Bay Area residents packed up their briefcases, backpacks, kids and dogs to bicycle to school, work and errands on May 13 in honor of Bike to Work Day.
The scene at 24th and Mission BART in San Francisco, as riders assemble for a caravan to the South Bay. Photo by Noah Berger
By Brenda Kahn
Published: June, 2010
Preliminary counts show a significant increase in Bike to Work Day participation across the Bay Area — as much as 10 percent higher across the board compared to last year, according to Bike to Work Day Coordinator Andrew Casteel, who is also the executive director of the Bay Area Bicycle Coalition.
Casteel reported brisk business at the morning Energizer Station at the Marin County side of the Golden Gate Bridge. “We were pretty packed for most of the morning over there,” he said.
In San Francisco, bicycles accounted for 75 percent of the morning roadway traffic on Market Street, according to the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition and the city of San Francisco. That equates to one-third more people choosing to pedal to their jobs in San Francisco on Bike to Work Day this year compared to last year’s event, based on counts at Market and Van Ness from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. Advocates for bicycling attribute this record-breaking increase to the newly separated, green-painted Market Street bike lanes (between 8th and Gough streets) and other improvements that are making streets all across the city safer.
San Mateo reported a 19 percent increase in bike traffic at its Energizer Stations during the morning commute compared to last year, while Alameda County was showing an average 10 percent increase in traffic at select Energizer locations, according to reports from the East Bay Bicycle Coalition. Bike traffic at Energizer Stations in Santa Clara County was up 12.5 percent over the prior year.
The free pancake breakfast for bicycle commuters at Oakland’s City Center was a sell-out affair, while the free, all-day valet parking for bicycles was packed by 8:30 a.m. In a greeting to the crowd, Oakland City Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan vowed to make Oakland “the bicycling-est city” in the nation.
The month-long Team Bike Challenge has also been showing gains over the prior year. Participants form groups of up to five members, recording their daily bike trips in an effort to earn the most points during the month of May (novices and “big wheels” are eligible for extra points). The highest scoring team overall wins a bike rack engraved with their team name, to be installed at a location of their choice. This year’s field consisted of 2,381 riders spread across 523 teams; by press time in late May, they had collectively recorded 250,055 miles — enough to circle the globe over 10 times, while saving the planet over 138 tons of harmful toxic emissions.
This year’s Team Bike Challenge contestants had a cool new tool in the form of a free GPS-enabled iPhone app (iBikeChallenge) that let them record their trips and miles while on the road. Also new this year are Team Bike Challenge video diaries, in which select teams were asked to document their progress using Flip video cameras. View at www.youcanbikethere.com/TBCdiaries.
Santa Clara County Supervisor and MTC Commissioner Ken Yeager did his part for the planet by not only bicycling to his office at San Jose’s County Government Center on Bike to Work Day, but also cycling an additional 12 miles for an appearance at another event.
Bike to Work Day is a project of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and the Bay Area Bicycle Coalition, with major underwriting this year by Kaiser Permanente, and sponsorship by a number of other cities, local bicycle coalitions, bike shops and the like.
