* * * *
A little overview: in 1996, as highway projects were declining, the six billion dollar monster, Caltrans, the Department O[pposing] Transportation, began cooking up plans for major bridge projects. All agencies must survive, and they need money, so that comes first it appears. One of their first acts was to cut the bicycle shuttle service at the Richmond-San Rafael bridge, a bad move on their part because it lead to regular protests and major actions (I was a primary organizer with the Bike the Bridge! Coalition, the first big protest and the reason we knew widely was thanks to the East Bay Bicycle Coalition). That had just gotten up to speed when they announced a new Bay Bridge...and so the campaign expanded.
Many dirty tricks were used to try to keep us off those and other bridges, and there was even a toll proposed for the Golden Gate, but we kept at it with determination and won many battles. Although the new bridge by many accounts should never have been built because it is outrageously overpriced, not any more safe, a major carbon expenditure, and designed for much increased driving by adding at least four more lanes of capacity (they always take shoulders for lanes when they want to, and have long had plans to blow off the top of the island and make a second bridge to bypass downtown SF), we did miraculously win that a bicycle and pedestrian path built to ADA criteria would be included and then in subsequent battles managed to keep it in the project and it is now almost completed!
Unfortunately, the institutional opponents delayed its sister crossing for the past 13+ years. We got legislation passed to fund it, and they secretly repealed it, lying in the process. We got a study done showing how it could be built, and they made a new rule asking for a second study to delay it. We campaigned last year for it to be funded in the new toll increase but they lied that it couldn't be funded any more, so we had to get yet another bill passed. The East Bay Bicycle Coalition was key in our success.
* * * *
Note that a more environmentally friendly option for the bridge being built would have been narrowing the lanes to make space, or hanging a path under the bridge which would have been faster and cheaper and nicer, but they opposed that for 'public safety' reasons.
The key government actors are:
Caltrans, which is responsible for the engineering. Important: Caltrans owns and operates the bridge.
Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), which budgets Federal transportation dollars for the nine-county Bay Area region. Literally around 100 Billion dollars. So they're a very political and powerful organization which tried for generations to avoid any responsibility for regional planning; sprawl is big money, after all.
The Bay Area Toll Authority, which is really MTC with a new hat, all the same commissioners sit on it. Note that it controls decisions for all the Bay Area toll bridges EXCEPT the Golden Gate, which is independently operated by a Marin County agency.
Bureau of Business, Transportation and Housing: the controller of CalTrans, believe it or not. With a name like that you can see it has grown out of the lucrative industry of sprawl development. A relatively little known and powerful agency.
Bay Conservation & Development Commission (BCDC): The good guys, if there can be any. They have the duty thanks to activists 50+ years ago to protect the Bay, and Caltrans needs a permit from them to do any work within 100 feet of the Bay. Their mandate includes providing "maximum feasible public access". Feasible is a funny word, it is kind of a weaker form of 'possible'. In other words: it's possible, but can we really afford it?
There are many more, but the top two are the main ones to pressure. MTC is the public group. But they all have people inside, some of whom are friendly, all of whom are human, all of whom you can call and talk to and ask help or debate and figure out where to go next. There are also many other groups such as environmental groups, and then there are the industry people who try to stay hidden but have huge money involved. And then there is the public! Including the driving public.
* * * *
A note about direct action and the media:
The bridge rides we did in the past had two different effects. One very positive, and one very negative.
September 10, 1997: BART strike. Months of organizing meant lots of people knew about and supported the bike path. Back then you could sneak under the bridge and get on in the East Bay, no problem, all the way by bicycle. So when we burst on the scene, with faxes and calls already going to the media, they ate it up! Some great sound bites. We were heroes. This influenced the process. Not to mention the biggest bicycle political blowout in 100 years happened around the bridge campaign, which was clearly very related and which worked in our favor. Mayor Willie Brown postured that he tried to shut down Critical Mass, which resulted in the biggest ride ever, lots of fanfare and attention, and big confrontations at bridge entrances.
Fast forward a year, the bridge design was going to exclude future light rail, which seemed a very bad idea and a first step to destroying ('redeveloping') the Transbay Transit Terminal. It was easy to see this could lead to a car-first system. Many people remember the Key lines which used to cross the Bay Bridge. They cared about this! BART was over capacity thanks to the Dot Com boom, so the need for more trains was evident, and one can't always count on BART anyway. Long-term the use of oil needs to stop. The Bay Bridge was built strong for trains, and used to carry twice as many people a day during WWII when public transit use maximized. The lower deck was trucks and trains, the upper deck was three lanes in each direction.
(Yes, six lanes! So it has been done before. Why not make one of them a bicycle lane.)
So as an act of solidarity, 18+ bicyclists rode across the Bridge with a huge banner sculpture of a train saying "Access Now!". Unfortunately the media spun this as ungrateful cyclists who already got what they asked for, blocking traffic. The traffic was only blocked because CHP stopped us on an off-ramp, backing up the bridge. This was in violation of their own policies. But it's amazing how the public can go along with a negative spin on things, so allies like SFBC were weak and shied away from support. Ultimately we and I in particular failed because we didn't stick to our program. We should have biked to our next court date, until the complexity of the issue succeeded. Note that the powers that be were quite well prepared for this second major demo and there is ample reason to believe they were using surveillance.
* * * *
So, some key elements for successful actions:
a) The public needs to know and support in advance!
b) Stay strong, focused and determined
c) Don't let media spin get you down
* * * *
For more history about why the East Span bridge design process was rigged, see http://oaklandbridge.com/
Note that a more environmentally friendly option for the bridge being built would have been narrowing the lanes to make space, or hanging a path under the bridge which would have been faster and cheaper and nicer, but they opposed that for 'public safety' reasons.
The key government actors are:
Caltrans, which is responsible for the engineering. Important: Caltrans owns and operates the bridge.
Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), which budgets Federal transportation dollars for the nine-county Bay Area region. Literally around 100 Billion dollars. So they're a very political and powerful organization which tried for generations to avoid any responsibility for regional planning; sprawl is big money, after all.
The Bay Area Toll Authority, which is really MTC with a new hat, all the same commissioners sit on it. Note that it controls decisions for all the Bay Area toll bridges EXCEPT the Golden Gate, which is independently operated by a Marin County agency.
Bureau of Business, Transportation and Housing: the controller of CalTrans, believe it or not. With a name like that you can see it has grown out of the lucrative industry of sprawl development. A relatively little known and powerful agency.
Bay Conservation & Development Commission (BCDC): The good guys, if there can be any. They have the duty thanks to activists 50+ years ago to protect the Bay, and Caltrans needs a permit from them to do any work within 100 feet of the Bay. Their mandate includes providing "maximum feasible public access". Feasible is a funny word, it is kind of a weaker form of 'possible'. In other words: it's possible, but can we really afford it?
There are many more, but the top two are the main ones to pressure. MTC is the public group. But they all have people inside, some of whom are friendly, all of whom are human, all of whom you can call and talk to and ask help or debate and figure out where to go next. There are also many other groups such as environmental groups, and then there are the industry people who try to stay hidden but have huge money involved. And then there is the public! Including the driving public.
* * * *
A note about direct action and the media:
The bridge rides we did in the past had two different effects. One very positive, and one very negative.
September 10, 1997: BART strike. Months of organizing meant lots of people knew about and supported the bike path. Back then you could sneak under the bridge and get on in the East Bay, no problem, all the way by bicycle. So when we burst on the scene, with faxes and calls already going to the media, they ate it up! Some great sound bites. We were heroes. This influenced the process. Not to mention the biggest bicycle political blowout in 100 years happened around the bridge campaign, which was clearly very related and which worked in our favor. Mayor Willie Brown postured that he tried to shut down Critical Mass, which resulted in the biggest ride ever, lots of fanfare and attention, and big confrontations at bridge entrances.
Fast forward a year, the bridge design was going to exclude future light rail, which seemed a very bad idea and a first step to destroying ('redeveloping') the Transbay Transit Terminal. It was easy to see this could lead to a car-first system. Many people remember the Key lines which used to cross the Bay Bridge. They cared about this! BART was over capacity thanks to the Dot Com boom, so the need for more trains was evident, and one can't always count on BART anyway. Long-term the use of oil needs to stop. The Bay Bridge was built strong for trains, and used to carry twice as many people a day during WWII when public transit use maximized. The lower deck was trucks and trains, the upper deck was three lanes in each direction.
(Yes, six lanes! So it has been done before. Why not make one of them a bicycle lane.)
So as an act of solidarity, 18+ bicyclists rode across the Bridge with a huge banner sculpture of a train saying "Access Now!". Unfortunately the media spun this as ungrateful cyclists who already got what they asked for, blocking traffic. The traffic was only blocked because CHP stopped us on an off-ramp, backing up the bridge. This was in violation of their own policies. But it's amazing how the public can go along with a negative spin on things, so allies like SFBC were weak and shied away from support. Ultimately we and I in particular failed because we didn't stick to our program. We should have biked to our next court date, until the complexity of the issue succeeded. Note that the powers that be were quite well prepared for this second major demo and there is ample reason to believe they were using surveillance.
* * * *
So, some key elements for successful actions:
a) The public needs to know and support in advance!
b) Stay strong, focused and determined
c) Don't let media spin get you down
* * * *
For more history about why the East Span bridge design process was rigged, see http://oaklandbridge.com/
