​Berkeley Unveils New Protected Bike Lane

Berkeley CA

20 May, 2022

12:03 PM

Description

BERKELEY, CA — City officials on Friday held a ribbon cutting ceremony and then participated in a ride-along at the Milvia Street Bikeway. The 0.75-mile stretch of protected bike lanes along Milvia Street through the heart of Downtown between Hearst Avenue and Blake Street was described by Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguín as a "major major milestone in our commitment to improving bicycle infrastructure in our city." The unveiling coincided with Bike to Wherever Day. "This project also has the added benefits of helping us achieve Vision Zero to eliminate traffic fatalities and our Climate Action Plan by reducing transportation emissions that make up a majority of the city's greenhouse gas emissions," Arreguín said in a statement. The Milvia Bikeway is the city's primary north-south bikeway, with counts showing over 500 people using the southern section and over 400 in the northern section during the evening commute. The street goes by several major destinations in Downtown Berkeley, including Berkeley High School, City Hall, and Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, Herrick Campus. Billed as the first "bicycle boulevard" in Berkeley, calls for significant improvements to the bikeway have existed for many years, with the project being formally proposed in the 2016 Berkeley Strategic Transportation Plan. Construction began in May 2021 over six separate phases. The project received funding through Alameda County's Measure B, a half-cent transportation sales tax approved by voters in 2000, and California's Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities program. "Everyone should feel comfortable biking, and projects like this bring us a step closer to achieving that goal", Bike East Bay Advocacy Director Dave Campbell said in a statement. "This is the finest new bikeway in the East Bay, and we look forward to working with the City to expand projects like this throughout the city in order to make Berkeley more livable and sustainable". Berkeley has among the highest bicyclist commuter rates in the country, with around one in ten people biking to work, city officials said. The City's Bicycle Plan, approved in 2017, calls for an acceleration in bicycle infrastructure to make Berkeley a model for safe and accessible biking. The Bicycle Plan is currently going through a community-driven update, which is expected to be adopted in 2023. In 2019, Council approved the Berkeley Initiative to Build Improvements for Mobility, Bicycles, & Pedestrians, which will require 50 percent of paving funds to go towards bikeways and pedestrian high-injury streets over the next few years.