Here are two quick, upbeat stories of interest to the safe-and-livable streets community.
Alameda officially opens the Central Avenue bikeway
Students, parents, and faculty who bike to and from Encinal Junior & Senior High School and Paden Elementary now have a safe, protected bikeway to use on Central Avenue for about a mile from Main Street to Washington Park. “Students from Paden Elementary, Jr. Jets, and Encinal High School all did a great job telling the crowd how the dedicated bikeway is making their commute to and from school faster, safer, and more fun,” wrote the school district on social media. “Thank you to the many people and agency partners who made this bike lane possible!”
Although the ribbon-cutting and official opening were on Monday, the bikeway has actually been all but finished and certainly in use for a while now.
As reported in March, one of the highlights of the project is the bus-boarding islands near Washington Park. The project also has three roundabouts, with markings delineating the space for pedestrians and cyclists. Unfortunately, east of 8th Street, the protected bike lanes drop out and instead cyclists get a road diet and paint-only lanes. Check out previous coverage for more details.
Santa Rosa advocates stop a small pedestrian space in the middle of a sea of parking lots from becoming yet another parking lot
Advocates with the Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition, Bikeable Santa Rosa, Santa Rosa YIMBY, and the North Bay Transit Riders announced recently that they had successfully prevented the Santa Rosa Plaza shopping center from turning a pedestrian area into another parking lot. The “withdrawn project would have destroyed and replaced one of downtown’s most visible pedestrian spaces and worsened the divide between Courthouse Square and Railroad Square,” wrote advocates in a statement about the decision…