GET INVOLVED!
The Mission Creek Bikeway can use your help. We need graphic designers, engineers and planners, office help, and community supporters.

Especially if you live or work along the proposed path, please contact Judy West at the Madrina Group at madrina1@mindspring.com.

Information from Community Planning Meeting
These were the station descriptions used at the first Mission Creek Bikeway public meeting. We would love to receive your thoughts and comments about the project via e-mail. Read the following, look at the corridor photo tour, send us your ideas about any aspect of this project, and they will be incorporated into the final planning document.

Transportation Station
Rail-trails are well known for their transportation benefits because of their flat grades, direct routes, and their tendency to connect directly to pre-existing activity centers. How can the Mission Creek project best take advantage of these inherent strengths of rail-trails while fitting into the existing transportation network? Think about how you would use the Mission Creek Bikeway and Greenbelt when it is built. Where would you most likely start your trip on the bikeway? How would you arrive at the starting point? Would you take a bus? Arrive by Caltrain? Bicycle, walk, or skate from another area in the City? Which routes would you use? What are some ideas you have about how the bikeway can be designed to connect to existing transportation facilities? Where should signs be located, and what should they say? What kinds of facilities would make the bikeway easier to use? Bike racks? Lockers? Bikestations? Inflation stations?

Community Amenities Station
The Mission Creek Bikeway can be so much more than a strip of asphalt. What are some ideas you have about things you would like to see along the route? Amenities can include such things as picnic tables, drinking fountains, bike racks, gazebos, pocket parks, cafes, landscaping, tree plantings, ponds, streams, or anything else you can imagine that would enhance the environment along the greenway. Where should these amenities be placed along the route? Are there opportunities to make use of existing conditions to enhance the desired results of placing these amenities?

Engineering/Planning Station
This is perhaps the most challenging aspect of planning the Mission Creek Bikeway. The proposed route travels along busy arterial streets, crosses some very complex intersections, and must negotiate some narrow city streets with competing uses. Nevertheless, obstacles worse than these have been surmounted many times before, and with some expertise from traffic engineers, creativity, and hard work, there is no reason that Mission Creek cannot become a first-rate Class I bikeway. At this station, we would like to hear your ideas about how to design a bikeway/ greenbelt that will provide safe, easy transit for pedestrians and bicyclists through a very car-oriented area.

Refer to the maps and the route photos and think about what engineering solutions could be applied to the difficult areas. What kinds of traffic control devices do you want to see implemented along the bikeway? Bicycle signals similar to the ones used in Holland, Germany, and even Davis, California? Sensors that detect you and your bicycle in advance of an intersection so you don't have to push a button? Flush curb cuts that facilitate in-line skate traffic? Do you want the bikeway to be a "bike freeway" that will complement the existing freeway flyover, or more of a pathway that meanders and encourages a slower speed of travel? What signals and signs would you use, and where would you place them? Are there areas along the route that are particularly hostile to bicyclists and pedestrians? How do you think a bikeway could most effectively address these problem areas?

Constraints and Opportunities Station
At this station, we would like to hear your ideas about what areas could pose design problems and what areas provide exciting opportunities to enhance the bikeway. What are your concerns about this proposal? Some constraints might include loss of parking, difficult intersections, narrow rights-of-way, or competing uses with industry or other commercial needs. Opportunities could include areas where there is the potential to install amenities such as rest areas or Bikestations or places where the path could easily interface with existing on-street routes. Think about how the new greenway could draw new customers to existing businesses, and even create new business opportunities. When listing constraints, please try and provide solutions to potential problems.

History and Culture Station
The corridor that the Mission Creek Bikeway and Greenbelt project will reclaim has a rich and varied history. First, of course, it was the route of Mission Creek, a navigable waterway that emptied into Mission Bay and was a means of transportation and a source of food for the Ohlone Indians. In the early 18th Century, Spanish Missionaries established Mission Dolores near the headwaters of Mission Creek. The area surrounding the Mission was transformed into agricultural land using largely native labor. As San Francisco's population increased in the 19th Century, a railroad was built parallel to the Creek. Later, Mission Bay was filled in to provide additional real estate for San Francisco's exploding population. Mission Creek was undergrounded and became virtually a sewer in the late 19th Century. The railroad tracks that remain are the only indication of the fact that this corridor was once a vital transportation route.

What are some ways that the Mission Creek Bikeway can capture some of this history? Would you like to see kiosks detailing cultural history in the area? Murals, sculptures, and other art installations evoking images of the old waterway and the railroad? Ohlone symbols used consistently along the trail? How can the bikeway and its surroundings effectively capture the natural and cultural history of the area?

for general information, contact: info@@missioncreek.org