Interstate 680 in Fremont. Courtesy of Caltrans.

The Bay Area’s first high-occupancy toll (HOT) lane, or “express lane,” opens today on southbound Interstate 680 over the Sunol Grade, between Highways 84 and 237 — a 14-mile stretch of freeway that includes 11 miles in Alameda County and 3 miles in Santa Clara County.  Carpools and high-occupancy vehicles on this segment of freeway are now joined by single-occupancy vehicles, who are charged a toll via FasTrak transponders for the privilege of driving in a lane that moves faster than the surrounding freeway.  Tolls will be charged only on weekdays between 5:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m.  The price, which is adjusted dynamically in order to maintain a free-flowing lane, will range from a minimum of 30 cents in light traffic to a potential toll of 4-6 dollars in heavy traffic.

Courtesy of ACCMA/ACTC.

This stretch of freeway has been striped to separate the HOT lane from the general purpose lanes.  There are three specific points at which motorists can enter or exit the HOT lane.  Entry points are placed just south of Highway 84, Mission Boulevard, and Auto Mall Parkway.  Exit points are placed just south of Auto Mall Parkway (for drivers exiting at Jacklin Road or points north), south of Jacklin Road (for drivers exiting at Highway 237), and south of Highway 237, where the HOT lane ends.

So how about that toll revenue?  In order to defend the worth of HOT lanes against those who protest induced demand, it’s argued that the HOT lane segments built in a particular corridor will generate a new pot of funding to improve transit in that corridor.  That may need to be seen to be believed — but, depending on how much profit remains after covering operations and maintenance costs, revenue from the I-680 southbound lane could be used to construct a northbound or other facility in the corridor.

The new lane is only the first step toward building the regional HOT lane network planned for the Bay Area.  It’s not yet clear what the full extent of that network will be; once envisioned as consisting of about 800 lane miles, difficulties facing implementation may require that the plan be downsized.  In any case, the I-680 HOT lane will be joined next year by another facility in the Tri-Valley, located between Hacienda Road and Greenville Road on eastbound Interstate 580.

Interstate 680 through the Sunol Grade. Courtesy of John K.

When last updating the Bay Area’s Regional Transportation Plan (RTP) in Spring 2009, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission reserved a distinguished place in the RTP for its planned regional network of high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes.  The plan envisions freeway motorists paying tolls via FasTrak to beat the traffic jams, by entering specific lanes otherwise designated for high-occupancy vehicles.  Tolls would be priced dynamically throughout the day– increasing as freeways become more congested at peak travel times, and adjusting in order to maintain a relatively free-flowing traffic lane.

At full build, this network would comprise some 800 lane miles of toll lanes on most major freeways throughout the region.  About 500 of those lane miles would be built by converting existing carpool lanes to toll lanes, but the plan also calls for the construction of about 300 new lane miles.  In September 2010, the first segment of the network is expected to debut — a 14-mile southbound HOT lane on Interstate 680 through the Sunol Grade, between Route 84 in Alameda County and Route 237 in Santa Clara County.  It will be followed in Fall 2011 by the second segment — a 12-mile eastbound HOT lane on Interstate 580 in the Tri-Valley, between Hacienda Road and Greenville Road.

Optimistic assumptions paint a rosy view of the HOT network as a major new source of money for transit.  Although it would cost about $7.6 billion to finance, construct, and operate the HOT network over the next 25 years, the network was projected to generate $13.7 billion in the same time period, yielding a net revenue of $6.1 billion.  In other words, a veritable bank account overflowing with gold coins that could be used to deliver an expanded transit network. Already, before lanes are even in place, MTC has planned to use theoretical HOT revenue to close anticipated funding shortfalls, and the tolls will no doubt be regarded as a possible funding source for BART to Livermore and other projects.

There is, of course, a less rosy version.  By insisting on wider freeways, rather than simply converting existing lanes in each corridor, the HOT network as adopted would increase regional freeway capacity by building 300 new lane miles, and thereby induce an increase in driving demand commensurate with that increase in capacity.  To be fair, the Bay Area spends a comparatively small share of its regional transportation funding on roadway expansion, and in this respect is the best among its peers in California.  But given the upcoming task of preparing a Sustainable Communities Strategy to meet an ambitious target for reducing regional transportation emissions, it is fair to question how appropriate it is to leverage HOT revenue as a means of explaining away a plan that seems strategically designed to complete “unfinished” roads.

It is similarly fair to question whether the resulting revenue will cover the HOT network’s capital and operating costs, let alone become a significant source of new funding for public transit.  After all, it’s not like the whole freeway would be tolled — just the one lane.  And if the profitable segments of the HOT lane network, to the extent they exist, merely serve to subsidize other segments that operate at a loss, then at what point would transit see any of that money, and how much?  Not to mention the fact that transit would already suffer from competing with widened freeways.

MTC has not changed its position as to the underlying value of the HOT lane network, freeway widening and all.  Nonetheless, it will be going back to the drawing board because of a combination of circumstances that have emerged since adopting the RTP in Spring 2009.  One issue concerns Assembly Bill 744, introduced by Assemblymember Alberto Torrico (D-Fremont), which has been working its way through the State Legislature.  The objective of AB 744 is to authorize the Bay Area Toll Authority (BATA), which currently administers bridge toll revenue, to issue revenue bonds and to manage and oversee the HOT lane network.  The bill has been at the Senate Appropriations Committee but is collapsing under its own weight, as environmental groups sought amendments removing some segments, while traffic engineers sought more control for Caltrans over project design.

Possible smaller HOT lane network, with corridors color-coded by potential. Courtesy of MTC.

Another issue relates to what we discussed above: How much revenue can we realistically expect to go into Bay Area coffers, taking into account both lane usage and project costs?  The whole HOT lane network is, after all, premised on the assumption that motorists will be willing to pay a toll if it means a faster journey and escaping significant freeway congestion.  But commuting and congestion decrease during recessions, and the HOT revenue projections did not take into account an economic downturn.  Incorporating more realistic employment and commuting assumptions will reveal less single-occupancy vehicle demand for the HOT lanes, and thus less revenue.  Moreover, incorporating realistic cost assumptions further undercut those lower projected revenues.  Extending the construction schedule, as well as adding in right-of-way and other costs not properly accounted for (or not accounted for at all) in prior estimates adds approximately $1.4 billion to the project costs.  This is hardly a surprising development, as MTC has an ostensible penchant for under-reporting project costs.

In light of the lower projected revenue, higher projected costs, and legislative issues, it’s clear the current approach is not working.  MTC is now beginning to formulate an alternative approach to authorize at least an initial core subset of its treasured HOT lane network.  First, the plan will have to be downsized.  One possibility is pictured above — a network of 460 lane miles, priced at a cost of $3 billion.  This smaller network focuses on especially important segments of I-80, U.S. 101, I-580, I-680, and I-880.  Click here to compare it to the full network previously adopted as part of the RTP.

But without AB 744, how would even a more minimal HOT lane network be authorized?  There is an alternative path that could be pursued, by making use of Assembly Bill 798.  AB 798 authorizes the California Transportation Commission to approve applications for up to two HOT facilities in Northern California, provided that those applications are filed before the end of 2011.  And as for the revenue bonds?  The bill also creates a new governmental entity, the California Transportation Financing Authority, which can grant regional agencies like MTC the authority to issue revenue bonds for certain transportation projects, like the HOT network, that are backed by toll revenue.

MTC may ultimately choose to pursue a variant of this approach.  If so, it will need to finalize an application to submit to CTC in 2011.  There is no firm plan yet, but this is something else to keep an eye on.

For now, just a quick update. As you know, the weekday commute shutdown of the Bay Bridge that we just narrowly avoided on the first Tuesday after Labor Day finally caught up to us when the Bay Bridge was shut down for emergency repairs, and we are now on the second consecutive workday without this critical regional link. I suspect that while some people may have stayed at home yesterday, more will find that to be difficult a second day in a row, so the crowds on transit and the freeways may have worsened somewhat as compared to Wednesday. In any event, here is a traffic snapshot, depicting the state of the Bay Area’s freeways around 6:20 p.m. on the night of October 28, the first day of bridge closure:

Courtesy of Google Maps.

We also have a new BART ridership record, that gives us a preview of what it will be like to ride BART in the future, when higher fuel prices, increased population, and an outward-bound expansion policy all put additional strain on the system’s core bottlenecks, which are begging for increased capacity.

On Wednesday, October 28, BART set a record of 437,200 riders. However, the very next day, BART surpassed that to set its new historical record: 442,000 riders on Thursday, October 29. Both counts outpace the last record of 405,400 riders set on September 8, 2008, when many sports fans headed for Raiders and Giants games mingled with weekday commuters. On Wednesday, there was a 53% increase in transbay riderhip (253,400 total transbay riders), and system-wide ridership increased 26% as compared to normal conditions.

Even by Thursday morning, it was looked like BART would set a higher record that day — in light of the fact that transbay ridership this morning has been 60% higher than normal — as compared to Wednesday morning, where transbay ridership was 49% higher than normal. Also, system-wide morning ridership was 29% higher than normal today, as compared to 24% higher than a normal morning on Wednesday. On Thursday, ridership across the system was 24% higher than normal, and there were 260,600 total transbay riders (57% higher than normal).

Check back later, as I will continue to update this post with ridership statistics throughout the duration of the bridge closure.

Original Post:

At a 6:10 a.m. press conference this morning, Caltrans Director Randy Iwasaki announced that after almost 70 hours of nonstop work by construction crews, the cracked eyebar found on the Bay Bridge has been repaired after all, in time for the Tuesday morning post-Labor Day commute, and that the bridge is “now safer than it was” before this weekend’s closure. The Chron has more words of praise (“Everything fit perfect, the fix is in place. It’s really constructed well, as Randy said it’s been fully inspected and it’s really a nice piece of work”) for the emergency repair work from Dan Himick, president of C.C. Myers, which was the main contractor for the work. The eastbound lanes were open by 6:30 a.m., and both decks of the bridge are now back in service as of 7:00 this morning.

Randy Iwasaki also explained in the press conference video that a few detours would be maintained throughout today. The ramp from 880-North to 92-West remains closed, and the 880-South to 92-West will be kept at a two-lane configuration. The 92-West Hesperian Blvd. off-ramp is also still closed.

Motorists should take additional care when navigating the Yerba Buena section of the bridge, which has now changed from what regular commuters are accustomed to. With the installation of the new detour section of roadway completed this weekend, the road now curves south of the original bridge alignment, which will require reducing speed from 50 to 40 mph in free-flowing traffic. The detour section will be pressed into use until construction of the replacement east span has been completed.

BART will run longer trains today despite the bridge reopening, and AC Transit transbay service is back on course.

Caltrans has announced that the Bay Bridge will not reopen Tuesday at 5:00 a.m., as previously planned. An inspection of the east span revealed a cracked eyebar, the repair of which will require another day. The new deadline for the reopened bridge is now Wednesday, September 9 at 5:00 a.m. As much of a hassle as the extra delay is, it is obviously critical that Caltrans take the time it needs to be certain the bridge is safe, and this weekend’s closure really presents the best opportunity to do that.

Since last Friday, the Bay Area has managed to scrape through this bridge closure with remarkably few traffic problems; and, for the most part, bus and rail routes were not overly-crushed. But that success is largely due to the fact that fewer overall trips were made. Many people, upon hearing that the bridge would not be open the day before a three-day weekend, had planned vacations to take advantage of the extra-long weekend. They will have no doubt expected a newly-opened bridge to await them for their Tuesday morning commute.

With a true workday commute on our hands Tuesday, and no Bay Bridge in service, it is especially important for transbay commuters to have a backup plan — preferably, if at all possible, one that does not involve simply detouring to other bridges. If you can at all avoid putting your car on the road tomorrow, please do so. Instead, take advantage of transit options, bike, carpool, or even work from home if that’s an option. Bay Area transit agencies do not alone have the capacity to offset the roughly 270,000 daily trips on the Bay Bridge. But they will be out in full force tomorrow, fortified and running extra service to accommodate higher passenger loads. Transit alternatives, after the jump:

Transbay Service:

• BART: BART is no longer offering overnight service. BART will operate longer trains, but on a normal weekday schedule. If you normally drive to a BART station, note that BART’s parking lots will probably fill up early. Allow extra time to walk, bicycle, take transit, or carpool to a station, or arrange to be dropped off.
• Alameda/Oakland Ferry will offer a total of 26 round trips. Departures from Alameda, Oakland, and San Francisco will be roughly every 30 minutes between 6:00 a.m. and 7:55 p.m.
• Alameda Harbor Bay Ferry will offer a total of 24 round trips, 6:00 a.m.-12:00 noon, and 2:05-8:05 p.m.
• Golden Gate Ferry: A high-capacity ferry (715 passengers) will depart Larkspur for San Francisco at 7:30 a.m., and the same vessel will be used for the 5:20 p.m. San Francisco departure to Larkspur.
• Vallejo Baylink Ferry will add one extra ferry run and two extra buses to BART in the morning and the evening.
• Muni will operate the 108-Treasure Island bus 24 hours per day, more or less as usual except for a few stop changes.

Local Service:

• AC Transit: This weekend, the majority of AC Transit’s transbay bus routes (those that normally cross the Bay Bridge) fed riders into four East Bay BART stations: North Berkeley, MacArthur, West Oakland, or Coliseum, depending on the route. AC Transit will use the same service pattern on Tuesday, September 8. AC Transit’s all-nighter Route 800 will connect to BART at 12th St/Oakland City Center.
• Amtrak riders should transfer to BART at Richmond. More information here; the same services described there will be provided on Tuesday.
• Greyhound riders should transfer to BART at 19th St/Oakland. Limited shuttle service on the San Mateo Bridge will also be made available.
• WestCAT: Instead of the Lynx transbay service, WestCAT will operate a shuttle in the morning and evening commute hours, as it did on September 4. The shuttle will run between Willow Avenue and Hercules Transit Center, where riders can transfer to WestCAT Express Service to El Cerrito del Norte BART station. Click here to see the replacement shuttle’s timetable. (The website says that the shuttle will be operated on September 4 only, but the same schedule will be used on September 8.)

Construction on the Bay Bridge has made swift progress this weekend with the swapping-in of the detour tie-in, a 3600-ton section of double-decker roadway inserted into the half-mile detour at Yerba Buena Island. The detour section of roadway, which curves south of the original bridge alignment, will be pressed into service for the next four-or-so years until the new eastern span is completed. The prefabricated curved section of roadway has been slid precisely into place within a one-half inch of tolerance, and the joints have been installed. Since then, crews have been finishing the rest of the work needed to make the new road a functioning freeway, including striping, utility work, and barrier rails. This part of the project is still on schedule to be completed by Tuesday, September 8, at 5:00 a.m.

The detour tie-in, just prior to insertion. Courtesy of Caltrans/BayBridgeInfo.

Meanwhile, the design stage is complete and repairs are underway for the crack discovered during an inspection yesterday on the span, east of the Yerba Buena Island construction site. Although the crack was previously reported as digging about halfway into the two-inch eyebar, tonight’s video update from Caltrans includes a correction stating that the crack, which is visible from 120 feet below, is actually six inches long with a one-half inch width. The crack is believed to be unrelated to the roadway swap work carried out this weekend, because 3-6 months of rust have accumulated — implying that the crack first appeared well before this weekend, and well after the Bay Bridge’s last inspection during the 2007 closure.

Despite the fact that this is a holiday weekend, all materials necessary to complete fix the crack have been transported to the Bay Bridge site, including steel from Stinger Welding flown in from Arizona. Work is underway, and the bridge will remain closed until the crack is repaired. Caltrans cannot yet commit to finishing the crack repairs (and thus reopening the Bay Bridge) by Tuesday at 5:00 a.m., but will announce Monday whether or not the reopening will have to be pushed beyond Tuesday.

And finally, BART has reported that on September 5, it experienced the second-highest Saturday ridership in its history: 244,400 riders, with 136,600 of those being transbay trips. The only time BART had more riders on a Saturday was during the 2007 bridge closure.

Construction work on the Bay Bridge east span proceeded according to schedule today as construction crews carried out the impressive feat of swapping in a new section of roadway for the Bay Bridge east span, sliding into place a 3600-ton double-decker section of the detour, which will curve the path of the bridge just south of the old alignment. The closure of the bridge presented an excellent opportunity to carry out an inspection, as had also been done when the bridge was last closed in 2007. That inspection revealed a cracked eyebar on a separate section of the east span, pictured below:

Courtesy of Caltrans/BayBridgeInfo.

Caltrans determined that the two-inch eyebar was cracked through about halfway, and declared the problem to be “significant enough to have closed the bridge on its own.” Crews are now undergoing emergency repair of the crack, and the bridge will not be reopen until both the repairs and the planned detour construction are complete. While the planned work at Yerba Buena Island is on schedule to be completed by the planning reopening time (5:00 a.m. on Tuesday, September 8), also finishing the emergency repairs on the crack by Tuesday would be a “monumental effort,” and thus may require postponing the reopening beyond Tuesday. It’s not yet clear when the bridge will be reopened; in the meantime, ongoing updates are being posted on BayBridgeInfo.org.

After a snag on Friday afternoon, construction crews for the Bay Bridge were able to successfully remove the 300-foot, 3200-ton section of double-decker freeway from the existing bridge, easing it out of place at a rate of about 20 feet per hour. They are now prepping to insert the new section of roadway, which will connect the rest of the east span to the half-mile detour section of roadway that stands adjacent to the bridge. When it’s completed, the roadway will curve slightly south of the current alignment, necessitating that motorists reduce speed from 50 mph to 40 mph in free-flowing traffic.

An edited screenshot from the ABC 7 News live camera of the bridge, with the gap, as it stood at 11:15 a.m. on Saturday:

And a more high-quality shot courtesy of BayBridgeInfo, taken yesterday on-site:

The new 3600-ton section of bridge, hoisted 150 feet in the air, is awaiting its insertion into the bridge. Image taken early Saturday morning, courtesy of BayBridgeInfo:

And finally, the new section being inserted into place, courtesy of BayBridgeInfo:

You can also keep updated on the progress of bridge construction this weekend with BayBridgeInfo, which has been posting new videos, as well as with the ABC 7 News live camera, and the BayBridgeInfo Twitter account.

In related news, on the first day of bridge closure, BART experienced the second highest ridership in its history: 395,300 exits between 3:00 a.m. Friday and 3:00 a.m. Saturday. 215,200 of those trips were transbay trips. BART is asking riders who use the system during the bridge closure to complete a survey, which will also enter you in a drawing for money or free chocolate. BART’s Posterous blog will also be updated throughout the weekend.

UPDATE #2 (5 September 2009, 11:00 p.m.): A crack is discovered on the eastern span of the Bay Bridge, separate from the construction work being carried out this weekend. The planned Tuesday 5:00 a.m. reopening of the bridge may be postponed.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year: that time in which Bay Bridge construction necessitates that this critical workhorse link in the Bay Area’s roadway network be completely closed for the long Labor Day weekend. This year, we get the added bonus of the bridge being closed for all of Friday, September 4. The bridge will close at 8:00 p.m. on Thursday, September 3 and will reopen by 5:00 a.m. on Tuesday, September 8. During this period of of time, a critical piece of construction activity for the new eastern span will take place: a 300-foot section of the double-decker bridge (pictured below in orange) will be removed — and then replaced by a new double-decker “tie-in” section that will detour motorists from the bridge to the tunnel on Yerba Buena Island. This will allow Caltrans to later demolish the segment of the existing eastern span immediately adjacent to the detour:

Bay Bridge Closure 2009. Courtesy of Caltrans.

We’ve been hearing about this planned closure for weeks and months, and with this important transportation link to be closed both on Friday and the long weekend, motorists are of course encouraged to ditch traffic, avoid the freeways, and take transit instead. The Bay Bridge closures remind us how valuable our transit systems are to the region’s mobility and vitality, and they also remind drivers that they can indeed get around the Bay Area without their cars. BART is set to run 24 hours a day once more, although with limited overnight service — so Bay Area residents can, for just this long weekend, suspend (or at least relax) their envy of New York City’s subway system that never sleeps. When the Bay Bridge closed in 2007, BART set new system ridership records. BART ridership has declined this year because of the poor state of the economy; but it will nonetheless be interesting to see how many people choose to ride BART this weekend, particularly the overnight service. More info on transit service changes after the jump.

BART will run 24 hours a day for four days, including overnight service on Friday, September 4 through Monday, September 7. Overnight, trains will run only once per hour, serving fourteen stations: 12th St/Oakland City Center, Bay Fair, Berkeley, Coliseum, Concord, Dublin/Pleasanton, El Cerrito del Norte, MacArthur, Walnut Creek, Embarcadero, Powell, 24th St/Mission, Daly City, and SFO International Airport. On September 7, trains will run on a Saturday schedule. Keep in mind that even though the Bay Bridge will be closed until about 5:00 a.m. on Tuesday, September 8, BART will not operate in the early morning hours Tuesday. Click here for the schedule of additional overnight runs.

A quick rundown on the state of some other transit service during the Bay Bridge closure:

• AC Transit will operate truncated transbay bus service while the bridge is closed. Service will operate on the usual schedule: but transbay routes will feed into one of four BART stations (Coliseum, MacArthur, North Berkeley, or West Oakland). Riders will have to pay both AC Transit and BART fare in the westbound direction, but grab a BART-to-Bus transfer for a discount on the eastbound trip. The 800 all-nighter route will also operate on the usual schedule, connecting to 12th Street Station. For eastbound bus commuters: AC Transit reports that even though the Bay Bridge officially closes at 8:00 pm on September 3, the last transbay bus departing the Transbay Terminal that day will be the 8:20 p.m. run on Line H.
• Amtrak: San Francisco-bound passengers transfer to BART from the Capitol Corridor or San Joaquin at Richmond Station.
• Caltrans Bicycle Shuttle: The Caltrans bicycle shuttle across the Bay Bridge will offer special weekend service via the Golden Gate and Richmond-San Rafael bridges.
• Ferries: The Alameda Harbor Bay Ferry does not operate on weekends or on Labor Day, but will run additional service (PDF) on September 4 only. Meanwhile, the Alameda/Oakland, Golden Gate, and Vallejo Baylink ferries will all operate regular service on September 4, and all three will also offer extra service September 5, 6, and 7. Click the links to see the enhanced ferry schedules: Alameda/Oakland (PDF); Golden Gate (PDF); Vallejo Baylink (PDF).
• Greyhound: Riders bound for San Francisco can transfer to BART at 19th St/Oakland station.
• Muni will run the 108-Treasure Island bus 24 hours per day, as usual.
• WestCAT Lynx (transbay) service will be suspended on September 4 and 7. On September 4, Lynx riders can use a shuttle route (PDF) between Willow Avenue and Hercules Transit Center to connect to El Cerrito del Norte BART.

Enjoy the 24-hour BART service, and have a great long weekend! My apologies for the nonexistent posting over the past couple of weeks. There are several posts in the pipeline, but I have just been really busy lately. The pace here will pick up again when the air clears a bit. Thanks for your patience.

Throughout the 20th century, as the Bay Area changed fundamentally from a concentrated urban area to a region consisting predominantly of dispersed suburban development, once-innocent country roads became today’s roaring interstates, ever widened to accommodate (and induce additional) far-flung car trips. That, in a nutshell, is the story of the Benicia-Martinez Bridge, the stretch of Interstate 680 connecting Contra Costa and Solano counties across the Carquinez Strait. Before 1930, there were the ferries. By 1930, Southern Pacific completed its rail bridge — which, now Union Pacific’s rail bridge, carries Amtrak and freight traffic. Ferries for cars were maintained only until September 1962, when the $25 million, 1.2-mile automotive span was completed, built with four lanes to accommodate both traffic directions. In 1991, the car bridge was widened by ten feet to fit in six total lanes.

Then, in August 2007, an entirely new automotive span opened, complete with “FasTrak Express” open-road tolling lanes. The 2007 span was constructed at a cost significantly higher than in 1962: at about $1.26 billion for 1.7 miles, the bridge was delivered several years late, at quadruple the anticipated cost. (Delays and serious cost overruns are not, it turns out, limited to just the new eastern span of the Bay Bridge!) And just this month, the reconfiguration (PDF) of the southbound span was completed, so we now have a total of nine car lanes: five northbound on lanes on the 2007 span and four southbound lanes on the retrofitted 1962 span, including a comfortable shoulder and merging lanes from I-680 and I-780.

Why not go for the “gold” with ten car lanes, you ask? The saving grace of all this bridge-widening is the new bicycle/pedestrian path (PDF diagram) that will open August 29, 2009, on the western edge of the southbound span. The path will link Park Road in Benicia to Mococo Road in Martinez.

The primary sticking point is the abrupt southern terminus of the bike-ped path, which will force pedestrians and bicyclists to contend with potentially unsafe, narrow passage in an inhospitable industrial area. The goal here is to finish a complete path of substantial width across the tracks that separate Mococo Road from Marina Vista Avenue, to ensure that users of the bike-ped path can get on and off the bridge in a way that maximizes safety, despite the somewhat challenging terrain (to get your bearings, see this Google satellite map). BCDC granted Caltrans the permits to do just that, but Caltrans ran into delays in acquiring the necessary right-of-way. A completed path, however, will be beneficial, to allow a safe bike-ped connection from the bridge to Marina Vista Avenue — a street that has bicycle lanes and is the natural link to downtown Martinez and the Amtrak station.

The new lane across the Benicia-Martinez Bridge is included in our Regional Bicycle Plan, which envisions a 2,140-mile regional bike lane network at buildout. The single most expensive component of that plan — a bike-ped connection on the Bay Bridge’s west span, which would link to the path on the new east span to complete the transbay link — remains out of reach, as do similar connections envisioned for the San Mateo and Richmond-San Rafael spans. But the Benicia link is now all but complete, closing gaps in both the San Francisco Bay Trail and the Bay Area Ridge Trail.