Alameda County delays changes to Castro Valley Boulevard bike lanes, asks staff for yearlong study

Alameda County supervisors on the Transportation, Mobility and Planning Committee declined to alter recent bike‑lane striping on Castro Valley Boulevard on Monday and instead directed county staff to collect more data and report back in roughly a year.

Public Works Director Daniel Woldecenbach told supervisors the resurfacing‑triggered installation created a class‑2 buffered bike lane on a roughly half‑mile stretch and removed about 35 on‑street spaces (roughly 30% of on‑street parking in that corridor). A two‑week bicycle utilization study at eight locations showed typical daily counts of about 22–51 bicycles per location with a maximum observation of 89, and the corridor carries about 21,000 vehicles a day, Woldecenbach said. He recommended ongoing monitoring of bicycle volumes, safety performance and corridor operations and warned that “piecemeal or time‑of‑day modification… are not supported by the data and could increase the safety risk to bicycle users.”

The recommendation followed a Castro Valley Municipal Advisory Council request that Public Works work with area businesses to identify parking needs and consider signing and striping adjustments. The County manager’s office and planning staff said the downtown Castro Valley specific plan and an economic‑development canvass could be used to explore shared parking and other mitigation.

Why it matters: The corridor links two BART stations and sits on the county’s identified high‑injury network; public‑safety, liability and business‑access concerns converged in dozens of public comments. Proponents argued the lanes reduce crashes and improve access to transit; opponents said the county removed valuable street parking and failed to canvass business owners in advance.

Supervisors pressed staff for two kinds of follow‑up: a legal check on whether a state law prevents reverting striping to shared‑lane markings, and a substantive status report that includes additional crash data, repeated bicycle counts and outreach results from economic development and planning. Chair [Chair (S1)] and several supervisors agreed the county should not risk a policy that could increase liability. Supervisor Nate Miley said he was “hesitant at the moment to take any action,” and the board scheduled a status update in about a year.

Public comment reflected a strong split: Daniel Lanias, advocacy manager at Bikes Bay, urged the board to “take no action” and keep the lanes, citing safety and liability; Jeremiah Mallor, chair of the BART Bicycle Advisory Task Force, cited a UC Berkeley analysis showing Castro Valley’s concentration of bicycle crashes and said removing lanes would “increase the risk of serious crashes.” Opposing callers, including local business advocates and some residents, criticized the outreach and timing and said the removed on‑street spaces were important to downtown commerce.

What’s next: Supervisors directed Public Works and the Civic and Economic Development Agency to canvass affected businesses, continue counts and safety monitoring, and return with a status report in about a year. Chair asked county counsel to quickly confirm whether any state law bars shared‑use striping before staff pursues changes.

Sources: Presentation and discussion at the Transportation, Mobility and Planning Committee meeting; Public Works study figures and multiple public comments.