City Decides Behind Closed Doors to Stop Conducting Traffic Counts Meant For Bike Safety

 Bi-Annual Traffic Count for Bike Safety Quietly Ended

Done Without Public Input

City Won't Say Why 

(But Councilman Priforce Knows Why)

Sometime between the fall of 2019 and the fall of 2021, government officials at the City of Emeryville secretly met behind closed doors to stop and retract long standing bike safety public policy spelled out in the City’s Bike Plan that counts the number of vehicles using the bike boulevards in town, the Tattler has learned.  City Manager Paul Buddenhagen revealed in a recent email to the Tattler, there was a private meeting or series of meetings between undisclosed City employees at City Hall that took place where the decision to overturn the City’s Bike Plan and stop the bi-annual vehicle counts was made.  The meeting(s) were conducted before Mr Buddenhagen was hired he noted and he said he had no knowledge of of it until recently, regardless that the Tattler inquiry request for information started a year ago.  Mr Buddenhagen did not offer anything more about the meeting(s) but he did say he thinks the traffic counts are unhelpful because bike boulevards are not very good and that he prefers protected bike lanes. 

From Emeryville's Last Official Traffic Count, 2019
Every bike boulevard was unsafe because of too many cars.  It's gotten a
lot worse since then.  The City can't be held to account if it doesn't take account. 
Business owners' concerns take precedence over bike safety.

The counting of vehicles on the bike boulvards is meant to provide a Bike Plan backstop over which a regimen of traffic calming provisions are to be implemented for bike safety, often seen as an inconvenience for vehicle drivers and anathema to businesses. 

The Bike Plan was certified by the City Council in 2012 at a cost of $200,000. However bike boulevards have been ignored by the City since the beginning, as the bi-annual traffic counts show.

Council Member Kalimah Priforce
Traffic data is no longer being collected
because it shows too many cars on the
bike boulevards is "bad data" and is
 "embarrassing" for Emeryville.

Bike boulevards are described as streets where cars are allowed but bikes are preferred.

The surprising email from the City Manager came after a protracted year long Tattler fight to learn why the City’s bike boulevard bi-annual traffic count policy was not being followed anymore.  During that time, nobody at City Hall could or would answer our questions about it.  The last time the bi-annual traffic count was conducted (2019), it showed an excess of traffic on all five Emeryville bike boulevards and consequently, the City is on the hook for providing more traffic calming infrastructure.  Increased traffic calming measures on the bike boulevards have been strenuously objected to by several businesses in town, especially Wareham Development who have offices on the Horton Street Bike Boulevard.  Rich Robbins, CEO of Wareham, has been a contributor to many City Council members' re-election campaigns over the years.

Mayor John Bauters
Our bike boulevard network is not a priority,
"I've been doing a lot of other things" he said.

Use of the California Public Records Act has not brought any documents to light, bolstering Mr Buddenhagen’s suggestion that the non public meeting(s) conducted were meant to be secret.

Bike Safety is the stated reason why no bike boulevards should exceed 3000 vehicle trips per day according to Emeryville’s $200,000 Bike Plan.  The City says the 3000 number was incorporated by recommendations from the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) Guide for the Development of Bicycle Facilities.  The Horton Street Bike Boulevard had 4127 vehicle trips per day on it in 2019.  With the Sherwin Williams housing project now nearing completion and over 1000 new renters using Horton Street, that number has likely gone up considerably and bike safety has commensurately suffered.  But because the City has stopped the traffic counting, it remains an unknown quotient. 

Emeryville’s Bike Plan makes it clear that bike safety goes down on bike boulevards as the volume of car traffic goes up. From the Bike Plan:  

Volumes of motor vehicles determine the frequency of passing events; at 1,000 vehicles per day, cars pass a bicyclist approximately every two minutes, while at 3,000 vehicles per day, cars pass a bicyclist every 46 seconds. The rate of automobiles passing a bicyclist indicates the number of potential conflicts and affects the comfort of the bicycling environment.  Bicycle boulevards with volumes higher than 3,000 vehicles per day are not recommended.

The Bike Plan continues,

Counts should be conducted every two years. If a bicycle boulevard goal is not met, the City should consider treatments that will allow the bicycle boulevard to meet goals. If additional treatments are not possible, or if treatments are unlikely to result in conditions that meet the above goals, the City should consider a different type of bicycle facility.

Mayor John Bauters, who regularly likes to display how much he likes bicycling on his X (Twitter) feed, told the Tattler he doesn’t take our bike boulvards very seriously.  After he was informed at a recent public bicycling event, bicyclists are unsafe because of too many cars, he indicated he had other priorities, “I’ve been doing a lot of other things” he said.  He said he didn’t know why the bi-annual traffic counts had been stopped and didn’t express any interest in finding out.  Council member Kalimah Priforce on the other hand was quite forthcoming.  He said the traffic data is embarrassing for the City and that’s why the traffic counting has been stopped.  “Showing too many cars on bike boulevards is bad data for the City” he said.  He added, “It would be embarrassing if we’re telling a narrative that’s different than what the data reveals.”

Mr Buddenhagen for his part refused to say if the City would go back to following the City’s Bike Plan and resume the traffic counting.