Niklas Lollo interviews Bike East Bay Executive Director Renee Rivera, who works toward a vision where "bicycles are well integrated into the transportation system and are a key part of our thriving communities." On the show, we traverse the history of bicycling advocacy, discuss Bike East Bay's recent efforts towards inclusive and accessible biking, and take a look at how bicycling advocacy can fit within broader social justice efforts.
TRANSCRIPT
Speaker 1:Yeah. Method to the madness is next. You're listening to the method to the madness. Okay. Biweekly Public Affairs show on KALX Berkeley Showcasing Bay area innovators. I am your host Nicholas Slalom. And this week we have Rene Rivera, the executive director of bike, East Bay, a bicycling advocacy organization. Hi Renee. Thanks for coming onto the show today. Um, I really appreciate it. And do you mind if I ask you how you [00:00:30] arrived here?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Um, thanks nick for having me on and I got here by Barton bike, which is one of my favorite ways to get around.
Speaker 1:Hmm. Yeah. And so I guess we'll just jump right into it. Um, can you take us through the history of bicycling advocacy?
Speaker 2:Um, actually we'll go back to the early days of bicycle advocacy in, um, in the u s there was a very organized group that's still around called the League of American bicyclists. And in the, [00:01:00] um, late 18 hundreds, they were actually the ones who advocated for paved roads. Cars benefited, but it was actually the bicycle movement that brought us paved roads, smooth paved roads to ride on. Um, so bicycle advocacy has a long and storied history here in the u s
Speaker 1:oh yeah. Wow. Um, what I had associated with, but maybe it's because I'm a millennial is, um, maybe I thought the furthest back at when was critical mass.
Speaker 2:Right. So yeah, [00:01:30] I don't know, that's kind of like the was the second golden age of bicycle advocacy. But just to note, the first golden age was in the tent late 18 hundreds. And then around, um, in the mid seventies, actually along with Earth Day was when bicycle advocacy started to kind of get a resurgence. And there were a lot of people who biked across the country for the centennial, they called it the bike centennial. And then there was, you know, um, [00:02:00] breaking away and other popular media that popularized bicycling. And so in the 70s, there was this big resurgence and that was when bikeys bay then named East Bay Bicycle coalition got its start actually in 1972 when Bart opened, because at that time Bart did not allow by at all. So that was kind of a instigation for some folks here in the East Bay to organize. And on the same time [00:02:30] San Francisco, the San Francisco Bicycle coalition got started though.
Speaker 2:The interesting thing is East Bay Bicycle coalition is the, we're the longest continuously operating bicycle advocacy group in the bay area. So the SFBC got started the same time and then they went defunct in the 80s though we actually had a continuously operating, um, organization and then in the 90s with the start of critical mass in the mid nineties, that was [00:03:00] a time when a lot of people got involved. And that's in fact when I got involved with bicycle advocacy in 1996. So why did you get involved? What about, um, was it something about critical mass or, I read that you were part of the SFV uh, bike coalition. Yeah, I did get involved with the San Francisco Bicycle coalition in 90 6:00 AM a lot of it was because I bike to work every day. And in those days there weren't that many of us. And I was, I was living, um, in downtown San Francisco and working [00:03:30] out in the Presidio and the at the exploratorium.
Speaker 2:And so I would ride out Polk street every day and it was horrible. Like literally every day I felt like my life was being threatened, you know, people were honking at me, um, you know, trying to run me off the road, yelling from their cars. One night my girlfriend was riding home from work on Polk Street and someone brandished and axe at her out of their car. Like it was really a hostile [00:04:00] environment. And, um, I learned about the San Francisco Bicycle coalition, started going and volunteering and then I pretty quickly got involved with a campaign to get bike lanes on Polk street. They took us five years. It was a long campaign, but at the end of it they removed a lay in of, uh, of travel, Carlene from Polk Street put in by clans for part of the way. And, um, Sheros if you're familiar with those the rest of the way, [00:04:30] you know, if not a perfect project.
Speaker 2:But my life was so substantially improved and certainly my stress levels went so far down because I could ride to work and I was, you know, like not yelled at and I had a much more relaxing daily commute and I was like, wow, I, you know, this is maybe the thing in my life I've done that's had the most impact [00:05:00] on my quality of life and probably other people's quality of life. So I was really hooked at that point by what you can do to actually change, change the streets for the better. It's a really interesting story because I'm not, I guess not to get into the psychology of it too much, but you were mainly talking about how drivers were yelling at you or brandishing axes, um, but that adding in bicycling infrastructure, did that [00:05:30] change, um, the interactions with the drivers as well because you sensibly took away a lane?
Speaker 2:Right? Absolutely. And it changed because now there was space. Um, there was still some shared space, but there was, you know, some separated space, so the bike lanes and there was just more room for everybody. Um, the whole environment became more civil and you know, I, there was a lot of worry drivers. We actually went, me and some other [00:06:00] folks on the campaign talk to every single business on Polk street from end to end, many of them several times. And um, they were like, this is gonna be some of them. Some of them were like, great, and that's not home. We're like, this is going to be terrible. People aren't gonna be able to come to our businesses. Polk street's going to be backed up all the time. And then after the, you know, initially went in as a trial, a six months trial, which is something we do a lot in bicycle advocacy. We say, let's try it for six months. And I will say in the [00:06:30] bay area, I should knock on wood. Um, there, those trials haven't come out. There are places in that, you know, the places where it has, but pretty much so we came back in six months, talk to those same businesses and said, well, what do you think? And they're like, oh, did it used to be different? Literally like, oh no, it used, it's always been this way. There had no perception of actually there being a change.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So was um, that's similar to I guess [00:07:00] the bike's on Bart, um, recent pilot that they a few years ago a bike Eastbay was had a hand in or um, yeah, I guess other infrastructure that you put in. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean bikes on Bart, again, there was a lot of concern but a lot of good support. We did a pilot, um, now I can't even remember how it was maybe going to be nine months or something. And then once that happened it was like, oh, well this is just the way the world works. And [00:07:30] um, and people are, again, it's like bringing civility like I saw on Polk street making, making that space for bikes on the street, brought civility to the whole street and on Bart. I see that too. Like I just see what, what, you know, kind of accommodation and civility people, you know, how they treat each other on Bart, whether you bring a bike or not. Like there's the bike space on the car. I come onto the car, someone just sees that they move out of [00:08:00] the way. There's just this real, that having that designated space just allows for a level of um, you know, kindness and civility in our, you know,
Speaker 1:to you design it into this space. Um, that people begin to respect that as a, as an integral part of that space. Yes. Okay. So you talked about the first generation in the late 18 hundreds [00:08:30] you talked about the second generation around Earth Day in the 70s. Are we in a third generation or not yet?
Speaker 2:I would say like we're at a fourth generation because the 90s were such a time, at least here in the bay area where there was this, this incredible revitalization of bicycle advocacy and critical mass play. The, you mentioned that already played real role in getting people organized. And I mostly can speak for San Francisco because [00:09:00] that's where I was that and then you know, people, people were coming together and community around critical mass and just having that experience of when you are in critical mass, that was the whole street was bikes, you know? And we were like, oh this is, it created this kind of Utopian vision of what it could be like that'll, that was very motivating of political activism. And then the city pushed back a little bit, you know, and Willie Brown said, oh how [00:09:30] many people, you know, there was this one moment when he was out like talking to a critical mass group right around the time when things were getting contentious.
Speaker 2:And he said, kind of an aside, how many people here do you think really vote? Maybe two. And then that really like that remark like instigated bicyclists again to get organized and particularly around electoral politics, which many of us are involved in now [00:10:00] and really like saying, oh, there is a bike vote here. And we really have power. And that's like almost the beginning of what people now call the all powerful bike lobby. Oh really? At least in San Francisco and a few other places where there is just this recognition that we're a very organized group that has uh, you know, has a place at the table and is really a group with some political clout.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Um, it seems like every electoral cycle there is a new measure like metric BB [00:10:30] or measure x x. Um, they come off that the bicycling lobby is really pushing for, and also your work on Fulton Street in downtown Berkeley was all the a bike coalition or bicycling advocacy at DNC group. Yeah. So
Speaker 2:that was, that was a really, for us, that was also a really powerful moment in terms of kind of one of the big barriers is just how slow change happens in cities. Right. And [00:11:00] just to briefly tell the story on Fulton Street. Um, one of our members, Meg Schwarzman was uh, who, uh, is a researcher here on the campus at cal, was riding home on Fulton street at the end of the day and um, was hit, although she was very visible, bright green jacket helmet, like doing all the right things, you know, her life was saved by the, the fire crew who came [00:11:30] and, and got her incredibly quickly to the trauma unit at Highland and um, just a miracle kind of a miracle. Like really, she, we are very lucky that she survived and it was a very galvanizing moment because, uh, but bikeys bay has been working on this particular gap and the bike network for 15 years and we'd been asking and we had even as recently as a year before when that street was being repaved, we brought it up again.
Speaker 2:We [00:12:00] said, hey, this is on the part of the bike plan. Are you putting the bike lanes in when you repay it? And they were like, oh we need to take, we need to study it some more, you know, which is often the answer. And so then again it Kinda got dropped. And so we brought all of that immediately in a letter to the city manager saying, here's the whole history here. Is this tragic, you know, at that point we didn't even know if meg was going to survive the, you know, we are calling on the city to act and we asked, that was in February [00:12:30] and we said, we are asking you to put a bike lane on the street by bike to work day. So we're giving them three months. And I don't know that the city of Berkeley has ever done anything in three months, but they did it.
Speaker 2:And it was, it was completed Wednesday night before bike to work day on a Thursday morning. But they did it. And it's a very well designed project. It's right now, it's the example we point to for protected bikeways in the east w a spay, it's just a few blocks, but it's, [00:13:00] it's really like a perfectly designed project, perfectly executed. And they did it in three months, which is showing what's possible. You know, we don't want every project to have to have be pushed by a tragedy, but we I think can get much quicker response. And right now the projects that Berkeley is roll, going to be rolling out in the next year are going to be excellent projects. We have about 10 projects in the pipeline right now [00:13:30] that we're expecting to see on the ground in the next year. And so Berkeley's put, put out a like comprehensive master plan.
Speaker 2:Your organization has called one of the most progressive in the country. I'm wonder if you could try to describe what that, what the best bikeway looks like. Yeah, right. I think, you know, what I would say is more, you know, it's easier to describe the experience of being on a protected bikeway. You know, in [00:14:00] one thing that was a real turning point for me was when the green lanes went in on market street in San Francisco. And you know, I was someone who rode market street almost every day and it was always a white knuckle experience. And then they put these green lanes in with some posts really to keep, keep, make that separated space for bikes. That's just very clear to everyone. This is bike space. And my experience riding that for the first time was like this. [00:14:30] Ahh, like I felt like, oh, I'm on market street but I can relax a little bit.
Speaker 2:I feel like my, my nervous system is like, it's ramping down. You know, it's just this very different visceral experience of um, you know, of it just maybe like, you don't know if miss realize how tense you were until all of a sudden you get in that space and you're like, oh, I'm relaxing. And for me the bike, uh, the protected bike [00:15:00] lanes on Telegraph, um, again, it's that same kind of experience where you're like, all of a sudden your, you've got your by the curb, the parked cars are out to the right. Uh, I'm sorry to the left. You're in your own space and you're not like, oh, am I going to have to watch out for a car door? Or, uh, you know, and there's still a few design issues to work out on telegraph. So there are, I do recognize particularly at intersections [00:15:30] that design is not, it is a, you do have to worry about cars turning right across the bike lane on that project and the Berkeley projects that are coming are going to be a lot better. So we'll really be able to see a intersection design that feels safer.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, I think one of the, uh, probably one of the larger frustrations for bikers is you have this new bicycling infrastructure, but then there's a huge [inaudible]
Speaker 2:yeah. That, yeah, and that's been the focus [00:16:00] of our work. What we're really working towards is what we think of as a low stress network. So you should be able to go from the start to end of your journey on bike lanes or bikeway. Is that really where you feel safe? Um, and we don't have an example of that here. I mean maybe if we, you go to Davis, that's a place where you could have that experience in the u s but there's not variance and that's what we're trying to bring to the East Bay. [00:16:30] And Berkeley is the city that's the farthest along in that regard. We already have except for Davis and uh, maybe boulder. It has the highest rate of bike commuting in the country. We have the, um,
Speaker 1:yeah. And this sort of gets at another part of your work is to make biking more inclusive because it's typically been associated with a certain culture and maybe that's coming out of the critical mass, sort of more of a confrontational [00:17:00] biker who's willing to take risks, say, um, and that is maybe turned other people off from biking, bicycling. Is there any other work you're doing in that way to make, um, the basically more inclusive?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Um, there's a few, I mean, there's a number of different things we're working on right now. I probably won't even get a chance to touch on all of them. Um, one I will mention is, uh, if you look at who's biking in the East Bay or anywhere in the country, what you see as far more men [00:17:30] than women. And in Alameda county it's for every two men. That's one woman. So basically two thirds of riders are men. And um, that I think speaks a little bit to what you're saying. I may be, um, women are a little bit more hesitant to take risks to bike in a situation that feels, um, that feels dangerous. Um, also women W it's studies show they [00:18:00] have much more complicated trips. Women are often the ones taking kids to the places they need to go. They're a lot more air that they do a lot more errands just because still in this country women do a bit more of the, um, the work of maintaining the home.
Speaker 2:And so that is another reason why it's hard to bike. Um, so one of the initiatives that we've started in the past year is a woman bike, um, kind of, uh, program. [00:18:30] It's, we've got, we were doing rides, we've been doing a book club, we've been doing a whole bunch of different meet and greets, just getting women together to talk about what are the barriers to biking. We're doing some rides together, kind of increasing the comfort level with riding and that's, it's just been a great organizing tool to bring more women into cycling. Um, another real factor for us is just looking at the geography of the East Bay. You know, we're here in Berkeley where the most [00:19:00] people bike of anywhere in the East Bay. Um, our office is in Oakland. Again, that's a place where we've got more people biking than other areas. Um, and our membership reflects that.
Speaker 2:If you look at who's a member of that, of bikeys bay, it's probably 85% is the Oakland Berkeley Metro area. And so one of the key strategies came out of our strategic plan is to really be lifting up some of [00:19:30] the suburban communities and communities that are outside of the urban core. So we've been working on supporting local volunteer groups in one of the ones that's been super successful is in Concord there by Concord. Um, we also have a group, a bike walk, Castro valley. Um, there's just fantastic partners that we work with up in Richmond, a rich city rides and this has been, um, [00:20:00] it's really focused on trying to get more geographic diversity in the East Bay, but it's also as we're supporting and lifting up local leaders in all of those communities. It's also been a way to get, um, to get a more diverse set of people involved with bicycle advocacy and, um, more racial diversity, more income diversity.
Speaker 2:And that's [00:20:30] a really key part of our work right now is, um, you know, identifying the leaders that are already out there for ourselves. You know, they, they're already, he had no, the community recognizes them already. I'm not saying we're like, you, I know waiting them leaders because they're already doing amazing works in the, in those communities. How can we amplify that? How can we support through helping [00:21:00] with, um, you know, training on advocacy on how to work with your city staff and elected officials on helping with fundraising and supporting those groups to raise money in their community to, you know, buy Concord for instance, has, um, they do a bike tent at the farmer's market cause they're a community that doesn't have a bike shop. So they're out there doing repairs, all volunteer run [00:21:30] at the farmer's market on the weekend. And that's been just an incredible community building, um, project and has brought a lot of new people into, into bicycle advocacy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's amazing. I'll bring this up just because it's, um, it's been said, but I think it might be an overly reductionist argument, but that improving bicycle access, um, often benefits developers or, um, encourages gentrification or happens after [00:22:00] gentrification has already taken root. And I wonder if you have thought about that?
Speaker 2:Well, yes, we have been thinking and talking a lot about this issue. It's a very real issue in the East Bay. Um, actually to use an example from Concord, we were working on with our bike Concord group on, uh, a bike lane project, uh, you know, in the community. And there had been, we had just had a great win on another street by cleans, went in and then, um, [00:22:30] there was a apartment building on that street where there was a big Gregg rent hike, uh, as they don't have rent control there. And, and the community was like, Whoa, you know, let's pause on this other, the second project that we are working on because it looks like maybe there's a connection here with, um, with rent increases that are going to be displacing people. Our philosophy, especially with the local [00:23:00] working groups of these local groups is you are the lead, you know, your community.
Speaker 2:And it really needs to be that two way conversation. So we're, so we're like, okay, let's pause. Um, let's really look at what else we need to do in the community. And so it may be in that case, maybe actually the effort needs to be around a read control measure. This is the reality. The East Bay is gentrifying so fast people are being displaced. Um, you [00:23:30] know, we see it within are moving from maybe East Oakland out to Antioch. Um, the reality is our people are, their transportation choices in those places like Antioch that they're moving to are really poor. Um, and this is really having, it's a huge displacement is a transportation issue. Yeah. Um, one that's an interesting one right now is bike share is coming to the East Bay. Super exciting. So one of the things that we're working on is making sure that [00:24:00] um, low income communities in Berkeley and Oakland being engaged now because bike share is another, is going to be another piece of gentrifying the East Bay and it also has the opportunity to be another great low cost transit system within the East Bay. So it has this great potential to benefit low income communities and it has this great potential to harm low income communities. One question I have, it's just total digression, [00:24:30] but
Speaker 1:was um, your, um, advocacy for the, the bike path across the bay bridge. Um, some have argued that it's, you know, maybe not the best use of funding or resources. Um, why do you see it as an important project?
Speaker 2:Yeah, the Bay Bridge is one that we've been working on like [inaudible] for decades. So it is a, it's a project very near and dear to, uh, to all of us and to [00:25:00] our longtime members. Um, just the vision of being able to bike all the way across the bay. We've gotten access on, most of them are access on Richmond. San Rafael is actually coming in a year, which is very exciting. Um, so we've almost got all the bridges now accessible. And just to speak to the funding piece, um, what's most important for us is that this is not funding that is being taken from some other project. So, um, the plan for funding [00:25:30] the, the bay bridge is that it would be part of a total increase to add another dollar to the bay bridge toll that would come to the ballot, um, probably in 2018 and the funds for the funds from that dollar generate, I can now, I don't remember off the top of my head, let's say it's like $20 billion or something like that or no, that's, and that's, that's less than that, but it's in the billions.
Speaker 2:The idea is it'll [00:26:00] be about $300 million. So we would say perhaps about 15% of that, of that next regional regional toll measure. And um, those are funds that can only be used for the bridge, um, only be spent within the Ar, you know, seven major bridges around the East Bay. So I mean, around the bay area. So it's not like that money from the toll increase can be, can [00:26:30] go to build, build out some awesome protected raised bikeways and Berkeley, you know, it does have to stay on the bridge or within the bridge district. So it's not competing other funds. Yeah, I think that was that sort of the key point. And we actually feel like those, that investment of when you look at how many people are gonna use it. Yeah. Um, right now we're anticipating it would be over 10,000 people a day using the bridge between tourists and [00:27:00] commuters.
Speaker 2:And also there's gonna be a lot of people just commuting between treasure island in San Francisco. You know, when you look at it on a user basis, it's a pretty, pretty low cost investment and it's the only way to really add capacity on the bridge. Aside from say, putting a bus only lane, which we also think would be an awesome idea. I think we've covered this, but is there anything you'd like to add about where you would like to see bike Eastbay? Um, go in the future right now? Um, the direction, [00:27:30] uh, you know, we're all, I'm living in a little bit of a new world since the election. Um, and um, one of the ways that, that we're see that really impacting our work is that I think we have to be even more conscious of vulnerable communities. Of those that are going to be really impacted under a Trump administration.
Speaker 2:Um, so how does our work intersect with [00:28:00] that? How are we even more careful that we're not, um, you know, that we're not causing displacement, that we're not, um, any impacts around police enforcement or another one that we're looking at very closely right now. Um, because, you know, the reality that we're in now is that there's a disproportionate effect of enforcement on people of color. Um, so that's a place where in [00:28:30] our partnerships with police departments, we're going to be focusing on those impacts, um, and making sure that our work is not causing additional harmful impacts in those communities. Um, if anything, how are we helping in that situation? I think under this new climate, we all have to come together. We can't be working in our bike silo. You know, we've been already talking a lot about displacement, but we need to be working more collaboratively and more proactively [00:29:00] around those issues.
Speaker 2:Otherwise I would say, you know, how are we going to be relevant, you know, in this time, you know, really building all of those kinds of relationships are gonna be key to our success in the next few years. We have to be, um, seeing what the community needs and supporting it even if sometimes it is not directly a bike issue. How can people get involved or, yeah. Um, I would point people to our website [00:29:30] like eastbay.org you can go to slash campaigns just to get an overview of all the places we're working in, the campaigns we're working on. You can go to slash education to take a free class. I want to mention for adults to learn to ride because not everyone knows how to ride a bike. And we have a great program that has a, has an incredible success rate, like 90 plus percent of getting people from not being able to bike within [00:30:00] three hours to being able to bike. And we would love to get people, we've got so many great campaigns going on around the East Bay. I'd love to get people involved. So check it out and also join as a member. We are a membership based organization and that's how we get the money to do the work we do. Yeah. Wonderful. Thanks Renee, for coming on. I really appreciated it. It was inspiring and educational and I learned a whole lot. All right. Thanks Nick for having me on.
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