Title
Recommendation to Authorize the Interim City Manager to Execute an Agreement with Bike East Bay for Bicycle Safety Education Classes and Workshops and Bike to Wherever Day Coordination for a Total Amount Not-to-Exceed $39,000. (Planning, Building and Transportation 24462742)
Body
To: Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council
From: Adam W. Politzer, Interim City Manager
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Since 2017, the City of Alameda (City) has contracted with Bike East Bay, a local non-profit, to offer bike safety education classes and workshops to people of all ages and abilities in Alameda. Since 2023, City staff have supported Bike East Bay’s coordination and promotion of Bike to Wherever Day. Both the classes and events have been well attended and well received by the community. These activities are defined programs in the City’s adopted Active Transportation Plan and help fulfill City safety and climate goals.
City staff recommends entering into a new three-year agreement with Bike East Bay to continue to offer these safety classes and workshops, and to coordinate this regional promotional event, in an amount not to exceed $39,000.
BACKGROUND
Bike East Bay is a local non-profit and advocacy group that, among other activities, provides a variety of free bicycle safety education classes and workshops throughout the East Bay, most of which are open to the public, via multiple contracts with public agencies. While classes are offered within City limits on occasion with these outside funds, this happens only once or twice per year.
Providing bike safety education is a defined program in the City’s Active Transportation Plan and a goal of the General Plan. Such classes and workshops, geared towards people of all ages and abilities, can increase people’s confidence in riding and thereby encourage them to ride more often. Indeed, Bike East Bay’s survey of class participants generally shows that people plan to ride more often after taking one of their classes than they did before. By teaching adults, teens and younger children bike safety skills, people are also more likely to ride in a safe manner and reduce their risk of injury. Making these free classes easily accessible, including by not requiring people to leave Alameda to take them, can also encourage people to sign up.
Starting in 2017, as part of a larger state grant, the City began funding Bike East Bay to provide a variety of bicycle education safety classes and workshops in Alameda. The classes were so well received and attended that City staff developed a direct contract with Bike East Bay in 2022 for $26,202 to continue offering a variety of bicycle safety education classes. This agreement was amended in 2024, in an amount of $48,552, to continue offering classes through June 2025. Over the three years of this contract, 22 classes or workshops were held around the city and almost 300 people received safety education either in classrooms, online or on a bike.
DISCUSSION
Given the need for bicycle safety education in Alameda, the popularity of the classes previously offered, and that providing this type of education is called for in the City’s adopted plans, staff recommends entering into a new three year agreement with Bike East Bay to continue providing bicycle safety education classes. The new agreement offers a menu of eight possible class types that the City could select, including one-hour in-classroom sessions, on-bike learn to ride classes for adults, five hour on-road classes to practice safe riding techniques and on-bike workshop for families. Each year, City staff will work with Bike East Bay to select the classes that fit within the annual budget of about $13,000 and meet community interests and needs. For the fiscal year 2026/27, staff anticipate offering the following four classes/workshops:
• 1 hour workshop on e-bike safety (summer or fall)
• 1 hour workshop on Bike Commuting Basics or e-bike safety (fall or winter)
• 1 Family Cycling Workshop (spring 2027)
• 1 Biking Practice: Shared Use Paths session (fall)
Bike East Bay will promote the classes through their own website, newsletter, and e-newsletter, and make strong efforts to maximize class attendance. They will also work with the City on promotion and advertising in Alameda, including any in-kind opportunities the City can provide, such as publicizing classes on the City website.
The agreement also includes a modest amount (around $3,000 per year) to support Bike East Bay’s promotion and coordination of the annual Bike to Wherever Day events in the East Bay. Funding for these activities was also included in the City’s previous Bike East Bay agreement with a similar funding amount for 2023 through 2025.
Almost all East Bay cities are sponsors of Bike to Wherever Day, including Oakland, San Leandro, and Emeryville, among many others. The City has been a sponsor for many years. Supporting this event is an identified program in the Active Transportation Plan.
ALTERNATIVES
• Authorize the Interim City Manager to execute the agreement with Bike East Bay, as described in the recommendation.
• Do not authorize the Interim City Manager to enter into an agreement with Bike East Bay, and direct staff to work on other bicycle safety educational programs with similar budgets (not recommended).
FINANCIAL IMPACT
The three-year contract totals $39,000, which will be allocated as $13,000 per fiscal year, and will be fully funded from Measure BB funding allocations included in the Transportation - Planning division’s operational budgets, Funds 244 and 245.
MUNICIPAL CODE/POLICY DOCUMENT CROSS REFERENCE
Alameda’s General Plan Mobility Element includes policy ME-14(c): “Community Awareness and Education. Foster a strong culture of walking and bicycling through…ongoing education in collaboration with community organizations and neighborhood groups;” and policy ME-14(d): “Safety. Increase the safety of all people bicycling and walking by improving the design of streets and active transportation facilities, educating the public, and enforcing traffic laws.”
The City’s Active Transportation Plan (2022) includes program recommendation P.27 to “Continue to support bicycle safety education classes and workshops held in Alameda, to promote knowledge of safe riding techniques,” and P.22, to “Continue to support the community-wide celebration of the annual Bike to Wherever Day…”
This action is subject to the Levine Act.
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW
This action does not constitute a “project” as defined in California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) Guidelines Section 15378 and therefore no further CEQA analysis is required.
CLIMATE IMPACT
The Climate Action and Resiliency Plan Update (2025) found that transportation accounts for 54% of the City’s greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), and that moving people out of automobiles is paramount to reducing transportation-related emissions. Providing people with education and incentives for bicycling can encourage people to use this non-single-occupant vehicle mode and thereby contribute to GHG reductions.
RECOMMENDATION
Authorize the Interim City Manager to execute an agreement with Bike East Bay for bicycle safety education classes and workshops and Bike to Wherever Day activity coordination for a total amount not-to-exceed $39,000.
Respectfully submitted,
Abby Thorne-Lyman, Interim Planning, Building, and Transportation Director
By,
Rochelle Wheeler, Senior Transportation Coordinator
Financial Impact section reviewed,
Ross McCarthy, Finance Director
Exhibit:
1. City-Bike East Bay Agreement