THE GEARS ARE MOVING, and the Bicycle Benicia efforts are in motion. One of the Community Sustainability Commission’s goals for 2014 is a Bicycle Master Plan.

Before I launch into Bicycle Benicia, I think it would be helpful to explain the unique nature of the CSC. Most city boards, committees and commission agendas and goals are driven or proposed by city staff and refined by the members of the given entity. That is a bit how the CSC works, but since it was established in 2010 the city of Benicia, like all cities in the U.S., was hit by the Great Recession that resulted in major budget cuts, severe belt tightening and staff reductions. For the CSC that translated into the commission being a self-starter needing to formulate initiatives and do the work to make them happen.

The first years of the CSC were focused on education and public outreach with workshops, symposia, green business programs, Clean Tech Expos and working out the methods and procedures to make those Valero/Good Neighbor Steering Committee Settlement (V/GNSC) monies that were allocated to the CSC for oversight available to the community through a grant process. (Just a note, the grant cycle is about to begin for 2014. If you are interested in learning more about that, check the sustainablebenicia.org website for more details.)

The 120 strategies in Benicia’s Climate Action Plan are under the purview of the Climate Action Plan (CAP) Coordinator Team (funded by V/GNSC monies), encompassing city, residential and commercial/industrial sectors. However, the CSC still establishes goals and priorities, such as the successfully completed 2013 Clean Tech Expo. The Bicycle Master Plan is among commissioners’ goals for 2014.

A team of dedicated bicycling Benicians has met three times so far to sketch out the work to be done. While we’re at the early stages of this work, here’s our progress so far.

B2

We settled on a working name for our efforts: Bicycle Benicia — B2. It highlights the goal of making it easier and safer to bicycle in Benicia. The next step has been to design two surveys. The first is to learn “How Bikeable is Benicia?” To do this we borrowed from the work of the U.S. Department of Transportation and added questions we felt would be helpful to establish a baseline of attitudes and experiences related to bicycling in Benicia.

The second survey is about the infrastructure and condition of Benicia’s roads, paths and facilities for bicycling. Benicia’s land mass is nearly 13 square miles but to make the assessment of bicycle routes manageable for our small team, we are segmenting the city into areas, e.g., North of Military, South of Military, Industrial Park, etc. From each city segment, we’ll then work to determine the best routes (e.g., safest, most direct . . .) for getting to shopping, public transportation, sightseeing and so on.

As for getting to schools, there has been great work done on mapping these routes by the Solano Transit Authority in partnership with the city of Benicia, and by Benicia Unified School District through the “Safe Routes to Schools” program. There’s an interactive map that allows you to use a Google feature to find the routes, and there is also a link to downloadable PDF maps. I’ll include a link to that information below.

We’re hoping that if you get an email to participate in the “How Bikeable is Benicia?” survey that you will fill it out and refer it to others you know in Benicia. Once we have the data collected from the two surveys, we’ll put it together and present it at a community meeting and other venues to get responses and help fill in any gaps. From there we will put the findings and recommendations together in a formal presentation to the Community Sustainability Commission for its input and possible recommendations for the city and City Council.

Naturally, we’ll be working with and keeping interested groups and departments informed as we move ahead.

What does success look like?

Just from the beginnings of our small committee, we came up with the following would-be indicators of success for our efforts. Though many successes will require community effort, others may — and hopefully will — be achieved by those interested in bicycling in Benicia.

It will be fun to see what else may emerge as success:

• Increase clearly marked and designated bike routes in Benicia

• Increase First Street, Realtor and accommodation revenues because of improved bikeability, ridership and bicycle tourism

• Improve health and educational performance at Benicia schools because of increased ridership

• Establish new bike trails/paths (not on or separated from streets) for travel/recreation

• Establish and connect a community of Benicia bicyclists via social networking

• Ensure sufficient lockers at hubs (there are two new lockers at the Military hub)

• Designate a safe bicycle route in the Southampton Shopping Center

• Create a new route from the Marina Green to the Benicia Arsenal along/near water

• Double the number of bike racks and double the number of bikes in bike racks

• Increase cyclists at our schools

• Increase cycling safety and awareness of rules of the road

• Improve cyclist safety on Military, East Second Street and Southampton Road

• Add bicycle racks on every block of First Street and encourage new commercial/industrial buildings to include bicycle parking

I’m sure you may have your own indicators of Bicycle Benicia success. B2 would like to know what they are so they may be considered in the upcoming workshops.

Something cool!

I know Google maps will give bicycle routes from point A to point B, but they don’t include a lot of information about street conditions (road surfaces), traffic, elevation rise and so on. Hopefully our team efforts will fill in those blanks for major routes in town.

What I did find and didn’t know about previously is a website called “Map My Ride.”

It’s interactive in that as you move your cursor along the path, it will indicate the increase or decrease in elevation. Further, if you click on “View 3D video of this map,” it flies you over Benicia, using satellite imagery of houses and roads so you can get a pretty good idea of the route and its features.

You can also send the map information to your smart phone so you have it handy as you ride — safely, please!

Bike commuter money!

As I was wrapping up this article, Nancy Lund called. She is Benicia’s representative to the Solano Transit Authority. She told me that there is an incentive program of 60 percent — up to $100 — for an individual to buy a bicycle. Who qualifies? Any Solano or Napa resident or employee 18 years of age or older may apply to receive the incentive under this program.

Qualified applicants will be selected based on a review of their application. Those most likely to use the bicycle for commuting will be given preference.

There are some other requirements. I hope someone takes advantage of this incentive. The link is below.

I’ll see you bicycling in Benicia!

Learn more

• Benicia Bicycle Club: beniciabicycleclub.org

• Bucks for bikes: commuterinfo.net/Content/10004/BikingampWalking.html#bucks

• Community Sustainability Commission Grant process: go to sustainablebenicia.org, “Resources,” “Grant Funding.”

• Mapmyride.com

• National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration: nhtsa.gov/people/injury/pedbimot/bike/bikeability/resources.htm

• Safe Routes to Benicia Schools (interactive maps): solanosr2s.ca.gov/app_pages/view/10 and solanosr2s.ca.gov/app_pages/view/4529

Constance Beutel is a member of Benicia’s Community Sustainability Commission. She is a university professor and videographer and holds a doctorate from the University of San Francisco.