Park2Park Crosstown Bikeway

Say hello to the "Park2Park Crosstown Bikeway"!

The expansions of Putnam Park and the River Park on the west side of town got us thinking about how Petalumans of all ages, incomes, abilities and zip codes can access these beautiful new parks.

So we took a bike ride... and found that there is already an unbroken route connecting the Red Barn at Putnam all the way to the new sports fields east of the airport. Along the way, we passed nearly a dozen parks, including Walnut Park, the new River Park, the Skate Park and Swim Center, McDowell School Park and Murphy Little League Fields, the E. Washington Creek Trail. It passes through or near major shopping districts and several schools, along with Petaluma's transit hubs.

This Crosstown Park2Park Bikeway will be a big step for the City in meeting our public health and safety, equity, and climate goals. While it reduces traffic congestion.

Let's do it!

The Bikeway will be an economic equalizer for Petaluma.

Here's an income distribution map from Petaluma's Draft General Plan update. The dark blue areas, circled with red along the P2P, have the lowest per capita income.

The P2P will open up opportunities for recreation, shopping, and education.

The Bikeway serves areas of high population density.

By providing convenient access to a large number of people, the P2P can have a big impact on the level of crosstown traffic.

The P2P, as presented to the January 17th meeting of the Petaluma Recreation, Music, and Parks Commission:

would connect Prince to Putnam, East to West, passing directly by two dozen recreation, education, shopping and transit locations.
would pass through neighborhoods with greatest densities of lower income, non-white Petalumans, and areas with lowest levels of tertiary (college or trade school) education
would accommodate all ages and abilities, meeting the Metropolitan Transit Commissions definition of "Complete Streets"
would, with the exception of the Target Center parking lot, be entirely on public rights-of-way
brings into focus the DEI elements of smaller projects along the P2P route which might otherwise be undervalued (e.g. the benefit of adding standard bike lanes to the City's D Street Traffic Calming project by eliminating some of the underutilized on-street parking spaces. Including this "bigger picture" context could apply anywhere in Petaluma where we seek to build segments of our Complete Streets Network.)
would accommodate pedestrians and bicycles (and their kin in the growing "wheeled mobility device" family), which can capably serve the historically underserved.
could readily be completed, as most of it either already exists or could be built with existing best practice traffic calming methods (e.g. the west D Street bike lanes, traffic circles along old E. D Street and at Maria and McDowell.
would get attention for solving the problem at the D Street entrance into the River Park (IMO, that entire Petaluma Blvd to Lakeville should be redesigned to support a 20 mph speed limit. Things open up when cars slow down.)

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