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Right turn only is wrong for Telegraph Ave.
Editor:
On 1/30 I attended a City planning design meeting at the Claremont Library (re.the Hillegass Bicycle Boulevard).
City staff along with Berkeley's Bicycle Talaban and a few assertive anti car residents have completed a plan to install 6 right turn only control devices at Ashby on Benvenue, Hillegass and Regent in both directions.
Additionally large circles will be installed at Channing, Parker & Stuart intersections of Hillegass.
Also two, one-lane only, hour glass shaped chokers are to go in the middle of Stuart-Russell & Webster-Woolsey blocks of Hillegass.
This and more is happening in the name of bicycle safety on a quiet benign street that most cyclists avoid.
We use Regent or Benvenue instead!
The most alarming of all these ridiculous street de-construction plans being advanced by the anti-car extremists is the approved plan to reduce Telegraph to one lane in each direction from UC to Broadway.
It's called the AC Transit MIS express bus lane plan.
Along with the loss of 2 travel lanes most (40-50) center left turn safety pocket lanes will also be eliminated. Also the center of Telegraph will have a continuous median for blocks, preventing vehicles from turning left or crossing it except at Ashby, Alcatraz, 51rst. ST, etc.
Telegraph conducts at least 60-70,000 cars a day. It works exceedingly well considering its narrow configuration.
It is the Mississippi of the South Campus-North Oakland area. This express bus lane experiment will bring permanent congestion and gridlock to the whole area.
It is interesting that most residents, merchants and property owners, aren't even aware of this destructive plan.
Rob Pratt,
Coalition to Save Telegraph
