Facebook has been credited with bringing old friends together, keeping families in touch, helping single people find mates, connecting folks with jobs and a slew of other things. And now they’re being being credited with helping to change the bike culture in San Francisco.
The internet giant is moving from Palo Alto, CA to the Menlo Park area of San Francisco. They’re not just moving into a building and calling it good though, they’re also improving access to that building. Facebook has agreed to a list of bicycle improvements, including
•Pay to extend the San Francisco Bay Trail by creating a connection from the San Francisquito Trail in East Palo Alto to the Dumbarton / Bayfront Trail, which in turn connects directly to Facebook’s new campus on Hacker Way (nee Network Circle).
•Pay to restripe the bike lanes on Willow Road from Newbridge Street (north of Highway 101) to Facebook’s entrance on Bayfront Expressway.
•An old, decrepit pedestrian tunnel from Facebook underneath Bayfront will be cleaned up and re-opened later this year.
•Facebook has started a campus bike share in Menlo Park, which has already exceeded their wildest expectations and
• plans a staffed on-campus bike shop.
And, just to throw down the gauntlet, the folks at Facebook also challenged other large Silicon Valley corporations to join them in funding the missing sections of the San Francisco Bay Trail. Here’s more from Cyclicious.