Saturday morning talk of bikes and bridges.
On Saturday, the city sponsored the first of two presentations on the Estuary Crossing Feasibility study, looking at increasing the connectivity between the West End and Oakland for cyclists and pedestrians. The study is funded by a grant from ACTIA (Alameda County Transportation Improvement Authority-Measure B ½ cent sales tax for transportation money) Bicycle and Pedestrian funds with the city kicking in matching funds.
My favorite comment of the morning: “why don’t we just fill in the Estuary and connect the island to Oakland like they did Bay Farm Island.” Said facetiously, it elicited a good-natured chuckle from the assembly.
Over 70 people showed up to listen to presentation of the proposal and discuss their thoughts during the 2+ hour meeting. Arriving late, I was the victim of the high turn out as there were not enough handouts to go around, and the important slides in the PowerPoint were too small to read from the back of the room, so aside from the large take-aways, I’m not going to print anything about the calculations presented until I get something I can quote.
At the end of the day, the plan identified short, medium and long-term solutions that can be pursued. This report is key in finding funding for any of them, as it becomes the basis for showing that the solutions have been studied enough to have some viability in moving forward. (A case in point, up until the most recent Countywide Bicycle Plan update, a fixed estuary crossing (read bridge) was always listed as a county priority. It was removed from the latest plan because it was unstudied and deemed not ready to move forward.) If at the end of this project, the recommendation accepted by the council includes a bridge, this process will overcome that hurdle).
From memory, the short term solution is creating a water-shuttle or enhancing bus-shuttle use to get cyclists through the tubes and across the estuary. The current situation has many bike racks on the buses full during commute hours. And the long-term recommendation is a ped/bike bridge at a cost of $45 million that would span the estuary at a height of 175-feet. The Coast Guard is currently saying they won’t support a draw bridge, which could get stuck and keep their ships from being able to move out of port quickly. If they hold to that stance, any bridge built would have to be 175 above the water to ensure that current and future ships moored at Coast Guard Island would have immediate access to the bay without a bridge needing to be raised.
More once I get a copy of the report.
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