Berkeley, of course, is the city with a network of bicycle boulevards -- yes, the city is criss-crossed with entire streets devoted to bicycle travel -- bike lanes and bike racks everywhere else, and BART's first attended bicycle parking facility downtown. This vastly outpaces meager bicycle amenities in cities such as Oakland or San Francisco, despite the fact bicycle transportation lobbyists within Berkeley have a budget one-tenth that of San Francisco.
it's important for
first in something rather than the worst homicide rate, the worst public
schools," Hester gloated.
Worse yet for Berkeley, Hester said, cities such as Redding and Stockton now have activists inquiring about how they might put on Sunday Streets events of their own -- perhaps before Berkeley.
"We did one-stream recycling, where they put the single bins on the streets," Hester said.
Huh?
"
was first in
think in the whole country to implement curbside recycling. What
did before
single bins. We were able to roll that out before
Well. Maybe.
We can tell you that, if Broadway through downtown Oakland June 27 is anything like San Francisco's Embarcadero was yesterday, the city will experience a sort of magical quiet that occurs when a downtown boulevard usually filled with automobiles is filled only with motorless devices and people.
Hester says she's raised $15,000 so far, and needs another $10,000 -- mostly to pay police patrolling this summer's Oakland event.
The event is "important because residents need to have an opportunity to be on the streets where roadways are becoming a public space for more than just cars. This is a community building experience that's really a lot of family fun," she said . "Our goal is to really start this up. We hope to do four to
six events in the following year. It's an international movement, and we're
excited that in the East Bay
will be the one with a Sunday Streets event. It's not going to be
It's going to be
going to be the first."
By press time the Bicycle-Friendly Berkeley Coaltion's Rebecca Stievater hadn't been able to return a call to explain how this could have happened.
