When Berkeley began surveying residents in 2022 on how best to update the city’s Bicycle Plan, people said they were most worried about safety on city streets and at intersections. The city is looking for feedback once again and has set up a listening tour to try to narrow down its highest priority safety upgrades for cyclists and others who roll along bike lanes and paths.
The city first adopted its current Bicycle Plan in 2017. The policy document spelled out two decades’ worth of proposed infrastructure improvements and community goals. Two of those goals were to eliminate bike-related deaths in Berkeley by 2025 and bike-related injuries by 2035, all while increasing ridership and access for Berkeleyans of all ages and abilities.
Berkeley police have not posted crash data for 2025 yet. In 2024 there were no cyclists killed in Berkeley, according to BPD data, but there were 95 crashes involving cyclists that resulted in at least one injury or possible injury.
“There’s a wide range of devices that legally can use bike lanes, separated bikeways and the bike path,” Christopher Kidd, a senior planning associate for the Oakland-based Alta, the city’s planning and design consultant on the Bicycle Plan, reported to the Transportation and Infrastructure Commission on Jan. 16. “We want to ensure that we’re creating an environment where all of those users feel safe, comfortable and welcome using those facilities, and notably, that includes mobility scooters and power chairs.”
Alta has set up a website dedicated to the Bicycle Plan, which includes a summary of what they’ve heard so far and what may be Berkeley’s next steps. They have put together and mapped out a series of recommendations, including new bike lanes and routes; refurbishing several dozen major intersections, either with new beacons or into protected intersections; and installing new traffic-calming features like roundabouts and speed tables on existing bike boulevards and paths.
The consultants also came up with 10 “key project concepts” they will ask Berkeleyans to help prioritize:
- Separated bikeway along Claremont Avenue near Woolsey Street
- Separated bikeway near the UC Berkeley Clark Kerr Campus along Claremont Boulevard, Belrose Avenue, Derby Street, Warring Street and Piedmont Avenue
- Separated bikeway on Oxford Street along the western edge of UC Berkeley’s main campus
- Bicycle boulevard along Rose Street
- Bicycle boulevard on Heinz Street crossing Seventh
- Bicycle boulevard in Southwest Berkeley along Mabel, 66th, Idaho, Harmon, King and Prince streets and Alcatraz Avenue
- Bicycle Boulevard along Derby Street crossing Shattuck Avenue
- Separated bikeway along Gilman Street between Fourth and 10th streets
- Pedestrian hybrid beacon at Sacramento Street and Channing Way
- Pedestrian hybrid beacon at Sacramento and Russell streets
“Key projects were selected based on proximity to high-injury corridors, schools, the city’s paving plan and projects that are partially funded,” according to Kidd’s presentation.
They also have a visual glossary of infrastructure terms, showing, for example, what is meant by each different class of bike lane.
So how can I get involved?
City planning officials and Alta representatives have planned three pop-up events, two public listening sessions.
Pop-up events:
Public listening sessions:
Alta has also scheduled several private listening sessions for specific resident groups and communities with, by the consultants’ estimation, the most at stake when it comes to transit and mobility — older Berkeleyans, people with disabilities, school communities and residents in affordable housing:
“We want to ensure that their voices, their concerns, their needs are adequately heard as part of this process,” Kidd said Jan. 16.
There will also be a citywide “virtual workshop” at some point in May, yet to be scheduled, after Alta delivers its draft plan to the city.
Officials and consultants did a previous round of 14 community events in 2022 but “had to take a hiatus due to staff shortages,” according to the project website. During the 2022 sessions, the largest portion of remarks were concerned with safety on city streets, followed by safety improvements at major intersections, enhancing existing bike lanes and, finally, improving pavement quality around Berkeley.
Residents can give feedback directly through the project website or by emailing [email protected].
