For many years now, the city council has been refusing to repave Hopkins unless it contains a protected bicycle track, like the ones that exist on Bancroft by the campus, and downtown on Milvia. This is the direct result of relentless pressure from the Walk Bike Berkeley lobby, who believe that automobiles (electric or otherwise) have no place in Berkeley, motorists should be punished for their very existence (in as many ways as possible), everyone should ride bicycles (apparently including older residents and people who for whatever reasons can’t ride bicycles), and that their vision of bike lanes should take priority over everything in Berkeley—including the desires of other Berkeley residents, public safety concerns, and emergency response times. Our city council agrees with them.

After a short-lived sensible agreement that Hopkins should be paved without a cycle track, signed onto by council members Kesarwani, O’Keefe, Humbert, and Mayor Ishii, every one of them except council member O’Keefe, responding to pressure from Walk Bike Berkeley, suddenly changed their mind. Their new proposal will be on the agenda at the city council meeting on July 28.

Due to the narrowing of lanes required by this plan, it will ensure traffic chaos, with massive traffic jams extending up Gilman, Monterey, and Hopkins. Protected cycle tracks on both sides of the street, along with over 100 residential and community parking places that must be removed, will limit access to the small businesses on Hopkins near Monterey, the North Berkeley Branch of the public library at the Alameda, the public swimming pool, playgrounds, tennis courts, running track, and picnic areas at King School Park on Upper Hopkins, and the tennis and pickleball courts on lower Hopkins at Peralta. The cycle tracks will make it impossible for tradespeople like plumbers and roofers to park along Hopkins to make household repairs, and contractors to perform major renovations. They will drastically restrict the possibility for creating handicapped parking, make it so caregivers will have no place to park and care for those who need them, force delivery vehicles to be double parked all the time, raise serious questions about the collection of refuse, green waste, and recycling, and cross dozens of driveways making it dangerous for cyclists.

Donna DeDiemar, from the organization SaveHopkins.org, which has been fighting the cycle track battle for years, gave a public presentation at the Berkeley Neighborhood Council about the current state of the situation, where she explains why this is not just an issue for residents and users of Hopkins Street, but something everyone in the city should be concerned about. Please watch it below, and join the organization!

Plan to go to the council meeting on July 28 and make your voice heard. After digging itself into a staggering $30 million budget hole, the City of Berkeley now wants voters to bail them out—by approving a half-cent sales-tax hike and saddling the public with a massive $300 million bond debt. The council tells us that these measures are essential so the many pressing needs of the city can be met. Money has a funny property. If it is spent for one thing, it cannot be spent on something else. The council wants to spend it on the Hopkins cycle track. They are telling us it is a better use for the money than anything else, including preventing all the dire consequences they tell us will happen if the new tax bills don’t pass. Email your council members and make it unmistakably clear why you will not be voting for the new tax proposals unless they stop squandering the money they already have!