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Riding a bike is a skill that most people learn at an early age and take with them as they grow up. Whether it’s riding a bike to school, to work or using it as a form of exercise, cyclists are all around most cities like Pleasanton.
But for older residents, bicycles are more than just a mode of transportation — it’s a safe way to keep their bodies healthy during a time in their life when other forms of exercise are not.
“I for instance am starting to have mild arthritis in my knees. I find if I do too much walking it bothers my knees,” Pleasanton resident Sharon Piekarski told the Weekly. “But bicycling — because I don’t have my weight on those knees — doesn’t bother me at all.”
That’s why for years, Piekarski has been a vocal advocate for bike safety not just for everyone in Pleasanton, but for seniors as well who might have more physical limitations and need better bike infrastructure in the city to ensure their safety.
With May being Bike Safety Month, the Weekly spoke with Piekarski to learn more about why bike safety is important not just for all people of all ages throughout Pleasanton, but specifically for seniors who tend to ride at slower speeds and who don’t have the same quick reaction speeds as other younger riders.
Piekarski said she has always loved bicycling and when she retired, she made it her goal to be more active in getting the city to improve its infrastructure to make it safer for bicycle riders, which would get more people to use their bikes and decrease carbon emissions that would help fight climate change.
She said some of the main issues that contribute to the lack of bike safety in the city are the arroyos that split up the city and the wide streets like Santa Rita Road that focus on fitting more cars and not more cyclists.
“Most people that you talk to who are not out there riding, they don’t feel comfortable being out there with high speed traffic,” Piekarski said. “And our city is designed in such a way that in order to go anywhere, you almost have to travel in a car.”
That’s why she believes it’s important to have more bike lanes that travel along some of those busy roads that are essential for getting around, but also having those bike lanes protected with things like those green plastic bollards that are seen in various intersections around Pleasanton.
According to the city’s communication manager Heather Tiernan, the city has approximately 89 miles of bike lanes with a little over five miles of protected bike lanes that have those bollards.
Tiernan also said that the City Council, either this month or in early June, will be looking to approve a contract to complete the ultimate design of bike improvements on West Las Positas between Hopyard Road and Stoneridge Drive.
The council approved the construction of a quick-build bike lane project on West Las Positas Boulevard between Hopyard Road and Hacienda Drive, which was the first phase of a six-phase project that Piekarski said is essential for that road, which serves as a key path for cyclists to travel from east to west Pleasanton.
“The recommendation for this 1.1-mile section of roadway is to be designed with elevated bike lanes,” Tiernan said. “We have both the design and construction funding to complete this section of the project. We anticipate a 12-month design with construction beginning in the summer of 2025.”
She said that the quick-build design has already shown that the reduced lanes on West Las Positas Boulevard still supports traffic volumes and has helped the city determine that a larger buffer between the parking lane and travel lane next to Hart Middle School is desirable.
“The fully elevated design between Hopyard and Willow will better accommodate student travel,” Tiernan said.
She also added that if the ultimate design for the boulevard is approved, the remaining sections — Foothill Road to Interstate 680; Stoneridge Drive to Santa Rita Road; and Santa Rita Road to Fairlands Drive — will either have the paint and plastic design or the city will keep the existing design until more funding is available for the elevated bike lane.
However, fellow senior Pleasanton cyclist Steve McGinnis said that while he has seen a more positive change to make it safer for cyclists in Pleasanton over the past decade, he thinks there is still more work to be done.
“What I think we can do to improve cycling in Pleasanton is to have more separated bike lanes,” McGinnis told the Weekly.
McGinnis is another longtime cyclist who actually helped form the Pleasanton Pedalers in 2011. The group is made up of seniors who range in age from their 60s to early-80s.
He said that some of the issues he has seen while riding with his group and by himself include a lack of shoulders on streets like Foothill Road and dangerous trails throughout the city.
But one specific safety concern he pointed out, which relates to seniors, is the amount of time it takes to cross street intersections like the one on Stanley Boulevard and Bernal Avenue.
“We had a member of our group who was riding down at Bernal and Stanley and as she attempted to cross the street, there was a seven-second yellow light,” McGinnis said. “I think she was (in her) mid to late 60s and you can’t cross Stanley in seven seconds on a bicycle. It can’t be done.”
That incident happened in 2016 and the cyclist ended up dying after getting hit by a truck, which led the city to install a protected intersection.
But while the city did that, McGinnis said the same issue pops up in other areas of Pleasanton and the city needs to be more aware of how long it takes for cyclists to cross streets, especially if they are older and can’t go as fast as others.
While city infrastructure is a big part of this conversation, Kelly Dunlap who is the co-education manager for Bike East Bay said there is a lot cyclists can do to be more safe on the road.
“About half of bicycle crashes are solo crashes. They were something the bicyclist did,” Dunlap told the Weekly. “So if you learn to be a better cyclist, you will be much safer and that’s something you can directly control. We can’t control the drivers around us.”
Tiernan actually corroborated that fact by stating that while the city sees a consistent trend of about 30 bicycle accidents per year, for the past three years roughly 30% of those accidents were solo crashes.
She said over the past 10 years, they have had two bicycle fatalities and one of those was the one on Stanley boulevard.
So as Dunlap said, individual bike safety is an important factor when it comes to people wanting to ride their bikes, which is why she encourages people to take the bike safety classes that Bike East Bay teaches.
But Piekarski doubled down on how important it is for more city infrastructure because at the end of the day, having more space and protection between a cyclist and a car as well as having safer trails will encourage people like senior citizens to get out there and ride a bike because they will feel safer.
McGinnis said that while it would also be safer for seniors to join groups like the Pleasanton Pedalers, who typically ride slower even if they do ride for over 20 miles sometimes, it’s still important for the city to acknowledge that certain bike trails and roads need more improvements.
And as far as what the city is already doing to improve bike safety, Tiernan said that some other larger scale bike lane projects that are moving forward include separated and elevated bike lanes on Hopyard Road and Owens Drive in the southbound directions, along with a bicycle traffic signal movement and a protected intersection design.
“The City is also pursuing other improvements at the I-580 overcrossings,” Tiernan said. “The designs are conceptual, and staff is pursuing a more detailed design to submit to Caltrans for review. The Caltrans review is mandatory, but also expensive and this review may limit the number of crossings that may be completed with the existing funding.”
