City Seeks Public Input For “Traffic Calming & Bikeways Project”
In the wake of multiple, ongoing neighborhood concerns about dangerous, speeding drivers who ignore stop signs, blow through bike lanes and endanger pedestrians in crosswalks on Fernside Boulevard, The City Of Alameda will host a Community “Traffic Calming” Workshop at Edison School’s Multipurpose room on Monday 12/4 at 7:15 pm.
The forum is designed to gather public feedback and input on “The Active Transportation Plan,” adopted about a year ago, that envisions a “traffic-calmed Neighborhood Greenway on Garfield and separated bike lanes along Fernside,” according to an email from Lisa Foster, Senior Transportation Coordinator for the City Of Alameda.
Foster says that the “Greenway… would include crossing improvements at key intersections. Bike lanes with physical barriers on Fernside would stop drivers from passing in the bike lane and would help reduce auto speeds, addressing two big safety concerns we hear about this area of Fernside,” she wrote in 2022 .
One clear shortcoming with those proposals is that, even if given final approval, the proposed “Greenway” isn’t slated for completion until 2025 with the “Bike barriers” not due for five more years past that.
Implementation promises to be no walk in the park.
WHAT IS A “GREENWAY?”
The term has many meanings, but for traffic-focused matters, it is not what one envisions when thinking of a nice, long expanse of trees, grass and flora.
Fernside Blvd. and other roadways will not become parks with paths or like fairways on golf courses.
A “Neighborhood Greenway, ” as envisioned by Alameda, is traffic engineering term for a street where the safe movement of bicyclists and pedestrians is prioritized, and fast, through movement of vehicles is reduced largely by slowing vehicles through “speed treatments.”
Those involve three basic, infrastructure types according to “The Neighborhood Greenway Primer” of Montgomery County Md.
The first are “vertical deflection” types as speed humps, speed cushions and speed tables, three designs of rises in the roadbed which cause the vehicle to “bump” upward and/or alert the driver with a vibrating, buzzing tire noise.
“Horizontal deflection” typically involves building concrete curbs and center infill rises in the roadway, often including a curve, which deters drivers from straight-line courses to slow down the vehicle.
These can be “roundabouts”, “splitters” or “chicanes.”
The final type of roadway alteration is “roadway narrowing.” using close-in curbs that reduce the width of the lane, as has been done on West Atlantic Ave on the West End abutting the new apartments.
Narrowing can also involve “bump outs” which involve in-road posts planed at the corners of an intersection to keep cars out and force slower, tighter, more ninety degree turns as has been done on Encinal Ave. and Fernside Blvd.
ACTIVIST NEIGHBORS LEAD THE CHARGE FOR STREET SAFETY; NO CROSSING GUARD ON THE HORIZON
For over two years, one key, local Fernside area advocate, Berndadette Ansolabhere, has been a driving force to get the busy corridor on The City’s radar and to pick up the pace.
She has proposed a variety of possible solutions to help mitigate the indifference or carelessness from menacing, scofflaw drivers.
Her family, including two grade school level boys, has confronted threatening vehicles on multiple occasions over the past few years.
In once instance, Ms. Ansolabehere reported on Alameda City’s Street Safety Concern website that, “Our eight year old son and dog were almost hit. The driver made eye contact with my husband yet continued to accelerate into the intersection, and my son leapt to the sidewalk. His margin of clearance was inches” and the dog ran under the car,” somehow avoiding injury or worse.
She sees an immediate, obvious solution to be the addition of a crossing guard at the Fernside/Garfield intersection to help provide protection, but appears to have gained little or no traction from the City or school officials contacted.
“We need a better systematic solution and more crossing guards to make these “safe” routes to school safe… I am disappointed that despite apparent increased awareness of the dangerous intersection, a crossing guard was not assigned,” to the intersection.
Crossing guards have long been in effect on the Gibbons/Lincoln and Lincoln/High Street intersections
Just days before the Ansolabehere incident noted above (they have had more than once since) , a reporter witnessed a four-door sedan strike a young bicyclist in the intersection of Garfield and Fernside, a hotspot intersection which APD regards as a locale where stop sign running and disregard for pedestrian right of way is frequent. The boy sustained abrasions and lacerations to his leg, and was transported by paramedics to treatment, and was released that same morning.
(see: https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2022/09/17/young-cyclist-hurt-after-car-hits-him-on-alamedas-east-end/ )
Anecdotally, APD has stepped up traffic enforcement on Fernside over the past seven months or so to try and address matters, but overall traffic citations dropped precipitously in the past five years, according to APD traffic statistics posted on its website.
In a period spanning one year from mid 2017 to mid 2018, APD issued 7,237 citations compared to 2,050 in ‘21-22. Newer data are not posted as of yet.
WAVING THE BATTLE FLAGS
Frustrated with the slow pace of City actions, other Fernside area locals have taken matters into their own hands, quite literally.
One mom, along with other locals who live on East Shore, purchased orange and yellow hand held flags for pedestrians, especially children, to wave in the air as they cross, in hopes of alerting drivers.
For the children it may be fun, but for adults it’s serious business.
Another resident of Fernside, Rick Conant, purchased two, green colored, mid street pedestrian crossing signs, costing around $200 each, that bear a small stop sign logo to increase crosswalk and stop requirement visibility. Conant said that he thinks he has seen better stop sign compliance by drivers, though many still ignore pedestrian and stop sign laws at this spot and at another nearby intersection at Fernside and Central.
Nonetheless, on any given day when scores of school children heading by bike or on foot to Edison Elementary, St. Phillip Neri or Lincoln Middle School, drivers too often do not give right of way.
In a fifteen minute period at the intersection starting at about 8:10, one driver rolled past the stop sign 1/3 of the way into the crosswalk before noticing a child cyclist just feet away from his bumper. The driver stopped in time as the youth made it across.
In the same time frame, three other cars rolled through the arterial, heedless of law and safety.
The City Transportation Department says it will, at “Community Workshop 1, ” at Edison, report its findings from a “recent study of traffic speeds, crash data, previous community input and more” offering community members to provide survey input through 12/17 at:
In the meantime, the facts indicate that there is currently a lot more on paper than there is on the pavement when it comes to any immediate, City provided remedy.