Comments on: 17th Street Plaza Trial Extended Four Months

By: Ross

Ross — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 23:23:48 +0000

The gas station needs to be acquired and Harvey Milk Plaza access should be added to make this public space more of a unified transit area that finally puts park space in the heart of the Castro.

By: Anthony

Anthony — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 16:26:03 +0000

Another of the insipid ideas so rampant in San Francisco. Any supervisors and other government officials supporting the idea should be voted out of office.

By: marcos

marcos — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 02:11:23 +0000

@Jamison Wieser, I understand that there is no community, only a set of communities, whether we're talking cyclists and the SFBC or Jews and Israel. The problem is that folks who are well funded have a larger microphone. When they go out asserting loudly that there is a bicycle community and the SFBC represents that, or that all Jews think the same and we all support Israel, then the narrative of the richest, loudest, most persistent voice becomes the dominant paradigm.

And under that dominant paradigm, the other members of the "community" asserted by fiat must live with the consequences whether we buy into that community or not.

The SFBC has been all bike network, all the time now for a decade. The bike network is their singular issue. They did not represent their particular issue when it came to 17th Street.

The SFBC has been AWOL on matters concerning dangerous conditions, so, yeah, along with others, I've been concerned about how the MTA and DPW set up streets for dangerous failure, especially as concerns bicycles. MTA staff admitted that the design needed work. Why can't you all?

-marc

By: Jamison Wieser

Jamison Wieser — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 23:12:57 +0000

@marcos, you appear to have gotten hung up on the term "cycling community" and missed the entire point.

The San Francisco Bike Coalition is an example of a cycling community, and advocate for cycling as a means of transportation, but they are not the only bike community in the world. You yourself have indicated you are a cyclist and the SFBC did not represent your particular interests when they supported the plaza.

You've provided a link to a search of only the SFBC web site, had you not limited the search you would have found a ton of sites for other bike communities.

By: marcos

marcos — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 19:27:43 +0000

@Jamison Wieser, I'd really like to see that perception of there being a "cycling community" change because while a large number of cyclists ride unsafely and illegally, generalizing that as being representative of all cyclists isn't fair to those of us who do ride safely and work at getting others to as well.

http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Asfbike.org+%22cycling+community%22&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

There is no bicycling community until there is one.

-marc

By: Jamison Wieser

Jamison Wieser — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 06:34:13 +0000

@chrisellen, as a cyclist myself I completely agree about cyclists riding unsafely. Its not accurate to blame that behavior on a blanket "cycling community" because there really is no such thing. No more than the "motorist community" can be blamed for drivers who run red lights of the "walking community" can be shamed for the jaywalkers among them. I'd really like to see that perception of there being a "cycling community" change because while a large number of cyclists ride unsafely and illegally, generalizing that as being representative of all cyclists isn't fare to those of us who do ride safely and work at getting others to as well. I'm often more ticked off by the cyclists around me than drivers and now I pretty much only ride with others who've trained for AIDS/LifeCycle (which has stricter safety standards than the california vehicle code) and when I take someone out riding for the first I read them the AIDS/LifeCycle safety speech which explains it.

By: Nick

Nick — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 04:12:49 +0000

I don't think this plaza is working as well as it should. It looks tacky and forced. I was there the other morning waiting for a bus and it smelled like a public urinal. Is this the kind of success the city wants to replicate in other neighborhoods?

A world class city can do much better (and bigger) than this. A whole neighborhood should be livable, not one corner of one intersection.

By: Chrisellen

Chrisellen — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 03:59:20 +0000

As both a pedestrian or a driver (car) the Castro/17th/Market Street intersection was a nightmare- quite hazardous. I love the new Plaza; what a great place to sit and watch the very interesting crowd go by. And, now that I am disabled (I walk with a cane & am unsteady on my feet), it feels much safer to cross the intersection on foot. Cyclists that flaunt the rules of the road by flying through red lights, driving erratically and ignoring stop signs use to merely annoy me; now they pose a danger to me as well. The cycling community needs to learn how to play well with others...

By: marcos

marcos — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 00:41:14 +0000

If they're going to put up more vegetation on the Castro Street frontage, let's be sure that its tall enough and dense enough so as to block any possible view that bicycles turning right onto Market might have of a streetcar.

If we're going to do this, at least let's do it right.

-marc

By: Jamison Wieser

Jamison Wieser — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 23:36:22 +0000

I spoke with one of the merchants on the Plaza this morning about the news. He was optimistic about potted trees being installed to address the shade problem sooner rather than later and had been some discussion of putting umbrellas up, but that it's just too windy for them.

By: thegreasybear

thegreasybear — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 23:07:56 +0000

Matthew--ask and you shall receive. No more from me.

By: Barna Mink

Barna Mink — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 21:46:25 +0000

@Josh, cool!! How does one find out about upcoming projects?

By: Josh

Josh — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 21:36:20 +0000

@Barna Mink, one of these plazas is coming to that crazy-wide block of Naples in the Excelsior - very close to your 'hood indeed!

By: RachaelL

RachaelL — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 20:32:54 +0000

marc-

I don't see that it really disrupts that all that much as I never liked doing right or left turns there if there were any cars around because they tended to not see me or cut me off (while trying to navigate across tracks). So I almost always would turn left at some point and go down to 18th to get to Castro St. But your point is well taken .. I just don't follow bike routes in many cases because I've found a lot of the existing ones to be obnoxious for me (either crappy pavement compared to a nearby road that isn't designated or not very fast due to too many stop signs or something else).

By: John Murphy

John Murphy — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 20:27:16 +0000

Taking the 33 instead of riding up 17th?

By: marcos

marcos — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 20:13:30 +0000

@RachaelL, my concerns were more with 17th serving as the connection between the Mission and the Castro, not so much with west bound bicycle movements.

I'm taking the 33 bus if I'm heading anywhere west from Castro and Market.

-marc

By: RachaelL

RachaelL — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 19:49:25 +0000

I note that there has never been a legal way for a westbound cyclist to continue on 17th without dismounting and walking in a crosswalk (or biking along market and turning around or going an alternate route). Vehicles (including bicycles) were obligated to make a left turn or a right turn at Market and are not allowed to go through (you can see this in Google Maps even). Yes, you could illegally bike in the crosswalk or something like that and cross Market over to 17th street that way, but it isn't *legal*. So putting in a pedestrian plaza just ... what, makes me dismount a few feet earlier? Or dodge some pedestrians then dismount at the cross walk anyway? I really don't see how this disrupted the bike network. The network was never really "connected" there even if the bike map claims it is. I mention this because shortly after I moved to San Francisco, I looked at the bike map and saw that 17th St looked to be a good route for me to take to go up and over the hill (for fun, really). When I got to Market I was incredibly confused as to how I continued on 17th (as the map seemed to indicate!) until I realized I couldn't directly do so as I could only take a right or a left on Market. I then got off my bike and walked in the crosswalk and then continued.

By: Matthew Roth

Matthew Roth — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 19:16:08 +0000

thegreasybear and marcos,
you've been saying the same thing to each other with slightly different permutations on the insults since 1:05 pm on May 15th and now across two posts. Why not bring the finger puppets and paper to the next car-free happy hour and settle it over a couple Racer 5s? Maybe leave some room for other points of view on this thread?

By: marcos

marcos — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 18:59:04 +0000

I just learned that there was a plan for this cooked up back in the 1990s that included passage for bicycles.

Does anyone know about this, or was this plan trashed the same way that the Bicycle Plan was?

@thegreasybear, I'd like to use finger puppets to explain this to in a manner which you might understand, but we're limited by text. Street reclamations are a good thing, but it is not okay if they conflict with existing plans and bicycle facilities.

Either there is a bicycle route segment on 17th at Castro on the books or there is not. Either this project conflicts with that plan or it does not.

This is another case of the City pulling one out of their ass and complaining when we say it smells like ass.

-marc

By: thegreasybear

thegreasybear — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 18:48:38 +0000

Marcos, you provide no factual basis for your assumptions, and your logic is unsound. It is not obviously true that the plaza is contrary to cyclists safety or needs; it does not follow that the very existence of the new plaza is evidence the SFBC and the city are ignoring or harming cyclists. You simply don't know if there is any de facto loss whatsoever to the cycling network, because you are focused narrowly on an imaginary line on paper that may or may not have ever been used by real-world cyclists in the first place. Indeed, 17th at Castro was always for westbound cyclists a dead-end with trolley tracks and unregulated three-way 'intermingling' forcing cyclists either into an illegal left or a forced right over rails and an immediate left turn across four lanes of traffic at Market. The plaza improves the area, and works no obvious harm to cyclists because there's no obvious constituency for the dead-end "bike route" there, because cyclists who want to travel in any direction other than east have--always--done so on other nearby streets; and because cyclists can still 'intermingle' at that intersection if they really must do so now. At least the intermingling is calmed. Imaginary lines don't trump the benefits brought to real people in a real place by a real plaza.