Bay Area cyclist react to proposal of moving barriers on Richmond–San Rafael Bridge during commutes

It was five years ago this month that California closed off one of the lanes of the Richmond–San Rafael Bridge to allow bike and pedestrian access.  

The pilot project has now ended and Caltrans is recommending that the bike lane be closed for most of the week. But cyclists are digging in their heels to retain their 24/7 ride across the Bay Area.

On a cool, clear day like Saturday, the ride across the bridge was inviting enough, even if it wasn’t for the message they were trying to send. 

More than 100 cyclists made the trek from the Richmond BART station, across the span to Marin County. Nathalee Lomeli from Berkeley was a first-time bridge rider.

“It was beautiful.  It’s a beautiful day,” she said. “It was nice to see everybody come together in the community to support keeping this lane open and it was just a good time. Like, if it’s gone, I wouldn’t be able to experience it, know what I mean?”

But critics of the bike lane have long complained about how empty it appears while cars stack up during the weekday morning commute. Last year, a UC Berkeley study revealed how much—or little—usage was actually occurring.

“And so, right now, there are 21 bikers in the morning commute that are crossing across a three-hour time window.  And yet, there’s 18,000 cars during that three-hour window,” said John Grubb with the Bay Area Council, a business advocacy group supporting more traffic flow across the bridge.

“You know, I’m not sure what numbers they were expecting,” said Warren Wells, policy director for the Marin Bicycle Coalition.  “There was never any clear success or failure metric for this pilot. They never said, if we have this many people a day, we’ll keep it…if we have fewer than that we’ll remove it.”

So, the cycling community on both sides of the Bay turned out on Saturday to react to a proposal—endorsed by Caltrans, Marin County and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission—to move the barriers back Monday through Thursday, closing off access to bikes and once again providing a maintenance and breakdown lane.  

Wells said they can’t allow cars to use the lane because opening it to vehicle traffic would invite more drivers, which is a violation of state environmental laws. But he thinks that is the ultimate goal and doesn’t believe this current proposal is the end of it.

“It’s being framed as yet another compromise,” said Wells. “‘Oh, the compromise is that drivers get this four days a week and bikers, the half of you that are riding it on weekends, you guys get your lane.’ So, I expect a few years down the road, there’ll be some other compromise where the compromise we get is cut in half by another compromise. It doesn’t take Nostradamus to predict that.”

And even those who use it only on weekends aren’t thrilled about seeing it cut off during the week.

“I don’t see why they’re closing it, just to make a shoulder lane that’s not going to make traffic any better,” said rider Amanda Carson. “It’s just closing off access to the North Bay.  It’s really the only way you can get here from the East Bay.”

“To me, this bridge is all about the connection,” said cyclist Mary Norton. “And even if it’s ten cyclists a day going over, to have that access for reducing the number of cars–rather than just sit and be a break-down lane–is so important.”

It’s fair to point out that creating the bike lane did not remove a lane of traffic on the bridge.  

The lane had been shut down since the early 1970s when it was closed to make room for an emergency water pipeline to Marin County during a severe drought. It was never re-opened to traffic after that, instead used as a maintenance lane.  

The final decision for the new plan rests with the State’s Bay Conservation and Development Commission and those floating the proposal say they hope to see a decision sometime in December.