‘Bike to Wherever Day’ Rolls Through Bay Area
Thousands of experienced and newbie cyclists went rolling to work and wherever else on Thursday for “Bike to Wherever Day.” Streetsblog attended an event to mark the occasion at Oakland’s City Hall (full disclosure: the free coffee and pancakes were a draw).
“We can do world-class infrastructure,” said Walk Oakland Bike Oakland’s Chris Hwang, about the protected bike lanes going in around Oakland. Hwang and other speakers at the event talked about the importance of 2022’s Measure U, an infrastructure bond that helped fund street improvements, including protected lanes and intersections now going in all over Oakland.
“When you ride a bike and cars are speeding past, it’s really scary,” said District 3 Council member Carroll Fife, on the importance of protected bike lanes in making all riders feel safe. “My bike is my primary means of transportation,” added District 2 Council member Charlene Wang. “I don’t need a gym membership.”
That was the overriding theme at the event: if people have safe infrastructure, they bike. And when they bike, they avoid high gas prices and stay healthy.
They can also eat yummy pancakes for fuel, as René Johnson of Blackberry Soul catering pointed out, seen in the picture below.
But don’t people still need cars to haul stuff around? Sometimes, but as Anthony Propernick of the Oakland public library underscored, not as much as people think. The library’s bike trailer rig proves that:
“We’ve been doing our mobile bike libraries for seven or eight years,” he explained. The library also does free bike-fix clinics on Fridays and Wednesdays. One lucky cyclist even got a copy of Project Hail Mary from his trailer: “Amaze, amaze, amaze!”
Meanwhile, over in San Francisco, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition has set up energizer stations with free snacks and swag on all the major commuting routes.
“The biggest biking day of the year, Bike to Wherever Day sees over 100,000 people riding their bikes across the nine counties of the Bay Area. Here in the city, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition invites San Franciscans to bike and roll to wherever their day takes them, and experience the joy of active transportation in our beautiful city,” writes SFBike.
Looking for more ways to celebrate?
SFBike will be joining the Valencia Live festivities for the bike ride home from 5-10 p.m. on Valenica (obviously) between 16th & 19th Streets. Expect speeches from Mayor Daniel Lurie and other officials. Bike East Bay is holding its celebratory event on Washington Street in Old Oakland from 5-7:30 p.m.
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