Biking and Dining in Berkley
The city of Berkley is primed for becoming more bike-friendly. It has a solid street grid pattern throughout the city. You can bike most anywhere using residential streets. Biking to downtown Berkley is relatively easy, while routes to downtown Royal Oak, Beaumont Hospital and the Detroit Zoo could be made better.
There is room for other improvements as well. Some ideas include:
- Redesigning the arterial streets as Complete Streets
- Improving connections across Woodward Avenue
- Adding meaningful bike route signs (with wayfinding) on those residential streets
- Proving more bike parking
Berkley did pass a Complete Streets resolution last year.
Also, Berkley Live community magazine just published an article on biking in the city.
“Biking is easy, especially when anything you need is within two square miles,” Berkley City Councilwoman Lisa Platt-Auensen says.
That’s why Auensen can often be seen around town, peddling to and from the grocery store, the video store, the pharmacy, her job in downtown Royal Oak, and even city council meetings.
“Being on a bike helps you notice things you wouldn’t, like ‘Hey, there’s a new store opening up on the corner,’ or, ‘Oh, look, the neighbors did something nice to their yard,'” Auensen says. “It just adds so much to your day.”
Berkley Bicycle Dinner Cruise
And on Wednesday, September 14th at 6pm, the Berkley Environmental Advisory Committee is hosting a 6-mile Dinner Cruise bicycle ride.
Not yet ready to give up on summer fun? Then join the members of the Berkley Environmental Advisory Committee for a casual, low speed, relaxed dinner cruise for the whole family! We will follow the Berkley Bicycle Route on a short tour Berkley neighborhoods on our way to dinner at Bagger Dave’s followed by ice cream at Clarks Ice Cream.
The ride begins at the Community Center Parking lot on Catalpa next to the Jr. High tennis courts. The rain date is the 15th.
More information on this ride is on Facebook.
MDOT Training Wheels
Berkley is also hosting a highly-recommended MDOT Training Wheels program this year.
Training Wheels is an educational course on the planning and design of on-road bicycle facilities. It will consist of two hours of classroom instruction on the AASHTO Guide for the Development of Bicycle Facilities, followed by an on road, on bike portion. During this portion we will casually ride through the cities of Berkley, Royal Oak and Huntington Woods, analyzing types of on-road facilities available. There will be many stops to point out potential facility types, followed by a group exercise and discussion, questions from participants and a brief wrap-up.
More information is on the City of Berkley web site.
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Tags: Berkley, complete streets, Group ride, MDOT Training Wheels