Our Mission
Safe Streets, and the three projects your money is moving right now
Where the Money Goes
We work on three projects right now. Each one is a mix of the same three things: money we put in, pressure we apply, and work that actually gets done on the ground. Some projects need one more than the others, but none of them move with only a check.
This is the money itself, and we point it at a named stretch of road rather than into a general fund. Sometimes it covers the whole cost of the work. More often it is the contribution that makes a much larger agency budget worth going after, because an agency is far more willing to move when somebody else has already put something on the table.
Roads belong to cities, counties and Caltrans, and none of those agencies start work simply because a check arrived. So we spend a good deal of time in meetings, we bring along the riders who actually use the road in question, and we keep asking after everybody else has moved on to the next thing.
This is the part you can ride, and in the end it is the only part that counts. Some of it we pay for and some of it we do ourselves with rakes and loppers on a Saturday, but either way the test is the same: is the road better the next time you ride it.
All three are at work on all three roads, but one of them is usually carrying most of the weight. Here is which, and what the other two look like alongside it.
Skyline Boulevard
The dangerous stretch
Skyline is one of the best rides in the Bay, and the shoulder along one stretch of it had been quietly disappearing for years, buried under pine duff in some places and swallowed by ivy in others, until there was nowhere left to ride but the traffic lane on blind curves.
On August 16 a crew of us spent the day out there with rakes and loppers and took it back by hand. The photographs below are all from that day, and you can see the shoulder reappearing out from under the debris as the crew works along it.
Money raised by this ride went into the earlier shoulder work along here, and it pays for the tools, the signage and the supplies that let a volunteer day like this one happen safely.
Skyline is a state route, so anything permanent has to go through Caltrans, and that is the conversation we are in now. What we are asking them for is maintenance, because clearing this by hand every August is not really a plan, it is a workaround that happens to be holding.
Hesperian Boulevard
Especially at Lewelling
Hesperian is a road that a lot of people genuinely need on a bike, and almost none of it was built with that in mind. The section at Lewelling is the worst of it.
This is the loudest part of what we do. Hesperian runs through more than one jurisdiction, so there is no single door to knock on, and we work to keep bikes on the agenda and written into the plans well before the paving crews arrive. Once a road gets repaved the shape of it is settled for another twenty years, so the timing matters as much as the argument does.
We are also putting money behind the case itself, funding content creators and people with real ties into local politics, because a corridor like this one tends to move when enough of the right people are talking about it.
We have put the specific problem spots on the record, documented alongside the riders who ride through them every day, so that the danger is a matter of evidence rather than a difference of opinion.
The Bay Trail
Closing the gaps
The Bay Trail is the closest thing we have to a ring around the water, and the gaps in it are exactly where riders get pushed back out onto fast roads.
This is where we write the biggest checks. Closing a gap is genuinely expensive, and it is also the most direct way to buy miles of protected riding, so the largest share of what you pay tends to end up here.
No single agency owns the whole trail, so a lot of the work is arguing that the gaps mattering most to riders should be the ones built next, rather than whichever happens to be easiest to finish.
The Bay Ride itself runs on the Bay Trail. Every August around a thousand riders use these segments, which is the most persuasive argument for finishing them that we know how to make.
Tens of thousands of dollars
We Are Holding Money for Your Idea
We deliberately have not spent everything we have raised. There is a reserve sitting there, in the tens of thousands, waiting for the next project. We would rather it come from the people who ride these roads every day than from a committee, because you already know which intersection scares you, which shoulder disappears, and which gap in the trail forces you into traffic. Tell us about it and we will go look at it.
Pitch Us a ProjectThe Long View
Ten Years Out
Keeping It Rideable
Building a bike lane is the easy part. Ten years from now the harder question is who sweeps it, who repaves it, who clears the sidewalk, and who keeps it open and usable instead of letting it quietly go back to being a place you avoid. Maintenance is unglamorous and it is where most infrastructure is actually lost, so it is on our list on purpose.
All the Way Around the Bay
The big version of this is one connected network you can ride around the entire Bay without ever being handed off to a highway shoulder. Every project above is a piece of that. Fix Skyline, make Hesperian survivable, close the gaps in the Bay Trail, and the ring starts to join up. That is the ride we want to hand to whoever comes next.
Our Mission: Safe Streets
We directly fund cycling infrastructure improvements. We call it "Safe Streets" because when we improve cycling safety, EVERYONE benefits—cyclists, pedestrians, and drivers alike.
Why “Safe Streets”?
We chose the name “Safe Streets” intentionally. When we improve cycling infrastructure, it is not just cyclists who benefit. Everyone does.
- 1Cyclists get dedicated lanes and safer routes to commute and exercise
- 2Pedestrians benefit from better crosswalks, traffic calming, and separated paths
- 3Drivers experience less congestion and clearer road rules when bikes have their own space
Since 2014
How It All Started
In 2014, three friends had a crazy idea: bike around the entire Bay Area. From that adventure—and the desire to change lives through challenge and the discovery of outdoor beauty—The Bay Ride was born.
What started with 3 riders has grown to 1,000 participants annually. We've sold out every year for 11 years in a row—spots are limited!
The Organization
The Bay Ride is organized by LiveTheBay.org, a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit. We're a volunteer-run organization dedicated to promoting cycling and improving infrastructure in the Bay Area.
Join the Movement
Be part of something bigger. Ride with us and help make our streets safer for everyone.