"It does some really great work," said Commissioner Kevin Jackson, who has served the longest of all the current members of the BPAC.

Some groups within the city government might regard their persistent methods as unconventional, but the committee's active involvement with city hall has helped bike enthusiasts get space for themselves on city streets and projects, Jackson said. What used to be a struggle a few years ago is becoming somewhat easier to achieve, although unconditional acceptance is still a long way off, he added.

"We have gone from whether or not there are bike facilities in new projects to a recognition that it's a given," said Thom Mayer, who was recently reappointed to the committee for a second term.

According to the commissioners, what has changed in the last decade is the perception among city officials and businesses that cycling is an important and viable alternative system of transportation in the city. However, the change did not happen overnight. The crusade began in earnest after Congress passed the Transportation Development Act in 1992 to encourage alternative means of transportation in cities across the country.

As a first step in qualifying for future grant funding from Santa Clara County, Sunnyvale needed to have a bicycle plan for the city and a bicycle advisory committee, said current City Councilman Tim Risch.

"As the very first chair of the BPAC, I was involved in creating the Sunnyvale bike map," Risch explained.

Although he works in Fremont, Risch rides his bike to work at least twice a week, which usually takes him a little more than an hour one way.

An initial study of the city's available bike routes and lanes helped the committee assess the situation and identify the gaps, Risch said. With the assistance of a consultant, the committee was then able to start compiling the bike plan, allowing the city the next 50 years to implement and complete it.

Mayer said the Sunnyvale Bicycle Capital Improvement Plan, which he helped finish three years ago, has been BPAC's major accomplishment thus far and has had the most long-term impact on the city.

"The plan says that every arterial and collector street in the city needs to have bike space on it," Mayer explained.

With the assistance of grant money as well as funding from the county, the city has begun to fill the gaps.

"We are adding 9¹/2 miles of bike lanes, which will be completed next month," said Jack Witthaus, transportation and traffic manager for Sunnyvale. "We are developing a very underdeveloped network."

The new bike lanes will be in the industrial area—the northeastern part of the city and along portions of Fair Oaks Avenue, Kifer Road, Caribbean Drive and a few other streets, he said.

Born and raised in the county, Witthaus began to work for the city eight years ago. Growing up as an avid bike rider, Witthaus said he has always had an interest in transportation and chose that area as his career. Over the years, he's become well aware of the delays that can occur in the undertaking of many projects.

"It takes a long time from conception of a plan to construction," Witthaus said.

Although the construction time in itself is not very long, the funding process might take a few years, he added.

In 1996 the Measure A/B funding from sales tax provided more than $30 million to Santa Clara County to be administered by the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA), which covers 17 cities in Northern California.

For the past four years David Simons, chair of the Sunnyvale Planning Commission, has been reappointed every year as a member of the VTA BPAC.

"I've always had a passion for transportation and land use," Simons said.

The funding process can be lengthy, Simons admits. When the city of Sunnyvale submitted its application to the county for funding through the Transportation for Clean Air and Safe Routes to School grants, the VTA board accepted the BPAC recommendation and reviewed the application. Although the application was submitted in 1996, it has taken more than five years for the city to start implementing its bike plan.

"Sunnyvale has been the only city that has implemented this plan," Simons said. "Sunnyvale is a work in progress, and I work very closely with projects here."

The Borregas bridge project, which will link the industrial north to the residential south for bikers and pedestrians, will be funded through this grant. There has been a spate of growth and development across the city in recent years, and the process is far from over. However, due to BPAC's active involvement with city hall, future projects have a built-in bicycle plan that companies and developers have to adhere to. Some of the stipulations include allocating 10 percent of parking spaces for bikes, providing showers and lockers for employees who wish to bike to work, and adding pedestrian and bike access around properties.

"The city is recognizing these issues more," said Kevin Gregory, current chair of the BPAC and a resident of Sunnyvale for nine years. "The bike and pedestrian process is in place now before the projects begin."

Risch admitted that his past experience as a commissioner does help him understand some of the BPAC's perspectives more than some of the other council members. But the BPAC is a very independent and autonomous group, he added.

Simons added that the BPAC's policy is an extremely accessible and neighborhood-friendly one. Residents like to see people riding their bikes around the neighborhoods, he said.

"My 5-year-old son and I have been riding around the city for years," said Fred Wiesinger, a resident since 1992 who has just completed a four-year term on the BPAC.

Wiesinger said he avoids crowded city streets when he rides with his son and sticks to riding in the downtown area or around parks. He has also enjoyed taking his 1-year-old twin daughters around the block sometimes. He added that he's worked to bring biking to all areas of the city.

"I was actively involved with the downtown redevelopment project," he said. "The city needs to invest a lot more studies regarding bike and pedestrian access in that area."

Gregory agrees, adding that it's important not to forget the "P" in the BPAC name, which stands for pedestrians.

"Our children walk to and from school," Gregory said. "I'd like to see a little more awareness of pedestrian issues."

Just making the city accessible to bikes and pedestrians isn't enough for the BPAC. Jackson, who rides his bike to Moffett Field every day for work, said he and the other BPAC members have been working relentlessly and diligently to educate the public as well as city officials about bike and pedestrian safety. Jackson tries to increase awareness by handing out safety brochures at events, organizing Bike-to-Work day every year and publishing literature and information in newsletters.

"The problem is that the average motorist does not know how to share the road with bicyclists but doesn't want to admit it," Jackson said.

Dieckmann Wolfe, a transportation planner for Sunnyvale, also provides staff support for the BPAC. There are several streets in Sunnyvale with substandard-width automobile lanes and no bike lanes, Wolfe said. And it is legal for bikers to take up one whole lane on such streets, she said, but often motorists are not aware of this law. Sunnyvale Avenue is one such street on which the city has posted signs informing the public of this law, per VTA's "Share the Road" project's technical guidelines.

The ideal method of safe travel on such streets is for the biker to ride in the center of the right lane such that the motorist can ride behind and pass the bicyclist by changing lanes when it's safe, Wolfe said. But a six-month observation study has revealed that the majority of the bikers ride close to the curb, causing the motorists to pass the bikers in the same lane, which can be extremely dangerous.

Jackson says that Sunnyvale's Department of Public Safety can do a lot more than it has to educate motorists about sharing the road safely with bikers. BPAC members, with the help of Witthaus, Wolfe and other staff members, have been meeting periodically with public safety officers to inform them of their issues and concerns, he said.

"The public safety officers should be informed about handling bicycles in traffic," Jackson said.

Wiesinger agreed with Jackson, adding, "Public safety officers have not been as cooperative as we had hoped they'd be."

Many of the commissioners agreed that public safety officers feel that it is more important to reduce property damage and injuries when there's a traffic accident or issue. The commissioners stated that officers should value bike and pedestrian issues so that people who choose these modes of transportation will be allowed to move through the city freely.

The BPAC, under Jackson's direction, is pushing schools to work on a traffic-demand management program so that children can ride their bikes and walk to school safely.

"What's so important to the well-being of the community and the environment should not be a struggle to achieve and should happen automatically," Jackson said. In another 10 years, he said, with the right kind of public education, that vision just might become reality.