Bay Bridge Group Ride – A Celebration and a Reminder

Editor’s note: The Eastern Span of the Oakland Bay Bridge and its bike path from West Oakland to Yerba Buena opened a decade ago. But with bikes banned from the Western Span, cyclists sill don’t have a way to ride between San Francisco and the East Bay. Last weekend advocates did another ride to celebrate the existing half-way path and to highlight again the lack of a complete route. Here’s the story from Bike East Bay:

The gloomy, slightly cold and at times drizzly Saturday morning didn’t stop 100+ people on bikes from showing up to the West Oakland BART station to participate in the Celebrate Trails Day ride co-hosted between the Rails To Trails Conservancy, Sports Basement, BayWheels and Bike East Bay.

Celebrate Trails Day is an annual event held on the fourth Saturday of April to encourage everyone to get outside and enjoy our nation’s trails.

To celebrate our East Bay trails, we honored the Alex Zuckermann path, named after the founder of the East Bay Bicycle Coalition (now Bike East Bay). The path connects the East Bay to Yerba Buena and Treasure Island and one day will go all the way to San Francisco via the planned Bay Skyway.

Quick stop for a picture — Pedalers stop to immortalize the moment

Another reason to ride a bike: you may see a whale! And if you do, you can easily pull over and admire the whale

After riding 7.5 miles and a surprise whale sighting, the group reached the gorgeous views of Brickyard Cove where the, Gavin Lohry, Senior Coordinator for the Bay Skyway Program, shared an update on the Bay Bridge western span bike path.

The stark reality of the of the path to downtown San Francisco

While we celebrated the trails that we have, we also discussed the gap in our network. The Planned Bay Skyway will eventually connect Oakland all the way to downtown San Francisco, but the path forward is steep.

Gavin shared the stark reality of the Bay Skyway phase 2: “In the future it would be great to have something on the west span but it is at least a $500M dollar project. There’s no path forward for funding it right now”. He also shared that in the near term, agencies are working on completing the West Oakland Link project, a necessary connection between West Oakland and the path, but the ultimate goal of reaching San Francisco remains “on hold”.

We can’t kick the can any longer

As Treasure Island prepares to welcome 24,000 new residents in 8,000 new homes, the need for active transportation access is urgent. We need our elected officials and public agencies to prioritize this project because:

It closes a major gap: This is a primary missing link in the planned 500 mile Bay Trail circumventing the 9 county Bay Area
It’s a “pressure release valve”: When the bridge or transit is overwhelmed, a bike/walk path provides a reliable alternative
It’s a climate necessity: We have the responsibility to reduce vehicle miles traveled and CO2 emissions
It helps drivers and bus riders: There is no shoulder on the Bay Bridge West Span, so a lane has to be closed for any maintenance activities. The trail project also includes a maintenance and emergency pathway on the other side of the bridge, reducing lane closures and crash response times.

A rendering of a proposed bike facility on the Western Span. Image: Arup

Take Action: Help us Finish the path

The route took us out to explore some of the best trails in the area, including the Bay Trail, the Ohlone Greenway, and a stop at Albany beach before we headed back to Sports Basement in Berkeley for quality hangout time building community and enjoying pizza. It was a joyful day on bikes with friends and food. It will be even better when we have a completed path to San Francisco.

We are ready, but we need your voice. Please sign our petition to remind decision makers that a safe connected Bay Bridge isn’t a nice-to-have, it’s a necessity for our environment and for a growing Bay Area.