Walking

A California Assembly bill that would prohibit tolls for pedestrians and bicycle riders on state-owned bridges passed the Assembly Transportation Committee with a vote of 31 to 2. Assemblymember Phil Ting's A.B. 40, originally drafted to apply only to the Golden Gate Bridge, was amended to apply statewide.

On Tuesday evening, the San Jose City Council finally approved the Diridon Station Area Plan. The final plan retains a creek trail restoration project that had been on the chopping block, while strengthening requirements for SAP Center to help reduce demand for driving to the arena and Diridon Caltrain Station.

Re-shaping city streets almost always runs up against some level of opposition -- it's part and parcel of physically changing what people often see as their territory. Whether residents get to have safer streets, however, often comes down to the elected leaders who stand up to the naysayers.

This year has dealt us some crazy weather, from the polar vortex to drenching thunderstorms. We know you didn't hide all winter in a car. You were out walking the walk and riding the bike, whatever the weather. We hope you got a picture of it!

San Mateo County's Mid-Coast Multi-Modal Trail just barely made it into the list of Pedestrian and Bicycle Program projects approved for funding by the Transportation Authority (TA)'s Board of Directors last Thursday. Despite this step forward, building the trail will be difficult thanks in large part to restrictions on how TA funds can be spent, which hamper walking and biking projects.

The marketers at Chevy totally have this urban millennial thing nailed down. The car manufacturer sponsored this promotional video for a Divisadero Microhood Art Walk held last week, along with the website The Bold Italic.

The Atherton Town Council this afternoon will review a draft of its first ever bicycle and pedestrian plan, which it crafted over the past eight months with resident input. The plan has attracted little notice, even though it calls for safety redesigns on major streets like El Camino Real, Middlefield Road, and Marsh Road.

The 1.3-mile "Devil's Slide" segment of Highway 1 just south of Pacifica is the latest addition to San Mateo County's 20 parks. The freshly-paved walking and biking trail offers spectacular views of the Pacific Ocean and its coastal cliffs, and it's by far the widest trail in the San Francisco Bay Area, with 12 feet striped for walking and 12 feet for bicycling.

The Belmont City Council is gearing up to decide on a list of infrastructure investments intended to improve safety and reduce traffic congestion on Ralston Avenue. At a community meeting last month, representatives from consulting firms W-Trans and Alta Planning presented their Ralston Avenue Corridor Study, intended "to improve the multi-modal function" of the busy arterial street.