Bicyclist’s death puts roundabout in spotlight

Cycling advocates urge the city to decommission lanes they call dangerous

LAFAYETTE >> Heartbroken and carrying flowers, lifelong bicyclist Al Kalin rode out one recent morning to the road roundabout where his close friend had died the day before.

Kalin sat for hours observing the steady flow of cars pass through the intersection at Pleasant Hill Road and Olympic Boulevard, near the staging area of the Lafayette-Moraga Regional Trail.

“I was analyzing the roundabout, trying to understand the dangers,” Kalin said in an interview.

The roundabout was where on April 13 an SUV struck 86-yearold Lafayette resident Joe Shami, an accomplished cyclist and lifelong bicycle advocate. Shami, who had been riding his bicycle through the intersection, died later at a hospital.

Lafayette police say they are still investigating the circumstances of Shami’s death, but his friends and fellow cycling advocates are now focusing their attention on the roundabout.

City officials expected the roundabout to improve traffic flow in the oft congested Olympic Boulevard corridor, convinced it would do a better job than the four-way stop signs before it that brought cars to a complete stop.

They believed the roundabout would instead have a “calming effect” on traffic, allowing cars to continue moving as they approached the intersection.

But from the outset, cycling advocates warned the roundabout could be dangerous. In 2016, local advocacy group Bike East Bay sent a letter to Lafayette officials supporting the general idea of a roundabout but suggesting that the design could be made simpler and safer.

Dave Campbell of Bike East Bay, who wrote the letter, argued that building an extra lane to let cars quickly slip into a right turn could result in drivers not yielding to pedestrians and cyclists crossing the roundabout.

He cited a 2010 report by the National Cooperative Highway Research Program to back his point.

“The entries and exits of bypass lanes can increase conflicts with bicyclists and with merging on the downstream leg,” the report states. “The generally higher speeds of bypass lanes and the lower expectation of drivers to stop may increase the risk of collisions with pedestrians.”

On the other hand, according to the report, building a single lane instead of two would space out the traffic flow and ensure all vehicles slow down as they enter the circle.

Ultimately, however, the city decided to install the right-turn bypass lane, concluding it would accommodate an anticipated increase in traffic down the road a few years.

“It’s par for the course that bikes are not enough of a priority for any roundabouts that we see,” Campbell said in an interview last week. “There’s a lot of vehicle traffic on both those streets (that intersect at the roundabout), and vehicles go faster than (the required) 15 miles an hour through it.”

A Lafayette city spokesman rejected multiple requests to interview city Public Works officials for this story, citing the ongoing

police investigation.

But California Highway Patrol records indicate there hadn’t been a bicycle-involved collision at the roundabout since it was built in 2016 — until now.

Elsewhere in the city, though, a 10-yearold boy riding a bicycle died last year after turning left in front of an Amazon truck that had the right of way, according to CHP records.

And in 2018, a 54-year-old cyclist was killed after a truck ran over him while changing lanes.

At a memorial held by the local cycling community this week, friends remembered Shami as a passionate cyclist and, at 86, as physically capable as ever on a bicycle. In 2018, he completed the 11-mile trip up to the summit of Mount Diablo for a 500th consecutive week, leading Kalin and others to nickname him “The Legend of Mount Diablo.”

Kalin and Shami long had collaborated to improve road conditions for cyclists. They successfully pushed elected officials and California State Parks to build 17 turnout lanes on the steep roads leading up Mount Diablo. Cyclists can now slide into the lanes on uphill turns, safely evading the blind spots of vehicles traveling behind.

“There’s where Joe was just incredible,” Kalin said of his friend’s advocacy. “His dogged determination and focus helped to save lives and prevent collisions.”

Now, Kalin is joining the calls to make changes to the roundabout where Shami died.

In an interview, Lafayette spokesman Jeff Heyman said it’s far too early to call the roundabout more or less dangerous than the four-way stop that previously existed at the intersection.

“Until we know the cause of this tragic accident, we really aren’t going to be able to do anything,” Heyman said. “If there are steps needed to take, we’ll take them.”

Bike East Bay already has suggestions: Get rid of the right-turn bypass lanes that allow cars to slip quickly through the roundabout and potentially crash into cyclists.

“Ideally, it would be so well-designed that Europe calls us up and says, ‘How’d you do that? We want to replicate it,’ ” Campbell said.

For Kalin, who continues to ride his bike out to most places, it’s a matter of life and death — and honoring both the legacy and “legend” of his longtime friend.

“My goal is to ensure this never happens again,” Kalin said. “We owe it to Joe Shami to ensure there is not another fatality at that roundabout.”