The Sausalito City Council has decided to reject a grant that would add bicycle lanes in the city’s main thoroughfare, instead opting for further study to improve safety.
The vote came during a four-hour special meeting this past Saturday to decide whether the city should accept a $504,600 grant from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission to redesign Bridgeway between Princess and Richardson streets to accommodate cars, pedestrians and bicyclists.
This section of the waterfront road consists of three lanes — two lanes of traffic with a center two-way turn lane. That center lane is the point of heated contention. It would have to be removed if bike lanes were added.
Instead of accepting the grant, the council decided to explore the addition of three flashing light crosswalks, establishing a designated loading zone at The Trident restaurant dock and adding additional signage for a car lane that is also shared by bicyclists. The street would also become a 20 MPH speed zone. The council also asked police for better enforcement in prohibiting the center lane from being used by trucks as a loading zone.
Following the meeting, the city’s entire Pedestrian and Bicycle Advisory Committee resigned in protest. In a public statement Monday, the committee said the decision followed years of work including successfully securing competitive grant funding and engaging professional transportation engineers for the analysis and designs.
“It is therefore profoundly discouraging to those members speaking out that after adhering strictly to this data-driven process, the expert findings and documented safety needs failed to persuade city council to act,” the statement said.
“Serving on the PBAC requires a foundation of trust — trust that evidence matters, that resident safety is paramount, and that the city is committed to following through on its own stated goals,” stated the committee’s vice chair Jessica Penrod. “That trust has been broken. We cannot ethically endorse a process that appears to prioritize endless study with no action over the well-being of vulnerable road users.”
A hot spot for collisions
The local debate has been a heated one. Data presented by an engineering consultant has shown an uptick in crashes on the road in recent years, yet residents feared the loss of the middle lane would hinder the access of emergency vehicles.
A staff report for the council meeting said that between 2013 and 2022, 50 collisions were reported on Bridgeway between Princess, Richardson and Second streets. Twenty-four of these collisions involved a vulnerable road user, such as a bicyclist or pedestrian. Twenty of the collisions were sideswipe collisions and one was a head-on collision. Five of those resulted in an injury, including one serious injury.
According to the staff report, these collision types, accounting for 40% of all collisions in the study area, could potentially be attributed to the presence of the narrow two-way center lane and the behaviors it promotes, such as using the lane to pass vehicles or bicyclists, or as parking for loading and unloading.
Mayor Joan Cox mentioned that most of the public comments received by the council were against removing the center lane, which would be gone if the bicycle lanes were to be added.
Councilmembers grilled David Parisi, consultant at Parametrix, the civil engineering firm hired by the city to do the analysis and design proposals.
Councilmember Melissa Blaustein asked Parisi how to improve safety without losing the center lane. Parisi responded that adding raised pedestrian islands in the center lane would prohibit people from driving into the crosswalks.
“There is a high correlation with where crashes are occurring when the center lane is used for parking and deliveries,” Parisi said, recommending that the center lane not be used for parking or loading at all.
“… We cannot ethically endorse a process that appears to prioritize endless study with no action over the well-being of vulnerable road users.” Jessica Penrod, Pedestrian and Bicycle Advisory Committee
He instead recommended that a designated loading zone be constructed at The Trident restaurant dock. He estimated it would cost about $700,000 to build a reinforced road for trucks to pull off the main street. More vivid shared bike lane markings would also help, Parisi said, as well as signage to reduce the speed limit to 20 MPH.
The current proposal suggested new crosswalks will be added in front of Golden Gate Market, the Sea Lion sculpture popular with pedestrians, and The Trident restaurant pullout. Parisi said the non-bike lane street safety improvements might cost about $300,000.
A capital idea
Blaustein then confirmed with the city manager that that money could come from the city’s general fund and become part of its capital plan. Sausalito’s police and fire chiefs concurred that improved crosswalks and better enforcement of the center lane would make the street safer.
One of the presentations was from the city’s Sustainability Commission, which has been working on a sea level rise adaptation plan. Design solutions for Bridgeway ranged from a low seawall costing about $2.5 million to a long-range plan involving raised roads and buildings, a stormwater capture basin and a cantilevered walkway over the water with a price tag of $140 million to $405 million.
The forecast of extensive changes seemed to tip the scales for several councilmembers.
“Just in the context of any changes we make without considering sea level rise, given that Bridgeway, as it is, will likely be underwater in a number of years, I think it’s important to continue this conversation,” said Blaustein.
She suggested using moving toward a longer-term vision of the roadway.
“We all want to see a world class waterfront so we could direct funds towards maybe prioritizing something where we consider long term what it would look like to have bike lanes and the sea level rise adaptation,” Blaustein said.
