• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

The Valley Citizen

Pursuing truth toward justice

The Valley Citizen

Pursuing truth toward justice
  • Arts
  • Education
  • Environment
  • History
  • Nature
  • Politics
  • Wit
  • About

Modesto’s Bike Lane Mystery Solved

October 22, 2014 By Bruce Frohman 1 Comment

bike laneThe City of Modesto recently installed bike lanes on Briggsmore Expressway between Prescott Road and McHenry Avenue. Some citizens have been wondering whether the expenditure represents the best use of limited public funds.

After a strong lobbying effort by bicycle riding advocates in the 1980’s, when Modesto’s General Plan was updated, bike lanes became a part of the process for infrastructure improvement. A bike path was built in Thousand Oaks Park, following Dry Creek. Eventually, the path was extended out to Claus Road.

When the General Plan was updated in the early 2000s, the advocates were still lobbying. They were asking why a city-wide bike lane network was not making the progress called for in the General Plan.

At the behest of the City Council at the time, City Manager Jack Crist implemented a program whereby whenever an arterial street is reconstructed or repaved, bike lanes would also be striped on the new pavement. The reasoning was that over time every arterial in the city would have bike lanes.

The program provided a way of creating bike lanes simply by using a little extra paint on each job. A grid of bike lanes would eventually connect every part of the community.

Briggsmore Expressway Bicycle Lane

When the western section of the Briggsmore Expressway was repaved in 2014, the city followed the mandate of the general plan and the wishes of the City Council. The number of riders who will use the bike lane is not at issue. The logic has always been that the more bike lanes created, the more people will ride. When more people ride bicycles, there’s less air pollution.

The entire length of the expressway does not have a bicycle lane. However, as sections are repaved, eventually the entire length of the roadway will provide a crosstown bike lane.

Fragmented Bike Lane between East and West Campus of MJC

Citizens have also noticed an incomplete bicycle lane to connect the east and west campus of Modesto Junior College. The lane runs along a short stretch of Carpenter Road between Brink Road and North Ninth Street. The lane disappears as one goes south on North Ninth Street. The disappearance is due to the fact that North Ninth Street has not been repaved in over 30 years. When the street is eventually rehabilitated, the bike lane will be extended to the MJC east campus.

Bike Lanes as a Source of Revenue

The City of Modesto is occasionally able to secure grants from the State of California and the federal government to build new bike lanes. Funding for many of our bike lanes has come from sources outside the city. In fact, such funding often helps pay part of the cost of rehabilitating streets. Therefore, the construction of bike lanes has not come at the expense of fewer police officers and has not contributed to public service deficiencies.

For Your Health

Bicycle riding promotes good health and clean air. Other social benefits of bicycle riding should also be readily evident. Building bicycle lanes is a quality of life issue. Better communities build bike lanes. There probably would be more support for the program if citizens better understood it.

 

Filed Under: Featured, History

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. John Gerling says

    October 28, 2014 at 2:06 pm

    Good article that pretty well sums it up. Lately the City has been doing a good job of implementing its “Complete Streets” policy but maintains a low profile about keeping the costs minimal.

    Reply

Leave a Reply to John Gerling Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Note: Some comments may be held for moderation.

Primary Sidebar

Off The Wire

?Monster Fracks? Are Getting Far Bigger. And Far Thirstier.
“Monster Fracks” Are Getting Far Bigger. And Far Thirstier.
A Times analysis shows that increasingly complex oil and gas wells now require astonishing volumes of water to fracture the bedrock and release fossil fuels, threatening America’s fragile aquifers.
www.nytimes.com
Newsom urges SCOTUS to consider encampment ruling that has 'paralyzed' California cities
Newsom urges SCOTUS to consider encampment ruling that has ‘paralyzed’ California cities
The Democratic governor’s intervention lays down a mark in a legal dispute with potentially profound implications for one of California’s most pressing issues.
www.politico.com
Clarence Thomas Secretly Participated in Koch Network Donor Events
Clarence Thomas Secretly Participated in Koch Network Donor Events
Thomas has attended at least two Koch donor summits, putting him in the extraordinary position of having helped a political network that has brought multiple cases before the Supreme Court.
www.propublica.org
How hungry is California? Millions struggle to eat well in an abundant state
How hungry is California? Millions struggle to eat well in an abundant state
How bad is hunger in California? A lot depends on your access to food aid, which expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic but now is being reduced.
calmatters.org
Sacramento DA sues city over homeless encampments
Sacramento DA sues city over homeless encampments
Sacramento County had nearly 9,300 homeless people in 2022, based on data from the annual Point in Time count. That was up 67% from 2019. Roughly three-quarters of the county’s homeless population….
www.mercurynews.com
At Last, a Real Possibility to Avoid Catastrophic Climate Change
At Last, a Real Possibility to Avoid Catastrophic Climate Change
After decades of minimal action, Congress passed the largest and most comprehensive piece of climate legislation in U.S. history. Will we make the most of this opportunity?
www.audubon.org
How the fentanyl crisis' fourth wave has hit every corner of the US
How the fentanyl crisis’ fourth wave has hit every corner of the US
The epidemic’s staggering scale and infiltration of communities is laid bare in a new study.
www.bbc.com
Can licensed tent villages ease California's homelessness epidemic? This nonprofit thinks so
Can licensed tent villages ease California’s homelessness epidemic? This nonprofit thinks so
Taking people off the street and into tents is a new twist on homeless shelter being explored by the San Francisco-based Urban Alchemy in two tent villages operating in Los Angeles and Culver City.
www.latimes.com
Mississippi has problems, but it's handling homelessness better than L.A.
Mississippi has problems, but it’s handling homelessness better than L.A.
The public tends to blame homelessness on poverty, drug use, crime or even warm weather. But other cities don’t have L.A. levels of street homelessness because they have more available housing.
www.latimes.com
Neo-Nazis March Through Florida Park
Neo-Nazis March Through Florida Park
The demonstrators raised “Heil Hitler” salutes and waved flags with swastikas.
www.thedailybeast.com
Families have high hopes for Gavin Newsom's CARE Courts. Providers want to lower expectations
Families have high hopes for Gavin Newsom’s CARE Courts. Providers want to lower expectations
Gov. Gavin Newsom?s experiment to push Californians with mental illness off the streets and into treatment, CARE Court, starts soon.
calmatters.org
Pope says 'backward' U.S. conservatives have replaced faith with ideology
Pope says ‘backward’ U.S. conservatives have replaced faith with ideology
Pope Francis has blasted the “backwardness” of some conservatives in the U.S. Catholic Church. He says they have replaced faith with ideology and that a correct understanding of Catholic doctrine allows for change over time.
apnews.com

Find us on Facebook

pp
The Valley Citizen
PO Box 156
Downtown Bear Postal
1509 K Street
Modesto, CA 95354

Email us at:
thevalleycitizen@sbcglobal.net

Footer

The Valley Citizen
PO Box 156
Downtown Bear Postal
1509 K Street
Modesto, CA 95354

Email us at:
thevalleycitizen@sbcglobal.net

Subscribe for Free

* indicates required

Search

• Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2023 The Valley Citizen

Dedicated to the memory of John Michael Flint. Contact us at thevalleycitizen@sbcglobal.net

Editor and publisher: Eric Caine

Website customization and maintenance by Susan Henley Design