Bikeway dreams
After years of planning and hoping, Marin has the funds to create a model program for bike transportation
BY MICHAEL MCCARTHY
Pacific Sun, September 23, 2005
On August 3, the local biking community woke up to discover it had won the lottery. Marin County had become the lucky recipient of $25 million in federal funding to plan and build a Nonmotorized Transportation Pilot Program, part of the gigantic $286.5 billion omnibus transportation and highways bill finally passed by Congress. Marin, along with three other communities across the country, was being asked to create a blueprint for the nation to get people out of their cars and start them walking and biking—increasing the nation’s fitness while reducing reliance on foreign oil.
Along with another $20 million handed out to developer Skip Berg to study whether his Port Sonoma marina can ever serve as a North Bay ferry terminal, cynics immediately labeled the money as “pork.” Any way you slice it, $25 million is a huge chunk of change to be applied to cycling. Would the money be better spent on paving potholes? Or is the whole idea just pie in the sky?
At his facility in Mill Valley, entrepreneur and attorney Patrick Seidler sits behind a giant desk working on a business plan for his ever-expanding bicycle components business. Wilderness Trail Bikes designs, markets and sells high-end cycling components, and business is very good these days. CEO Seidler, along with Deb Hubsmith, advocacy director of the Marin County Bicycle Coalition (MCBC), took center stage at a recent press conference announcing the federal funding. While Hubsmith is well known as the former executive director of the highly organized Bike Coalition, Seidler has kept a very low profile. The two longtime cycling activists are the brains behind snagging the millions.
“Our tactics in securing this funding are similar to what is used in business,” says Seidler, who graduated from UC Berkeley’s law school and business school. “Tactics are the execution of the plan, the day-to-day functions to achieve your goals and objectives. Our goals and objectives are to shift ‘mode share’ of the overall transportation system, and find ways to get people out of their cars. Our strategy is to build the infrastructure and have programs that promote bicycling and walking, which we have learned by studying other nonmotorized best practices that have been successful around the world.”
Seidler’s role model for a nonmotorized transportation network lies in the Netherlands. According to Seidler, while there are differences between American and European culture, transportation alternatives created in the Netherlands—and Japan and China, where he travels several times a year—can be replicated here. It is simply a matter of Newtonian physics. Like the law of gravity, that which goes up must come down. The switch to bicycles as a mode of transport is as logical and inevitable as the endless rise in global oil prices.
The duo’s strategy has been to implement those “best practices” whenever possible in order to secure attention. When Marin shows the nation how the blueprint works, further federal funding will be made available for other locations throughout the United States. But first you must spend years collecting the initial data in order to prove that your argument is sound. It’s a logical and linear process, a lawyer’s way of winning an argument. Also, there’s always that key phrase: “Follow the money.”
“I first started working on bicycling as a mode of transportation back in 1993, before I founded Transportation Alternatives for Marin in 1998,” says Seidler, referring to the nonprofit society of which he is president. “I did a lot of research and wrote a number of articles, got appointed to a county of Marin transportation committee, and worked with the county on a planning study for a North-South Greenway at that time. We were very excited when the committee adopted the Greenway as a possible model. We’ve been pursuing the plan, and following the money to make it happen, ever since.”
Essentially, Seidler envisions the Greenway as a 91-mile linear park from Sausalito to Cloverdale, a multipurpose bike and pedestrian route running parallel to Highway 101 along old rail lines, through tunnels and across bridges, connecting to schools, transit hubs and shopping districts. The linear park would also serve as a recreational outlet no different than a playground. The word “greenway” replaces his former vision of a “bicycle freeway” connecting towns. That phrase does not appeal to a lot of folks. Larkspur Mayor Joan Lundstrom is one.
FROM MILL VALLEY to Larkspur it’s a quick 20-minute dash over the winding Camino Alto hill. From there a multipurpose path runs along the old Northwest Pacific Railroad lines through Larkspur and on to Greenbrae and Ross, a perfect example of what a greenway can be. On a warm summer’s day, Mayor Lundstrom strolls down the path and points out the number of walkers, parents with baby carriages, joggers and cyclists. If this is part of Marin County’s transportation plan for the future, Lundstrom is on-board. It’s bicycle “freeways” she doesn’t want.
“All 11 towns and cities in Marin have formulated their own bike and pedestrian plans,” says Lundstrom, “and when it’s complete we are pleased that Marin County can serve as a model for the nation. We have five schools and 3,100 students within the railroad right-of-way and we have the opportunity, if there are certain linkages made, to walk and bike to schools and transit. I sit on a Safe Routes to Schools committee myself. We just have to examine what linkages we build. A path from Larkspur down to the ferry at Larkspur Landing would be a prime candidate. Re-opening the Cal Park Tunnel to San Rafael from the ferry would be great.”
Lundstrom was at the press conference held on the Sandra Marker Trail in Corte Madera, an event attended by many politicians including Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey, an aide to Senator Barbara Boxer, Supervisor Steve Kinsey, city officials from Larkspur and Corte Madera, members of the local biking community and reporters from many newspapers, TV and radio stations. Getting the politicians and activists to pose together was one thing; getting everybody on the same page again may not be so easy when details of the activists’ “nonmotorized plan” finally become open to debate.
Lundstrom for instance, was not aware that the North-South Greenway plan describes the re-opening of the Alto Tunnel underneath Camino Alto hill as a “key” to the overall plan, nor was she in favor of any SMART rail station being constructed at Larkspur Landing. (A 68-mile multipurpose path from Cloverdale to San Rafael—and possibly Larkspur—is set to run along the SMART rail line when it is re-opened.)
“There is no room for a train station at Larkspur Landing and I’ve seen plans for a 1,000-car, three-story parking lot where people would have to cross Sir Francis Drake Boulevard,” she says. “Over 700 people in Corte Madera signed a petition against the paving of the Sandra Marker Trail, because they didn’t want the foot traffic, so I can just imagine the neighborhood opposition to re-opening the Alto Tunnel.”
When moneys were allocated to study the possible re-opening of Alto Tunnel a few years ago, residents of the nearby Chapman Meadows neighborhood were adamant in their opposition. So, while bike and pedestrian commuters to ferries, schools and shops are OK, recreational bikers are a real no-no to municipal officials like Lundstrom.
“Public money must be spent for the greater good,” says Lundstrom. “Hats off to the bike activists for the fantastic job they have done getting this funding, but we need a proper balance and public input for any plan.”
The old NWP rail bed heads up the Ross Valley to San Anselmo, a flat 20-minute ride on a wide paved path, but then it’s a tough slog through busy side streets to Fairfax, the headquarters of the Marin County Bicycle Coalition. Any “commuter linkage” between towns in Marin would definitely have to include sections like this. At the MCBC office in Fairfax, new Executive Director Kim Baenisch discusses a Share the Road campaign the MCBC recently coordinated with local police officers and Marin General Hospital. It’s one of many projects on which MCBC has been quietly working behind the scenes, building partnerships and collecting data that has led to further funding.
“We set up four checkpoints around the county—Fairfax, Sausalito, Larkspur and Novato—and stopped 2,200 motorists and 600 cyclists. We handed out safety information about sharing the road,” reports Baenisch. “It’s interesting that while all the drivers stopped, about 30 percent of cyclists initially weren’t going to stop until they saw a police officer. That shows us the need for further education.”
It may come as news to many cyclists, but California law presents the same traffic requirements to cyclists as for motorists. Cyclists who blow through stop signs or stoplights are subject to major fines.
“I believe fines can run as high as $400, depending on the offense,” reports Baenisch, “but the fines can be reduced to $50 if you attend a safety school that we put on in cooperation with Marin General Hospital.”
According to Baenisch, cyclists are among the highest users of the trauma unit at MGH. Nearly 20 cycling accidents are treated every month at MGH, a grim statistic.
Cyclists who are ticketed must watch a two-hour Power Point presentation created by MCBC called Basic Street Skills. MCBC received a grant from Marin General Hospital to develop the presentation and is actively searching for more funding to expand the program.
THE FEDERAL TRANSPORTATION bill also includes $612 million over the next five years to expand the Safe Routes to Schools (SR2S) program to all 50 states throughout the nation. Once again, a tiny program that originated in Marin a few short years ago is now gaining national attention. In Forest Knolls where she works from home, SR2S coordinator Wendi Kallins says the origins of SR2S were pretty humble.
“There were few school buses here in the San Geronimo Valley and I was looking for a way to coordinate rides. All we had at the time was a casual hitchhiking system,” she says. “I was looking at ‘walkable’ programs to get kids to school when I discovered a Safe Routes model in Great Britain, then one in Canada. I was working with Deb Hubsmith at the time and we had some funding, so we started a Safe Routes model here. Then we got a grant from the Highways people and the rest is history.”
The SR2S program began in 2000 with nine schools using a $50,000 grant from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, $25,000 from the Marin Community Foundation and $25,000 from the California Department of Health Services. In the current school year SR2S serves 35 schools, organizing over 16,000 students in Marin.
“In the first two-year pilot program we increased the number of students from 21 percent to 38 percent and reduced the number of students arriving alone in a car from 62 percent to 38 percent,” says Kallins. “We have reduced single occupant car trips by 13 percent each year. The program is now funded through Measure A sales tax funds, which will soon fund crossing guards and more infrastructure.”
How is the SR2S model catching on? At her last national training session Kallins taught people from Hawaii, Oregon, Texas, Maine, Michigan, Wyoming, Ohio and Virginia. “I have also been to Boulder, Austin, Kansas City, Tucson, Albuquerque and around California,” said Kallins. “I also get calls, sometimes daily, from people with questions about the program.”
On October 5, the 35 participating Marin schools will join students in 32 countries for an International Walk (and Roll) to School Day. Organized teams of walkers and “trains” of bikers will set out for school with special banners, badges and balloons. Says Kallins, “We want to show everyone what it could be like if our streets were filled with laughing children instead of congested traffic.”
DEB HUBSMITH, THE former—and founding—MCBC executive director, works from home in Fairfax these days. Hubsmith constantly works the phone to find funding for bike projects and get them implemented. Since its inception seven years ago in 1998, MCBC has grown to 1,100 members with a $500,000 annual budget and helped secure $30 million for an estimated 40 bike projects in Marin, from bike racks to bike paths.
“I began working on this latest $25 million funding back in the year 2000,” says Hubsmith. “The national industry and advocacy group Bikes Belong was preparing for a meeting in Washington, D.C., with Congressman Jim Oberstar [D-Minn.]. He’s an avid bicyclist and a very powerful congressman. Patrick Seidler and I quickly put together a white paper that became the Nonmotorized Transportation Pilot Program.”
In 2003, Congressman Oberstar introduced a bill with those two programs called the Pedestrian and Cycling Equity Act, with Congresswoman Woolsey as co-sponsor. The congressman then rolled those programs into the federal transportation bill, and worked with Senator Boxer and Congresswoman Woolsey to include Marin County.
“This money is not pork,” says Hubsmith. “This doesn’t benefit any private developer. It’s funding from an official environmental program in the transportation bill that will study how a concentrated investment in nonmotorized transportation infrastructure can get people out of their cars. Everyone from parents to disabled people to senior citizens will be asked their point of view.”
Hubsmith says the federal funds will be administered by the Marin County Board of Supervisors, and there will be data collection to justify the cost-effectiveness of the investment. It’s likely that the Supervisors will hire a consultant, who will seek input from residents, nonprofits, businesses and chambers of commerce, getting the widest possible overview from the community.
“This is really just a start. It will take many years to get to complete build-out of the bicycle and pedestrian network,” says Hubsmith. “The key to getting people to change their behavior lies in getting them involved in the process.”
To Seidler and Hubsmith, “if you build it, they will come” means more than paving bike paths. It means building partnerships with the public and government agencies, and with politicians who have access to public money. It also means cleverly piggybacking on public works projects as they are individually built.
“I realized long ago that bikes wouldn’t get much public funding on their own,” says Hubsmith. “You have to be involved with the public process, follow the money and find a way to make the best use of public dollars. Marin is unique in that we are able to generate cooperation, especially when it comes to creating solutions to our ecological problems. What you really need to do is paint a vision of the future, then break it down into what is doable now, and what we can accomplish together in the long run.”
“It’s economic modeling,” says Seidler. “When we do this in Marin, people can use this as a model elsewhere. That’s what excites good policymakers. If you show the big picture—what you have already accomplished, and then demonstrate unlimited future potential—that’s when you get your funding.”
PHOTO OF PATRICK SEIDLER BY ROBERT VENTE
