration's Buy America clause.

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The Golden Gate Bridge draws thousands of tourists who walk and cycle on the span for its vistas of the city and the sunsets.  Its sidewalks are also a major commute route for hundreds by daily bicycle commuters. And that means sometimes bicycles and pedestrians collide.

Local news hounds have jumped to the conclusion recently that a record number cycling collisions last year – 34 – was the result of the “explosion of bike rental outfits” sending tourists over the span to see Sausalito and ride the ferry back to San Francisco. But a little deeper digging into the numbers may not support that.

First, to understand the numbers, you have to understand the bridge riding rules.  On weekends, pathways on the west, or ocean side, of the bridge are dedicated to bikes.  While pedestrians use only the east, or city-side walkway. Weekdays, when dozens of cyclists commute using the bridge, they must share the east side with pedestrians until 3:30 p.m., when the west side is again opened exclusively to cyclists.

Mary Currie, Golden Gate Bridge District spokesperson, explained that the district keeps cyclists off the west side during the day because work crews use it for regular bridge maintenance. Currie confirmed the record 34 crashes involving bicycles last year, but claimed “attorney-client privilege” in declining to provide details of whether accidents occurred during commute hours, on weekends, the time of day or which side of the bridge.

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What do you do when hundreds of cyclotourists descend on your bucolic village, clogging sidewalks with rented bikes? The Sausalito City Council is trying to quell a virulent public debate with a tried-and-true solution: install a lot of bike racks.

The council voted 4-1 last night for a plan that provides racks - lots and lots of racks - in three strategic locations so that cash-bearing cyclists can park-and-spend their way through the scenic city on the shore of Richardson Bay.

The city won't even have to pay for the $8,000 in racks; they're being provided by companies that rent the bikes to tourists, including Blazing Saddles, Bike and Roll, and Bay City Bike Rentals. Together, the racks will add about 360 new bike parking spaces to the 120 slots now available.

The council's action follows heated complaints from residents and merchants, who say the vacationers cause more problems than they're worth. About a quarter-million rental bikes rolled into Sausalito last summer, drawing comparisons to a swarm of locusts from many critics. Even some cyclists crossing the Golden Gate Bridge have complained about inexperienced bike renters who clog the narrow bike paths, stopping unpredictably to snap a picture or wait for a friend.

Although the city benefits economically from cyclists, bicyclists are a frequent target of complaints from city residents. Beyond the issue with the tourists, many complain about scofflaws from the city who soar through stop lights, drawing fines that run into the hundreds of dollars. Many local cyclists say the city is overreacting and should do more to restrict automobile traffic and better-educate drivers on how to share the road with the two-wheelers.

Separately, as reported here March 2nd, the city is currently studying new routes to get cyclists through town safely, and with less controversy.

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Amalia Pittier of Caracas, Venezuela spent a sunny day riding a rented bike across the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito with her two traveling companions, stopping to buy lunch and spend money shopping for gifts they will take home to family and friends. Little does this tourist know she's at the center of a local controversy because she and her friends are among the estimated 250,000 visitors annually who rent bikes to ride over the bridge for a day of sight-seeing before they climb on an evening ferry for the return trip.

Pittier said she and her friends Manuela and Herman had no trouble on the ride, though they found the bridge a "little crowded."

Recent us-versus-them toned newspaper reporting ridiculed visiting cyclists as "a plague of locusts" in the San Francisco Chronicle and Marin Independent Journal.  The stories whipped up heated responses from readers, both pro and con, but didn't shed much light on the issues.

The basic grievances are the bike tourists park bikes in doorways, scatter them in the parks and even ride on the sidewalks.  In addition,  scores of tourists overwhelm the Golden Gate Transit ferry service during rush hour while commuters cool their heels in San Francisco waiting up to 40 minutes for a boatload of bikers to disembark one by one. Riders have to haul their bikes up a set of narrow stairs, single file, and then roll them down the gangway.

But Sausalito garners benefits from the dollar-flashing foreigners. Sausalito, the primary destination of bike renters, was the only town in Marin County to have an increase in sales tax revenue in 2008, according to Daryll White of Bike & Roll, a San Francisco rental shop.

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Within a few weeks, there should literally be a light at the end of the Cal Park tunnel for cyclists commuting from San Rafael to the Larkspur ferry. Engineers are mucking out dirt and boulders on the collapsed south end of the 1,100-foot tunnel, making room for an 11.5-foot wide bike path and tracks for the SMART commuter rail trains.

Dave Bernardi, manager of the $25 million project, and Erin Hohenshelt of the Jacobs Associates engineering firm, gave a detailed update on the project to the Marin County Bike Coalition last night, predicting the 85-year-old tunnel will be open to cyclists by February 2010 “at the latest.”

The project includes a 1.2-mile Class 1 bike path and a self-contained “tunnel within a tunnel” replete with video cameras, lighting, ventilation, emergency phones and even fire hydrants, just in case. The bike passage will have its own walls and concrete ceiling, separating it from the 45 mph diesel trains a few feet away. The trains are expected to start rumbling through in 2012.

Construction crews have been busy removing the original redwood arches inside the tunnel and replacing them with steel braces. All went smoothly until the crews reached the south end, where they encountered loose dirt running through sinkholes and boulders the size of small cars.

“We have a lot of loose ground and cavities and we don’t see an end to it,” said Hohenshelt. But she cautiously predicted the south end would be opened up by May.

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A large and divided crowd turned out last night in Marin County to help decide whether the long-neglected Alto Tunnel between Mill Valley and Corte Madera should be reopened to cyclists.

County planners stressed the workshop was intended only to gather community input on three possible routes as part of a $225,000 study that will be concluded this fall. But emotions shifted into high gear as cyclists cited reasons to restore the railroad tunnel that’s been decaying over the last four decades.

“The handwriting is on the wall. It’s only a matter of time,” said David Hoffman, planning director for the Marin County Bike Coalition. “There aren’t any issues with the tunnel that can’t be resolved.”

Like much of the existing bike network in Marin and Sonoma counties, the 16-foot-wide tunnel was built by the railroads. It opened in 1884 as redwood forests were being leveled to support urban sprawl in San Francisco. The passage was sealed in the 1970s, and portions have collapsed as its 12-by-14 redwood beams rotted in the dank, stagnant air trapped beneath the mountain. The southern end crumbled in a rainstorm 28 years ago. Several large portions have been filled. The north end is plugged with 125 feet of cement.

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Cycling enthusiasts have long dreamed of reopening the rotting, 125-year-old Alto Tunnel as a key link in a greenway stretching from the Golden Gate Bridge to Cloverdale. Now they may get their chance, as the county's Non-motorized Transportation Pilot Program begins a $225,000 study of three routes between the two southern Marin towns.

The tunnel between Mill Valley and Corte Madera is the focus of a transportation workshop tomorrow night in Marin County. 

The other two routes are well known to any cyclists who've ridden north of Mill Valley: an existing bike path over Horse Hill by Highway 101 and the twisty Camino Alto, which climbs to about 450 feet on the hill above the tunnel. Neither route is pedestrian-friendly, and many cyclists shy away from Camino Alto because of its narrow lanes, fast cars and afternoon traffic jams.

The 16-foot-wide tunnel would link existing bike paths on both sides of the hill. Southern Pacific sealed the 2,172-foot passageway in 1971, dooming its 12-by-14 redwood supports to rot in the stagnant, moist darkness. The southern entrance collapsed during a rainstorm in 1981 and several other portions have been filled to protect the homes on the hilltop.

“People are very, very excited about the tunnel," said Andy Peri, a spokesman for the Marin County Bike Coalition who predicted dozens of cyclists will show up. "One woman just called me and told me she’s bringing all five of her children from 7 to 17 years old.”

Reopening the tunnel won't be easy. Neighborhood residents, who've enjoyed the solitude of hiking along the overgrown approaches, are organizing against the project. “It is a [public] right-of-way and it is not their private property, but a lot of people would like to see it left alone. Some people have a fear that homeless people would be living up there," said Peri.

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