Dear Albany Transportation Commission and City Council
My name is Peter Schakow, Albany resident since 1980, studying at UC Berkeley. I spent the first almost 3 decades growing up in Denmark, a country with a bicycle culture like few others. I still drive every other year when I visit my home city Copenhagen and smaller cities. A lot of analysis is already included in the evaluation. My summary comments are meant to reflect a different perspective, based on my light research, but long personal experience in a transportation system that is built as an integrated transportation system for the convenience of all people.
Thousands of people commute to work daily on bicycles in harmony with cars. Because it has been built over many decades, major traffic arteries have been developed with separate bike tracks, parallel to the auto lanes. When coexistence becomes impractical or dangerous, different corridors are being encouraged, and often designed. There is an attempt to accommodate all modes of transportation, non of which trying to eliminate other modes. So, on this background, and because I love Albany and I am concerned about the impact on our entire community, I will summarize why I don’t support the current proposal of adding bike lanes on Solano Ave, changing the current 45 degree parking, eliminating of bulbs and changes to the width we already spend a lot of assets to build.
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Adding bike lanes to a traditional small-town like Albany can create benefits, but the tradeoffs are often much larger and more permanent than advocates initially present. In a town the size of Albany, parking and easy car access are usually central to retail survival and design details matter enormously.
Albany is a small town, and most people depends on cars to get to work and will continue to find it convenient to go shopping, dining, etc. locally and will not give up their cars.
Here are the main challenges and risks our community should carefully evaluate before making irreversible changes.
In Denmark, cycling became successful partly because it was convenient, efficient, culturally accepted, and integrated into a broader transportation system.
It was not primarily achieved through hostility toward cars. That may be the most important lesson of all.
Let me add a few learnings I found during my research:
Loss of Convenient Parking
The biggest concern for most small downtown business districts is usually parking convenience. If parking is removed entirely to make room for bike lanes:
- older residents,
- families with children,
- mobility-impaired visitors,
- and quick-stop shoppers
may stop coming downtown as often.
In many small towns, merchants depend heavily on:
- impulse stops,
- short errands,
- easy loading/unloading,
- customers arriving by car from surrounding rural/suburban areas.
Unlike dense urban centers, smaller communities often do not have enough pedestrian traffic to replace lost automobile access.
Business Impact Risks
Many downtown revitalization projects assume:
“If we make it friendlier for bicycles and pedestrians, retail activity will increase.”
That sometimes works in:
- dense urban districts,
- tourist areas,
- university towns,
- neighborhoods with large apartment populations.
But in auto-oriented communities, the opposite can happen.
Potential risks include:
- reduced customer turnover,
- fewer spontaneous visits,
- delivery difficulties,
- customers avoiding downtown congestion,
- migration of shoppers to strip malls with easy parking.
Restaurants and retail stores are particularly sensitive to parking removal.
A critical question is: How many actual daily cyclists currently use Solano Ave?
If current bicycle counts are very low, the town could spend millions to serve a relatively small user group while harming the majority transportation mode.
Political Polarization
These projects often become symbolic culture-war issues:
- “cars vs. bikes,”
- “urbanism vs. small-town character,”
- “young professionals vs. longtime residents.”
That can damage civic trust if residents feel:
- the process is driven by activists,
- studies were biased,
- or decisions were predetermined.
A town council should avoid appearing ideological and instead focus on:
- measurable transportation demand,
- business impacts,
- safety data,
- parking utilization studies,
- economic analysis.
Respectfully submitted,
Peter Schakow