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I am writing to express my strong support for a bike lane across the Richmond/San Rafael Bridge.
The Bay Area is an interesting and diverse geographic region, but the Bay(s) can cause serious problems in getting around. Fortunately, our forefathers tackled that problem by building numerous bridges. Unfortunately, many of those bridges remain bike-inaccessible. For those of us who use bikes as a primary means of transport (and even for those that use bikes largely for recreation), large portions of the Bay Area are cut off!
The most inaccessible part of the Bay is surely Marin County. The only reasonable way for a bicyclist to currently get there is through a torturous trek that requires BARTing around to San Francisco, biking around the northeast corner of the city, climbing all the way up to the Golden Gate bridge, and crossing it. After a couple of hours of transit, crowd-dodging, and hard work he's in the Marin headlands ... and it's about time to head home for the day. The alternative is a several-hours long ride through a multitude of counties north of San Pablo Bay.
Richmond/San Rafael Bridge access would change all of that. It would provide relatively easy access for folks in the Richmond area, and pretty good access for *anyone* in the East Bay, who could take BART to Richmond, then ride the rest of the way on the Richmond Greenway and the Bay Trail connections through Point Richmond.
This is one of the biggest improvements you could make to bicycling access in the Bay Area (trailing behind only complete access to the Bay Bridge itself).
I hope you'll continue forward with this progressive and worthwhile project!
The Bay Area is an interesting and diverse geographic region, but the Bay(s) can cause serious problems in getting around. Fortunately, our forefathers tackled that problem by building numerous bridges. Unfortunately, many of those bridges remain bike-inaccessible. For those of us who use bikes as a primary means of transport (and even for those that use bikes largely for recreation), large portions of the Bay Area are cut off!
The most inaccessible part of the Bay is surely Marin County. The only reasonable way for a bicyclist to currently get there is through a torturous trek that requires BARTing around to San Francisco, biking around the northeast corner of the city, climbing all the way up to the Golden Gate bridge, and crossing it. After a couple of hours of transit, crowd-dodging, and hard work he's in the Marin headlands ... and it's about time to head home for the day. The alternative is a several-hours long ride through a multitude of counties north of San Pablo Bay.
Richmond/San Rafael Bridge access would change all of that. It would provide relatively easy access for folks in the Richmond area, and pretty good access for *anyone* in the East Bay, who could take BART to Richmond, then ride the rest of the way on the Richmond Greenway and the Bay Trail connections through Point Richmond.
This is one of the biggest improvements you could make to bicycling access in the Bay Area (trailing behind only complete access to the Bay Bridge itself).
I hope you'll continue forward with this progressive and worthwhile project!