Here are three Streetsblog news nuggets to start your weekend.
BART reports less crime, less fare evasion
Over the last year, BART has installed new fare gates at more than 20 stations around the system. The agency is reporting some initial success in stopping fare evasion. From a BART statement:
There’s been a big decline in the number of riders who say they’ve witnessed fare evasion on BART. For our latest Quarterly Performance Report, we asked riders, “did they see anyone enter or exit the station without paying their fare today?” Only 17% of those questioned said they had, which is a drop of nearly 1/3 from the same period just a year ago when 25% of respondents said they had witnessed fare evasion.
In the last 12 months, BART has installed Next Generation Fare Gates at more than 20 stations across the system. More stations are getting new gates every month. In just the last few days installation work began at Concord, El Cerrito Plaza, Glen Park, and San Leandro stations.
BART is also reporting a concurrent drop in reported crimes, down 17 percent from last year even as BART served 2.6 million more trips than it did in 2023.
$23 Million award for bike lanes between Yerba Buena/Treasure Island, and West Oakland
The Metropolitan Transportation Commission announced a "conditional" grant towards bike improvements to the Bay Bridge. From a San Francisco County Transportation Authority post:
The Bay Skyway is designed to create a multimodal 7.5-mile transbay corridor connecting downtown San Francisco, downtown Oakland, West Oakland, Yerba Buena Island, and Treasure Island. The multi-agency project will create a safe, low-emission route for cyclists, pedestrians, and transit riders that will bypass congestion on the Bay Bridge - one of the most congested routes in the state.
In February, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission approved a $23.7 million conditional Regional Measure 3 (RM3) Safe Routes to Transit and Bay Trail program award to the Bay Skyway Phase 1 program. The award is contingent on project sponsors securing additional funding from the Senate Bill 1 Solutions for Congested Corridors Program.
Under the MTC RM3 Bay Trail award, the Yerba Buena Island Multi-Use Path project would receive $16.25 million for construction and the West Oakland Link component would receive $7.5 million of the Regional Measure 3 award.
While great to see these projects moving forward, the holy grail of a direct bike route between Oakland and San Francisco remains elusive, considering a full link is projected to cost hundreds of millions.
Richmond San Rafael Bridge bike path vote delayed
Meanwhile, as MTC talks about improving links to Treasure Island, the existing connection between the East Bay and Marin remains under threat. If readers aren't aware, the vote at the MTC to ban cyclists from using the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge was supposed to be this week. However, it was pushed back to Thursday, April 3. From Bike East Bay's website:
This meeting was originally scheduled for March 20th, but has since been rescheduled to Thursday, April 3rd, with less than a week’s notice.
We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience, as we know many people took time off in order to participate on the originally scheduled date. We hope that you can still join us for the new meeting date, and appreciate your support by making a public comment in whatever format is available to you.
The April 3rd meeting details will be published here within a week of that event date.
As Streetsblog has long covered, this is part of a concerted effort by the Bay Area Council to convert the shoulder of the bridge on the upper deck from a two-way bike facility into a sixth car lane on the bridge.
