AUGUST 2026-1

Join ECRA Walk & Roll Aug. 12 for CCTA listening session

Lindy Johnson (above), director of external affairs for the Contra Costa Transportation Authority (CCTA), will attend the August 12 ECRA Walk & Roll meeting for a listening session about our transportation pain-points, areas of interest, and vision for the future. CCTA staff will also share updates on projects that may be of interest to ECRA Walk & Roll members.

Before her appointment at CCTA, Johnson was vice president at the East Bay Leadership Council and Contra Costa Economic Partnership, where she managed a regional transportation task force dedicated to advancing transportation projects and initiatives.

The meeting is on Wednesday, August 12 at 7 p.m. on Google Meet. We will also discuss El Cerrito’s draft Local Road Safety Plan and the upcoming 2026 slurry seal project.

ECRA Walk & Roll’s final general meeting of the year is on October 14. (In December, we PARTY!) Click on this Google Calendar link to add all of our 2026 meetings to your calendar, with the Google Meet links.

EL CERRITO DRAFT LRSP OPEN HOUSE, COUNCIL MEETING: El Cerrito is accepting public comment on its draft Local Road Safety Plan until Aug. 21. The city is hosting a drop-in open house on the plan on Aug. 13, 6 to 8 p.m., and the city council is expected to finalize the plan on Sept. 15. See below for more information about the draft Local Road Safety Plan.

ADAPTIVE CYCLING DEMO AT EL CERRITO PLAZA BART, SEPTEMBER 18: Contra Costa Transportation Authority (CCTA) joins with BORP Adaptive Sports and Recreation for an adaptive cycling demonstration on Sept. 18, 3 to  6 p.m. at the El Cerrito Plaza BART parking lot. No experience needed, beginner friendly! ECRA Walk & Roll will join 511 CCTA at its information table.

ECRA WALK & ROLL FAMILY-FRIENDLY HAPPY HOUR, SEPTEMBER 9, 5–7 P.M.: Join us to hang out, eat, have a beer, and talk multimobility and safer streets with like-minded neighbors! Bring the kids/family/friends/partners! Our happy hours are every other second Wednesday, 5 to 7 p.m., at family-friendly Fatapples, 7525 Fairmont Ave. Look for us at the picnic tables or indoors, depending on the weather. Mark your calendar for our last 2026 happy hour on November 11.

El Cerrito Draft Local Road Safety Plan released for comment

On July 27, El Cerrito published its draft Local Road Safety Plan (LRSP) and opened a 4-week public comment period. The 42-page draft Local Road Safety Plan is a culmination of crash data analysis, input from the El Cerrito community, and strategies centered around Vision Zero, a goal to eliminate serious and fatal injury crashes in El Cerrito by 2035.  

The topic of road safety touches on many concerns for El Cerrito: the safety of walking and bicycling; the development of our local economy; how patrons get to local businesses; how much we demand of traffic enforcement; and the safety of children around our schools. The 42-page plan is available for review on a scrolling web page. The plan has lots of informative pictures, graphs, and maps, so the readable text goes quickly page by page.  

Some important reveals in the plan include:

• San Pablo Avenue is only 10 percent of El Cerrito’s street miles, yet it accounts for 30 percent of the city’s crashes.
  

• On average between 2018 and 2025, crashes on local roads average 98 per year.
  

• Between 2018 and 2025, El Cerrito’s High Injury Network (HIN) accounted for 72 percent of all injury crashes and 18 of the 21 fatal and serious injury crashes (see above figure), despite comprising only 5 percent (5 miles) of the City’s road network.
  

• Nearly 90 percent of over a thousand surveyed El Cerritans agree or strongly agree that safety should be a top priority on our roads, even if that means reducing vehicle speeds.

The draft Local Road Safety Plan has maps showing where crashes are concentrated, graphs showing the times of day crashes occur, and information about who is involved in crashes. It also dives into suggested actions the City can take: signal phasing, crosswalk additions and upgrades, traffic calming, and new bike lanes. Emphasis areas include: bicyclists and pedestrians, speed management, and unsignalized intersections, which when addressed together can help achieve the plan’s goal of zero road deaths and serious injuries in El Cerrito.

Key dates:

Comment period, July 27 to August 21: Comments on the draft Local Road Safety Plan may be posted directly in the document or emailed to the Public Works department at pworks@elcerrito.gov.

Drop-in open house, August 13: Drop by El Cerrito City Hall, 10890 San Pablo Ave., for an open house between 6 and 8 p.m. to learn more about the draft plan and provide feedback.

City council meeting, September 15: El Cerrito city council is expected to finalize the Local Road Safety Plan at its September 15 meeting. Emails to cityclerk@elcerrito.gov before 2 p.m. on the day of the meeting and public comments at the meeting are strongly encouraged.

El Cerrito/Richmond Annex Walk & Roll encourages community members to submit comments and attend the drop-in workshop and city council meeting. We will also post a letter with our group’s comments for members to sign in the coming days.

—   Source: Steve Price and El Cerrito City Manager’s Report

Comment on El Cerrito’s 2026 slurry seal project for Potrero Avenue area

El Cerrito’s 2026 slurry seal project will begin soon. The project is a component of El Cerrito’s Measure A–funded Street Improvement Program and generally implements the second year of a 5-year pavement maintenance plan that is intended to achieve an average Pavement Condition Index of 70 (good). The 5-year plan groups El Cerrito streets into geographical zones. This second year focuses on the streets in the vicinity of Potrero Avenue, including 23 street segments (see map above).

The work consists of patch paving, crack sealing, the application a slurry seal treatment where applicable, installation of enhanced traffic striping and pavement markings to improve safety for all modes of travel, and other related work. This also includes traffic signing and striping enhancements at spot locations throughout the city in response to requests from community members. Source: El Cerrito City Manager’s Weekly Report

If you live or traverse the Potrero Avenue area (see map above) please take this opportunity to submit requests for traffic calming improvements in this neighborhood by sending an email ASAP to El Cerrito Public Works director Yvetteh Ortiz.

Take CCTA’s summer listening survey

The Contra Costa Transportation Authority (CCTA) delivers countywide transportation improvements. CCTA’s work includes bike/pedestrian overcrossings, and safer and easier ways to get to school. This summer, CCTA is partnering with Bike East Bay to listen to people who live, work, go to school, and travel throughout Contra Costa County. Take the CCTA Summer Listening Survey here (or in Chinese and Spanish), and you can enter to win one of five $100 Visa gift cards. Learn more at: ccta.ca.gov/community/listening, where you can also record a voice memo or video. Source: CCTA

Various San Pablo Avenue safety upgrades in the works

The following are safety interventions that are currently in the works for San Pablo Avenue.

Repaving project now expected in 2027

Previously delayed from 2026 to 2028, the Caltrans State Route 123 Pavement Rehabilitation Project will now potentially begin construction as soon as next summer (2027). The project includes full repaving of San Pablo Avenue from Cutting Boulevard to the El Cerrito’s southern city limit, sidewalk repairs, and safety upgrades, including two new crosswalk beacons, safety lighting, and high-visibility signs. Caltrans — in close collaboration with officials from El Cerrito and the State of California, and the El Cerrito community — recognizes the urgent safety needs along San Pablo Avenue and is pursuing an expedited schedule that would start construction in summer 2027, pending authorization by the California Transportation Commission in August 2026. Source: El Cerrito City Manager’s Weekly Report 

El Cerrito receives $1.47 million to design crosswalk safety upgrades

In May, the West Contra Costa Transportation Commission awarded $1.47 million to El Cerrito as part of its Subregional Transportation Mitigation Program (STMP). The funds will be used to design crosswalk safety upgrades at the intersections of San Pablo Avenue with Portola Avenue, Waldo Avenue, and Avila Street. Pedestrians were killed in vehicle collisions at Waldo Avenue in 2025 and at Avila Street in 2024. However, additional funding is needed for construction.

City staff are collaborating closely with the Contra Costa Transportation Authority and West Contra Costa Transportation Commission to pursue approximately $25 million from California’s Active Transportation Program to fund construction for these and other pedestrian safety upgrades along San Pablo Avenue in El Cerrito, Richmond, and San Pablo. Caltrans will announce the ATP funding decisions later this year. Source: El Cerrito City Manager’s Weekly Report

CCTA launches safety and access project

Contra Costa Transportation Authority (CCTA) has announced the launch of its San Pablo Avenue Safety and Access Project. The project spans San Pablo Avenue in the cities of El Cerrito, Richmond, and San Pablo, and will develop street design concepts that would be equitable, improve safety and connectivity, support economic development, and keep people moving. Technical work is underway with community outreach scheduled for later this year. Source: CCTA

Above, Cerrito Creek (beyond the guardrail) and the Orientation Center for the Blind form barriers between Carlson Boulevard in El Cerrito and Adams Street in Albany.

ALBANY AND EL CERRITO TO START PLANNING FOR CERRITO CREEK CROSSINGS: The Cities of Albany and El Cerrito were awarded a Sustainable Transportation Planning Grant from Caltrans to develop an alternatives analysis for connecting bicycle facilities on Adams Street in Albany and Carlson Boulevard in El Cerrito. The study will look at alignments across Cerrito Creek near Adams Street and along San Pablo Avenue. Outreach on the project will include a combination of in-person workshops, pop-up events, a walking audit, and online tools. The study will identify a preferred alternative that creates a safe, accessible connection between neighborhoods and closes one of the last gaps in the bicounty north-south bike route west of San Pablo Avenue. Consultant selection is anticipated in spring of 2027 with work wrapping up in 2028. Source: City of Albany

EL CERRITO RECEIVES $850,000 FOR PLAZA BART TOD ACCESS IMPROVEMENTS: U.S. Representative John Garamendi was in El Cerrito on July 7 to present city officials with a really big check for $850,000 to fund access improvements around the El Cerrito Plaza BART station transit-oriented development (TOD). The funding will contribute to upgrading of surrounding streets with new crosswalks, adding protected bike lanes, and improving pedestrian connections to the Ohlone Greenway. The event was covered by several news outlets, as well as posts on Instagram and in Chevron’s Richmond Standard.

INVESTING IN SAFER STREETS ACROSS RICHMOND: Richmond is using crash data from the Richmond Police Department to help guide investments that make streets safer for everyone. Between 2019 and 2025, Richmond averaged six fatal crashes and 31 severe injury crashes each year. These most serious crashes occur primarily on major streets with higher traffic speeds. In fact, 63 percent of all crashes occur on just 8 percent of Richmond’s roadways, which have been designated as its High Injury Network (HIN). To address these safety challenges, Richmond and its agency partners — including AC Transit and the Contra Costa Transportation Authority (CCTA) — are prioritizing transportation investments and safety improvements along the High-Injury Network. Agency partner projects include CCTA’s traffic signal upgrades along 23rd Street and San Pablo Avenue, as well as AC Transit’s bus route and bus stop improvements on Macdonald Avenue and Cutting Boulevard. Richmond’s projects complement these efforts by enhancing safety for all roadway users, making it safer and more convenient for people to walk, bicycle, roll, and drive along the High-Injury Network corridors. Source: Richmond City Manager’s Weekly Report

HOPKINS STREET BIKE LANES APPROVED IN BERKELEY: On July 28, Berkeley Councilmember Kesarwani’s proposal for Hopkins Street repaving, which includes protected bikeways, passed the Berkeley city council 7 to 2 (with no votes from Councilmembers O'Keefe and Blackaby). The design has one-way protected bike lanes on each side of Hopkins from The Alameda to Peralta Avenue to connect to Ohlone Greenway; unprotected bike lanes and traffic calming from The Alameda to Sutter Street; and traffic calming from Peralta to San Pablo Avenue. In addition to the removal of some parking, the plan also includes strategies for curb parking management to make more car parking available when it's needed. Sources: North Berkeley NOW! and Walk Bike Berkeley

CALBIKE RELEASES ELECTRIC MOBILITY REPORT: CalBike released the report of the California Independent Electric Mobility Council, the first statewide council of its kind. CalBike brought together representatives from public health and transportation agencies, researchers, local advocates, safety organizations, industry, and government to work through a transportation landscape changing faster than the rules governing it. The report found that while e-bikes are affordable, practical, and zero-emission, many of the devices causing the greatest public concern are not legal e-bikes at all. “High-powered, out-of-class devices exist beyond California’ current e-bike framework,” the report found. “Yet they are frequently sold, described, reported on, and regulated as e-bikes.”

REPORT TRAFFIC CONCERNS IN EL CERRITO PUBLIC WORKS: If you see a traffic hazard or problem of any type — such as potholes, trees down, maintenance needs, lights/signals out, bad sidewalks, illegal dumping, or graffiti — the best way to take care of it is to report it to El Cerrito Public Works Department via their traffic request page. Things can only get fixed if the city knows they need fixin’!

REPORT ROAD HAZARDS TO RICHMOND AND BEYOND: To report debris in bike lanes and other transportation-related road hazards, be a squeaky wheel here; and for up-to-date links for reporting systems in every East Bay jurisdiction, go to Bike East Bay’s hazard reporting page.