One would think that a policy approved by a majority of the elected officials and endorsed again and again would obviously be supported by the majority, but I guess if you live in your own world, you can convince yourself of anything.

Otherwise known as the California Environmental Quality Act of 1970, the most important environmental law in the state. It applies to any project, whether a development or—oh, dear, bicycle plans—that could have a negative impact on the environment. The 500-page Bicycle Plan certainly qualified as a “project” under CEQA. Shawn seems to be suggesting that if laws are old, they should be discarded.

“Anderson and Miles have a history of tormenting people they dislike via the legal system, and Anderson has admitted that his suit is politically motivated. He’s already forced the city to spend over $1 million as a result of his challenge.”

Anderson and Miles have no such history. Shawn cites Matt Smith in support of that baseless charge, but Smith is just another bike nut who had a tantrum in print after the injunction was issued.
http://district5diary.blogspot.com/2006/06/mr-mean-replies-to-mr-dumb.html
The city would have had to spend that money on the EIR anyhow if they had obeyed the law in the first place. Where they came up short is paying my attorney’s legal fees, since they lost the case. In other words, by flagrantly violating the law, city government cost the taxpayers a lot more than necessary. “Politically motivated”? Not sure what you mean by that. It was really policy motivated. It’s terrible public policy in SF to take away traffic lanes and street parking on busy streets to make bike lanes.

“We could’ve had plenty of improvements completed in the last four years if they had just started properly reviewing and implementing individual projects. A lot of time and money went into developing the Bike Plan, and now the city’s spent even more as a result of having to defend it in court.”

Exactly so! Which is what I’ve been saying for more than three years now. So why am I the bad guy?

“…its lack of an environmental review per CEQA made the entire thing vulnerable to legal challenge. It’s a damned shame that Rob filed suit, and that Judge Warren placed an injunction on all bicycle-related infrastructure improvements in response.”

Shawn seems to be suggesting that we should have ignored the fact that the city was implementing a dumb Bicycle Plan that was going to screw up traffic all over the city in violation of the law. But the only enforcement mechanism under CEQA is litigation, which is what we did. Judge Warren issued the injunction because the city was beginning to implement the Plan before the hearing on our complaint. If he hadn’t issued the injunction, the Plan would have been practically implemented before the hearing, rendering our complaint moot.

I agree that we need a better public transit system. But both Muni and our city are already in the hole, and I just don’t see the SFMTA “fixing” things any time soon. Bike amenities are relatively cheap to build and maintain. More people on bikes means less people in cars and on overcrowded buses. Faster Muni service and less crowded buses could convince some people who drive to take the bus instead. Regardless, the ultimate goal has to be getting people out of their cars. We can keep raising fees and taking away parking options, but I think the carrot is mightier than the stick. Provide people with a safe, convenient, fast, healthy, and fun alternative to the private motor vehicle, and they’ll take it.

Rob and his cohorts do their fellow human beings a great disservice when they suggest that most people are incapable of cycling. If my 80-year-old grandmother with anxiety problems can ride her cruiser to the grocery store, then so can most San Francisco residents. There’s a reason that we use the phrase “it’s like riding a bike” whenever we discover that things we thought were hard are actually easy.

The hell we can’t. Critical safety infrastructure on our shared roadways for tens of thousands of current San Francisco cyclists is an entirely appropriate and proper demand on our shared government. Motorists’ interests are already well represented by Rob Anderson and the auto-centric status quo.

At the moment, Muni is not a reasonable alternative to driving because it is too slow (among other issues). Bicycling is not reasonable either because it unsafe. I do not have a car and take Muni and ride a bike, but most people who have the means to drive will neither waste their time nor put their lives in danger to get around.

Unfortunately, Muni is cutting service which will cause more people to drive. The current bus system runs at 6-7 mph on most routes. Imagine if the buses ran at 12mph which is not at all unrealistic. With the same number of drivers and buses, you would have twice the speed and twice the frequency of buses. That would be a reasonable value proposition to drivers and we could then take space from them for proper protected bicycle infrastructure.

Personally, I would love to ride a 12mph Muni and bike on a protected network, but we cannot get the second without the first. Transit advocacy is bicycle advocacy with a much larger constituency. So how about an SFBC campaign for 12mph Muni in 2012?

I also don’t want to discount all the hard work, but I entirely agree.

We could have grown by many hundred percentage points during that time if the projects in the hopper were more ambitious and had not been held up in court for going on four years now.

I’m curious actually, it is getting to the point that this bike plan is so dated, why not just drop the entire thing (ending the lawsuit?) and put in a 21st-century North American bike plan (a la NYC).

Granted this will take some work, but why keep adding traditional bike lanes that are only going to garner 20%, 30%, or 50% increases in cycling when the real path to a real slice of transport mode share is much safer and inviting bike infrastructure like protected bike lanes, raised curb cyclepaths, etc.

It will sound absurd, and I don’t mean in any way to discount the work of so many volunteers and advocates for the current plan–but why continue to fight so hard and waste more of our time for the peanut shells when all of us–including the coalition and the MTA folks–all know what we really want, which is not just some paint squeezed in here and there but the real stuff of New York and Copenhagenian cycling infrastructure?

The worst part about this story, though, is that his case has legal merit. The SFMTA (then DPT) packaged the Bike Plan as an omnibus amendment to the General Plan, and its lack of an environmental review per CEQA made the entire thing vulnerable to legal challenge. It’s a damned shame that Rob filed suit, and that Judge Warren placed an injunction on all bicycle-related infrastructure improvements in response. But there’s plenty of blame to spread around at City Hall, the SFMTA, the Planning Department, and the SFBC. We could’ve had plenty of improvements completed in the last four years if they had just started properly reviewing and implementing individual projects. A lot of time and money went into developing the Bike Plan, and now the city’s spent even more as a result of having to defend it in court. It sucks, but that’s the reality of the situation, and Rob clearly derives great pleasure from watching us all complain about it because he can point the finger at the City for allowing it to happen.

My suggestion is to ignore him. Let our newly re-elected City Attorney fix this mess in the courts, and let’s make sure that our other elected officials know that we’re not happy with the way this whole thing has played out. And in the meantime, let’s all try to be better representatives for cycling on city streets and earn the respect of people who would vote against bike-related infrastructure improvements on the basis of silly political or aesthetic misconceptions. Rob Anderson doesn’t deserve the time of day, but if we show others courtesy and respect, it’s bound to come back our way.

Oh yeah, and let’s celebrate the fact that some of these improvements are finally going to happen.

I don’t know what in his horrid past has cause him to do what he has done. He only wants attention, and he should be gone, laughed out of court.

Rob Anderson has blood on his hands. I would hope that justice will eventually catch up to him. Even if that justice is only karmic, a sense of what he has done. Maybe shaming in front of the courts. Even better, his vile eventually coming out in some act leading him to being locked up.

I’m quite surprised that people in SF have not started striping their own lanes, and installing their own racks. Maybe they have to an extent.

So…you want us to spend OUR money on something already being done, just to give it “popular validation,” but you’re unwilling to spend your own on something you want to stop? That makes no sense. I’ve got a lot better places to spend my money (and I’m sure the SFBC and every other cyclist in the city does to) than on simply proving to Rob Anderson that something that our elected reps are doing (without hesitation) is popular.

That’s progress. Now the SFBC should publicly renounce the juvenile demo and discourage members from participating.

“I’m confused as to why you keep pressuring others to put something on the ballot that is already being pursued by our ELECTED representatives, yet you don’t want to do the opposite yourself – put something on the ballot to overturn what our elected reps are doing.”

I just assume that since you folks think you and your radical redesign of city streets is so popular you would urge your progressive supervisors to just vote to put the Bicycle Plan on the ballot to give the Plan popular validation. For a private citizen to put something on the ballot is very expensive, since you have to hire signature gatherers to do it. The late Don Fisher did it several years ago with his parking initiative, but he had plenty of money. Obviously my opinion is that our elected representatives are pursuing a policy that doesn’t have majority public support.

“Wow, I just visited Rob’s blog. The guy really does have issues, with his war on young people, progressives and cyclists (probably one and the same in his mind).”

I just happen to be the only consistent media critic the bike people have in SF. It’s not a “war on young people,” but I just don’t find the antics of the more boorish members of the cycling community particularly charming. And progressive politics in SF has degenerated to the point where bicycles have apparently become their big issue. I write about other local issues, including progressive support for terrible development policies, like the Market/Octavia Plan, Chris Daly’s luxury highrises on Rincon Hill, and Mirkarimi’s running interference for UC to allow it to put a massive housing development on the old extension property on Haight Street. But I rarely get any comments on those posts, as opposed to the great bicycle movement.

Meanwhile we shouldn’t forget the growth in bicycling without infrastructure improvements, over 50% in the last two years to 6% of the total trips in the City. With private vehicles producing over 50% of SF’s Green House Gases it’s great news for the environment that cycling continues to grow so rapidly as a choice for urban transportation.

Rob gets one one less thing to gripe about: It appears SFBC has removed Critical Mass from it’s Chain of Events webpage.

I guess this means CM will now be disbanded in 300+ cities worldwide.