Active Transportation Advocacy
Reflecting on Bike East Bay’s visit to the AC Transit training facility
By Dani Solis
This January, Bike East Bay staff and board members were invited to attend a tour of the Alameda County Transit (AC Transit) Division 6 Training facility in Hayward, California to exchange knowledge and insight on the relationship between buses and bikes in traffic.
Bike East Bay staff were met with a warm welcome from the AC Transit education staff and the tour of the facility was led by Michael Floccini, Training and Education Director and bike advocate. After checking out AC Transit’s hall of history and learning about their latest hydrogen fuel cell battery technology in the service garage, Bike East Bay staff checked off an item on every transit nerd’s bucket list–that is, driving a bus!
Excitement aside, there were a few key questions that we wanted to explore together as fellow active transportation advocates. Our first question was: what is a bus operator’s visibility of a bicyclist when they are in the right lane together? Under the careful supervision of Instructor Eagles and Instructor Jackson, bus operator instructors with decades of teaching experience, individual Bike East Bay staff members sat in the drivers’ seat while another staff member rode their bike outside near the right half of the bus. This exercise was meant to demonstrate just how challenging it can be to spot a bicyclist as a bus driver–especially when considering the laundry list of responsibilities while operating a bus.
Our Co-Director of People and Operations, Jill, was the first brave soul to ride her bike next to me while I drove the bus. As pictured from the perspective of my drivers’ seat, one of the only distinguishing features of Jill on her bike was her bright orange reflective vest. There are many blind spots on the bus, which is why it is important to stay as visible and predictable as possible when riding next to moving vehicles on the road.
