There’s a lot of unfortunate things happening in the world these days, and a lot of them feel a bit outside our control. But small injustices need to be repaired as well. Yesterday, I went jogging and was reminded of one of our little local problems; I decided to jog over to Alameda, the island city that’s only about 2 miles from my house. The only reasonable way to get there without circling way around is to go through an underground tube called the Posey Street Tube. It’s notable that - for an area with mostly excellent public transit - there’s really no easy way to get to Alameda. There is a private free shuttle that services a shopping center over there, but the vast majority of folks just drive.
Presumably because there’s no other way to get there, they do begrudgingly allow pedestrian and bicycle traffic through the tube. However, it is clearly an afterthought. You are squeezed into one direction of the tube, and one side of the tube inside that one direction. The entire space can’t be more than about 3 feet wide; barely enough for two cyclists to pass each other if they both slow to a crawl and carefully maneouver around each other. The tunnel is very poorly lit, with yellow halide lamps that cast eerie shadows. Cars are required to put their headlights on because it’s really very dark. The surface you ride on is pretty subpar as well, with transitions from concrete to metal and ridges that can throw you. And, pedestrians and cyclists have to share. When I jog through there, I’m terrified of cyclists, and when I bike, I’m worried I’ll hit somebody. To make it worse, the tunnel makes a curve near one end, creating a completely blind turn.
It’s a bad situation, and it’s particularly notable for this area which generally does such a great job with bike paths and sidewalks. And it’s especially egregious because, like I mentioned, there’s really no easy alternative.
Producing a whole bike path is probably unrealistic; there’s just no room. But it seems like it would be pretty easy to open up both sides of the tunnel for pedestrian/bike traffic, and for using both sides of each direction of the tunnel, a la the Golden Gate Bridge. In fact it looks like it was originally designed to work that way; I’m honestly not sure why it’s closed. That wouldn’t fix the problem but it would help a ton.
Here’s a more professional version of what I just said, along with some good pictures that highlight the issue:
https://i2.wp.com/sf.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2016/11/Lonecyclistintunnel.jpg?w=580&crop=0%2C0px%2C100%2C329px&ssl=1
