It’s little surprise that the powers-that-be have once again delayed a vote on the fate of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge’s upper deck bikeway.

I regularly speak to Rotary clubs and other community groups around Marin. I’ve learned how to engage attendees. I often start by asking those present to raise their hand if they believe that the Richmond Bridge’s bikeway is a fiasco. The reaction is laughter, with women and men nodding to each other in agreement.

The bikeway is perceived as a classic example of local and regional governments not working and failing to deliver practical benefits.

In 1956, the Richmond Bridge and its approaches and connecting highways were built with three traffic lanes in each direction. When the 1976-77 drought hit Marin and water use was cut by 57%, a water pipeline was temporarily placed on one of the bridge’s upper deck auto lanes.

That pipeline was removed in 1982. Then, that lane was used for emergency pulloffs and Caltrans bridge maintenance. In ensuing years, it became common for residents to commute from more affordable Contra Costa homes to well-paid Marin employment. Richmond Bridge traffic then exceeded capacity since one of the original three westbound lanes was dormant.

In 2018, popular pressure demanded that an eastbound lower deck lane then used for emergencies be reopened to auto traffic. Perplexingly, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission then got the idea to construct a multi-use path on the upper deck’s vacant westbound lane.

In 2019 the bike lane opened to great fanfare from cycling activists and MTC officialdom. How did that work out?

On weekdays, 80,000 vehicles now cross the bridge, many with multiple passengers aboard. Since they mostly all make round trips, that’s between 40,000 and 50,000 people crossing the span in cars and buses in each direction. After the bikeway’s six-year “test,” MTC reports that 106 bikes cross on typical weekdays. That’s 53 round-trip cyclists. Yet, despite consistent test results, MTC and the Bay Conservation and Development Commission want more time to decide what to do.

Never forget, delay is the status quo’s friend.

There are three possibilities for MTC and ABAG to ponder. First, retain the bikeway 24/7. Second, restrict bikes to weekends and otherwise use the lane for emergency pulloffs. This option is the most likely, yet pleases few other than Caltrans’ maintenance staff.

Third and least likely is the commonsense notion with the greatest benefit to 40,000 commuters: Remove the bike lane and create a carpool and bus-only lane. Then move the 53 cyclists on bike-carrying Caltrans shuttles just as they did before 2019.

Don’t hold your breath. There’s little indication that MTC and ABAG staff or most of its indirectly appointed commissioners care about those forlorn 40,000 souls stuck in traffic.

Cycling activists don’t understand how much goodwill and political capital that’ve lost because of their unending advocacy for the Richmond Bridge bikeway. Look at the recent move to add bike lanes and remove the emergency median on Sausalito’s Bridgeway. Except for a handful of bike proponents, few locals supported the notion. It was summarily rejected despite the fact that in two weeks more Golden Gate bound cyclists travel Bridgeway than cross the San Rafael-Richmond span in a year.

It’s bewildering that those 40,000 motorists and bus passengers have less political clout than 53 bikers and their allies.

Chalk it up to the reality that most folks are too busy working and raising families to pay much attention to local affairs. A majority don’t know the names of their elected mayors, city council members or county supervisors, much less what they do on a weekly basis.

That enables some office holders to smile, wave and say something innocuous that pleases everyone. It’s how some get away with occasionally voting against their own constituents’ best interests.

Columnist Dick Spotswood of Mill Valley writes on local issues Sundays and Wednesdays. Email him at spotswood@comcast.net.