A proposed alternative to the Oakland Airport Connector. Image: TransForm

The potential relief from this scenario is in the form of $70 million in federal stimulus that the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, at its meeting tomorrow, could direct to the region's transit agencies instead of to construction of the Oakland Airport Connector (OAC), which faces a large hurdle for failing to comply with federal social equity rules.

As reported here yesterday, the complaint filed by several Bay Area groups specified that BART had not conducted the required social equity analysis to determine how the service would impact low income groups, and that if it did, it would find that the project benefits relatively affluent airport passengers at the expense of airport workers and everyday transit riders.

"We see it as Robin Hood in reverse," said Rev. Scott Denman of Genesis, which coordinates a social justice transit collaboration with faith-based organizations. Denman added that the money being proposed will go to BART customers with means who can afford an airline ticket, while general transit service continues to be cut and fares continue to rise.

"I feel like lunch money is being stolen to pay for dessert for people with full stomachs," said Denman.

Advocates also said the OAC was a boondoggle to large contractors when the region needs to maintain current critical transit service jobs. With that calculation clear in Muni riders' minds, the pressure on MTC to direct stimulus dollars to the region's transit agencies instead of to the unpopular airport connector is growing. Rescue Muni today joined the chorus of organizations opposing the OAC.

Despite the fact that Muni passengers have a great deal to lose from this decision by the MTC, the MTA Board of Directors did not mention the possibility of this stimulus funding at their meeting last week with the lengthy discussion over Muni's budget deficit. Let's hope they are pressuring the MTC behind the scenes.

East Bay advocates have been organizing in earnest and have planned a rally before the MTC Commission meeting at 9 am at MTC headquarters, 101 8th Street, Oakland.

"This is not a 'turn people out, even though we are going to lose' moment, this is a 'Grab the brass ring and win' moment," said John Knox-White of TransForm.

UPDATE 8:03 pm: The Mayor's Office released this letter from Nathaniel Ford, executive director of the MTA, indicating the agency's eagerness to spend the stimulus money if the MTC "opts to release its $70 million ARRA commitment to the OAC."

The Mayor's spokesperson, Tony Winnicker, and Ford in his letter, were very careful not to impugn the Oakland Airport Connector. "It's not in San Francisco's interest -- or any city's interest, for that matter -- to [attack a project approved by the regional governing body]." But Winnicker went on to write, "we absolutely need the funding, will put it to good use benefitting Bay Area transit riders immediately and have respectfully requested the money from the MTC."

The SFBC will try again to protect bicyclists and pedestrians at Market & Octavia by permitting camera enforcement against illegal right turns.

The SFBC's first priority is a local one: another attempt to allow the city to use cameras to enforce against illegal right turns at the Central Freeway and Market Street. In 2008, Assembly Bill 23 would have accomplished this but it was scuttled when State Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco), who sat on the Transportation Committee, objected due to privacy concerns. Yee's off the committee now, so the SFBC thinks it has a better chance.

Another SFBC priority comes from the San Francisco Bicycle Plan, which recommends a change in state law to permit passing on the right. It's common sense and commonplace for bicycles to pass cars on the right, and tickets are rarely issued, but in the event of a crash, lawyers and cops will sometimes assign blame to cyclists.

Mike Smith of San Francisco knows too well the implications of this legal status. He suffered a "severe back injury" when a passenger jumped out of the right side door of a taxi cab into his path and pushed him into the stone wall of a subway entrance. Even though there were bicyclists in front and behind traveling the exact same path, the jury assigned 25 percent of the fault to Smith for passing on the right. The police officer told him he should have passed on the left.

"Not passing on the right really does contradict what bicyclists are supposed to do," Smith said, echoing the feelings of most San Francisco bicyclists.

The big idea coming out of the legislative agenda discussion is the adoption in California of a "vulnerable road users" protection bill. This would enhance the penalties when a motorist violates a traffic law and contributes to the injury of a vulnerable road user. Currently, there are no extra penalties for injuring a pedestrian, and prosecutors tend to consider manslaughter or attempted manslaughter charges too severe for "an accident," so they simply issue a traffic ticket and let the civil courts deal with justice for the vulnerable victims of traffic crashes. A vulnerable road users law would give authorities some middle ground between a ticket and manslaughter.

All the organizations contacted for this article - the SFBC, the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition and the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition -- have lobbied the CBC to push for this bill at the state level, and the CBC will discuss the topic at their board meeting next week.

The bill could be modeled after a 2007 Oregon statute that strengthened the penalties for injuring or killing a vulnerable road user -- defined as a pedestrian, a highway worker, a person riding an animal, the operator or user of a farm tractor, a skateboard, roller skates, a scooter, or a bicycle -- without making it a crime that requires a jury trial. Motorcyclists were at times included in the definition of vulnerable road users, but that was removed before the final version.

Instead of simply pleading guilty to a traffic violation and mailing in the fine, a person convicted of this offense must appear in court and be sentenced to a traffic safety course, 100 to 200 hours of community service, a fine of up to $12,500, and one year of suspended driving privileges. Payment of the fine and suspension of driving privileges may be waived by the court upon completion of the traffic safety course and community service.

According to Doug Parrow, the chair of the Bicycle Transportation Alliance's legislative committee, the results have been disappointing. "To my knowledge there has not been a motorist charged under the vulnerable road users statute," he said. The law requires police officers on the scene to indicate on the traffic ticket that a vulnerable road user was injured in the course of the violation, and it turns out that officers do not make that indication.

"We were operating under the assumption that the police would take this seriously and operate in good faith but … that's not necessarily the case," he said. It may be simply a matter of education. He recognizes that there is no way police officers could know every law on the books and speculates that most are unaware of the law. "We might just need to do a little bit of education," he said.

The California Bicycle Coalition will have to make a decision by next week on its legislative agenda for the year. While they maintain a lobbyist on retainer in Sacramento, their membership is small compared to the top advocacy organizations in the state.

"The CBC needs to provide leadership in coordinating the asks but the muscle behind that needs to come from local organizations," said Corinne Winter, executive director of the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition.

But the ride isn't nearly all that's universal about our movement, I've come to learn.

Bengaluru, as Bangalore is now called, is a huge city of 6 million people. More so than the rest of India, it's transformed in the past decade, becoming the Silicon Valley of South Asia and host to a large middle class with international tastes. Along with the wealth has come an abandonment of the bicycle, with only six percent of trips made by bike down from 16 percent a decade ago.

A small group of bike activists is aiming to change that.

They shun the classic Indian upright bicycles for mountain bikes, just as Americans have shunned old Schwinns. Many of them wear helmets, the only Indian bicyclists I've seen with them. And they go on recreational rides, posting their routes on MapMyRide.com and sharing information as on the sfbike mailing list.

And when it comes to political tactics, those ring a familiar tone. At least three organizations vie for attention, each bringing their own flavor. Two mostly social groups were apparent at the Mass: Go Green Go Cycling, an environmental group that aims to convince Bangaloreans of the benefits of bicycling for a cleaner, greener Earth. Their leader, Rao, hosts weekly rides and produces these really great long-sleeve shirts with their logo on them. The Bangalore Bikers' Club seems more anarchistic, organized mostly online and mostly about rides, although they recently descended on a shopping mall to protest the lack of bicycle parking, and won! The groups announce each others' events and donate to each others' causes.

Pushing for policy changes to protect adult bicyclists who can afford scooters, motorcycles, or cars, is considered downright silly, and the political power of the poor who ride bicycles is almost nonexistent, and certainly not focused on bicycle safety. They are not part of the bicycle advocacy movement I saw.

So the bike advocates promote Safe Routes to School (their words) and got key politicians to join them in support of safe bicycling for children on National Children's Day (held on the birthday of former Prime Minister Nehru who made children's welfare a key priority). At Bangalore's popular Ganesha festival, celebrating the elephantine Hindu god of wisdom -- who removes all obstacles from your life and if you're lucky the cars in the road ahead -- Murali and Pradeep put Ganesha on a cycle and invited children to write essays and engage in bike races to win bicycles.

In the course of the conversation I remembered a talisman of my own I carry with me, ever since Chris Carlsson gave me a prayer card from the Catholic Patron Saint of bicycling, the Madonna del Ghisallo. It's superstition and not religion, but indeed I carry around the card in my wallet like the rickshaw drivers have Ganesha stickers on their windshields. Pradeep and Murali were thrilled when I showed it to them, and together we wondered whether the Hindus could develop a god for bicycling the way the Catholics have a saint.

Not a bad idea, but we agreed, focusing on the children was probably best.

With sidewalks in perpetual disrepair, if they exist at all, kids must walk in the street to school... riders swerve around them...

... and buses sweve around them, into the opposing lane.

Vehicular cycling proponents would be impressed by these schoolchildren.

I wonder if the girls on the motorbike wish they could pedal in like their classmates.

The relatively gentle grades of Geary Blvd. approaching Masonic make it the route of choice for most bicyclists in the corridor.

Livable streets advocates around the country are often surprised to hear that such a large capital project does not already include bike lanes. "If you're going to spend more than $200 million, how can you not squeeze bike lanes in," goes the refrain. But the impact of capturing an additional ten feet from the 90-foot right-of-way is significant. Something has to give: a lane of parking, a pedestrian refuge, a transit passing lane, or one of the two remaining travel lanes.

None of these are attractive options for a project that is already getting political pushback for its relatively minor traffic and parking impacts, nor is it an attractive option to spend nearly $250 million on a project and not do anything to improve bicycle safety on Geary. Volunteers, including me and staff of the Bicycle Coalition, have been trying to resolve this conundrum since the inception of the project.

The SFBC has asked the TA to focus on the segment of the Geary BRT project between Arguello and Webster Streets. West of Arguello, Anza is a good alternative to Geary for most bike trips, while between Arguello and Presidio, there is no parallel route. The SFBC requested the TA to look at bike access as far east as Webster in order to connect a Geary facility with the Webster Street bike lanes.

In asking project leader Zabe Bent to sketch out potential designs that include a bike facility in that stretch of Geary, the SFBC will make the debate about tradeoffs public - what costs are worth the benefit of bicycle safety on that stretch of Geary? So far, there has been little public debate about this possibility.

At a meeting earlier this month, SFBC Executive Director Leah Shahum stressed that losing the pedestrian refuge was not acceptable. She also introduced a new idea to the discussion: a cycletrack. "It will be a crying shame not to have a bike lane or track here, with all this investment," she said. "It's worth the political/parking battle."

It would someday rank among the world's most beautiful bike paths. Imagine a separated, 2.5-mile bicycle path between the northbound traffic lanes of the Embarcadero and the pedestrian promenade from AT&T Park to Fisherman's Wharf. Not only would it provide a safe and dignified passage for cyclists, it would cut down on bike and pedestrian conflicts that occur on the shared sidewalk. Sound like a fantasy? Not so, according to a study sponsored by SPUR, which suggests that not only would the path serve an important transportation function, it would attract tourists and locals alike.

The study's goal was to examine the feasibility of a wide, comfortable, car-free facility capable of serving cyclists well enough to attract bicyclists away from the pedestrians on the promenade and provide safe and convenient bicycling to fast and slow riders alike. The path would eventually connect to other links in the Bay Trail, providing a car-free beltway, so to speak, around the city on the shores of San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean.

The plan was crafted by a summertime fellow sponsored by the Patri family of architects and urban designers. The Patri Fellow, Carrie Nielson, with the help of staff from the design firm EDAW/AECOM and the Port of San Francisco, looked at various alternatives and settled on the idea of a two-way, 15-foot wide cycle track using space captured from the northbound bicycle lane, parking, and the sidewalk. Her research found that it's feasible, simple in some places, complicated and expensive in others. Total cost is estimated at $10-20 million.

Gabriel Metcalf, SPUR Executive Director, was enthusiastic about the potential of the path. "This is potentially one of the most transformative ideas out there for making the bicycle a primary mode for more trips in San Francisco. Compared to building infrastructure for cars or trains, bike infrastructure is cheap." He called for a more serious planning effort to nail down the cost and ensure there are no fatal flaws.

The Hudson River Greenway provides a glorious 15.5-ft. wide path (with 3 foot shoulders) the length of Manhattan.

Times have changed. The Embarcadero Promenade/Herb Caen Way is crowded with pedestrians and bicycling on it has become less tenable. Planners, meanwhile, have improved sidepath design and bicycle advocacy has become more inclusive of people who seek pathways as refuge from cars and as a necessary facility to attract seniors and children to routine urban bicycling.

Nielson's work has sparked a welcome public debate about the alternatives for improving bicycle transit and safety along the Embarcadero, according to the Port's David Beaupre, who said he applauded her efforts to identify issues and alternatives for creating a bicycle path along the Embarcadero.

The pathway seems like a real possibility, but there are plenty of challenges.

The design presumes the loss of the northbound bike lane, increasing the importance of the 15-foot width so that fast-moving cyclists can pass meandering tourists. The southbound bike lane will be preserved, and fast recreational cyclists will of course be permitted to use the roadway, which could be adorned with stencils to remind motorists that bicyclists may be expected in the roadway despite the path.

The Embarcadero today, and what it would look like after.

A railing between the southbound half of the bike path and the roadway will have to be designed to protect bicycle riders while not blocking the views of Embarcadero motorists.

Politically, the challenge is finding the funding and compensating for the loss of parking entailed with the proposal. Nielson's analysis indicated the need to remove 145 parking spaces on the northbound roadway, but found where 178 parking spaces could be added by converting the parallel parking on the adjacent streets to back-in angle parking. Unless a citywide leader (say, a Mayor) brokered a deal, the Port would lose substantial meter revenue which the MTA would gain by this transfer of parking location.

Despite the challenges, Nielson's proposal makes it clear that a wide, comfortable, car-free bike path is feasible, provided it gets the necessary funding and political support.

Photo: plug1

"I look to the left, I look to the right, all I see is opposition and criticism," says Joel Ramos, a member of the Geary BRT Citizens Advisory Committee and a staffer for Transform who has experience in the battle for Berkeley BRT.

Richmond Supervisor Eric Mar, who is in favor of BRT on Geary, said he expected more support from transit advocates.  The project gets little but tough love from its allies in the transportation reform movement, who complain alternately that the plan should be for rail instead of buses and that it ignores the needs of bicycle users in the corridor. From the anti-transit side, there are still dozens of Richmond residents who reliably show up to complain about the minor impediments to car traffic and parking that Geary BRT will impose. Indeed, without the enthusiastic support of transit advocates, Geary BRT public meetings get overrun by opponents.

Geary BRT would create a new exclusive busway in the center of the street from just east of Gough Street to 33^rd Avenue in the outer Richmond. With pre-paid and three-door boarding, bypass lanes for express buses, and car-free lanes, the Transportation Authority expects to shave from five to nine minutes off the typical trip, as much as 30% of the travel time between those points. With stations instead of stops and low-floor buses with multiple doors operating in straight lines with no swerving for traffic, Geary BRT will feel like a train on rubber wheels. The dimensions of the center lane are planned to be able to accommodate trains if desirable in the future. The agency is currently completing its environmental impact report, which is expected to be ready for certification within the next few months. The project will cost approximately $200 million. 

Ramos, a resident of the Richmond and a staffer beneficiary of the project, is worried enough that he and Sarah Karlinsky of SPUR recently called a meeting to discuss what it will take to bring more support to the project.

One of the two full-fledged BRT alternatives under consideration. Neither adds bike lanes.

Another explanation for limited public support is that there is no effective transit advocacy organization in San Francisco. Rescue Muni counts a handful of people among its hardcore reliable membership. Neither Livable City nor SPUR emphasize grassroots organizing as a political tactic. Only the SFBC does good grassroots organizing, and, naturally, they're focused on bicycling.

If the project improved bicycle safety, it might get more interest, but as it stands there is no intention to make significant improvements for bicycle travel. It could arguably be worse, with more intense car traffic in the rightmost lane. Bicycle parking will probably improve with the construction of new transit stations. Leah Shahum, SFBC Executive Director, said in an email that the current plan poses "big problems for bikes."

The Transportation Authority's project leader Zabe Bent has agreed to look more closely at bicycle access, especially along the section between Arguello and Presidio where there is no good adjacent route. An initial analysis shows that adding bike lanes would remove parking in some locations and increase the crossing distance for pedestrians. Bent has made no commitment to design bike lanes into the project as an option for policy makers to consider or reject. "We need to push harder on this," Shahum said.

If the project were a light rail extension, it would get more transit advocates' support. Geary light rail is the project most transit experts preferred over the Third Street/Chinatown light rail and subway project. However, while that project had the ardent support of community leaders, Geary light rail never did. BRT is a kind of compromise that, in the eyes of its main proponents at the Transportation Authority, represents the middle ground between the expensive rail project that faces neighborhood opposition and comes with a prohibitively expensive price tag, and the status quo of minor changes that won't help to transform Muni service.

This compromise is important to Supervisor Mar, who says that the city planners have apparently learned from the mistakes of Third Street light-rail construction that so severely hurt businesses. He is confident they won't repeat the mistake with BRT construction on Geary.

Without a group that can bring even a significant fraction of the grassroots support for transit that the SFBC brings for bikes, projects like these are never going to get the support they need to experience smooth sailing.

"Every transit project could of course be better," said Sarah Karlinsky of SPUR, but "Geary BRT is a good project and it should be supported." She, along with Supervisor Eric Mar and Joel Ramos of Transform, are hoping that transit advocates will start showing up at Geary BRT citizen advisory committee meetings, and that proponents of the project will outnumber the opponents when the Environmental Impact Report is completed.

Flickr photo: pbo31

The signs, two of seven the MTA plans to install around the city, are part of the SFgo program that will upgrade traffic signals on Oak and Fell by interconnecting them with fiber optic cables and controlling them by central computer. The MTA staff at the meeting presented the plan as part of the city's transit-first policy, but they acknowledged that the choice of Oak and Fell Streets makes that claim look less than sincere. They also offered little in the way of optimism that the new signals and signs might prevent last week's tragedy, when a motorist sped around a stopped car on Fell Street at Broderick and drove into Melissa Dennison, killing her instantly.

The tragedy prompted City Traffic Engineer Jack Lucero Fleck to join his staffer Cathal Hennessy at the neighborhood meeting. He was compassionate, echoing the sentiments of SFBC Program Manager Marc Caswell in pointing out that it's illegal and dangerous to move around a stopped car at an intersection and that a green light does not mean you have the right of way but rather that you may proceed if the intersection is free of pedestrians and other traffic. Police Lieutenant Lon Ramlan, on the other hand, was irresponsible, implicitly exonerating the motorist by stressing that "it's an accident" and asking people to be careful when they cross the street because there might be a car passing that stopped car.

Since the tragedy and the meeting, conversation in the neighborhood has centered around what can be done on Fell and Oak Streets to calm traffic and restore some of the safety and civility that the neighborhood knew before the last half century of work by traffic engineers to cram more and more cars through the neighborhood. Based on conversations with many local leaders, Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi who represents the district, and transportation professionals, here are some ideas that might provide a consensus.

1. Forget the signs. They make the street look more like a freeway and less like a quiet neighborhood street that it once was and could be again. The Fell Street has the bona fide benefit of telling motorists when the Concourse garage is full (which frequently occurs on weekends) and directing them to the mammoth (and empty) garages at UCSF (which should have been used in lieu of the Concourse Garage in the first place, but that's another story). The Oak Street sign has no benefit, even for motorists.

2. Slow speeds to 18 mph or less. While state law prevents the city from reducing the speed limit to less than 25 mph (except on alleys), it does not prevent the city from timing its lights for very slow speeds. Arguably this would do more for pedestrian safety than restoring the streets to two-way operation, and it would almost certainly do more for neighborhood livability as slower speeds result in much quieter traffic. Portland, Oregon times its lights on certain downtown one-way streets for speeds as slow as 12 mph.

3. Use pricing at the freeway on- and off-ramps to reduce congestion at peak hours. The Transportation Authority's congestion pricing study was focused on preventing downtown congestion, when a fairer and probably more effective focus would be a citywide pricing scheme focused on the freeway on- and off-ramps.

4. Admit that even with pricing, and certainly before pricing takes effect, car congestion is a fact of life in San Francisco (and any city worth living in) and seek to manage it smartly. This is in contrast to dealing with it by increasing capacity at choke points, which just has the effect of moving the problem elsewhere. In the case of Fell and Oak Streets, this means different things for the morning and afternoon commute periods.

In the morning, the choke point is Octavia Boulevard, and backed-up cars on Oak Street divert to Haight and Page Street, important bicycle and transit streets. Using the signals to reduce capacity before it gets near the freeway will spread out the congestion and ease the movement onto the freeway at Octavia. This ought to be coupled with measures to reduce through automobile traffic on Page and Haight Street.

In the afternoon, the congestion takes place mostly on the freeway itself, out of the way of city streets. The problem occurs when motorists enjoy the wide-open expanse of Fell Street after Octavia Boulevard, and especially adjacent to the park. Why does Fell Street need four lanes next to Golden Gate Park when only three lanes feed it? Fell Street along the Panhandle would be a perfect location for a cycle track. It would reduce the lanes to three, still plenty, and take fast-moving cyclists off the crowded mixed-use path on the Panhandle. Doing the same treatment on Oak Street would help the morning congestion problem, for that matter.

The SFgo program as originally conceived is definitely a product of the old Department of Parking (Lots) and Traffic (Congestion), and much of its focus now seems like the last gasp of the DPT, whose logo adorned the informational placard Hennessy brought to show the neighborhood audience. The technology could be used to promote safety and the city's transit-first policy as its proponents currently claim it does, but so far on Oak and Fell Street there is little evidence it is being used that way.

This Oma-fiets (or, Grandma-bicycle, in Dutch) sits for sale at the Market Street storefront of "My Dutch Bike" while a typical "American" bike is pedaled by outside. Photo by Frank Chan.

Seeing an opportunity, Nasirian teamed up with Dutch husband Oscar Mulder to open up a new business to peddle Dutch pedals: My Dutch Bike on Market Street just east of Second Street. Their shop sells a few high-end Dutch city bikes, as well as the bakfiets, the Dutch answer to cargo bikes. Their sales are good enough to keep them in business, she says, although most of their business is online, and they will be moving soon to another location.

My Dutch Bike is just one manifestation of a veritable frenzy of marketing to the fastest-growing segment in the bicycle market: everyday, utilitarian bicycles. It sparks some interesting questions: What can we do to encourage the trend? What will the quintessential American, or San Franciscan, city bike look like?

In every country where bicycles are commonplace transportation, almost every single bike comes equipped with lights, fenders, a rack, and chainguard. In Germany, those items, plus a bell and a kickstand, are mandatory on any bike not sold as a stripped-down "sports bike."

David Baker's "Old Dutch" has all these elements, and the typical Dutch bike geometry - large (28") diameter wheels, very upright posture - that makes them especially elegant for urban transportation. "I have 12 bikes, but this is the one I pick when I go on most trips," Baker says. "It turns the act of riding into this very pleasant and restful ritual." Riding it feels like you're on a "great ship of state."

The fact that his bike is heavy and geared to a slow one-speed is part of the charm to him. He rides for exercise, so a highly efficient bike defeats that purpose. And the large wheels, while being heavier, have less rolling resistance, handle our rough pavement better, and provide more momentum. It helps he does not have to carry his bike up the stairs.

"If our city were serious about promoting bicycle culture, and meeting the MTA's goal of cutting car use in half by 2030 while doubling bicycling and walking, we have to find a way to subsidize new "city bike" purchases."

This is one of the reasons that Gary Fisher thinks that an American "city bike" has to be lightweight. Talking to me from the European bicycle dealers' show in Germany, Fisher explained that most bikes there stay on the ground floor. Also key, he said, is that people there dawdle around on safe bike paths. "In the United States you have to share the street with traffic and it feels safer to keep up a higher speed. In Germany, you just go your own pace."

Industry leaders are always looking for the next electric bikes or the next "mountain bike boom" and many are betting on city bikes for those purposes. Marin's Joe Breeze makes nothing but city bikes these days, and all the big companies have a line of upright bikes with commuting accessories.

Some think that electric bikes are the route to mainstream acceptance of city bicycling in the United States. In Europe, Fisher says, electric bikes "are the absolute rage," accounting for 30 percent of sales by value. Business people love them because their extra cost brings extra profit. From the user's perspective, the bike looks and feels like a regular bike; the lithium ion batteries kick in power only when needed to climb a hill or increase speed. These are not motorcycles; the rider still has to pedal. At an average cost approaching $1,300 each, however, electric-assist bicycles are not the people's bike.

As our bicycle culture develops, will we too get a quintessential American, or San Franciscan city bike, in the same way that the cultures of the Netherlands, Denmark and China, all have bikes so typical of their respective countries?

That's doubtful. Like this city and nation, our city bikes will be probably be diverse.

It does seem important, though, that we usher in the era of the city bike. Nobody has to carefully think through what kind of lights, trunk, and fenders go best with their automobile when they buy it! Nobody has to tuck in their pant legs or adopt an aggressive, athletic posture when they step in their car or walk to the bus. The same has to be true for bicycling if the movement to put the bicycle at the center of urban transportation systems can expect to be successful.

A woman rides a city bike in Amsterdam. Flickr photo: Amsterdamize

Also, let's be honest, they won't be cheap. An adequate bicycle with all the "city bike" accessories will cost at least $500; a good one costs more. That's less than a car, sure, but it's more than a year's worth of transit passes and a prohibitive expense for vast numbers of people.

Here's the answer to sparking that new market in city bikes: government subsidy.

If our city were serious about promoting bicycle culture, and meeting the MTA's goal of cutting car use in half by 2030 while doubling bicycling and walking, we have to find a way to subsidize new "city bike" purchases. We already subsidize transit passes at a cost of several million dollars a year. A one-year program to match the transit subsidy with a bike subsidy - let's say that's $2 million - could provide $250 coupons for the first 8,000 residents to qualify. Measures could be built in to the program to ensure the bikes actually remain in the possession of the intended coupon recipient and not sold for a profit, but even if there's "fraud," the program will promote city bikes and urban bicycling.

Such a program, which we could dub "Cash for Cycling Eco Stimulus," would work better at the national level, of course. Even a tiny program, say, using the $123 million not claimed from the $3 billion "cash for clunkers" auto purchase subsidy program, could provide $200 coupons for 615,000 people, close to the 700,000 who claimed some cash for their "clunker." Even that absurdly small program would be a huge boost to the American bicycle industry, whose sales hover around 13.4 million units annually today.

Flickr photo: kate at yr own risk

Like New York's, San Francisco's zoning code already requires new and significantly renovated commercial buildings to provide a certain number of bicycle parking spaces, depending on the size of the building. Amendments proposed by the Bicycle Plan would strengthen those requirements slightly, removing a loophole that exempted multi-use buildings from the requirement. Marc Caswell of the SFBC said he hopes to further strengthen those codes by increasing the amount of bike parking required and reducing the expenditure threshold when a renovation triggers the requirement.

The requirements are not retroactive, however, so they do not serve almost all workers whose buildings were permitted before 2001. Nearly half, 42 percent, of the cyclists responding to a recent SFBC member survey said they did not have bicycle parking at work. The lack of secure bicycle parking is the "number one reason seasoned bicyclists do not bike to work" in New York, according to surveys by New York's Transportation Alternatives.

San Francisco would surely see an increase in bicycle commuting if a version of New York's law passes here. How might the San Francisco version — and the politics around it — be different?

New York's law does not actually mandate indoor bicycle parking; it simply requires buildings to allow entry to bicycles if the tenant can store the bicycle in their rented space. It applies only to office buildings, not all commercial buildings, and only if the building has a freight elevator. Building owners may request an exemption if the freight elevator has peculiar issues that make it unsafe to carry bicycles or if there is sufficient, no-cost, indoor secure bicycle parking on the premises or nearby (and under control of the owner requesting an exemption).

These provisions probably mitigated some of the opposition from the Real Estate Board of New York, which opposed the mandate. Copying those same provisions in a San Francisco ordinance would result in fewer buildings being covered, because so many of San Francisco's downtown office buildings provide garage bicycle parking in conformance with San Francisco's strong garage parking requirements. But that's no substitute, says Caswell, because such parking is open to the public, it's next to impossible to make garage parking nearly as secure as bringing your bike into your office. Having your bike in your own view insures the safety of all of your components as well as your entire bike.

A San Francisco building access law could prompt better enforcement of the garage parking requirement, which is strong. It is retroactive, applying to residential and commercial garages of ten spaces or more, and requiring bike parking spaces in relation to the number of car parking spaces. Some garages are out of compliance and so far no fines have been levied to force compliance. Also, no standards ensure that the parking is something better than a U-rack in the dingy corner of the garage, hidden from the public except for the enterprising bike commuters and bike thieves who know about it.

A San Francisco building access ordinance will have to navigate likely opposition from the Building Owners and Managers Association, which historically has opposed mandates on building owners.

"Obviously this is a property rights issue," said Ken Cleaveland, BOMA's Director of Government and Public Affairs, "but I do believe that most owners want to work with their tenants in a way that keeps them happy, if it means accommodating bikes I can't imagine they wouldn't allow that. But they will want some level of assuredness that the building will be protected from damage, particularly in older buildings with historic elevators, like an additional deposit like you would pay with a pet."

Do they want a deposit "in case the bike pees on the carpet?" asked Noah Budnick, Deputy Director of Transportation Alternatives, who stressed the "grassroots and grasstops" organizing work the T.A. did to win passage of the law. "The difference between three years ago [when T.A. first introduced this bill] and today is marked. The time has come."

Flickr photo: Michael Bolger

“Even better than Critical Mass,” was the answer I got when I separately asked three men who had been riders on the first Critical Mass rides in 1992 how they compare Sunday Streets to Critical Mass.

“It’s more true to the original intent of most of the early Critical Mass participants--taking public  space and transforming it from an inhospitable and deadly river of steel into a convivial place where friends meet, talk, play and celebrate their community,” said Jon Winston, who was there Sunday with his family and there 17 years ago on the early Critical Mass rides. This event does what Critical Mass did, Winston said, but it lasts longer and invites a wider variety of people. "Friends meet and tarry in the street to catch up on gossip but also, lines of class and race are crossed as people mix freely and the street is returned to what it had always been for thousands of years before the automobile– a commons."

As one of the participants in the early Critical Mass rides, I saw thrilling parallels between these two events that take over the streets for just a few hours but seem to have impacts far beyond the event itself. I remembered the palpable joy of being in an unprecedented social space, a reclaiming of a violent and privatized street for public interaction.

If it’s true that people learn by doing, then Critical Mass enabled thousands of people to imagine a different world for bicycling — a world where safety and conviviality dominated instead of traffic law and motor vehicles — by experiencing that world for a couple hours at a time. Sunday Streets does the same thing, no bicycle needed. It’s not like a street fair where the streets are closed for a temporary shopping mall or familiar entertainment arena. It’s more like the streets are opened for your regular activity, just without the cars. Thousands of people experienced car-free streets space for the first time; who knows what they will do with that knowledge, but it will probably be good!

Photo: Myleen Holero

Even the professionals at the Congress for New Urbanism are getting in on the act; a panel on promoting new urbanist principles included a presentation on the ability of Sunday Streets-type events to illustrate those principles best, i.e., experientially.

There are more parallels, but they are not infinite. Critical Mass has the unofficial sanction of the police; Sunday Streets has official sanction. Critical Mass started here and spread around the world; Sunday Streets owes its origins to the Ciclovía started in Bogotá, Colombia.

The appeal of the event is truly global, as the events in the United States have held true to the original intent that goes beyond bicycling to public health, the creation of open space, and the promotion of social interaction. What has changed is the name.

Miami has had “Bike Miami Days,” seven of them, more than any other city, since November of 2008. (San Francisco will earn that distinction with its eighth event September 6.) Portland has “Sunday Parkways” and New York has “Summer Streets.” El Paso changed the name of its event from “ciclovia” to Scenic Sundays. Nobody I talked to was thrilled with the name, with the most common complaint, “why restrict it to Sunday?”

The Miami organizers, according to the event’s coordinator Kathryn Moore, are trying to come up with a new name that better reflects the event’s appeal to all Miamians, not just bike riders. Thinking of the experiential learning people enjoy on Critical Mass and Sunday Streets, as we call it, points, perhaps, to the Chicagoans’ choice of name for their event: Open Streets. Chicago’s first Open Streets event, including eight miles of carfree streets, takes place on August 1.

The reason for this reluctance, according to several people within the agency who I spoke with, is that the planners were afraid that the controversy around stop consolidation would jeopardize other equally or more important reforms they were promoting. MTA planners are still stung by the defeat of their modest proposal to consolidate stops on the 38-Geary in the Tenderloin. Tenderloin residents got the Board of Supervisors to reject that proposal by pointing out that only the Tenderloin was targeted, giving the appearance that stop consolidation was more about helping the more well-to-do residents of the Richmond zoom through the Tenderloin more quickly than it was a transit efficiency measure that could benefit everyone.

Times have changed, apparently, with stop consolidation finally making it to the top of TEP Program Manager Julie Kirschbaum's "to do list." What's different?

From a political perspective, the supervisors no longer have any authority over stop location. From a policy perspective, by proposing systemwide consolidation (at least on the 15 busiest routes), the MTA is not vulnerable to charges it is pitting one neighborhood against another. And most importantly, the benefits of stop consolidation are beginning to appear greater than the political cost of taking away some bus stops.

Kirschbaum has consistently claimed that stop consolidation was not "the most important" efficiency measure the system could make, but she has recently conceded that of all the possible reforms, it's in the "top eight to ten."

A very rough estimate of the cost savings equates every 5 percent of stops eliminated with a 1 percent reduction in service hours. In other words, eliminating one in ten stops would save $5 million, or nearly the entire cost of weekday operation of the 71 and 71L lines. This refers just to the savings in stops avoided; it does not take into account the additional revenue from passengers who may be attracted to a faster transit ride.

Muni's stop spacing standards are pretty typical for the United States, which is to say, out of date with the latest thinking in how to provide efficient, attractive transit service. European transit systems, with higher ridership, typically provide fewer stops: only three to four per mile. Systems in the United States typically provide seven to ten stops per mile. Furthermore, Muni's stops are actually much closer than its standards should allow. Only 17 percent of Muni's bus stops fall within the recommended range of 800-1,000 feet (closer on steep grades); 70 percent are closer than that; 13 percent are spaced farther apart than that.

The complaint against stop consolidation is that stop removal is akin to a service reduction. Indeed, the buses would be perfectly efficient, the argument goes, if they never had to stop to pick up passengers! Transit agencies must balance the additional access and egress time they ask their passengers to absorb in walking to the stop with the reduced travel time and operating costs gained. A 2007 empirical study of an implemented stop consolidation on TriMet in Portland found that "reductions in accessibility from stop consolidation were offset by time improvements in the line haul portion of their trips. Thus, the utility of their trip making appears to have been unaffected."

And just like the Bike Plan has social benefits beyond mere safety for riders, so does an efficient transit system. A California health official who asked not to be named noted that "70 percent of people who use public transit get their recommended daily exercise by walking or biking to and from the transit stop. If consolidating bus stops leads more people to take transit due to faster travel, there would be a significant health benefit."

"We do need to be mindful of ensuring that people with mobility challenges are not disproportionally affected," she added. "But given that lack of exercise is a major contributor to the diseases such as diabetes that cause disabilities, and given that people with mobility challenges also need physical activity for their general health, on balance a well-considered stop consolidation program may have significant health benefits across ages and physical limitations."

MTA staff is hoping that at least a fraction of the amount of support that was generated for the bicycle plan can be marshaled to support stop consolidation.

Kirschbaum tried to downplay expectations about the benefits of stop consolidation, but with over 4,000 bus and rail stops, even modest consolidation could save the agency millions of dollars a year. She will present a revised policy to the MTA Board in August, with specific, route-by-route proposals due in October. The MTA is not expected to approve changes until February 2010 after a series of public outreach meetings.

A North Beach Station will benefit not just North Beach residents but also people in Chinatown because it would put a station at the north end of the neighborhood to match the already planned station at the south end, according to Cindy Wu, Community Planning Manager at the Chinatown Community Development Center (CCDC).

The CCDC is already helping to plan the extension, working with the MTA and UC Berkeley professor Peter Bosselman, who is interested in having graduate students do a planning review of the North Beach extension.

“There is a lot of attention right now about the number of vacancies in North Beach, and the struggling small business owners,” says Wu. “This would really help bring people, including local shoppers, supporting the kind of retail people want to see.”

Stephen Taber, the chair of SPUR’s Central Subway Task Force, is looking beyond North Beach. “In order for the central subway to achieve its full potential it must extend more than just one station beyond major transfer points. We need a full citywide system of rapid rail transit, including this line extended beyond North Beach to other high-density neighborhoods that will support rail transit, past Van Ness along Lombard Street into the Marina and Cow Hollow.”

When phase two is complete, the T-Third will connect Chinatown with Union Square/Market Street, the Moscone Center, the 4th and King Caltrain station, Mission Bay, the Bayview, and Visitacion Valley, which has seen an influx of former Chinatown residents due to overcrowding and affordability issues in Chinatown. Many Vis Valley residents have extended family in Chinatown, and rely on the neighborhood for myriad cultural and institutional services. “The bus route between these two neighborhoods is so busy that people will take the bus north from Chinatown just to find a seat, or even just standing room, on the bus to Vis Valley,” said Wu.

At its south terminus, the line will soon be extended one station beyond Vis Valley to the Bayshore Caltrain station, in conjunction with a development project at the old Schlage Lock factory site.

The line is expected to be in service by 2017, but delays in funding caused by the current bond market could push that back to 2018 or 2019. “From the point of view of the SFMTA, the project is fully funded,” says project manager John Funghi. The $1.4 billion project has yet to encounter the usual cost escalation for rail transit projects which, on average, drives up the eventual price tag by about 40 percent, according to a SPUR report. (The T-Third line conformed to this average, coming in at 40 percent over budget.) It's possible the economic downturn will depress prices for labor and steel and mitigate against the usual escalation.

“We’re really excited to see this come to fruition but want to be sure it’s done right, gets as many riders as it can and gets people to where they want to go,” said Wu.

Dave Snyder is the transportation policy director at SPUR.