All Things Considered
The Richmond Street Complete Streets Improvement Project
When implemented as proposed
is severely flawed.
It discriminates against certain demographics, such as older and disabled residents. These are ADA violations.
It is NOT safe.
It is NOT green.
It devalues property values.
It is, despite appearances, NOT safer for bicyclists.
It is based on faulty financing.
It is based on flawed and corrupt research.
The City Council did NOT sufficiently educate itself and Richmond Street residents about the true and measurable trade-offs associated with this project. The claimed safety benefits for bicyclists (0.3% of traffic) are speculative at best, grossly overstated and supported by the personal agenda of the mostly non-local bike lobby, not by the City’s taxpayers. The negative impacts of lost street parking have NOT been adequately addressed.
The initial approval of the plan in 2016 was a vote by the whole city without allowing any of El Cerrito’s residents enough knowledge of the proposed plan to make an informed decision. For example, had the people in the hills understood that the plan could impact evacuation times in case of emergencies, or the folks in the flats realized they might lose parking on their blocks or have fire trucks cutting through their streets to avoid Richmond Street, they might well have voted against the plan from the start.
Also, the City Council failed to provide good opportunities for Richmond Street residents to air their views and discuss their concerns. The City Council’s reliance on surveys that manipulate and skew results, and three-minute comments at City Council meetings (from which many residents were barred) is a poor substitute for democracy.
This situation questions the quality of City Council decision making. It weakens our community’s confidence in its city leadership—especially when spin doctor consultants are involved.
It is a key City Council responsibility to represent its taxpayers. Since when does a City Council overrule 90% of its residents in favor of a small minority of 0.3%? This is an overreach of government. Imposing undue and unnecessary burdens on residents hinders their ability to thrive. It raises questions about democratic accountability, and it erodes the democratic foundations upon which governance is built.
It has been more eight years since the plan was adopted, so it makes sense to review its relevance. We now know that most of the plan’s designs when implemented are highly controversial, both within the Richmond Street community and in current trends. The project when finished reduces safety for motorists, pedestrians and residents, especially those with disabilities. In the hope of improving—but not achieving—safety for a very small group of users, increasing risk to all the others seems to be a high price to pay.
El Cerrito received an $8 million federal grant for this project. The grant reads:
“Richmond Street Complete Streets Improvements — This project component will improve Richmond Street to provide safe and accessible pedestrian connections between El Cerrito’s walkable residential neighborhoods to both the del Norte and Plaza BART Stations and the City’s San Pablo Avenue PDA (recognized as such regionally, across the 9-County San Francisco Bay Area). The improvements will provide safe access for all modes of travel by rehabilitating the pavement; and installing enhanced traffic signing, green pavement markings and signs to enhance the existing shared-lane bike facility (which complements the low-stress Ohlone Greenway, just 1-3 blocks West); and implementing safety upgrades at the Elm/Key/Hill Streets traffic signal. Upgrades to the vehicle signal loop detection to enhance bike detection at the four signalized intersections within the project component limits are proposed as part of the separate countywide CCTA Smart Signals project.”
The grant does not mention separate bike lanes, let alone bike lanes in lieu of parking. Separate bike lanes are not a qualification requirement to receive the grant.
Seasoned and expert bicyclists, like Jan Heine and Frank Lehnerz have spoken out against bike lanes as the cure for all, both because of the negative environmental impact of construction and the fact that they don’t make bicycling inherently safer. Heine and Lehnerz are proponents of education and bike boulevards on quiet streets, which unlike Richmond Street, display minimal traffic volumes, less frequent intersections with roads and driveways, and far less complexity.
“Complete Streets” describes a comprehensive, integrated transportation network with infrastructure and design that is supposed to accommodate safe and convenient travel along and across streets for all users, including people walking, people bicycling, persons with disabilities, people driving motor vehicles, movers of commercial goods, users and operators of public transportation, emergency responders, seniors, youth, and families and residents who live along the street—and not to favor those designs insisted on by a small group of cyclists at the cost of all others.
In addition to failing to achieve its stated goal of safe streets, the City runs a risk of legal liability, if it continues to ignore the obvious adverse consequences of the proposed project when implemented.
Upholding ethical standards and promoting transparency in governmental actions are essential for maintaining public confidence that the City’s authority is exercised responsibly and in the best interests of our community as a whole.