El Cerrito/Richmond Annex Walk & Roll blog

There is so much at stake. Act to make a world of difference. If you support multimodal mobility in our area, we urge you to sign the following petition .

Newly constructed Little Lamb Bilingual Preschool with bike racks Schools should have bike racks. It doesn't seem like rocket science, yet it is surprising how lacking they often are at schools. The Little Lamb Bilingual Preschool will soon open to children on Kearney Avenue across the street from Fairmont School. Preschool children are probably too young to bicycle alone to school; they will be dropped off by their parents. Increasingly we're seeing parents delivering their children to schools by electric cargo bicycles. Having short-term bicycle parking racks to secure parents' bikes while they shuttle their little ones into the school building makes sense. Electric cargo bikes are not cheap and deserve sturdy and secure racks. Little Lamb deserves kudos for respecting and encouraging this simple transportation need. —  Steve Price

By Stuart Sonatina El Cerrito has about 25,000 people, 4,500 of whom are under 18. Every weekday they get up and go to one of our approximately 15 schools, which in our city of 3.67 square miles is typically less than a mile away. That’s less than a 20-minute walk or a 4- to 8-minute bike ride. Instead of benefitting from those few minutes of fresh air and exercise, many children are immobile in a car seat for their twice-daily commute. It’s hard to blame their parents for choosing to drive their children to school instead of letting them walk or bike; after all, over 110 Americans are killed by a car every day . There are numerous benefits (both short and long term) to walking or biking to school. These include improvements to mental and physical health, better sleep, and increased performance in school, to name a few. Unfortunately, the United States has seen fewer and fewer students getting to school under their own power over the past several decades. This creates a vicious cycle

The City of El Cerrito has embarked on developing a Local Road Safety Plan (LRSP) with the help of consultants Kittelson & Associates . A Local Road Safety Plan results in an implementable plan with strategies, actions, and projects focused on reducing crashes on City roadways—particularly fatal and serious injury crashes. The plan team completed a 5-year crash data review and found that of the 10 fatal and severe crashes during this period, 7 involved bicyclists and pedestrians, indicating a potential need to focus on the needs of vulnerable road users, among other trends. Travel safety is dependent on three major things: how dangerous vehicles are to the occupants and people outside the vehicle, street design, and the behaviors of people. The physical design of our streets is clearly within the responsibility of local government. By making investments in physical improvements to our streets, the city can increase local transportation safety. With the Local Road Safety Plan in ha