You may have noticed recent transportation and safety improvements on local streets, including the Central Avenue Safety Improvements Project, featuring Alameda’s first roundabouts and a protected two-way cycle track, and a protected two-way cycle track on Grand Street, from Shoreline Drive to Otis Drive.
This new infrastructure provides safe travel routes for hundreds of Alameda schoolchildren. This is important because, in Alameda, 40% of students walk or ride their bikes to school every day, which supports good health and also our climate action goals by reducing automobile traffic and Greenhouse Gases (GHGs). These projects, as well as improvements to the Cross Alameda Trail, are among the reasons that Alameda was recently named a gold-level “Bicycle Friendly Community” by the League of American Bicyclists, a distinction held by just 32 cities across the country. Credit for this honor goes to our hardworking City staff, the City Council for approving bike-friendly policies and projects, and our residents who made their voices heard, guided by advocacy groups like Bike Walk Alameda and CASA.
2025 also saw construction of our first Neighborhood Greenway on Pacific Avenue, where those (sometimes controversial) “Slow Street” barricades were replaced with traffic circles and speed humps to slow traffic. (Our other “unofficial” traffic calming devices are those roving bands of wild turkeys you may have encountered, but they are harder to regulate.)
And, it’s not just schoolchildren who need safe streets. An AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) report, published in May 2025, found: “Walking is critically important for older adults to stay physically active, maintain social relationships, and effectively age in place within their communities. But road traffic poses a major obstacle to walking safely in U.S. neighborhoods. Among older adults, pedestrian fatalities may be linked to the effects of aging on the body, which can increase the risk of serious injury or death for those involved in a crash, compared with the risk for younger people. For some, declining cognitive and motor skills, a need for additional time to cross the street, or the use of assistive devices such as canes, walkers, or wheelchairs may also increase the likelihood of older pedestrians being involved in a fatal crash.”…