Today’s Headlines

  • BART’s Bikes On Board Pilot Starts Today (KTVU, ABC 7), Tune in to KQED Forum at 10:30 a.m.
  • The Cable Car System Turned 139 Yesterday (Uptown Almanac)
  • Noe Valley Merchants Newsletter: “Noe Valley Needs More Parking” (Noe Valley SF)
  • Cars Flipped in “Nasty” Crash at 15th and Castro Streets (Haighteration)
  • KRON’s Stanley Roberts Shadows a Cop Stinging Cyclists Running the Light at Market and Powell
  • “Save North Beach” Sues SFMTA Over Central Subway Construction (CBS 5)
  • NY Times Columnist Chronicles His First Experience on the Wiggle, and Why It’s So Great
  • MTC’s Study of a Vehicle Miles Traveled Fee Also Gets a Spotlight in the NY Times
  • Mr. Roadshow Clarifies How Drivers Should Navigate San Jose’s New Protected Bike Lanes
  • Oakland’s Proposed Road Diet on 35th Avenue Faces Opposition (CoCo Times)
  • Elderly Fremont Driver Loses Control, Hits Several Cars (CoCo Times)

More headlines at Streetsblog Capitol Hill

  • Anonymous

    Noe Valley can really irritate me. As progressive as people who live there seem to think they are, they are quite conservative and definitely addicted to cars. There is so much potential for the neighborhood, at least the areas on and around 24th St and Church St, to be “car-lite” with so many shops, large numbers of pedestrians, and the J-Church and 48 going right through it, that it is especially frustrating that they think they need more parking. What they actually need to do is block off some parts of 24th St entirely to cars (and though it would never happen, I would love to see Whole Foods give up parking spots and turn the center of their parking lot into a nice pedestrian walkway with tons of greenery, bike racks, and outdoor tables, because right now it’s like a suburban grocery store with the parking in front with absolutely no design to encourage all the pedestrians on 24th St to walk to the building). Noe Valley must be one of the more hypocritical neighborhoods with people claiming to be progressive but actually showing quite conservative and anachronistic behavior.

  • mikesonn

    “Noe Valley must be one of the more hypocritical neighborhoods with people claiming to be progressive but actually showing quite conservative and anachronistic behavior.”

    s/Noe Valley/Bay Area/

  •  This is just one guy… and there are more but don’t let the noisiest few paint the whole neighborhood. The google/etc… buses stop there for a reason…

  • Guest

    “KRON’s Stanley Roberts Shadows a Cop Stinging Cyclists Running the Light at Market and Powell”

    can easily be rephrased to

    “KRON’s Stanley Roberts Shadows a Cop Stinging All Roadway Users Violating Pedestrian Right-of-Way at Market and Powell”

  • Can’t say I disagree with the rider’s characterization of Stanley Roberts.

    Also he claims everyone was getting tickets, but the only driver issued a ticket was doing an illegal u-turn. As has been the case lately, I suspect the cars rolling / failing to yield were given a pass.

  • I actually saw fewer bikes on BART today than I see on a normal 7:30 train.  I usually see at least a couple of disobeyers on the train.  Today saw no bikes at all.

  • Joel

    There’s no excuse for weaving through pedestrians crossing the street.

  • @ff13484aea83201c1cb27ba1f1648347:disqus you’re absolutely right. I chastised a fellow cyclist on my way home. I saw 3 pedestrians waiting to use a crosswalk so I stopped and he blew by me on my right and went between two of them.

    Does nothing to change the fact that Roberts is a professional troll.

  • The Greasybear

    The idea only one single motorist broke any law on Market Street at Powell during SFPD’s latest bike sting is beyond belief. That said, cyclists who plow through an occupied crosswalk like that deserve whatever citation they get.

  • Anonymous

    @twitter-14678929:disqus I hope you’re right, but remember how the neighborhood shot down the tiny little 1/2 block off 24th that was going to be turned into a plaza? I feel like 24th St has the potential to be one of the most pedestrian- and bicycle oriented streets in the city, but nothing is happening (except a few parklets). Every time I walk down 24th St I can’t stop but think how much potential this street has, and it amazes me that more people in the neighborhood aren’t clamoring for it.

  • I wouldn’t be surprised if at that mid-street crosswalk with stoplight had very, very few motorized vehicles that were breaking the law to the eye (i.e. without a speed-detection device).  That is a great spot to set up a bike specific sting.  And with the first guy weaving through pedestrians (some look pretty old) while crossing muni tracks and wearing earbuds, I think he’s a worthwhile target.
    I don’t usually ride these for my morning/night commute, but Monday morning and Tuesday night I rode the Wiggle both directions and inbound Market and I gotta say that it isn’t too hard to see asshats on bikes who are taking other’s right of way, as well as a general lack of stopping on those routes.

    I was rear-ended by a woman on a bike on the Wiggle on Monday morning when I stopped my bike at a stop sign.  No damage, just shock and surprise.

  • Ted King

    I don’t think of this as a “sting”. To me this is long overdue
    enforcement. The red light says to Market St. traffic you must STOP and
    let the pedestrians have their turn.

    Now, what if SFPD got their cameras and a smart phone linked up ? Say a lamer driver in a private auto uses the eastbound transit lane at Eighth and Market to ignore the turn-off and reaches that officer at Powell and Market. Just think what kind of hefty fine (transit lane + failure to turn right) would result. (I was at the Main Library yesterday and saw several cars ignore the transit restriction while I was waiting for a westbound F-Market. Grrrr.)

    FYI – Market and Powell is a “ghost” intersection like Market and Embarcadero (Ferry Bldg.). That first block of Powell is a transit mall reserved for cable cars. The red light is located near where Powell Street used to intersect Market St.

    P.S. I used to bicycle a lot and my range was San Francisco to San Rafael with a couple of probes down the Peninsula (ECR was kind of hairy in places). But the MVC was written to protect ALL road users including pedestrians.

  •  jd – I was one of the main cheerleaders on the little 1/2 block off 24th so I remember it all too painfully.

    If that were happening today, the plaza trial would happen. Aside from the upgrade in City Supervisor, the demographics of the neighborhood have changed a lot in a small number of years, only for the better, and the ability to reach out to those people and get together has improved, people are more attuned to what is going on around them.

    You never know what will happen. Let’s see what becomes of the Ministry Parking lot. If that fails, and condos go in, that will be a big change and will force people to think about what they really want.

  • Anonymous

    @RoyCrisman:disqus I’m sad to say that I now always do an arm-down “stopping” signal every time I come to a stop sign on my bike these days, when there is a cyclist behind me, exactly to avoid getting rear ended. And when they do pass me at a stop it’s almost always on the right for some reason.

    I do see more people than usual (both driving bikes and riding in cars) also stopping after I take the lead, but it’s probably because they think I see a cop they haven’t noticed yet. Also, when I’m stopping to let a pedestrian cross I’ll put my left arm WAY out, to discourage both bike and car traffic behind me from cutting through.

  • HoJo

    JD,

    This may be “only three parking places” but it can feel like “death by a thousand cuts”. A couple of spaces here and a couple of spaces there, and the next thing you know, you’ve got a parking crisis.

    The problem is that “just remove the parking” has become the solution to every problem. If the only tool you have is a hammer, then every problem looks like a nail. So:

    Want a bike lane? Just remove some parking.

    Parklet? Remove a parking place.

    Bus lane? Guess what? Remove parking.

    They’re all good ideas but that doesn’t mean that they all have to have the same solution every time. What the Noe Valley folks are saying here is not “don’t build a parklet, nor a bike lane, nor a bus lane” But rather  let’s build them but “if you’re going to take away 3 parking places, then create three replacement spots in the same area.

    I think there would be zero opposition to all these greening ideas, and bike provisions, and transit-friendly suggestions if there was simply some quid pro quo. We can’t continually take from one class of road user and give to another class of road user without expecting some kind of pushback.

    I lived in Noe for a long time and, although I’m not there now, I’m still in Wiener’s district. I think he has a balanced and reasonable view of these things. Better to leave everyone a little unhappy then reward one group at the expense of another group. And Noe folks are nothing if not well-heeled and powerful. Being progressive is one thing but nobody likes to shoot themselves in the foot.

  • Anonymous

    @330e37d691109e8a51bba22084411018:disqus I do think we need to give up some infrastructure and space for cars if we want to improve other methods of transit. There is finite space and resources, so improving one requires taking from the other. And remember, cars utterly dominate our society *at* *the* *expensive* of all other forms of transit, so it’s time that method of travel gave up a bit.

    For example, not *every* single street needs to be accessible by cars and not *every* single street needs to have both sides of the street packed with (subsidized or even free) parking, especially when that is limiting the potential of other forms of transit. You also have to remember that, as we improve other methods of transit, people start shifting to them from using their car and hence there is less demand for car infrastructure.

    In the end, people will use what you build. You build tons of roads and design everything around cars, then people will drive everywhere. You build your cities around walking, bicycling, and public transit, then that’s what people will use. So what method of transit do we *want* people to use? The answer to that question tells us how we should design our infrastructure and spend our limited resources.

    “I think there would be zero opposition to all these greening ideas, and
    bike provisions, and transit-friendly suggestions if there was simply
    some quid pro quo. We can’t continually take from one class of road user
    and give to another class of road user without expecting some kind of
    pushback.”

    What do you want bicyclists and public transit users to give up? They have nothing to give! This is what I’m talking about. How can you just look at your infrastructure and tell any form of transit *but* cars that they need to give something up. This is the sort of attitude that gets us nowhere: you say everybody needs to share to sound politically correct, but one group already has anything and is the only one who can share.

  • Gneiss

    HoJo,

    For the last 90 years we’ve been redesigning our streets to the benefit of motorists.  Where was the quid pro quo during that time when we took away sidewalls and streets that people could safely walk in? 

    It only feels like there’s no parity because our built environment has so favored cars for so long that the only way we can go in street redesign is to reduce the number of parking spots. 

  • mikesonn

    “you say everybody needs to share to sound politically correct, but one group already has everything and is the only one who can share.”

    Sums it up.