Leaders of one of the Bay Area’s premier bicycling communities will decide on Tuesday whether rider safety really is a priority — even it if pushes some people out of their traditional car-centric comfort zones.

The Danville Town Council is expected to vote on whether to oust two of the region’s top cycling safety advocates from the Bicycle Advisory Commission. The decision, which follows nearly a year of troubling intimidation tactics by two council members, will signal to the biking community whether Danville truly cares about cyclists’ safety.

On most weekends, the East Bay suburban city of 43,000, which leaders prefer to call a town, is teeming with spandex-clad riders, often passing through or stopping downtown at Peet’s Coffee on their way to the start of the world-renowned climb up nearby Mount Diablo.

For years, town officials have had an ambivalent relationship with cyclists and biking safety. There were signs of improvement after voters in 2020 approved a housing development project that includes a critical path to get cyclists headed for the mountain off dangerous Diablo Road; in 2021, when the council adopted a Bicycle Master Plan; and in 2022, when it established the six-member Bicycle Advisory Commission.

The commission’s charge included, among other things, advising the council on the implementation of the Bicycle Master Plan and assessing bicycle safety in the town.

The original members included Al Kalin and Bruce Bilodeau. To serious cyclists, Kalin is a hero — the person who led the effort for bike turnout lanes to reduce the risk of bike-vs.-automobile collisions in blind turns on Mount Diablo.

Bilodeau worked closely with Kalin on the effort. The successful campaign for the 67 turnouts took over a decade. It began with Kalin’s patient collection of state records to statistically document the collisions on the mountain — and culminated with campaigns that raised $2.3 million in state funds and private contributions.

But when it came to safety inside Danville town limits, Kalin and Bilodeau’s penchant for data-driven analysis ruffled feathers of some municipal staff and elected officials after the bicycle commission was formed.

Kalin and Bilodeau led efforts to identify collision hotspots in Danville and document the very real dangers of posts installed too close together just before street crossings along the Iron Horse Regional Trail, which runs through the town.

It was exactly what the commission was charged with doing when it was directed to, among other things, “assess the conditions, operations, and safety of existing bicycle facilities and non-motorized transportation.”

The ouster quest

Yet Councilmembers Newell Arnerich and Robert Storer have accused Kalin and Bilodeau of annoying town staff as they pressed forward with their analyses of cycling safety and dangers in Danville.

Arnerich and Storer tried last year to disband the commission, a move that failed to win support from other council members, and have continued their quest to oust Kalin and Bilodeau.

In March 2024, Arnerich met Kalin at Peet’s and demanded his resignation from the commission. As Kalin recounts the encounter, Arnerich stood over him, visibly angry and pointing his finger at Kalin’s face.

Arnerich has claimed that a transportation staff member left the town for another job because of Kalin. That person told me last week that he left for a better job opportunity. Arnerich declined to comment.

And Arnerich and Storer, who did not return my call seeking comment, have claimed that Kalin and Bilodeau forced other commissioners to quit.

Two commissioners left last year. Dave Williams, in a letter to the council as he departed, called for Kalin’s removal. Although Kalin “is very knowledgeable and passionate about cycling and bicycle safety … too many meetings have been sidetracked by his passionate advocacy.”

But Elliott Call, a doctor and active cyclist who stepped down because of other demands on his time, credited Kalin and Bilodeau with “keeping things organized and prioritized. I thought things were going well.”

During conversations about safety, “Al and Bruce had a very incredible way of looking at the logistics, the small details of how intersections are set up and looking at the data to really make impactful differences.

“It would be a travesty if Bruce and Al weren’t able to continue investigating safety for the town of Danville. … I think nothing but the best of those guys.”

‘Councilmembers run amok’

Yet, Arnerich and Storer want to, in the latter’s words, “get rid of” Kalin and Bilodeau. Storer accuses them of being “lobbyists,” which begs the question of why the council appointed them if they didn’t want representatives of the cycling community who would advocate for safety.

There’s been a troubling lack of specifics about what Kalin and Bilodeau have done wrong. In a verbal lambasting at a council study session last month, Storer did provide one example, criticizing the study of the poles, also called bollards:

“I don’t care about the sizing of the bollards on the Iron Horse trail,” Storer said. “I care about the (street) crossings on the Iron Horse trail. That’s what we should be looking at.”

Actually, town leaders should be concerned about both hazards, which are just a few feet apart, and work to understand how they both affect safety at intersections.

To Councilmember Karen Stepper, this is a case of “two councilmembers run amok” who want to “remove the most experienced bicycle commissioners.”

“This is insane,” Stepper said. “This is not how you treat commissioners and get good commissioners.”

Indeed, if the town leaders care about safety, they won’t find commissioners more dedicated to the cause than Kalin and Bilodeau.