Bicycle Safety

Sustainable transportation advocates are calling for common-sense trade regulations, consumer education, and other reforms to keep prevent fires involving defective lithium-ion batteries — while simultaneously fighting misinformation that threatens to explode into a culture war against electric microbility.

It's time for an anti-violence, safe-streets-for-everyone coalition

Streetsblog receives a matrix of responses to its critique of the 23rd and 29th Avenue over-crossings in Oakland

On Tuesday evening the Menlo Park City Council approved the construction of a new streetscape for Haven Avenue that will bring wide sidewalks to the block nearest Marsh Road where there are none today -- but also leave a gap in bike lanes at a key location along the popular San Francisco Bay Trail route. The formerly industrial-only area is expected to see heavier pedestrian and bicycle traffic after a total of 540 apartment units are completed at two new housing developments further west on Haven Avenue, where the city installed wide buffered bike lanes earlier this year.

Going by the results of a public meeting at Oak Knoll Elementary School in Menlo Park last Monday, San Mateo County traffic engineers have no options left to correct a dangerous five-lane stretch of Santa Cruz Avenue that runs from San Hill Road to Alameda de las Pulgas.

Construction on San Jose's huge North San Pedro plan is well underway. It removes a one-way, four-lane S-curve segment of Julian Street just east of Highway 87 and restores several blocks of the city’s original street grid.

Deadlines are near for several Board and Committee positions in San Mateo County. Applications are due today for two vacancies on the SamTrans Board of Directors, while the City/County Association of Governments seeks volunteers to fill four vacancies on its 15-member Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee (C/CAG BPAC), due Nov. 14. Caltrain is taking applications for six of the nine seats of its Bicycle Advisory Committee, due Dec. 2.

On Tuesday, the Santa Clara City Council approved a proposal [PDF] to build new detours of the San Tomas Aquino Creek Trail, over two years after the construction of Levi's Stadium has resulted in ongoing closures of the trail "to limit security breaches" on days with stadium events over 20,000 attendees. Despite objections from both the public and council that the stadium should pay for the improvements, city staff intend to seek up to $4 million in public grant funds instead.

New on-street bike lanes separated from auto traffic are nearing completion in Palo Alto and Menlo Park, and a handful of neighboring cities have plans to install them too. Separated bike infrastructure gained traction among local planners after Caltrans approved Class IV Separated Bikeway design standards [PDF] in December 2015. The first protected intersections were built last year in a handful of North American cities.