Campaign For A Greater Alexander Avenue Alexander Avenue Campaign a Huge Success
MCBC’s campaign for a safer Alexander Avenue has been a huge success. Thanks to community support, the Golden Gate Bridge Board of Directors agree improvements are necessary.
In April, MCBC launched its campaign for a Greater Alexander Avenue. The mile-long segment of Alexander Avenue between the Golden Gate Bridge and Sausalito has had more bike injury crashes than any other similar length of road in all of Marin County. It is a crucial link in the Bay Area bike network, but is designed like a cars-only rural highway.
Alexander Avenue will be repaved in the next two years. Our request of the Bridge District was that, when that repaving happens, the road not be put back the way it was before, because we know that the design itself is unsafe.
The campaign saw massive support, with over 1000 people signing the petition from across the Bay, and 20 like-minded organizations co-signing our letter. These included fellow bicycle coalitions, the Bay Area Sierra Club, SPUR, as well as a number of businesses and riding groups.
But all this work doesn’t matter unless you accomplish something. So what was the outcome? At the May 19th board meeting (just after Bike to Work Day) we presented the petition and our letter. We also organized a dozen people to call into the meeting and speak to the need for improvements. Our message was heard loud and clear. A number of board members, including Marin County Supervisor Stephanie Moulton-Peters and Tiburon Mayor Holli Thier, spoke up to emphasize the importance of making the road safer, and asked staff what could be done to grant our request. Their statements were echoed by the board president, Michael Theriault, who is a rider himself.
We’ll need to wait for the June board meeting to see the final budget, but the guidance to staff was clear and we are confident that funding will be allocated to plan a Greater Alexander Avenue in advance of its upcoming repaving.
We thank everyone who signed the petition, all the groups that joined our letter, our devoted volunteers, and the visionary members of the Golden Gate Bridge board who directed staff to budget funds for improvements. We look forward to working together to make Alexander Avenue into the gateway that Marin really deserves.
How to stay involved
This win has made possible through the hard work of our Golden Gate Bridge Advocacy Team. Started in the fall of 2022 with support from MCBC, the GGBAT is a group of volunteers that meets monthly via zoom to plan advocacy around the bridge and its approaches. If you want to join the team, or just want to get on the mailing list, click here to sign up. You’ll get a couple emails a month about meetings and action alerts.
Supporters like you, who speak out for safer places to bike and give to MCBC, make projects like these possible. Thank you! Want to support this work? Give here. We’re working hard to ensure that there is always a full pipeline of projects in development so we can keep making Marin more bikeable every year.
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