A group of business and labor leaders gathered Wednesday near the toll plaza of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, watching, with smug expressions, as traffic piled around them.
It was a perfect I-told-you-so-scene for the rally this group had organized. Cars and trucks crawled by, swarming two upper deck lanes that are packed against a protected bike path. No cyclists appeared to be using it at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday morning, a fact the rally participants repeatedly underscored.
“Did you take note that the whole hour we’ve been here, not a single bike has gone down the lane, but thousands of cars are backed up?” asked Joshua Arce, an advisor for the California Alliance for Jobs. He and others blamed the bike path for this gridlock, characterizing it as wasted space…