El Cerrito/Richmond Annex Walk & Roll blog

Illustration adapted from the book Near to Far by Dan Sturges. Modified with author's permission. By Steve Price The concept of “two-tier mobility” attempts to impose discipline on America's mobility habits, but in a way that acknowledges the value of full-size cars while being more discerning about their use in daily living. Tier 1 vehicles are bicycles, scooters, mopeds, neighborhood electric vehicles (NEVs), and an emerging class of small, autonomous shuttles transporting 8 to 12 passengers at slow speeds. Over 71 percent of travel in America is within a radius of 8 miles or less. This sweeps out an accessible area of over 200 square miles, depending on geographic constraints. Within this nearby but generous zone, seeking out a freeway for travel doesn't save much time. Some Tier 1 vehicles, such as e-mopeds and NEVs, can easily handle traveling 8 miles and back. About two-thirds of travel is 5 miles or less, which is easily done by bicycle. At 12 to 15 mph, that would ...

Beginning January 1, 2024, bikes are allowed on most of the escalators throughout the BART system to help make it easier for people to bring their bikes on board the train. This change was approved by the BART Board of Directors at the request of Director Rebecca Saltzman, an El Cerrito resident. The vote authorizes further changes to BART’s bike rules, including allowing bikes on all train cars except the first car (bikes were previously banned from the first three cars during commute times), and allowing bicyclists to secure bikes on the train using the bike lean bar and straps, instead of holding them. Bikes will remain banned from BART’s 10 narrow escalators located at the 19th Street Oakland, Antioch, and Oakland Airport Connector stations. A video with safety tips for bringing bikes on escalators and the updated Bikes on BART rules are here . Bonus! Check out BART’s Elevator Dimension Guide for assistance with navigating BART elevators. Several new laws also went into effect in ...

 At our Jan. 15 meeting, Jarrett Mullen, El Cerrito’s sustainable transportation manager, gave EC/RA Walk & Roll an update on current projects and future plans for improving multimobility around town. Mullen shared that the El Cerrito Public Works department filled two traffic engineering positions and secured $20+ million in transportation grants; the Del Norte Complete Streets program will break ground in March; a Local Road Safety Plan is underway; and the GIG CarShare pilot has been extended through 2024. Projects underway in 2024 include growing the city’s bicycle parking program and moving forward with the El Cerrito Plaza BART Station transit-oriented development project and BART’s Berkeley-El Cerrito Corridor Access Plan . Mullen’s presentation is here and the Zoom recording of his presentation and follow-up questions is here .

By Steve Price Automobiles are taking up more and more space on our local streets—they're getting bigger and heavier. Light trucks, which include SUVs, vans, and pickup trucks, were 33% of the new vehicle market in 1990; they're now 78%. Average horsepower for light-duty vehicles grew by 85% between 1975 and 2021. This targets the most dangerous vehicle users, young men.  The top-selling vehicle in America is the Ford F-Series pickup. Compare that with the modest-sized best selling car in Europe, the Peugeot 208. (See the comparison in the graphic above from carsized.com.) For older communities like El Cerrito and the Richmond Annex, where street space is not growing, this car bloat puts more and more squeeze on bicycle riders and makes crossing streets for pedestrians more dangerous. As cars get electrified, they will get heavier, which means that they will be deadlier at lower speeds. The taller the front end of a vehicle, the more deadly it is. Low front ends, as typical in ...

With cars and trucks getting heavier and more powerful, some governments are taking measures to address this growing concern. ​​Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, France wants to “stop the excesses of carmakers, who are pushing people to buy ever bigger, more expensive, more raw-material-intensive, more polluting vehicles.” She has set up a referendum for Parisians to vote in February 2024 for parking-fee increases for SUVs and trucks. Washington, DC, is substantially increasing annual registration fees for heavier vehicles. At $500, the annual fee for a vehicle over 6,000 pounds, will be seven times more than for a smaller car. The fee for vehicles less than 3,500 pounds, $72, remains unchanged. In California, Governor Gavin Newsom recently signed AB 251 , authorizing a study of the effects of vehicle weight on pedestrian and bicycle rider safety, and exploring the possibility of a passenger vehicle weight fee. In the European Union, Australia, China, Korea, and Japan, vehicles are t...

Structured parking is envisioned as part of the development at the El Cerrito Plaza BART station. How will its design respond to an evolving vehicle future? As automobiles get larger, cities will be under pressure to change parking to accommodate the growing sizes, which means more asphalt and concrete. There are serious questions about whether existing parking garages can hold the extra weight of American vehicles going forward. Structural engineers in the United Kingdom are expressing concerns about the impact on parking garages of heavier, electrified cars. Electrified American cars are bigger still. The concrete industry is responsible for 8% of carbon dioxide emissions worldwide. We will likely need to use more concrete in future parking garages given vehicle bloat. Hopefully emissions from concrete and steel manufacturing can be reduced, which, if improved processes can be developed, will nevertheless take time to scale up. Meanwhile other solutions: Make parking spaces bigger ...

If you’ve driven, walked, or rolled along San Pablo Avenue recently, you may have noticed a new type of traffic signal at the San Pablo Avenue and Eureka Avenue intersection. Installed by Caltrans, the signal is called a pedestrian hybrid beacon or PHB, and is a special type of traffic signal that reduces pedestrian-vehicle conflicts on busy roadways. A before and after study of pedestrian hybrid beacons in Tucson, Arizona, identified a 29 percent reduction in total crashes and a 69 percent reduction in pedestrian crashes. Learn more on the City of El Cerrito website .