Bay Area City of Alameda Goes All in on Bikes

[@ratbert1]

Excellent development, great cycling infrastructure.

[@BrettPrice1983]

The Green infrastructure here is inspiring. The planting design in particular just works.

[@KJSvitko]

Alameda needs to host a transportation/bicycle infrastructure convention to show off what they have done.

[@SwiftySanders]

Not shocked! ❤ congrats Alameda!!!

[@KJSvitko]

Walking, running, bicycles, escooters, green open spaces, electric buses and trams are all parts of a good transportation system

[@ScramJett]

If you can afford the cost of entry.

[@AnoopSathyan0197]

You really questioning the price of walking!?

[@ScramJett]

@@AnoopSathyan0197 nope, questioning the price of living where you can safely walk. Most of the places where walking is safe, comfortable, and convenient also happen to be multi-million dollar neighborhoods with access reserved excluseivly for the wealthy. Even if a city begrudgingly builds infrastructure in “disadvantaged communites,” it won’t be long before that community gets gentrified and the poor folk who live there are priced out.

[@AnoopSathyan0197]

i see. it goes to the old adage anywhere worth living is expensive@@ScramJett

[@pbilk]

This is great! 😊 Any new developments that don't do this don't have their priorities straight/right.

[@raulingaverage]

I wish you could have additionally covered Emeryville, which is a few miles nearby. They're one of the first East Bay cities to showcase this progressive effort, compared to Alameda's (more recent) positive changes

[@StreetfilmsCommunity]

Oh, I got films coming from SF on buses, plus Car-free JFK, a bike ride with Emeryville Mayor John Bauters, Oakland bike lanes and perhaps a short bit on Milvia Bike Blvd in Berkeley. And some other shorts if you follow me on Twitter. Lots of films to come, just got home!!

[@speedytrain9306]

@@StreetfilmsCommunity Nice! As someone who lives in Berkeley and ride a lot in Berkeley and Emeryville, I can say that the effort to make biking better is really impressive. I would recommend checking out the Emeryville active transportation plan, its really cool!

[@leonardarola]

I use to ride Alameda skatepark hard. Some 17 years ago lol. Go for it!

[@MichaelSalo]

Emeryville and Alameda are showing how it's done. I hope it spreads to Oakland and Berkeley.

[@jerrytwolanes4659]

Great video! Thanks for sharing!

[@torrawel]

Whauw, believe it or not, that's just like here in Amsterdam! Personally, I love the green strip with all the plants, flowers, grasses. That's exactly what they're doing here the last decade or so and it's really pretty! Great work guys, keep transforming that beautiful country into an even more beautiful one! 🎉

[@Cfb2987]

Really cool. Sunnyvale and Santa Clara in the South Bay have also done some great work to make their cities more bikable. Hoping to see more and more of this across the Bay Area! Great job Alameda!!

[@ScottAtwood]

Really? I live in San Jose and work in Mountain View. In the winter time when the trail system is flooded and I need to take surface streets, Santa Clara is consistently the most stressful and least bike friendly part of the route, with sections of Monroe where the bike lane disappears entirely, and lots of loop detectors that fail to detect bicycles.

[@marcelmoulin3335]

Absolutely brilliant! I am watching from the Netherlands. Albeit a Dutchman, I grew up in Palo Alto.

[@saranbhatia8809]

Way to go 👍

[@KJSvitko]

Cities need to do more to encourage people to ride bicycles. Safe protected bike lanes and trails are needed so adults and children can ride safely. Speak up for bicycles in your community. Bicycles make life and cities better. Ask your local transportation planner and elected officials to support more protected bike lanes and trails. Children should be riding a bicycle to school and not be driven in a minivan.

[@peterbedford2610]

I love cycling. This is great.

[@ytjoemoore94]

Pretty cool

[@ScramJett]

And for the low price of $1,000,000 you and your family can live somewhere that’s walkable and bikeable!

[@meowmeow-city]

Oh, it's not $1,000,000. It's much more than that.

[@TheObimara]

Good question... Do you have a reference for how much these places cost and how much of it is below market rate?

[@ScramJett]

@@meowmeow-city yeah, I figured as much. But I used that number because it’s easy for people to grasp, is on the lower end of the affordability spectrum for a family of four in Alameda (to silence the naysayers), and is still unattainable to 99% of the population. It really is infuriating that all of the really nice walkable neighborhoods are basically unobtainium to mere mortals.

[@airops423]

@@TheObimara It looks like two bed, two bath 1000sqft apartments are going for $3100 at the moment.

[@whatelsewouldyoudo]

Awesome project!!! It takes political will to get something like this done.

[@lyssasletters3232]

❤

[@buddy1155]

Really too bad that they still have dangerous intersections, why not put in some nice Dutch roundabouts?

[@YoJesusMorales]

I still don't get why they make it on one side of the street, people on bicycles wouldn't want to access anything on the other side? It does look nice though.

[@StreetfilmsCommunity]

Well they have the major two way lane there. But they have a lane in each direction anywhere else, some of the streets just have simple paint but others have the one-way cycle track. To be honest the streets with just paint - probably okay thru those, even when this development is fully occupied not likely to ever be too much traffic.

[@TheObimara]

"Best" bicycle lifestyle in the entire United States is a really, really, really tall order. The Streetsblog editor says it's like a 5 minute city but then also says it's isolated and mentions nothing about the contentious plans to connect to Oakland... And in the thread someone talks about visiting Emeryville.... I have no idea how to get to Emeryville from Alameda by bike...

[@coleyboy1921]

It’s cool they’ve done it, especially along the new multi family corridor. But it’s not crazily well used cause it doesn’t really lead to shopping centers or places that are bike friendly I reach. If they took one of the main arterials like Lincoln and added a protected bike lane by removing some road width or a side of parking it would utterly transform the street. 90% of the town you need to bike on the sidewalk bc it’s too dangerous in the road and cars pay no attention. Forcing new development to prioritize pedestrians and bikes would help too.

[@seanp2k617]

wish they’d do that here in San Jose. Instead, they just block out 15’ wide left turn lanes with markers every 2ft and tell cyclists to use full lanes where tons of cars are street parked.

[@phototristan]

Alameda and Emeryville are leading. I wish Berkeley was as good. Biking through Berkeley is actually kinda horrible.

[@jonascabrera8230]

While this reeks like and advertisement for The Point and subsequent gentrification, the urban planning and design aspect makes complete sense and is the kind of infrastructure that would benefit low income communities all over The Bay. Now just make the housing as accesible and beautiful as the paths themselves.

[@StreetfilmsCommunity]

Certainly not an advertisement on our end. We just saw it and decided to check it out and get some information. THis is why we didn't feature anyone from the housing.

[@jackMcRyder]

@@StreetfilmsCommunitydefinitely look like an advertisement. Didn’t even know it existed. Good luck to them, completely empty and barren unfriendly concrete

[@janetta98]

A what kind of suburb?

[@anthonysnyder1152]

I love this.. except it’s dead. A couple years have gone by and there’s no retail filling in. It’s nice but it’s only like 70% thought through. Developments in SF like Mission Rocks are certainly more developed and have tenants scheduled before opening as well as transportation and parks planned from the beginning. It’s designed to be a hit from the get go. Not sure what happened with this development…

[@peterslegers6121]

Dangerous edges... The street lanterns take away two feet of the width of the path. The 90° planters´ edge takes away one foot, because you don't want to hit it with a pedal. And parked car doors open onto the cycle path, because the strip of pavement next to the cars isn't wide enough to avoid danger. Why didn't they place the lanterns all on the left side, and laid the asphalt one foot towards the right? Cyclists would be able to overtake with ease.

[@StreetfilmsCommunity]

This is only one path in the photo. Not the main paths which are very wide and multi-directional. This is a smaller side street which even when the development is fully occupied and even if EVERY single resident ONLY biked (which of course won't happen) it would be rare to have someone pass on this 2 block stretch. You should watch the full video first and then comment. One photo in a long film.

[@dutchman7623]

Fully agree with @peterslegers6121... If you create a completely new infra for bicycles, do it correctly. A bicycle has a handlebar and people who ride have arms and shoulders. Keep at least 1.5 feet (45 cm) free next to the path. On a bicycle you hang into a curve, and you do not want a confrontation with a lamppost! Curbs should be low (under lowest pedal height) or 'forgiving' (sloped). You do not have objects sticking out on car lanes that smash the mirrors off do you? Same goes for bicycle infra. And I watched the entire video three times! Gave me shivers!

[@jonatanwestholm]

Wouldn't bother me too much. Just slow down a bit. Wanting to go as fast as possible at all times is what got us into car dependency in the first place.

[@peterslegers6121]

​@@StreetfilmsCommunity Hi Clarence. The overall design is inspiring to see. I like the looks of the Point Development, the wide paths and flowers on the sides and the median. I'm also all for Brad Lancaster's @HarvestingRainwater ideas that are a nourishing way of dealing with drought. This looks so much nicer than most streets. But I don't agree with "it's only one path", because I refer to unsafe details that occur on many more US/CAN paths, including these main paths. Designers should know It´s easy to make this design safer. It doesn't matter how many people cycle in a neighbourhood. It only takes two cyclists with a different speed, to create a possible conflict. A little mistake is enough to hit the 90° curb or a street lantern post. It can have dire consequences for especially elderly cyclists, which is shown by statistics of one sided accidents. Street design should be forgiving, so a two person wide path with no obstructions should be standard, when the space is (made) available. Pointing out details: At 0:21 the same lanterns are posted in the cycle lane of the main route. Have you ever seen a highway or road, where the lights are posted in the actual car lane? Tired people ride on auto pilot, and tend to follow stripes or edges. In this case they certainly need a helmet... At 1:04 you can see on the left, that they know the importance of forgiving curbs. So why didn't they use similar or a 45° edge on the cycle path side of the planters? At 1:30 there's a single bicycle wide path entrance. Why? At 2:29 again, with a corner that doesn't give much protection against high speed cornering cars. I'd rather see the planter curbs guiding a pinched in corner, so cars slow down and cyclists are protected. At 1:18 and 2:56 the cycle path swirls, which is strange. Why would you put cyclists in a pedestran's way? Why are they adding a distractingly changing pathway, when the cyclists need their eyes on the people and cars that go in and out of the crossing driveway? Why not create a waiting space for the turning cars, by moving the entrance to the edge of the car lane, using the full width of the parking spots?

[@StreetfilmsCommunity]

@@peterslegers6121 We should be doing rainwater recapture and bioswales everywhere possible. Yes! Portland has done inspiring work of course there.

[@johndeere3486]

Yes, the Akemda NIMBYs have lovely bike infrastructure . To bad the they’re NIMBYs

[@WilkiFilm]

I guarentee you 90% of the people in those apartments drive to work or work from home. Unless you live and work on the Alameda island, you absolutely need a car to survive. Try commuting to Hayward or Richmond everyday with only a bike and tell me these bike lanes are the magic that makes it happen.

[@TheObimara]

De-constructing "About as protected as you're going to get" spoken by the Streetsblog editor, based on the video at 1:30: 1) three residential floors over ground level retail is only high density compared to the suburbs. 2) The street feels really wide and I'm curious what kind of speeds people will be going in motor vehicles... 3) if that bike lane becomes creditor, all people will jump onto the sidewalk to pass 4) as mentioned elsewhere in the thread that pole and seemingly many more of them are a lawsuit waiting to happen. These need to be removed immediately. 5) yeah, I also agree that those curbs are poorly designed. 6) Alameda is certainly not the hottest part of the East Bay, but I don't see a lot of trees or even potential for trees shading the walking areas. 7,) why do people have to wear a bike helmet when they're standing and talking to people about cycling? 8) the apartments featured in a quick shot start at 2500 for a one bedroom... 9) why no mention of affordable housing, transit or missing bike share? 10) I don't think that bioswales are a typical defense against sea level rise issues

[@TheObimara]

If the street is as protected as one can be, why is the main interviewee wearing a helmet?

[@TheObimara]

Streetfilms interviewing the editor of Streetsblog SF about a project in the City of Alameda - a city - let's be honest and for better or for worse - most people visit only because they have friends there. Sometimes the cheerlead-y format of Streetfilms does no favors for the truth.

[@caelumarisen]

although Alameda doesn’t have BART because they were the last city with KKK members on their city council……..

[@maumor2]

Bay area showing rest of the US how it should be done Is not a war on cars is just a fair chance to other means of transportation

[@jackMcRyder]

Wow, this is a lot of empty condos. Wonder if they’re before their time because I don’t see jobs or an office park nearby

[@ClayShentrup]

the whole bay area needs to abolish zoning and eliminate public parking too.

[@myairspace3xx]

Be careful criminals target expensive bicycles. Watch out.

[@jonatanwestholm]

Nice, could have been Europe

[@MultiJsherman]

Because it's an island of cars, nowhere to park and they just keep building regardless of the fact of not having the infrastructure to support it. So let’s build bike lanes to look proactive although we’re not.

[@miloelite]

AMAZ…oh. It’s next to Oakland.

[@atumra7285]

Yeah, no point in driving if your car can get stolen or you get stuck due to sideshows. Enjoy your bike and a loud muffler

[@tabryis]

Wow it's almost as though we live in a first world country. Sike

[@dustinthewind3925]

I hate the bay area, especially its politics. I'm not a left winger. Yall can call this "progressive" all you want, idc. To me this just makes sense. I dont want to spend more time watching anyones cling-wrapped ass in front of me after sweating my ass off for 8 to 12 hours, stretching my already soulcrushingly long commute back home. Its hard enough staying in one piece at work and on the road with other asshats behind the wheel...not to mention being unable to afford to live there. Why make us share the road and worry about taking someone else out? As much as I "dislike" road cyclists, I can stand behind this.... its good to see SOME of my tax dollars going in the right direction (back to us). Now can we make boondocking safe and sanitary...and legal? Or is that asking too much? Im sick of driving.

[@dallassegno]

From gay to gayer

[@freddyjisp6452]

I'd stay away from SF if I was you... rancid

[@Bengson186]

Lol yea you can go to San Francisco where the crime is higher than ever, drugs are everywhere people do it out in the open, homeless everywhere, they literally shit and piss on the sidewalks. Such a great place to go.

[@rickyfox67]

do you even go to the city

[@jamesmitchell6925]

Wrong!