Berkeley Unveils New Protected Bike Lane

BERKELEY UNVEILS NEW PROTECTED BIKE LANE

A ribbon cutting and ride-along took place at the Milvia Street Bikeway, which will improve safety and accessibility for bicyclists travelling through Downtown Berkeley

 May 20, 2022

BERKELEY–Today, on Bike to Wherever Day, the Berkeley community gathered for the official opening of the Milvia Street Bikeway, a 0.75 mile stretch of protected bike lanes along Milvia Street through the heart of Downtown between Hearst Avenue and Blake Street.

“The completion of this project represents a major milestone in our commitment to improving bicycle infrastructure in our city”, said Mayor Jesse Arreguín, who commutes to City Hall on his e-bike. “This project also has the added benefits of helping us achieve Vision Zero to eliminate traffic fatalities and our Climate Action Plan by reducing transportation emissions that make up a majority of the city’s greenhouse gas emissions”. 

The Milvia Bikeway is the city’s primary north-south bikeway, with counts showing over 500 people using the southern section and over 400 in the northern section during the evening commute. The street goes by several major destinations in Downtown Berkeley, including Berkeley High School, City Hall, and Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, Herrick Campus. Billed as the first “bicycle boulevard” in Berkeley, calls for significant improvements to the bikeway have existed for many years, with the project being formally proposed in the 2016 Berkeley Strategic Transportation Plan. Construction began in May 2021 over six separate phases. The project received funding through Alameda County’s Measure B, a half-cent transportation sales tax approved by voters in 2000, and California’s Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities program. 

“Everyone should feel comfortable biking, and projects like this bring us a step closer to achieving that goal”, said Dave Campbell, Advocacy Director for Bike East Bay. “This is the finest new bikeway in the East Bay, and we look forward to working with the City to expand projects like this throughout the city in order to make Berkeley more livable and sustainable”.

Berkeley has among the highest bicyclist commuter rates in the country, with around one in ten people biking to work. The City’s Bicycle Plan, approved in 2017, calls for an acceleration in bicycle infrastructure to make Berkeley a model for safe and accessible biking. The Bicycle Plan is currently going through a community-driven update, which is expected to be adopted in 2023. In 2019, Council approved the Berkeley Initiative to Build Improvements for Mobility, Bicycles, & Pedestrians, which will require 50% of paving funds to go towards bikeways and pedestrian high-injury streets over the next few years.