Description

The traffic signal on 53rd St heading eastbound across San Pablo does a poor job of picking up bikes in the straight through/left turn lane. I was there, right on top of the loop detector late last night with another bicyclist, both of us with steel frame bikes, and the signal in the opposing direction went green, to yellow, and back to green twice without going to red and giving us the green light. We tried adjusting our position multiple times and eventually got a green light in our direction, but not until after several signal phases.

It seems like the loop detector sensitivity here is close, but needs to be dialed in to detect bikes every time, not just occasionally. This is especially important now that the city of Oakland has finished their bikeway on their side of 53rd street across San Pablo.

Also, it would be very nice to have someone paint a bicycle stencil on top of the loop detector in the "sweet spot", so cyclists who are not in the know can be encouraged to wait in the correct position for the green.