Council reroutes plan for bicycle bridge over Fryer Creek

With dedicated funds ready to pay for a new $100,000 bicycle bridge over Fryer Creek, the City Council came to a fork in the road Wednesday night. With limited support for either of the two proposed crossover sites – Newcomb Street and, to the south, Pickett Street – the panel called for a more detailed study.
The recommendations for a bike bridge stem from the Sonoma Bicycle & Pedestrian Master Plan, adopted in 2008. Public forums and hearings helped set priorities that included a new bridge to connect existing bike paths on either side of Fryer Creek, south of MacArthur Street.
The consensus at that time identified Newcomb Street as the best option to provide more convenient bicycle and pedestrian between neighborhoods east and west of the creek. It is also the most direct route for middle school and high school students.
By most accounts, the Newcomb Street location raises safety questions. It narrows to a dead end, beyond which are residential driveways that would align with the bridge approach. Cars using those driveways could endanger cyclists.
“There’s an absence of any place to land safely coming off that bridge,” said Bill Foley, owner of a home adjacent to the site. The rider would then “emerge into west-bound traffic. It’s a nonsense circumstance.”
Foley referred to a petition signed by 120 neighbors opposing the Newcomb option. Several spoke Wednesday night, worried about rider safety and an overall increase of bike and foot traffic on their street.
Proponents of the Newcomb site had different angles on the safety issue. Right now, students jump the fence at the Newcomb dead end; it’s a well-traveled shortcut to school, and the creek banks have become a place to loiter and drink. A bridge would eliminate that, some believe.
Mayor Ken Brown said the Pickett Street site “seems like a natural. I can’t change my mind because parents allow their kids to do something illegal and dangerous,” he said.
Council Member Laurie Sanders said the Newcomb site “offers the greatest good for the greatest number. It would get more kids on bikes and parents feeling good about it.”
Sanders said she would not vote for the Pickett Street location as it was too close to an existing bike bridge near Leveroni.
Council Member August Sebastiani agreed. “Pickett Street would be a serious waste of public funds. It’s just too close to the other one.” He said perhaps neither site is the best use of dedicated CDA funds. “Do we need an additional bridge? I’m not sold that we do.”
With an impasse at hand, the council called for a “quick and simple” study, to include input of a traffic safety engineer, addressing the Newcomb Street safety issues.
Concern was voiced that mature trees along the creek would likely need to be cut down to make way for the bridge. City Planner David Goodison said the study would address that as well.
The estimated cost of the project is $80,000-$100,000. The council had previously allocated $280,000 in Community Development Agency bond proceeds for bicycle improvements, but is not obligated to pursue the Fryer Creek bridge project.
No public opposition was voiced for the Pickett location, which has no immediate neighbors. Bicycle advocates were absent as well. “I’m chagrined and disappointed that nobody from the bicycle coalition or other bicycle groups showed up tonight,” Brown said.
In other business, the council granted an appeal to the owners of a home next to Prestwood School, who will now be allowed to cut down a diseased 85’ redwood tree. Members were somewhat surprised by the order to cut the tree down, issued by the Planning Commission, as the new Tree Ordinance allows homeowners to cut down backyard trees without city permission.
The council also agreed to form a budget committee. The group will delve into ways to save and raise money, and make recommendations to the entire council. As initially formed, the committee includes council members Joanne Sanders and August Sebastiani, city staffers Linda Kelly and Carol Giovanatto, and public member Stanley Cohen.