North-South Greenway will Get People out of Cars
Marin IJ: Marin Voice Piece
April 10, 2007
Dear Editor:
For more than 30 years, Marin County has dreamed and planned to have a continuous bicycle and pedestrian pathway separated from cars that will follow the railroad right-of-way from Sausalito through Novato. Public transit will share the corridor north of Larkspur.
Creating this continuous North-South Greenway is important for long term sustainability, and for health, public safety, emergency access, traffic relief, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The safe, flat pathway will become a linear park used by children, families, persons with disabilities, bicycle commuters, pedestrians and runners. It will connect to transit centers, schools, shopping centers and residential communities, providing a traffic-free alternative to Highway 101 and automobile travel.
Many segments of the North-South Greenway have already been created such as the popular Mill Valley pathway and the Sandra Marker Trail that runs through Larkspur and Corte Madera. Other segments will go to construction this year including the Cal Park Hill Tunnel and the Puerto Suello Hill pathway. Many key sections of the Greenway still need funds for planning and construction, and the opportunity to get these projects rolling has finally arrived.
In 2005, after more than five years of advocacy by the Marin County Bicycle Coalition, Transportation Alternatives for Marin, and the Marin County Board of Supervisors, the federal government allocated $25 million to the County for a Nonmotorized Transportation Pilot Program. The legislative purpose of the program is “to demonstrate the extent to which bicycling and walking can carry a significant part of the transportation load, and represent a major portion of the transportation solution, within selected communities.”
Recently, an independent Advisory Committee to the County developed recommendations for the federal funding, and selected key North-South Greenway projects including the Alto Tunnel study for $850,000 and the Central Marin Ferry Connection Project for $3 million. These projects scored high on the criteria ranking for getting people out of their cars and onto their feet and bikes, per the legislation’s mode-shift mandate.
In the year 2000 both Mill Valley and Corte Madera passed resolutions of support for an Alto Tunnel study, and even detailed the specific issues that they wanted the County to evaluate. Corte Madera and Mill Valley again expressed their support for the Alto Tunnel study in 2001 and 2003 when the respective Councils adopted their Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plans. Due to the lack of state or federal monies available for initial project feasibility studies, the Pilot Program funds are the one source that could finally kick-start this analysis.
It is critically important to proceed with a Mill Valley-Corte Madera Pedestrian and Bicycle Gap Closure Study that will analyze all possible routes, including the Alto Tunnel. All of the jurisdictions involved should determine a long-term route that will be safer than the current dangerous conditions that bicyclists and pedestrians face traveling between Mill Valley and Corte Madera. Bicyclists have been killed in the past using Camino Alto.
The Central Marin Ferry Connection Project will connect Redwood Highway at Wornum Drive with a pathway that will traverse Corte Madera Creek and East Sir Francis Drake Boulevard, linking with the southern terminus of the Cal Park Hill Tunnel. The Advisory Committee’s $3 million funding recommendation is needed to combine with $9 million in secured funds to build a safe pathway connection across Drake, with access to the Ferry terminal. In 2003 a bicyclist was killed trying to cross this street, and more will be trying to cross once the Cal Park Hill Tunnel is constructed next year.
The Board of Supervisors will vote on Tuesday April 17 to finalize allocations for the Pilot Program. We are asking them to provide full funding for the North-South Greenway projects that the Advisory Committee recommended. The funding recommendations are not arbitrary: they are strategic amounts needed to advance these projects to their next stage of completion.
Let’s turn the dream of making Marin bicycle and pedestrian friendly into a reality that we can all enjoy for generations to come.
Submitted by:
Deb Hubsmith, Advocacy Director, Marin County Bicycle Coalition
367 Forrest Avenue, Fairfax, CA
415-454-7430
Patrick Seidler, President, Transportation Alternatives for Marin
475 Miller Avenue, Mill Valley, CA
415-389-5040 x24
