From: Joe Keiser
To: City Clerk; Gail Payne
Cc: Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft; Malia Vella; Tony Daysog; Trish Spencer; John Knox White; Manager Manager Subject: [EXTERNAL] Comment to City Council Agenda item scheduled for Tuesday, March 15, 2022 Date: Friday, March 4, 2022 3:42:04 PM
City Clerk, City Council, Mayor, City Manager, and City of Alameda Transportation Commission:
I’m writing to make a public comment to an item on the City Council agenda for Tuesday March 15th. I won’t be able to attend the meeting, but I wanted my comment to be read into the record.
The agenda item is 7-F 2022-1730 - Adoption of Annual Report on Transportation.
I want to comment specifically about the West End Bicycle/Pedestrian Bridge. I am an avid Alameda bike rider. I love all of the new and planned bike paths that me and my family can enjoy riding on in Alameda. I support most plans that expand the biking opportunities in and around Alameda.
However, I am adamantly OPPOSED to the the West End
Bicycle/Pedestrian Bridge.
The fact that the city has already allocated nearly $2 million to study this project is a serious waste of city resources. There are many reasons that a bike/pedestrian bridge is the wrong way to go.
*First, the likely cost of the project itself would be nearly $200 million which would eat up so much in limited city dollars and available transportation grant opportunities that many, many, many, MANY other more worthwhile projects would be underfunded or cancelled all-together. Namely, the many other infrastructure projects that could be completed with $200 million that would improve the safety, beauty, and enjoyability of our city would lose out on funding, and expensive actions that the City is likely going to need to implement to deal with rising sea levels would face major budgetary issues if $200 million is spent on such a bridge.
*Second, the benefits of such a bridge would be so minimal in relation to the overall cost, that it terms of cost vs benefits, there’s no question that the cost very much exceeds the benefit. If 100,000 people used the bridge per day, then maybe the cost could be justified But the number of users of such a bridge per day would maybe total a few thousand at most, making the price-tag simply unconscionable.
*Third, the design itself, necessitated by the needs of the nearly Coast Guard base, would make riding or walking up the very steep incline of the proposed bridge so difficult for most riders/walkers, that an even lower number of people would likely use it.
*Fourth, there is no infrastructure or even an agreed upon location on the Oakland side for such a proposed bridge to connect.
*Fifth, the annual maintenance costs associated with this proposed bridge would likely be in the range of an additional $2+ million per year.
If money were not an issue, then sure, let’s build a bike/pedestrian bridge.
But unfortunately money is a limited resource, and we shouldn’t waste our cities limited funds on this bridge.
***Instead, what would be a much more cost effective, relatively immediate, logistically effective and user friendly solution to the problem of providing a West End Alameda/Oakland connection for bicyclists and pedestrians, is a bike/pedestrian ferry. Here’s a link to one such ferry that operates in Vermont to provide water passage for bikes and pedestrians over a distance of a few hundred feet - similar to the width of the Alameda/Oakland Estuary:
https://www.localmotion.org/bike_ferry
A ferry service would be relatively cheap, easy to implement, would provide adequate service for the likely number of riders, and could be scaled to accommodate more riders if needed. Plus, the likely cost of a ferry service would probably be less than the annual maintenance costs associated with a bridge, and those costs could be offset by charging a nominal fee to riders.
Thank you,
Joe Keiser
Alameda Resident and Bike Enthusiast