By the end of the year, bicyclists and pedestrians may only be allowed to cross the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge Fridays through Sundays — a change that has been highly debated in recent months.
Since 2019, under a pilot program, those commuters have been allowed to cross the bridge daily using a 10-foot-wide, two-way bike path on the north side of the upper platform, which is separated from vehicle lanes by a concrete barrier that can be moved for maintenance or emergencies. But that program may sunset by the end of the year.
The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), the public agency overseeing the Bay Area’s state-owned toll bridges, plans to submit a proposal by the end of this month to the Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) to modify the pilot, according to MTC spokesperson John Goodwin. The BCDC is a state commission that was established to protect and improve public access to the Bay Area’s shorelines, and it has the authority to approve or deny the proposed changes.
Goodwin said the changes are intended to improve safety on the bridge by reserving the bike lane for possible vehicle emergencies during peak commute times Mondays through Thursdays. The transportation commission is hoping the BCDC will publicly consider their proposal by September, he said. The commission typically meets twice a month, on Thursday afternoons.
A solution for bike commuters, or a cause of traffic-jams?
Some in Richmond oppose the MTC proposal on the grounds that the bike path is vital for cyclists who commute to work in Marin County, where the cost of living can be prohibitive.
Bruce Beyaert, chair of the Trails for Richmond Action Committee, estimates that 385,000 bicyclists and pedestrians have made trips across the bridge since the lane opened in November 2019, likely making it the most heavily used path of its kind on state-owned bridges.
When the bike-path reduction proposal was first introduced in March, it was met by strong opposition: Sixty-eight local, regional and national organizations signed a letter opposing it, and the Richmond City Council and San Francisco Bay Trail Project Board of Directors passed resolutions against it.
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But other groups claim that in addition to the safety considerations, the bike path has worsened commute times and traffic jams on the heavily used bridge.
John Grubb, chief operating officer at Bay Area Council, an organization that represents local business interests and supports the MTC proposal, said the bike lane has increased traffic on the Richmond side of the bridge and that 1,967 people have sent 72,550 petition letters requesting solutions to bridge congestion.
In a November 2023 poll of 511 registered voters in Richmond that asked a number of questions, including measuring degrees of support for “Getting rid of the bike lane altogether and restoring the shoulder for cars that break down on the bridge,” 57 respondents said they support that idea and 43 said they oppose it.
Support in the poll was strong for the idea to let car commuters and transit vehicles use the bike lane, but that is not currently what is being proposed.
Meanwhile, Beyaert cited a study from UC Berkeley’s Institute of Transportation Studies that shows no evidence the bike path has significantly increased traffic congestion or the amount of time needed to clear traffic incidents. Recent analyses conducted by Caltrans of traffic incidents on the bridge, he added, are too inconclusive to justify reducing access.
‘Shutting down the (bike lane) now would be precipitous, unjustified and the antithesis of BCDC’s mission to provide ‘maximum feasible access’ to the shoreline of San Francisco Bay,” Beyaert said.
Beyaert suggested that keeping the lane open daily and year-round is also necessary to stay in compliance with existing public policies governing the Bay Trail Plan, Caltrans’ Complete Streets Director’s Policy, and Gov. Gavin Newsom’s executive order to accelerate climate action on transportation.
Drivers in Marin County have often turned up at public meetings to support removal of bike access. More than 80,000 vehicles cross the bridge on weekdays. By comparison, 115 cyclists on average use the path on weekdays, and 325 on the weekends, according to figures cited from transportation commission reports last November by the Marin Independent Journal.
Rosemary Corbin, former Richmond mayor and Point Richmond resident, said proposal supporters are misguided in thinking that reducing access to the bike lane will free up more space for traffic.
“What the people think they’re getting is another lane of traffic, and that’s not going to happen,” she said.
Corbin pointed out that many more people on the Richmond side of the bridge support keeping the bike lane open. Closing the bike lane during most of the week, she said, will leave Marin-bound bicycle commuters without any options because “public transportation is terrible.”
Dani Lanis, advocacy manager at Bike East Bay, said that closing the trail during busy commute hours on weekdays would directly impact people without cars while catering to the wishes of drivers.
“This is a matter of justice that disproportionately impacts low-income communities,” Lanis said. “The failure to build local affordable housing in Marin and infrequent public transit options are the reason we are where we are, and that’s where investment and attention should be focused on.”
Cyclists from around the Bay Area tend to agree with her.
Matthew Lewis, a Berkeley resident and public transportation advocate, said he can relate to drivers’ frustration with traffic, as he often rides over the bridge into Marin County. However, he said he does not think closing the lane to cyclists for emergency use only, or opening it to regular traffic, would improve the congestion problem plaguing the Richmond area.
“You can’t solve traffic with wider lanes,” Lewis said. “This has been studied and studied forever, and all you do when you add more lanes of car traffic is make the traffic worse.”
Lewis said that the pending proposal is a continuation of policies that have prioritized drivers over cyclists for decades, leading to longer commutes for residents who live in less expensive areas. If approved, he agreed that the proposal will hurt people already struggling to traverse the region without a car.
“How many more lanes do you have before you realize that you’re not actually trying to address the problem?” Lews said. “I think a lot of this is just a distraction from that core issue.”
Bryan Culbertson, an Oakland resident who works on art installations in Richmond and commutes to the city on his bike, told Richmondside that he attended commission meetings this spring to urge officials to focus on existing recommendations for improving public transportation to reduce traffic and air pollution.
“The current bus comes less than once an hour, only operates until 10 p.m., only has space for two bikes, and does not fit e-bikes,” Culbertson said. “Removing the pathway would at best make air quality worse. Instead, let’s deploy proven solutions to improve air quality in Richmond like directing Chevron to electrify their trucks, providing funding for Golden Gate Transit to run frequent bus service, and keeping the crucial Bay Trail connection between North Bay and East Bay.”
To view upcoming BCDC public meetings and agendas, you can visit the state’s website. Richmondside will also be reporting on this issue as more information becomes available.
It’s truly ridiculous to claim that the added bicycle access across the bridge, in a lane that has never been used for vehicles, could make traffic worse. It would be a travesty to remove a safe, alternative form of transportation into Marin, and legitimately make traffic worse over the bridge than it is now.
The tied lane was used 1 year after the bridge’s opening and was used for general purpose vehicles until the 80’s when it was closed to run a pipeline during a drought in Marin. I’ve heard this lie elsewhere – don’t know how it’s still propagating. Learning history is good.
I didn’t know, thanks for correcting me. So the traffic must be the bikers’ fault and the answer is reopening a single lane. Surely traffic patterns haven’t changed in any other way in the 40 years since it’s been used as a lane for vehicles.
the third lane was definitely in use for cars up until the 80’s. I’m even fairly sure the lane closure was supposed to be temporary – it reopening just sort of never happened.
The bike lane is a very poor use of space and resources. We can only hope that it will be allowed to go away and maybe we can one day reinstate the original road plan on the upper deck at three traffic lanes.
Having commuted 43,500 miles a year by car with no alternative, I vote for adding ferry service between Richmond and Larkspur, with shuttles and public transport on both sides to serve anyone who hates commuting by car. There are a whole lot of us in this category!
It’s a shame that this story is written in the negative about impending loss for cyclists, who make no impact on car traffic, with years of bridge traffic data showing it the same as before the protected lane pilot project.
The more useful POV would be to lead with the push to raise car traffic, that is, the well-studied principle of Induced Demand. It’s alluded to in quote from the advocate Matthew Lewis, but never actually named. It’s buried 20 paragraphs in, and preceded by the Bay Area Council deceptively claiming raised traffic without citation to data, instead claiming a big number of supporters.
That’s the argument by popularity fallacy, and it’s a shame this story is structured to foreground it.
Of course, it may be popular to use leaded gas, or now-banned pesticide, but support numbers shouldn’t be falsely compared to the raised rate of death and pollution that makes the policies we have for those.
Induced demand makes traffic worse when road access for cars is expanded. Leading with the well-studied data should be the only method of responsible reporting about this without burying the core issue.
We definitely need better and affordable public transportation, however, the majority of bike riders going across the RSR bridge definitely don’t appear to fit into the category of “low income commuters.”
Anyone living in Pt. Richmond sees so many very expensive bikes and riders in their expensive outfits swarming our cafes in town. Bruce Beyaert, the leader of the movement, was a Manager for Chevron for years and hardly qualifies as a low income commuter.
Please don’t confuse the need for public transportation with those leisurely riding their bikes across the bridge mid day with low income commuters!
Absolutely absurd to ever talk about the cost of bicycles (a working one can be had for $100 with near $0 maintenance) vs the thousands poured into simply fueling and maintaining the average car for a year. Do you ever feel ashamed of such manipulative falsehoods?
Left out of the article is the needed urgency to reduce use of gasoline cars to slow down and, eventually, stop climate change. All changes in traffic patterns should look into that first. From that perspective, the bicycle lane enables people to go back and forth without ANY greenhouse gas emissions. Every flood, drought, fire, hurricane, and crop failure is made much worse by carbon emissions of which cars are a major contributor. Keep the bike lane open.
I live in Sonoma County and have ties to East Bay. I have a disability that prevents me from accessing the bus. This bike connection is crucial to my ability to access the East Bay.
Bicycles (with riders) are light. Hang a bicycle path below the bridge so that the third lane can again be used for breakdowns as it was intended. Of course, this would require building something out of steel along with the design and engineering. I see that they opted to use a couple thousand water-filled plastic barricades which add to the static load on the bridge and take up valuable space. A couple steel pipes carrying water would weigh about the same and take up the same space while serving multiple purposes.