Marin pedals ahead
Biking programs in high gear as commute numbers speed along
by Peter Seidman, Pacific Sun Staff
Bicycle commuters and people who grab their bicycles for everyday errands used to be the odd people out on the roads. Not any longer. The number of people using bikes to get around has increased at an astonishing rate during the last 10 years.
The effort to bring bicycles into the mainstream always has been a goal for the Marin County Bicycle Coalition. In 2000, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration provided funds to the Bicycle Coalition to start a pilot program in Marin called Safe Routes to Schools. The idea was to encourage students, and their parents, that walking and riding bikes to schools would provide much needed exercise for school children. It also could reduce traffic congestion--a lot. Traffic congestion caused by school drop-offs and pick-ups accounts for a major portion of the traffic problem in Marin around schools. And that congestion cascades to other parts of communities at least twice a day. In an initial study the Bicycle Coalition conducted, the group learned that 73 percent of the students at nine schools included in the pilot project arrived in the morning by car. Only 7 percent rode bikes; 14 percent walked. After an education program that was the cornerstone of the Safe Routes to Schools pilot project, the Coalition conducted another study. The number of students walking and biking to class had increased by 57 percent.
The pilot program eventually led to the county adopting the Safe Routes to Schools in 2003. The program continued to gain support and spread to become a national program. In 2005, a federal transportation bill included $612 million for the national Safe Routes program.
As the Safe Routes program gathered momentum, so did another pilot program designed to stimulate walking and bike use. In 2005, the Non-Motorized Transportation Pilot Program chose four communities to begin an effort designed to promote alternatives to the daily use of gas-guzzlers. The four communities chosen to develop non-motorized pilot programs were Minneapolis and its surrounding communities; Sheboygan County in Wisconsin; Columbia, Missouri; and Marin County. The federal program is providing $25 million a year from 2006 through 2009 to be distributed among four communities across the country to determine the effectiveness of investing in alternative transportation. (That amounts to a total of $25 million for each community in the program.)
In December 2007, Marin County received its first report, detailing the current status of alternative transportation. Alta Planning and Design of Berkeley conducted the studies included in the report, which includes results that some will find rather remarkable. "Bicycling routes are increasing in Marin County, and bicycling/walking activity can be found throughout the urbanized area of Marin County, according to counts and surveys in 22 locations in September 2007," states the opening paragraph of the Alta Planning report's executive summary.
A fairly dry start, but the next sentence tells the story: "Bicycling rates have increased on average 66 percent between 1999 and 2007 during weekdays, and an average of 33 percent during weekend days…." The report then notes that walking on weekdays has increased by 8 percent during that same time period. (The report also notes that weekend walking rates actually have declined 22 percent.)
The high rates of bike use and walking during weekdays indicates people are riding their bikes and walking to work. Students riding and walking to school, as a result of the Safe Routes to Schools program, are a key element in those numbers. While some may be astonished at the increase in bike use since 1999, the numbers don't surprise Deb Hubsmith, advocacy coordinator for the Marin Bicycle Coalition. "We have been working really hard for the last 10 years to get more people riding bikes (students and otherwise)." In addition says Hubsmith, "The county of Marin and the cities and towns also have been doing a lot to try to invest more in bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure. Safe Routes to School has got more kids involved, which has got more parents involved. And then the price of gas is going up and traffic is getting worse." The increasing numbers of bike riders "confirms what we had expected," she says.
Although the Bicycle Coalition might have expected to see an increase in the numbers of bicyclists and walkers, the Alta Planning report is the first objective analysis of alternative transportation programs in the county. "It's nice to see the report confirming that biking and walking are on the rise, and we expect to see them continuing to increase in the future."
A significant finding in the Alta Planning report concerns the purpose of alternative transportation trips. Twenty-two percent of all bicycle trips "were part of school or work commutes." Shopping and errands, accounted for 14 percent of the bicycling trips. That means a total of 36 percent of the bicycling trips were related to work and utilitarian goals. “If respondents drove alone for these trips instead of bicycling,” the report states, “this sample group would annually account for approximately 5,468 additional vehicle trips. “ The report concludes that, considering the median respondent trip length of 10 miles and gasoline consumption of 20.2 miles per gallon for the average automobile, the bike use noted in the report, in addition to saving many gallons of gasoline, eliminated 52,245 pounds of carbon dioxide that would have been eliminated into the atmosphere.
Hubsmith says Congress soon will receive an interim report detailing the progress of the Non-Motorized Transportation Pilot Program, which has spawned initiatives with more humanized names in the four communities. In Marin, the initiative is called WalkBikeMarin. In Minneapolis it's called Bike/Walk Twin Cities. The names may be different, but the goals are similar. The final results of the program in each of the four communities will drop on the steps of Congress in a 2010 report.
"In California, 43 percent of the trips are two miles or less," says Hubsmith. "These are the types of trips the Marin Bicycle Coalition is targeting to get people to think twice about before they end up using a car instead of walking or riding a bicycle." During the next three years, she adds, many projects the Bicycle Coalition has been working on for the last tem years are going to appear in reality. One of those projects is the Lincoln Hill bike pathway, where construction is underway on the carpool lane on Highway 101 in San Rafael. The path "will provide an alternative to Lincoln Avenue, from Mission Avenue (north) all the way to the top of Lincoln Hill, and there's going to be a mini tunnel at the top that will allow people to avoid the highway on ramps and off ramps."
Projects such as that, along with other bike paths and bike routes, and combined with relatively simple methods such as striping in bike lanes when a road gets resurfaced, are all part of an impetus to promote safe and practical bike use in the county, which has an interesting alternative transportation program of its own. "We have over 400 of our 2,000 employees who have signed up" for a program that pays them $4 for every time they use alternative transportation to get to work, says Marin Supervisor Susan Adams, a bike advocate not unknown to ride to work herself. About 250 of the employees in the program regularly ride to work, although not every day. Even if it's not every day, riding to work can make a significant difference in traffic congestion, along with a significant health benefits for riders.
"We set the example," says Marin Supervisor Steve Kinsey. "We put in bicycle lockers and we put in locker rooms and showers for men and for women." Those kinds of amenities are essential in any program that seeks to boost the numbers of commute bike riders. In addition to serving as a county supervisor, Kinsey also serves on the Transportation Authority of Marin. "Right now," he says, "the Transportation Authority is putting the finishing touches on a transportation management demand program that's targeted to employers, especially larger employers." The program is aimed at providing assistance, for instance, to employees who use alternative transportation and then find they need to get home in an emergency. "We're trying to remove the obstacles," says Kinsey, "and another part of that is providing some incentive grants to businesses who will make improvements like showers and locker rooms."
Kinsey's district covers Larkspur. Adams's district covers San Rafael. Connecting the two areas is the Cal Park Hill tunnel, which advocates of practical bike use in eastern Marin long have seen as a critical connection. Plans for a bike route that follows Highway 101 (and the train tracks) got a big boost in the last several years as plans for a Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit commuter rail line became the topic of debate. Part of the debate included the prospects of a bike pathway that would run all the way from Sausalito to the northern county limit. That pathway, thanks to a variety of funding options, could become a reality whether or not SMART eventually succeeds with its plan to run rains between Sonoma County and the Larkspur Ferry Terminal.
Nevertheless, SMART owns those tracks--and the Cal Park tunnel that connects downtown San Rafael to Larkspur. The tunnel, whose San Rafael entrance is located where Anderson Drive crosses underneath Highway 101, and whose Larkspur entrance is located near Larkspur Landing, has been closed since the 1980s because the south end collapsed. A fire also damaged the tunnel, which, thanks to a combination of funding that totals an estimated $24 million, will soon become a key link in the Marin north/south bike route. In an understanding reached recently, the county will assume operational responsibility for the tunnel as a bike and pedestrian route, while SMART will continue ownership. A key sticking point in getting the tunnel project rolling was a disagreement over whether it should remain open all day and all night.
San Rafael and Larkspur had some concerns that leaving the tunnel open would encourage vandalism and, at worst, become an attractant for crime. Hubsmith points out that of all the tunnels used for bikes in the country, virtually all are kept open twenty-four hours a day, and there have been few incidents. The more people who use the tunnel, she notes, the fewer problems occur. The county has estimated that between 800 and 1,000 people a day will use the Cal Park tunnel. The county and the two cities have agreed to keep the tunnel open from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m. for a one-year trial period. Its hours could be evaluated at that time, or before that if anything warrants a change, according to Craig Tackaberry, assistant director of public works with the county.
The county is in the process of considering construction bids for the tunnel work. That decision should come this spring. If all goes well, construction could start this summer. It's a 15-month to 18-month construction project, according to Tackaberry.
The opening of the Cal Park tunnel will be welcome news to many workers who lack cars and ride their bikes between San Rafael and points south. The opening also will be good news for San Rafael commuters who want to ride their bikes over to the ferry terminal. (An overpass taking riders and walkers from the tunnel across the street to the Ferry Terminal side is part of the overall plan.) The Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District is keenly aware of the tunnel project, says Mary Currie, spokeswoman for the district. "We will start putting it into the hopper to determine where we fit in," she says.
Part of the Bridge District's planning includes additional parking for the Ferry Terminal, and that parking could include additional capacity for bikes. If the bridge district is "going to spend $16 million or $20 million on a new parking garage, you can be sure that (we will push for) additional bicycle parking, too," says Kinsey"
Kinsey and others believe that "the real thrust for continuing to improve" the percentages of people walking and riding "will be access to transit and access to schools."
To people who say that regular commuting by bike simply is impracticable, bike advocates say cultural shifts often seem impossible. Walking and riding bikes for utilitarian trips doesn't have to be an always or never proposition, notes Adams. It can be as simple as deciding to take the bike on "one of those beautiful Marin days when you don't have a huge time constraint. Then you can jump on your bike."
Patty Garbarino at Marin Resource and Recovery Center says she rides to work three or four days a week. She often embarks on utilitarian trips from her facility in San Rafael to Larkspur. Now, she has to navigate a route past San Quentin. When the Cal Park tunnel opens, she will have a safer and much more comfortable ride. The opening of the tunnel will mean "I can be competitive with the time it takes me in my car." She also has other reasons to embrace the two-wheel movement: "I live in fear of global warming. Plus, I keep my weight down, and I feel much better."
Contact the writer at peter@pseidman.com
