this is fundamentally strange and absurd. to understand why just transpose this rationale onto cars. any whacked out bike design can usually be more readily understood in this way. when do they make car designs more dangerous so they will be less dangerous?

when do traffic engineers say we know there will be illegal movements here so we will make it easier to make illegal movements so it will be safer....

as far as liability, the city is making itself more liable, much, much more liable by taking out the warnings. now they have identified the danger and warned about it. if they take the warnings out they are ignoring themselves, kind of like bike advocates arguing against themselves.

the city knows now, it is on notice of the danger caused by third party negligence at this intersection, and it has done the right thing by warning about this danger.....

if the city goes through with this the design will not protect from liability in design immunity because the danger, third party negligence is independent of the design, and in this case they not only un-did their own warnings about it but designed to accomodate the dangerous movement without making the movement legal. this means big time liability, wide open for failure to warn of known danger independent of the design (immunity).

this is public comment and i'm not an attorney but the main case on this is cameron where the county knew the curve was dangerous but the specifics of the curve were not in the design hence no immunity, just like the city knows there is third party liability (bad drivers) who turn here but has gone and taken out its own warning on some half-baked attempt to get design immunity to cover the intersection...

the third party law breaking is not part of the design so no immunity. how could it be? ...this would be giving immunity to people breaking the law and to a city that had the depth of thought to help people break the law so it would safer if they break the law...

removing the warnings will expose the city to liability

that's what's really fun about writing about this stuff is that it is just so nutty once you break it down within the context of the way such things are looked at...

but in sf this is never really a problem or actually is really a problem because this never happens...it is time to have another rally release another press release and continue on an all political approach that pretty much ignore the other branches of govt. and speaks in sound-bites, grovelling, guilt and the like never really saying sure you can do this if you want city but you are really causing yourself a problem...

the city attorney and the mta, want to do the right thing, they need help, its is a weird convuluted area at times look at the los debacle...very wellintentioned people left to navigate a very specialized area with no help

if advocates want to help the city they should help themselves by speaking clearly in the vocabulary at hand or they could help people who do by at least moving such speech with their very impressive publishing apparatus. until then let's hire another coordinator and hope the blog percolates through or wait until we are talking about so and so smashed in the intersection they made more dangerous so it would be less dangerous in order to protect the city from liability while actually making the city extremely liable.

if people want to stop this, they should get the Supes to resolve no, tell the mta no...bad idea...or just a cited letter and then this is done,

regarding prop e, whateva, we'll see who has the final say, just because the prop was extremely poorly concieved in that regard and put such decisions in the hands of appointees v. representatives, does not mean that is the way it is...

as far as the city attorney...

I'm not sure why they are off on such a misguided freaky kick, because they often do very good work and are very well intended...

this likely has something to do with the absolute disconnect between sf advocates and legal thought, which leads to epic mutant disaster after disaster.....the city attorney has been ready to listen for years but the advocates just bring them stickers and blinky lights and stuff when they are trying to play law

Removing the warnings will expose the city to liablility

Removing the warning will expose the city to liability from know third party negligence and illegal movements. in cameron the county was held liable for known danger if failed to warn of independent of the design....the car flipped because of the curve. the aspect of the curve that made the car flip was no in the design

here the city removed its own warnings. the illegal movmement is not part of the design because its illegal. on x day so and so was hit....in aknown illegal turning movmement here the city failed to warn by undoing its own warnings....

the city failed to warn....

you just fill in the blank with who was hit there....

thanks,

g

this is one of the most hilarious street design changes I have ever seen a completely moronic and strange "solution" to the problem that actually seems to have been improved by the recent design changes. the change now seems to have the rather odd goal of de-warning about the danger of the intersection. the black and white striped sign. this is a warning/hazard sign.

they want to take it out?

the rationale is even weirder they want to make the intersection more dangerous so if someone turns illegally there it will be less dangerous? by taking out the barriers and warning sign....?

the city can definitely be held liable for failure to warn and here they will likely be held liable for intentionally un-warning....

So who can provide some real numbers on the number of crashes for both before and after the latest configuration was put into place? Then perhaps we can have a more useful discussion on this issue.

The bicycle death trap is just the icing on and the cake and, just, God I don't know what more to say.

Legal right turn or not, cyclists are going fast enough from the hill to be comfortable merging with traffic, especially if some signage encourages them to stay left of lane center until they enter the intersection. This is where they will be -most visible- to cars, whether those cars are turning right legally or not.

The separate bike lanes give the illusion of safety; an illusion, since cyclists are still getting right-hooked at this intersection. If newer cyclists are discouraged from commuting because an ineffective safety measure is removed, then more outreach and education is the answer. Keeping this configuration in place or trying to buttress it further is stubborn and unsafe.

Unless you make *all right turns* illegal, you're still going to have people want to make right turns at any intersection. Including this one.

Gosh, this city is full of dumbass ideas. Bikers seem to be prone to have the most fanciful of them all.

More than anything else, there is safety in numbers. If only long-time bikers like you or me who are unafraid to take the lane feel safe the overall perception of danger increases for everyone else. And without everyone else on the road that perception is self fulfilling.

Not to mention the other reasons we want more cyclists on the road....

--jon

I also don’t understand why they don’t just open up the right turn lane and be done with all the carnage. Then it’s like most other corners on Market where you have to merge in into the through lane to avoid the right turning cars. Anybody studied that? Compare 10th and Market fatalities with Octavia!

jon

The city is looking at lawsuits because it can't provide 100% protection against cars that are hitting people. In terms of bad faith, it seems pretty obvious. The city knows it's current protection measures are inadequate...but is held back from providing more protection. Thus, I'm guessing the lawsuits against the city have a good chance of winning.

What they are trying to do is create accidents a bit further back from the intersection -- thus mitigating the chance the city gets sued. Instead, the driver/bicyclist sharing a lane will be much more of a traffic court matter than civil matter with the city.

I'd hope that we get it passed in the coming session, but this story just showed up on the internet and might prove tricky to prosecute camera violations in the future in light of this: http://www.thesentinel.com/302730670790449.php

What happened to Fiona Ma's legislation for a camera to catch license plates of vehicles that make this turn? It seems that this approach, combined with the existing plastic bollards, would make the most sense.

See page 83 of their PDF for their proposals for their drawings including raised and painted bike lanes, large color-differentiated crosswalks, street plantings to reduce visibility of the freeway (and thus reduce likelihood of the illegal right turn), and cycle tracks for northbound Octavia bike traffic.