This is welcome news. Still, I wish that we could have a subway. <sigh>

Closing some crossings that connect to less roads is an economic and efficient move. I am all for it!! City should be able to do this rather soon?

Would defer to the environmental review, but I suspect that traffic will become more congested at Oak Grove if Encinal crossing is closed even with grade separation.

Would not be surprised if it'll be another 20 years before MP has grade separation.

Restricting major city crossings to bike and pedestrian use only is going to greatly exacerbate car traffic for individuals needing to to move from east to west in the city. This is not “sharing” the available resources. It’s more punishing people who must use their cars to travel across the city. For those of you obsessed with biking rights, you do realize that some people need to drive their cars, right? You do realize that not everyone is able to walk or bike from the outer reaches of the city - near 101. They don’t drive to inconvenience you, but because there is no other manageable way to go from east to west.

We currently have roads around downtown that enable bikers to ride across the entire width of the street, holding drivers hostage. Now we’ll force drivers through just a couple crossings, probably single file so that more bikers can have more privileges. What in gods name happened to sharing streets? When I biked, I biked down the right side of the street or rd. I was literally never bullied by a car, nor did I block or cut off cars.
I recently came across a large group of women bikers at the Ravenswood crossing. The signage allowed them priority at the crossing and they all pushed their way up to the front. One in particular was flexing her muscles and exchanging victory calls with the others. They all had cameras on their helmets. What the heck?! I could not believe the selfishness and rudeness on display. This is what our new biking focus enables.
I can’t wait to learn what queueing at the train crossings for drivers will mean. More punishment for those bad people who drive.
Get real, you guys!

Restricting major city crossings to bike and pedestrian use only is going to greatly exacerbate car traffic for individuals needing to to move from east to west in the city. This is not “sharing” the available resources. It’s more punishing people who must use their cars to travel across the city. For those of you obsessed with biking rights, you do realize that some people need to drive their cars, right? You do realize that not everyone is able to walk or bike from the outer reaches of the city - near 101. They don’t drive to inconvenience you, but because there is no other manageable way to go from east to west.

We currently have roads around downtown that enable bikers to ride across the entire width of the street, holding drivers hostage. Now we’ll force drivers through just a couple crossings, probably single file so that more bikers can have more privileges. What in gods name happened to sharing streets? When I biked, I biked down the right side of the street or rd. I was literally never bullied by a car, nor did I block or cut off cars.
I recently came across a large group of women bikers at the Ravenswood crossing. The signage allowed them priority at the crossing and they all pushed their way up to the front. One in particular was flexing her muscles and exchanging victory calls with the others. They all had cameras on their helmets. What the heck?! I could not believe the selfishness and rudeness on display. This is what our new biking focus enables.

Oak Grove and Glennwood are literally the only ways I’ve been able to get in and out of my neighborhood since the huge uptick in rush hour traffic.
I can’t wait to learn what queueing at the train crossings for drivers will mean. More punishment for those bad people who drive.

Thanks for sharing the streets with your fellow residents.

@private citizen, I think you're conflating a few different things here. The grade separation project has nothing to do with bike infrastructure--it's about improving safety and efficiency for all road users. Unless we go for a viaduct (and maybe not even then), it is not possible to grade separate the Encinal crossing and have the trains get back to grade level by the Atherton border without using eminent domain to acquire a bunch of residential properties near the tracks. (To be clear, that has never been on the table.) The current plan is to grade separate three crossings (Ravenswood, Oak Grove, and Glenwood), making them MORE efficient for drivers, and leaving Encinal as is. That crossing will be less efficient due to the planned increase in frequency of trains, and so drivers are more likely to use the other three crossings.

Re: cyclists hindering cars, this what happens when we don't have bike lanes on major through-routes such as Menlo Avenue and Santa Cruz through downtown. We lack bike lanes on Menlo and Santa Cruz because we have heavily used on-street parking there and the road isn't wide enough for both parking AND bike lanes. But these streets are heavily used by cyclists. The imperfect solution has been to paint "sharrows" in the middle of the lane, indicating where cyclists can safely ride w/out fear of getting "doored" by a parked driver. It sounds as though you'd prefer that bikes have their own lane (so would I), but that would require parking removal, which also inconveniences drivers. In the case of the group that you encountered, the safest option for them happens to also be the most efficient and safe for drivers: they should ride together in a condensed pack in the middle of the road until they get to a place with bike lanes. Why? because riding near the edge (and single file) *still* requires drivers to either wait behind them (but for longer) or pass into oncoming traffic – and puts the cyclists way too close to the door zone.

Dear Katie, yes, I am going beyond the scope of the article, because it’s the confluence of a range of city mandates and projects and the lack of up-to-date infrastructure in some areas of the city that will result in some of us being seriously challenged to move east to west across our city.
It’s vexing to see more discussion of the train crossings when we all know they will not be fixed anytime soon. We’ve already spent decades and millions of dollars in community discussions and consultant-led brainstorming sessions and no one has actually busted a move. It won’t be a priority until the state puts the city in a headlock and gives it a collective noogie!
Yes, I do feel we should have dedicated, protective bike lanes on the right side of the street wherever possible. And there are some streets, like Santa Cruz, where it might not be a great idea. Perhaps rather than putting sharrows around downtown, we should provide dedicated bike lanes on those surrounding streets and ask people to dismount and walk their bikes to the nearest rack on or near Santa Cruz. Skate boards have always been prohibited on Santa Cruz sidewalks. If we’re making Santa Cruz more of a walking mall, perhaps that’s not the best place to bike or skateboard. Maybe we only allow special needs transportation and safety vehicles on Santa Cruz and let everyone else park and walk? My point— there are solutions that might better support safe sharing and reduce conflict on our roads. No one should be squeezed out. No one.
And perhaps we can talk about making our own neighborhoods walking- and biking safe. Perhaps we can discuss the best way to keep some of us out of our cars downtown?