Cars, Trains, Planes, Folding Bikes & the Dumbo

Whether it's commuting to work, a shopping trip, or just running errands, it's all too easy to get into a fossil-fueled rut that can only be escaped by conscious and physical effort. Intermodal transportation to the rescue! I'm not referring to intermodal freight transportation, though the idea is similar for human beings. I'm refereing to combining a folding bike like a Bike Friday Tikit, Brompton, Dahon or other make with one or more modes of motorized transportation. This is where a folding bike really shines, even if it's not your regular, go-to bike. Last week I needed to ferry an airplane from Palo Alto to Oakland and the combination of BART with my folding bike provided an elegant, physically active solution. What's more, it afforded me the experience of crossing the Dumbarton Bridge by bike.

I needed to carpool to Concord for a morning meeting before heading to Palo Alto, so I loaded my Tikit into my car. After the meeting, I dropped my passenger off near Tunnel Road and headed to Alameda. My plan was to park just across the estuary in Alameda, ride to the Fruitvale BART station, board a train to Union City, then cycle the rest of the way to Palo Alto. I could have parked in the BART parking lot, but that would have cost me $1.50. Besides, I would eventually end up at the Oakland Airport and would have to ride farther to get back to my car. I was lucky to arrive on the Fruitvale BART platform just as a Fremont train was arriving. The trip to Union City took about 30 minutes.

Arriving at Union City, I was pleasantly surprised by a clean, European-style train station. So I snapped this photo before heading out to cross the Dumbo. A while back a friend sent me a link to a study that compared the condition of BART stations with the income of the local residents. My personal experience would suggest there is indeed a correlation between the average income of local residents and the general spiffiness or shabbiness of their local BART station (see graphic below). Ah, America! Land of (in)Equality!

This trip also provided a test of the new GoogleMaps app on the iPhone which now (finally!) provides bike directions. I don't have a handlebar mount, so I put my iPhone in my shirt pocket so I could (mostly) hear the GoogleMaps voice prompts. An exciting part of the route involves crossing the I-880 overpass on Decoto Road, a particularly dicey endeavor given the poor lane striping, complete lack of signage warning drivers or the presence of bikes, and the need to cross multiple freeway entrance/exit ramps. Next comes an relatively unique, dedicated bike/pedestrian-only underpass beneath the southbound I-880 exit ramp to Decoto Road. It empties onto a two-lane path that is at once secluded and creepy (several cul de sac paths to homeless encampments), yet picturesque (tree-lined and next to an active farm). The buckled asphalt resembles a washboard and requires one to slow to walking speed in several areas.

Next you double-back onto Lake Boulevard to an overpass across Decoto to Jarvis Avenue.

Once on Jarvis, the bike lane is well-marked, well-paved, and quite civilized as you make your way through a mixed residential-commercial neighborhood. Approaching Gateway Boulevard, the area becomes more business park and light industrial in flavor. The left turn onto Gateway has no signs to lead cyclists to the Dumbarton Bridge and the traffic signal will not detect the presence of bicycles. I waited and waited before finally just running the red light and making a left turn. Same thing for the left turn onto Thornton Avenue. Thornton has wide bike lanes, reasonable pavement quality and more wide-open landscape.

Turning onto Marshlands leads you into the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay Wildlife Refuge and pavement that is best described as rustic. I experimented with riding in the car lane and the bike lane/shoulder. The pavement appears equally bad in both areas, but it's actually a bit smoother on the shoulder. Soon you're paralleling the causeway that leads to the Dumbarton Bridge, along the edge of marsh that used to form the salt evaporation ponds of the Leslie Salt Company, founded in 1901 and acquired by Cargil in 1978. These are gradually being restored to their wetland salt marsh and the odor of the mud is ... pungent.

Marshlands Road, looking westward toward the Dumbarton Bridge

The pavement on the section of Marshlands Road leading up to the Dumbarton Bridge deserve a d-minus rating. It's not so bad as to instantly ruin your bike's tires, but rough and tiring to ride on. The chain-link fence that separates Marshlands from the bridge traffic is pretty tired, too. Some sections have wooden slats that block the wind and dust, but most sections do not.

An obvious bike commute comparison for the Dumbarton Bridge is the Posey Tube. The good news is that at eight feet, the Dumbarton Bridge path is far more usable than the sidewalk on the Posey Tube. The noise level on the Dumbarton Bridge is not as loud as in the Posey Tube, but it's not what one might call peaceful. The bad news is that the design of the Dumbarton path makes the accumulation of trash and debris a problem, as this blogger so eloquently describes.

This section was actually pretty clean. Other parts were debris strewn.

The cement K-rail that separates eastbound motor vehicle traffic from the two-land path on the south side of the bridge is barely adequate. It does not stop sand, grit, and debris from sandblasting poor bastards like me who are headed westbound toward the peninsula. Had I known, I would have brought a scarf to cover my face and neck. Passing trucks are particularly good when it comes to this unwanted dermabrasion. And if a truck were to blow a tire or run over debris on the roadway, it could easily catapult shrapnel into the pathway and likely would be fatal for a cyclist or pedestrian. If you ignore these issues and turn your back on the noise and the blowing sand from the vehicle traffic, the views can be quite lovely.

Exiting the bridge on the western side, the pavement is far better than what is found on Marshlands. Perhaps the difference is that you're now in San Mateo county, adjacent to well-heeled Palo Alto and Menlo Park? At any rate, on this side of the bridge, cyclists get a bike path that is altogether separate from the vehicle traffic. Almost ...

Nice pavement, but no barrier at all from motor vehicle traffic?

My goal was to get to the Palo Alto Airport and the Bay Trail runs right by it. Unfortunately, the trail comes about 500 yards short of joining the bridge bike path. This necessitates crossing University Avenue at a particularly busy traffic light to join the bike lane into East Palo Alto. At least there are crossing switches you can press to eventually get a walk signal. Winding my way through the residential streets I could hear GoogleMaps periodically barking instructions, but I just followed my nose and found the Bay Trail on my own. Parts of the Bay Trail are gravel, parts are paved, but even the gravel sections seem smoother than Marshlands Road on the eastern side of the bridge!

So close, and yet so far ...

The Bay Trail passes adjacent to the marshy areas and eventually leads to the golf course on the western side of the Palo Alto Airport. Soon I was loading my folding bike into the aircraft I needed to ferry and just a few minutes later, the engine run-up complete, I departed straight up the Bay for Oakland. The South Tower controllers coordinated a straight-in landing on runway 33 which provided a short taxi to the hangar where this aircraft will temporarily be stored. Then I was ready to unfold the Tikit, head into Alameda to where I had parked my car, fold up the Tikit one last time, and drive home for the evening. Car, train, bike, plane, bike, car: All in all, a challenging, yet pleasing day of intermodal transportation.