El Cerrito/Richmond Annex Walk & Roll blog

By Janet Byron. On April 16, about 25 cyclists—ranging in age from 8 to 80—met at El Cerrito Plaza BART station to explore the possibilities and promise of an improved route from to the Bay Trail via Richmond Annex and the Sacramento Street pedestrian bridge. Along the way, Steve Price and Janet Byron of El Cerrito Strollers & Rollers highlighted a series of “pain-points,” including the lack of signage pointing out a bike route to the Bay Trail (and back), challenges crossing San Pablo and Carlson avenues, unsafe landings and limited traffic calming on both sides of the Sacramento Street pedestrian bridge over I-80, and  the need for better bike protections on the I-580 overpass. Once we made it to the Bay Trail at Central Avenue, it was smooth sailing to Armistice Brewing Company! The trip from the Plaza BART to Bay Trail takes only about 10 minutes by bike. From there, cyclists have easy access to terrific birdwatching, the Point Isabel dog park, Costco, Albany Beach an...

Bureau of Transportation Statistics We live in anxious times. On top of your many worries, add “range anxiety,” the fear that if you drive an electric car on a road trip, you will run out of juice in the middle of nowhere. This will be a real concern for longer trips until chargers become more widely available. Yet electric car ranges are getting longer (some go up to 350 miles or more on a charge) and chargers are becoming more widely available by the month and year. Nevertheless, as the above diagram shows, only 2% of car trips are over 50 miles. Some motorists have plug-in hybrid cars that will go 25 to 50 miles before kicking into gasoline mode. If the cars are charged at home regularly, that takes care of almost all of one's daily driving needs without burning a drop of gasoline. (Be cognizant that gasoline for hybrids is not eternal—the future is fully electric.) If you own an e-bike, you could leave the car at home for the majority of your local travel needs. Or in El Cerrit...

  Bike Parking at Peet's Coffee Most municipal bicycle parking standards—including El Cerrito’s San Pablo Avenue Specific Plan —say bike racks must be placed no more than 50 feet from a business’s entrance.The bike racks outside the entrance to Peet’s Coffee exemplify that standard. Nobody going in or out of Peet’s front door will miss seeing the two bike racks on the sidewalk, and being on the sidewalk in front of big shop front windows means your bike has good surveillance. (That beats surveillance of a parked car out of sight in the back!)

Steve Eisner with his ETrikeCo three-wheel vehicle. Steve Eisner of Albany doesn't own a full-size personal car. He owns something a quarter that size . . . and it’s electric. He doesn't experience range anxiety because he knows almost all his travel needs are local; he never goes so far that he has to worry about the availability of charging stations. Because his vehicle is so small, he can charge it overnight at his house just using a standard wall plug. Steve’s ETrikeCo three-wheel vehicle has a top speed of 28 miles per hour and goes 65 miles on a charge (ETrikeCo also has two four-wheel models). Located in Clearwater, Florida, ETrikeCo started in Oakland in 2018 and was tested locally, including ascending the East Bay hills. This neighborhood electric vehicle, or NEV, is not freeway-worthy but it does just fine on all local streets. Steve's vehicle can take him grocery shopping, to medical appointments, and to almost everywhere he needs to go. In his younger years, S...

El Cerrito is blessed with multiple transportation options. Here's another: It's now possible to travel in a comfortable commercial FlixBus bus from Del Norte BART all the way to Union Station or UCLA in Los Angeles — and beyond. FlixBus started in Germany in 2013 and is now in 15 countries, and the company expanded into the United States in 2018: "Our goal at FlixBus is to convince more people to take the bus as opposed to their own vehicles. It’s time to ditch the car!" FlixBus buses have Wifi and power outlets and the tickets can be bought online at a fraction of the cost of an airline ticket. Some may remember the Bolt Bus run by Greyhound for inexpensive travel to Los Angeles. Bolt Bus did not survive the pandemic. Flix North America Inc. is now the parent company of Greyhound Lines, Inc. and FlixBus Inc. creating an extended intercity bus network. Go FlixBus and leave the driving to someone else.  — Steve Price

Weaning ourselves off America's near-total addiction to automobile travel for all trips is not a lifestyle choice, it's a necessity. Most people don't understand the gravity of the problem or lack the political will to act. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently issued dark warnings in its Sixth Assessment Report about the direction the planet is heading. “Almost half of the world’s population lives in regions that are highly vulnerable to climate change. In the last decade, deaths from floods, droughts and storms were 15 times higher in highly vulnerable regions,“  the authors wrote. “There is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a livable and sustainable future for all.” The above figure from the IPCC report shows how future generations will experience a quickly warming planet. That disparity between rich countries and poor will only increase as the climate deteriorates. If that is not compelling enough, think about the future of the yo...

Big kudos to the City of El Cerrito for installing new, usable bike racks on the sidewalk in front of the restaurants Tashi Delek, Antojitos Guatemaltecos, and the 514 Lounge on San Pablo Avenue (south of Potrero).  “There was a row of businesses with no nearby bicycle parking and plenty of available public space to install racks,” explains Jarrett Mullen, El Cerrito’s senior sustainable transportation planner. “We’re happy to support local businesses and hope the bike racks make it a bit easier to pop in and grab a bite.”  A usable bike rack is one that meets minimum standards for safety, security, and accessibility. El Cerrito Strollers & Rollers will highlight commendable bike parking that meets best practices in this newsletter going forward. There are eight parking spaces per car in the United States. Yet while bike riders are paying customers at local businesses, they rarely find secure bicycle parking when they arrive. Usable bicycle parking is not expensive overhea...