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TRANSACTIONS NEWSLETTER ONLINE

November-December 2009

(Photo: Bill Hall, Caltrans)

Region Celebrates Opening of Bicycle/Pedestrian Path on Benicia-Martinez Bridge

Festivities were recently held to mark the official opening of the new bicycle/pedestrian path along the George Miller, Jr. Memorial Bridge leading from Benicia to Martinez. MTC’s Bay Area Toll Authority (BATA) and Caltrans hosted opening events at both ends of the bridge, kicking off the celebration with a ribbon-cutting in Martinez at the foot of the bridge. Attendees then joined in the official first walk/ride across the bridge, where an opening ceremony followed at Vista Point in Benicia.

The opening of the two-mile-long bicycle/pedestrian path signals completion of the final improvements to the Benicia-Martinez Bridge, which connects Contra Costa and Solano counties across the Carquinez Strait and consists of a pair of spans — one dating to 1962 and named for the late state Assemblyman and Senator George Miller, Jr., and another that opened in 2007 and is named for his son, Congressman George Miller. The path also serves as an important link in three regional trail systems that are works in progress: the San Francisco Bay Trail, which rings the shorelines of San Francisco and San Pablo bays; the Ridge Trail, which encircles the region at the ridge line; and the Carquinez Strait Loop Trail, which, as the name implies, will take bicyclists and walkers on a scenic route along both sides of the Carquinez Strait.

There are now five Bay Area bridges that allow bicyclists and pedestrians to cross, the others being the Al Zampa Memorial Bridge (part of the Carquinez Bridge complex), the Antioch Bridge, the Dumbarton Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge. The East Span of the San Francisco-Bay Bridge now taking shape will also feature a bicycle/pedestrian path.

Funded with bridge tolls primarily through the Regional Measure 1 (RM 1) program approved by voters in 1988 and administered by BATA, the $50 million Benicia-Martinez Bridge project encompassed reconfiguring the old 1962 span to accommodate southbound traffic, along with adding the new path. An earlier RM 1 project delivered the parallel span, which carries northbound traffic.

The bicycle/pedestrian path is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

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(Photo: John Huseby, Caltrans)

(Photo: Karl Nielsen)

(Photo: John Huseby, Caltrans)

(Photo: Karl Nielsen)

(Photo: John Huseby, Caltrans)

(Photo: John Huseby, Caltrans)

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