Letter: Share Bike-Ped Ideas at City Meeting Tonight

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To the Editor:

I wrote an article recently on the upcoming changes to the El Cerrito portion of the Ohlone Greenway ().  In a nutshell - pedestrians and cyclists will be forced to share the same path with no separation between them - that's not good - some solutions were offered.  A number of readers (both cyclists and pedestrians) took the time to comment and email City Hall.

I talked to Melanie Mintz, the Environmental Services Manager at City Hall, and she said the article, comments, and emails they received sparked some lively discussions.  While the plans have been approved by the City Council, there could be some wiggle room if the community shows some interest in an alternative design.  Having completely separate paths like we have now is probably not feasible, but alternative layouts for the path would certainly be considered.

Tonight, Thursday (10/20/2011), there's a Bicycling Town Hall meeting at 6:30 p.m. in City Hall.  The objective is to share ideas to keep making El Cerrito a more bicycle friendly town.  Details can be found here: http://www.el-cerrito.org/esd/pdf/bicyclingtownhallflyer.pdf.  If you're a pedestrian or cyclist who uses the Greenway, this would be a good opportunity to hear about the proposal first-hand and to champion any alternative layout you might have.

See you there.

Neil Robertson
El Cerrito