Bike parking at Embarcadero station. Photo via Oakland Local

Currently, four percent of passengers get to and from BART stations by bike. To bolster that rate, the agency is looking to roll out a targeted expansion of secure parking facilities, as well as reduce “blackout periods,” when bikes are banned on rush hour trains, and revisiting its ban on bikes on escalators. The agency even developed its own computer model, known as the Bike Investment Tool, to project the ridership increases derived from different types of upgrades at each station.

Overall, the plan has been widely praised: the SF Examiner called it a wise strategy to reduce emissions and “encourage smarter, denser growth around existing stations and new extensions” by reducing demand for car parking.

Bike advocates said they’re encouraged by the agency’s commitment to installing more secure bike parking, and that reducing blackout periods is also key to boosting ridership for those who need it. San Francisco Bicycle Coalition Executive Director Leah Shahum said the organization “commends the BART leadership for stepping up their commitment to encouraging more bicycles on and to the BART stations. By implementing this new plan, BART is sure to draw even more new customers and lessen its overall cost per rider by encouraging more bike-transit trips replacing car-transit trips.” The SFBC is calling on members to urge BART staff to eliminate blackout periods.

Steve Beroldo, BART’s Bike Program manager, said staff is “going to look very hard at the blackout periods, see if there are some where we can narrow them down a little bit and do some experiments to see what’ll happen if more people are on board.” He and advocates noted that Grace Crunican, the agency’s new general manager, seems more willing to experiment with changes than previous management. BART also expects to roll out new train cars with more dedicated bike space in 2017.

Even with reduced blackout periods, space aboard trains will always be limited, said East Bay Bicycle Coalition Executive Director Renee Rivera, adding that the greatest barrier to “dramatically increasing the numbers of people accessing BART by bike” is the lack of “excellent, abundant, secure parking at the stations.”

“The surveys that BART has done show that half the people who bring their bikes on BART bring them on because of the lack of secure parking at the station,” Rivera said. As a model, she pointed to the wildly successful, valet-attended Berkley Bike Station outside Downtown Berkeley BART, and other rack installations inside paid areas. Oakland’s 19th Street BART station is also set to get a bike station within a year.

Home-to-BART bicycle access mode share by station. See the rest in the draft plan PDF on pg. 11.

Tom Radulovich, a member of the BART Board of Directors, said he hopes to see more measurable commitments to station improvements and policy changes included in the plan. ”Too often, plans are a vague statement of intentions, and less often a road map,” he said.

Beroldo said the plan is intended to provide “high-level” guidance for ongoing improvements, like parking expansions, which the agency is “actively” making. Demand is clearly high. The 65 bike rack spaces recently installed inside Oakland’s 19th Street station and the 30 racks at 12th Street quickly filled up, Beroldo said. Still, he said he’s eager to move forward with more.

“I want to take what we’ve done and make some choices as to which of those are really going to be the most productive in the short-term, and jump into the implementation stage,” said Beroldo. “While that’s going on, I want to be thinking about all the strategies, and at which stations it’s best to implement them, and what’s going to be involved.”

The plan also recommends “re-visiting” the agency’s prohibition of bikes on escalators. Currently, the agency requires cycling passengers to use elevators or carry their bikes on stairs, which the plan notes “can be challenging, particularly for children, elderly, and disabled cyclists.” Radulovich said he supports lifting the ban.

“Although staff has concluded that the ban should not be lifted due to safety and liability concerns,” the plan says, “this policy deserves review because of the high cost of stairway channels, the inconvenience and unpleasantness of some BART elevators and the perceived unfairness of banning bikes on escalators, but not other large items, such as luggage.”

Radulovich pointed out that people regularly take their bikes on escalators on many transit systems “without signs of carnage,” and that the ban seems to be a case of “the insurance department writing rules that don’t actually make a lot of sense.” No other American transit system expressly allows bikes on escalators, but systems in many other countries do, and Radulovich noted some American systems don’t expressly prohibit it, either.

Other recommendations in the plan include evaluating and increasing automobile parking fees, which the plan says have “a profound impact on bicycle access rates”; advocating for other agencies to make bikeway improvements on connecting routes; and improving signage for wayfinding.

Beroldo said staff will present a final plan to the BART Board on June 14, and that it should be adopted by the end of that month.

Check out the draft plan [PDF] for more, as well as a plethora of data on bike parking and usage. The public can submit comments to BART for the remainder of the week by emailing bikes@bart.gov.

Photo: Mark Dreger, San Franciscoize

Dozens of speakers, young and old, said the project was vital for improving the safety of people who already bike as well as those who will only feel safe riding with the separated bike lanes.

“The three blocks of terror, as I call them, really have been a big impediment to me biking in San Francisco,” said Julia Uota, who lives in the Richmond. “I am new to biking, and I’m terrified to bike Fell Street on my way home. During rush hour, I make it a point of getting off my bike and walking as a pedestrian on the sidewalk, where it’s not really wide enough to have a bike next to me.”

D5 Supervisor Christina Olague told hearing officers: “My office hears from people who ride bicycles through this area, including parents biking their children to school, people biking to shop on Divisadero, and people of all ages biking to work. We must prioritize this kind of project and safety improvements, I believe, in our district.”

Although SFMTA staff said they couldn’t approve the project for recommendation until the environmental review is finished, it’s expected to go to the SFMTA Board of Directors in the fall or winter. Staff said the project could return for another public hearing for official recommendation to the board, depending on the changes in the finalized designs, which would be informed by the comments at today’s hearing.

This father said he bikes on Fell and Oak, but wants to be able to bring his wife and child along. Photo: Mark Dreger

The relatively few opponents of the project repeated complaints about removing car parking, and called for bicyclists to instead be routed onto neighboring Hayes and Page Streets, despite explanations from agency staff and pro-bikeway speakers that steep grades and extra distances already deter riders from using them.

A few project supporters said the SFMTA went too far trying to mitigate the loss of car parking. They criticized the agency’s proposal to create roughly 60 new parking spaces on other streets to offset the 103 that would be removed to make room for the bike lanes, citing the adverse impacts. Under the current plan, three bus stops on Hayes would be removed, which the agency will help speed up service on the 21 Muni line. However, some complained of having to walk farther to reach their bus stop, and a few speakers said it makes more sense to remove the stop at Lyon Street rather than the adjacent one at Central Street, since Central appears much more heavily used. Staff said it chose to keep the Lyon stop to avoid inconveniencing the residents of a senior housing center it fronts.

About 43 other spaces would be created by converting parallel parking lanes to perpendicular and angled parking on nearby streets, but a few commenters said perpendicular parking is difficult to use and is an eyesore.

Luis Montoya, project manager for the SFMTA, said the details of the final design could be adjusted based on the comments, but that the project is necessary to meet the city’s goal of achieving 20 percent bike mode share by the year 2020.

“The city has a transit-first policy in which we will prioritize transit and bicycle improvements over those of the personal automobile, so with those goals in mind, we’re trying to create a project that minimizes the negative impacts to the community,” he said.

Neal Patel, community planner for the SF Bicycle Coalition, praised the SFMTA’s community outreach and planning process. ”I have never participated in a community process that was as well attended and where the community was as engaged as this one,” he said. Handing a thick stack of support letters to the hearing officers, he noted that despite the harrowing conditions on Fell and Oak, there are already 1,500 to 2,000 people biking on Fell Street each day.

“That’s a lot — it’s one of the highest in the city,” said Patel. “I think it’s the responsibility of the MTA to improve safety for those people.”

Image: SFMTA

Advocates say a strong show of support is critical to ensure the project is approved without delay. Although agency staff won’t make a decision whether to recommend approval of the project to the SFMTA Board of Directors tomorrow, hearing officers will take comments from the public that could influence the project’s design details and implementation timetable.

The project would provide vital safety upgrades for bike travel on the three blocks linking the Panhandle and the Wiggle — currently fraught with danger from high-speed traffic that deters many would-be riders and sometimes leads to confrontations between drivers and cyclists.

Although the SFMTA says the project could be implemented no sooner than next spring, D5 Supervisor Christina Olague, a strong supporter and former president of the Planning Commission, told Streetsblog she thinks it can go in by this fall.

Completing environmental review on the project, she said, should be a top priority for the Planning Department. “America’s Cup was, and I think we’ve seen other huge projects that have been top priorities.”

“This creates jobs, and ultimately it creates safer pathways for cyclists, people who want to bicycle with their families, for pedestrians,” said Olague. “I think it’s something people will love once it’s in place.”

The hearing takes place tomorrow at 10 a.m. at City Hall in Room 416. You can also email staff at sustainable.streets@sfmta.com.

Dana Kess, 24, of Pacifica and Carmen Struell, 25, of San Francisco were arrested on Tuesday, May 8, for crashing into and beating the 31-year-old San Francisco woman and vandalizing her bike, said SFPD Park Station Captain John Feeney.

On Scott Street, where the conflict apparently began, bicyclists making a left onto Fell Street merge into a left-turn bike lane. Photo: Google Maps

According to the police report, the bicyclist was merging into the left-turn bike lane northbound on Scott Street across Oak at around 9:15 a.m., when Kess came dangerously close to hitting her, forcing her to swerve away. When the victim caught up with the car waiting at the stop light, she yelled, “Are you fucking crazy?” according to the report. Struell then threw food from the window at the victim, who then spat towards the car.

Then, Feeney said, Kess reportedly drove into the victim from behind, causing her to fall to the ground. Both Kess and Struell got out of the car and began assaulting her, jumping on her bike and slashing her tires. The two got back in the car and began to drive away when the victim threw her bicycle toward the car. The two got back out and attacked the victim again, pulling her hair. The victim did not need hospital treatment for her injuries, according to the report.

Police then arrived on the scene in response to a report of a traffic collision and arrested the assailants. Kess was charged with felony assault and battery, malicious mischief, and driving with a suspended license. Struell, her passenger, was charged with misdemeanor battery.

San Francisco Bicycle Coalition Executive Director Leah Shahum said that ”while San Francisco streets are getting safer for people riding bikes, we are saddened that incidents like this one still occur. Assaults against other road users should not be tolerated, and we are encouraged that the San Francisco Police Department and District Attorney’s Offices are taking assaults like these seriously.”

A sample diagram of parking-protected bike lane guidelines.

The SFMTA is developing a new engineering guide for bike infrastructure that should help bring street designs like protected bike lanes to more San Francisco streets. Known as the Innovative Bicycle Treatment Toolbox, the guide promises to accelerate the city’s adoption of high-quality bikeway design treatments.

Intersection guidance markings also known as "green-backed" or "super" sharrows.

“The Innovative Bicycle Treatment Toolbox creates standardized guidance for the city of San Francisco in the use of new bicycle treatments being implemented throughout the U.S.,” said SFMTA spokesperson Paul Rose.

The guide is based on proven designs for bike infrastructure that more American cities (including SF) are implementing to make bicycling safer and more accessible to a wider range of people. While these treatments are becoming more common in the U.S., they have yet to be established in “official traffic engineering regulations such as the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) or the Highway Design Manual,” said Rose.

The treatments included in the toolbox: protected and buffered bike lanes, door-zone bike lane treatments, green paint on bike lanes and intersection guide markings, bike boxes, “safe-hit” posts (a.k.a. “traffic channelizers”), back-in angled parking, “green wave” signal timing for bike speeds, “two-stage left turn” markings, and “neighborhood greenways” (a.k.a. bike boulevards).

“These are smart, innovative designs that, once implemented in the right places, will make San Francisco’s streets safer and easier to bicycle on,” said Leah Shahum, executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. “We commend the SFMTA’s work in thinking out of the box and urge them to move forward with implementation on our many city streets that need improvement.”

Though the SFMTA has already implemented most of the treatments in the toolbox, they aren’t widespread. The most recent examples are the city’s first parking-protected bike lane in Golden Gate Park and the green-backed sharrow markings guiding riders through the Wiggle.

A two-stage left-turn treatment.

The SFMTA plans to use these treatments more frequently to reach its goal of 20 percent bike mode share by 2020. By establishing its own guidelines, the agency can “ensure consistency and predictability of these new treatments within our jurisdiction, while providing discussion of how these new treatments are addressed in existing regulations,” said Rose. ”This toolbox will help planners and engineers decide whether an innovative treatment is appropriate at a given location that is slated for bicycle improvements. It will also make it faster and more efficient for engineers to design the innovative facilities.”

Streamlining this process is critical to the widespread adoption of cycling in the city. The current rate at which the SFMTA is rolling out improvements is widely seen as insufficient to meet its ambitious mode share goals.

The toolbox is largely informed by the National Association of City Transportation Officials’ Urban Bikeway Design Guide, a manual that leading bikeway engineers from cities around the country, including SF, contributed to. Although bike advocates are pushing for legislative changes at the state level to give cities more freedom to use treatments from the NACTO guide, their most recent effort was undermined, and local planners can face greater liability when using treatments not included in more established guidelines like the MUTCD. Creating this set of guidelines could provide planners a set of locally-approved, widely tested standards to rely on.

Rose said the guide “includes specific implementation details that are in line with California laws, while making style determinations to ensure consistency of application throughout San Francisco, even if there is more than one legal way to do so.”

The toolbox could also be looked to as an example for five other cities that will share expertise on innovative bike infrastructure in the Bikes Belong “Green Lane” project.

Agency staff said the toolbox is still in draft form and not ready to be widely published yet. Although the guidelines will “continue to be a living document,” Rose said, the agency will submit “a finalized version” to the SF County Transportation Authority by June 30.

Door-zone treatments to discourage bicyclists from riding in the door zone in conventional bike lanes.

Back-in angled parking.

Green bike lanes.

Supervisor David Chiu: "Does anyone think we can do better in San Francisco?” Photo: Volker Neumann/SFBC

City officials and advocates rode in to City Hall today alongside thousands of commuters for San Francisco’s 18th annual Bike to Work Day. According to the SFMTA, 1,031 eastbound bicycles traveled through the Market and Van Ness intersection between 8 and 9 a.m. this morning, making up 73 percent of vehicles on Market and averaging 17 bikes per minute.

While the city’s recent cycling boom and expansion of bike infrastructure were widely celebrated, some leaders said SF could do much more to catch up with cities like New York, Minneapolis, and Davis and make cycling on its streets safe and accessible for riders of all abilities.

“Does anyone think we can do better in San Francisco?” said Board of Supervisors President David Chiu, eliciting cheers from the crowd. “San Jose just decided to segregate bike lanes in their downtown area. In Davis, California, they bike at four times the rate of what we do here in San Francisco. Can we do better than Davis and San Jose?”

“Right now, we are spending about a quarter of a percent of our MTA budget on cycling improvements,” said Chiu, who spearheaded the 2010 legislation that led the city to adopt the goal of increasing cycling to 20 percent of all trips by 2020. “We need to do better.”

Supervisor Jane Kim, seen here on her ride through District 6 today, said she'll only feel safe riding regularly on her own with protected bike lanes. Photo: SFBC/Flickr

D6 Supervisor Jane Kim said that while she enjoyed riding with a convoy on Bike to Work Day, she would only feel comfortable biking regularly on her own with protected bike lanes on streets like SoMa’s high-speed motorways — a sentiment shared by many San Franciscans. “I want to keep working make sure we have that type of infrastructure in San Francisco,” she said.

Mayor Ed Lee, who rode in from the new parking-protected bike lanes in Golden Gate Park with SFBC Executive Director Leah Shahum and city officials, didn’t seem to have the same sense of urgency for expanding bikeways as other proponents, but did speak about how they could improve his would-be commute. “I think there’s something we can do at the turn onto Van Ness so that I can come to work very easily,” he said.

Mayor Ed Lee rides with his transportation advisor, Gillian Gillett (right), on a Bike to Work Day convoy on Oak Street where a protected bike lane is planned. Photo: Volker Neumann/SFBC

The broad show of support from city leaders, said Shahum, was encouraging. “It’s not often we get so much political support for an issue.”

The turnout for Bike to Work Day this morning appeared to be SF’s biggest yet. Along the Panhandle, one of the city’s busiest bike corridors, a rush-hour platoon of roughly three dozen bike commuters were seen lined up waiting for the light to change at Masonic Avenue. Bike to Work Day counts have increased 66 percent over the last five years, according to the SFMTA. The agency also says 54 percent more people were biking on compared to a regular day one month ago.

D5 Supervisor Christina Olague, who rode in along the Wiggle, said she’s “very committed” to seeing the Fell and Oak Street protected bike lanes implemented by this fall. Although her eastbound ride in was “pretty smooth,” she said, the lack of a protected lane on Fell means she might “have to worry about getting back.”

After the pageantry of Bike to Work Day is over, the question remains whether leaders will make good on the commitment to making the city’s streets safer and more accessible for people to bike to work every day.

SFMTA Director Ed Reiskin rides with the convoy on the Panhandle. Photo: Volker Neumann/SFBC

D10 Supervisor Malia Cohen speaks with Supervisor Eric Mar (left), Mayor Lee, Supervisors Scott Wiener, Christina Olague, and David Chiu. Photo: Volker Neumann/SFBC

D11 Supervisor John Avalos, a regular bike commuter, rode in from the Excelsior District. Photo: SFBC/Flickr

Department of Public Works Director Mohammed Nuru (left), D2 Supervisor Mark Farrell (center), and the SFBC's Andy Thornley in front of City Hall. Photo: Frank Chan/SFBC/Flickr

The SF Bicycle Coalition's Andy Thornley leads the Dutch-orange bike caravan on John F. Kennedy Drive. Photo: Aaron Bialick

This year’s celebration of the Dutch Queen’s Day in San Francisco was a bit special.

When the event’s 100-or-so celebrants traversed the city by bike in the second annual “Market-to-Mill” ride (Market Street to the Dutch windmill in Golden Gate Park, a.k.a the Bay to Beach route), the orange-clad caravan traveled through San Francisco’s first bicycle lanes designed with a Dutch standard of safety in mind.

Bart van Bolhuis, Consulate General of the Netherlands, told Streetsblog that riding the new parking-protected bike lanes on John F. Kennedy Drive felt like cycling in his home country. “Especially biking with 100 people dressed up in orange,” he added.

Bart van Bolhuis, Consulate General of the Netherlands. Photo: Aaron Bialick

A key feature of the JFK bikeway, Bolhuis pointed out, is the buffer area which separates bicycle riders from the door zone and provides space for people getting in and out of their cars. Most conventional bike lanes in San Francisco place riders in the path of opening car doors on one side and passing cars on the other. Drivers also make regular incursions into the bike lane to maneuver into parking spaces or double park. That creates an obstacle course that’s too stressful for most people to ride in. By placing bicyclists to the right of parked cars, JFK is the first street in San Francisco designed to accommodate car parking while eliminating those hazards.

“People have to feel safe on their bikes, and these kinds of bike lanes are very helpful,” said Bolhuis. “The most important thing is that it will create safety, and the feeling of safety, for other kinds of bicyclists as well — mothers with children, elderly people — and that’s something we have to establish in this city, not only for the brave, but also for the people who want to bike in nature, or to school.”

A parking-protected bike lane in Amsterdam. Photo: Amsterdamize/Flickr

Transportation planners in the Netherlands have been refining separated bikeway designs since they ramped up their implementation about 40 years ago. Today, bike trips account for 37 percent of all trips in Amsterdam (58 percent in the city center), and just about everyone who’s able to ride does so regularly.

Bicycling in San Francisco could some day feel as safe and normal as it does in the Netherlands if the city continues providing more protected bike lanes and traffic-calmed streets in the coming years. The SFMTA consulted Dutch bicycle planners last September to get ideas for improving three of San Francisco’s most important bicycling corridors (the JFK project wasn’t included). The agency is currently developing plans to administer some of those recommendations, the first of which will be on the Wiggle.

“San Francisco, more than most American cities, has the potential to model the successes of places such as the Netherlands and Denmark, where they have invested in great bicycling infrastructure for people ages 8 to 80, and where it’s paying off with healthier, happier people traveling more easily and safely,” said San Francisco Bicycle Coalition Executive Director Leah Shahum, who spent an eight-month sabbatical living in Amsterdam. “With our temperate climate, compact city layout, and strong biking culture, San Francisco is poised to move in this direction. The new, physically separated bikeways on JFK Drive are an example of how San Francisco is committing itself to being a great bicycling city for people of all ages and backgrounds, not just the hearty few.”

“This really is about ensuring greater access on our streets for San Francisco’s diverse population, who is biking more and more,” she added.

The JFK bikeway, which Shahum noted could be looked to as a model for planners in other cities in the Bikes Belong Foundation’s Green Lane Project, seems to be quickly growing on San Franciscans and park visitors and has had a profound traffic-calming effect. More and more people — young and old, experienced riders and casual riders — can be seen using the lanes every day. As was the case in other American cities that have implemented protected bike lanes, drivers also appear to have grown accustomed to floating parking lanes, and the bike lanes are rarely, if ever, blocked by cars anymore.

Bolhuis did note that some visitors on JFK on a busy Saturday morning, like tour bus drivers and passengers, may still “have to be educated a bit” to keep them from parking in the buffer area and help them to be aware when crossing the bike lane. Still, he said, riding the lanes “feels really good.”

Photo: Aaron Bialick

The caravan makes a stop in the car-free zone of JFK. Photo: Aaron Bialick

Bike parking and celebration at the windmill. Photo: Aaron Bialick

Photo: Aaron Bialick

With the swaths of bikes parked at the windmill, you'd think you actually were in the Netherlands. Photo: Aaron Bialick

Photo: Mark Dreger/Flickr

The SFMTA striped new bike lanes on Folsom Street between 13th and 19th Streets last week, creating a safer and more direct connection for bike commuters between SoMa and the Mission.

The bike lanes, which came along with a road diet and street re-paving, were called for in the Mission Streetscape Plan. They provide a continuous connection for SoMa-bound bicycle riders, who previously had to make a one-block jaunt east to Harrison Street and back via 11th to stay in a bike lane. The new design, which reallocated space from two traffic lanes to bike lanes and a center turning lane (where a planted median is planned), should also calm motor traffic on the street.

“We’re already hearing from members that these new lanes are making their daily commutes easier and safer,” said Leah Shahum, executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. ”Folsom Street is a core biking corridor that links Mission District residential and commercial districts to SOMA and downtown.”

Folsom only allows eastbound traffic east of 11th Street, but Shahum noted that the SFMTA has discussed plans to two-way it and add protected bike lanes. “We urge the city now to continue with these much-needed improvements,” she said.

See more photos on the San Franciscoize Flickr account.

Just a hunch: Might the kids riding in front of Stanley's camera like the new bike lane? Image: KRON 4

Much has been made about the “strangeness” of San Francisco’s first parking-protected bike lane in Golden Gate Park, which employs the type of design that other American cities are increasingly using to improve safety and raise bicycling rates.

As someone who lives next to Golden Gate Park, I’ve been going out of my way to ride on John F. Kennedy Drive almost every day since the easternmost section was installed a few weeks ago. The sense of safety and dignity that the protected bikeway affords is highly enjoyable. And day by day, as more drivers grow acclimated to the new arrangement and fewer block the bike lane, I’ve watched a growing number of children and casual bicyclists enjoy riding on a calmer, quieter street in a space that truly belongs to them.

Callie, 7, gives the new bikeway a thumbs-up. Photo: Aaron Bialick

There are ample signs that drivers are getting used to it. In fact, after crews striped the second of three sections yesterday between the de Young Museum and Stow Lake Drive, I found all the cars parked where they’re supposed to be.

Still, floating parking lanes are new to San Francisco, and some members of our local media just can’t resist sensationalizing this transitional phase, focusing on the initial complaints of a few people who aren’t used to it yet. When KRON’s Stanley Roberts went out to JFK Drive last week, he seemingly ignored the swaths of riders, young and old, who use the reconfigured lane. “It was hard for us to find someone who likes it,” he told viewers.

Well, it wasn’t hard for me as I made my way along JFK Drive yesterday. Pretty quickly, I found Colleen and her 7-year-old daughter Callie, who live in the Inner Richmond and regularly bike in the park twice a day. They said the new separation from cars makes them feel safer.

“I think that once the car drivers get used to it, it’ll be easier,” Colleen said. “Right now, they’re confused, and once they understand they’re not supposed to park in the bike lane, it’ll be good.”

Jesse, who parks on JFK Drive to coach his son's baseball team, thinks the new configuration is better. Photo: Aaron Bialick

I also spoke to Jesse, a father who regularly parks his car on JFK when he coaches his son’s little league baseball team. Standing in the new buffer zone, which keeps bicyclists and motor vehicle passengers out of each other’s way as people get in and out of their cars, he told me he likes it. The only concern he noted was the need to remind kids to watch for bike traffic as they cross the lane.

“From the driving experience, it’s better,” he said. “If you’re on the road, the bikes are safer, and there’s separation between the motorists and the bicyclists.”

As in cities like New York, Portland, Chicago, and Long Beach, where these kinds of bikeways have been successfully implemented, there’s an adjustment period, but people seem to be getting used to it fairly quickly.

The real story that Roberts missed is that JFK Drive represents the future: a street design that helps a broader segment of San Francisco feel comfortable biking around the city.

Photo: Aaron Bialick

The newly-striped stretch next to Stow Lake Drive. Photo: Aaron Bialick

New stretch next to the Rose Garden by the de Young Museum. Photo: Aaron Bialick

This group even found plenty of room to do squats while they were unloading. Photo: Aaron Bialick

Students check in for Bike to School Day at Buena Vista Horace Mann School this morning. Photo: Kate McCarthy, SFBC/Flickr

San Francisco Bicycle Coalition (SFBC) Executive Director Leah Shahum said an enthusiastic group of more than 50 kids rolled in on two “bike trains” at this morning’s ride to Sunnyside Elementary School, despite pouring rain.

The citywide attendance numbers aren’t in yet, but organizers anticipated about 2,000 participants this year – a sharp rise since the city’s first event in 2009, which saw about 600. Participation has steadily grown since. Last year, 1,600 students turned out for Bike to School Day, including 120 at Grattan Elementary in Cole Valley — one-third of the school’s students, Shahum pointed out.

Biking to school throughout the rest of the year is also becoming more popular among students and parents with the help of San Francisco’s Safe Routes to School (SRTS) program, which began promoting walking and biking at 15 schools in October 2009.

In May, Sunnyside Elementary will finish up its popular Walk and Roll Wednesdays, which offers kids prizes for walking, biking, or taking transit to school. Near Glen Park, Fairmount Elementary also holds multiple bike trains every Tuesday. SRTS staff also teach biking skills at the participating schools and provide family education along with the SFBC, which just released a revamped version of its Family Biking Guide.

Bike to School Day also seems to be attracting more city officials each year. SF School Board President Norman Yee rode in to the Sunnyside this morning, and five city supervisors biked to schools in their respective districts: Carmen Chu, Eric Mar, John Avalos, Christina Olague, and Jane Kim.

Parents say the event increasingly serves as an “entry into riding” for many students, said Shahum, who noted that 42 percent of elementary school students live within one mile of their school, according to data from the SF Unified School District (SFUSD). The district is also making it a higher priority to place students at schools within their neighborhoods, and the SFMTA is currently implementing 15 MPH zones at over 200 schools around the city.

“What we’re seeing more and more, especially among [SRTS schools] is more parents, teachers, and school leaders engage well beyond Bike to School Day,” she said.

Nik Kaestner, director of sustainability for SFUSD, said the bike racks “were overflowing” at Sunnyside this morning. To meet bike parking demand, SFUSD is close to installing up to four bike racks (which hold eight bikes each) at all 104 of the schools in the district, he said.

“We’ve put in the infrastructure that makes it easier for parents to leave the bike there during the day instead of having to schlep it back,” said Kaestner. SFUSD will also evaluate the usage of the racks at each school to determine which schools need more capacity. High schools, he noted, are particularly likely candidates.

“It definitely seems like biking is something that is in and hip right now in San Francisco, and our parents want their kids to be part of that culture,” he said. “We’re seeing that when we go to the schools that participate.”

A "bike train" on its way to Sunset Elementary. Photo: Marc Caswell, SFBC

Photo: Marc Caswell, SFBC

A bike train prepares for departure to Peabody Elementary in the Richmond. Photo: Andy Thornley, SFBC/Flickr

The Peabody bike train travels along San Francisco's first bike lane on Lake Street. Photo: Andy Thornley, SFBC/Flickr

Bike parking at Sunset Elementary. Photo: Marc Caswell, SFBC/Flickr

Bayshore and Alemany Boulevards, next to a Highway 101 onramp. High-speed motor vehicles on streets like these still pose the greatest threat to pedestrians by far. Photo: Aaron Bialick

In the midst of a wave of media attention around the recent bicycle-pedestrian death in the Castro, walking and bicycling advocates today re-affirmed the greatest dangers facing pedestrians on San Francisco’s streets: high-speed roads and dangerous driving behavior.

In a KQED radio forum this morning, Walk SF Executive Director Elizabeth Stampe, SF Bicycle Coalition (SFBC) Executive Director Leah Shahum, SF Bicycle Advisory Committee Chair Bert Hill, and Captain Al Casciato of the SFPD Traffic Company all seemed to agree that the recent death of Sutchi Hui was as tragic as any, and that safer streets will require better street engineering as well as more effective enforcement and education efforts to elicit more courteous behavior among people using all modes of transport.

Still, there’s no question, they said: The vast majority of the more than 800 pedestrian injuries or deaths on San Francisco’s streets every year involve motorists and occur disproportionately on high-speed “arterial” streets.

“In a way, this is kind of a man-bites-dog story,” Stampe said of the bike-ped crash — an event receiving an unusual amount of attention precisely because it happens so infrequently, while too-common car-pedestrian crashes go vastly under-reported. ”This is a real tragedy,” Stampe continued. “I don’t think anybody disagrees, a lot of people are upset, and it’s not okay for people to be hit in a crosswalk and killed in San Francisco. But the fact remains that three people a day are hit by cars… and that’s an underestimate.”

In fact, four other pedestrians have been killed this year alone, according to the SFPD, two of them in the same week as the bike-pedestrian fatality. The death of one still-unidentified victim killed by a Muni bus driver also made national headlines, but the other three victims killed by auto drivers, including 45-year-old Tom Ferguson (killed on the same day as the bus victim), received little more than a few blurbs in the media.

As the SF Bay Guardian pointed out, from 2000 to 2009, 220 pedestrians were killed in San Francisco, mostly by car drivers who rarely face criminal charges. None of those deaths are known to have involved bicycles. Media attention, however, seems to have focused on the two fatal bicycle crashes that occurred within the last year, and their reports rarely provide the statistics about traffic deaths in San Francisco. (Some of the more dramatic cases, like the Concord driver who ran over a family biking on the sidewalk this weekend, killing two, tend to garner more media attention.)

The behavior of Chris Bucchere, the bicycle rider who killed 71-year-old Sutchi Hui at Castro and Market Streets, has been roundly condemned, even by bicycling advocates, particularly in light of an online post in which Bucchere described “plowing through the crosswalk” and seemed more concerned about his broken helmet than about Hui.

“Of course, if there were problems and someone behaved recklessly, they should be held accountable. I would be the first to say that,” said Shahum of the SFBC. “Fortunately, though… these are very rare occurrences.”

The SFBC, Shahum pointed out, has long provided bicycling education classes and outreach efforts which instruct bicyclists to always yield to pedestrians. In fact, the organization released its new “Bicycle Rules of the Road” tip sheet for its Bicycle Education and Safety Week during the same week Hui was injured. Last Friday, in light of Hui’s death, the SFBC set up an outreach booth to hand out safety literature on Market Street and released a statement saying staff is “deeply saddened” by the news and “troubled” by Bucchere’s account of the crash.

While a few callers on this morning’s forum complained of bicyclists “flying all over” with impunity, Captain Casciato assured the audience that officers issue “quite a bit of citations” to bicyclists. He also pointed out the value of offering alternatives to traffic fines. In “the next couple weeks,” he said, the department will roll out a bicycle and pedestrian traffic school program, similar to the options available to drivers. The department will also make it easier for bicyclists who have received traffic citations to file formal complaints about street engineering that is difficult for bicyclists to navigate legally, he said.

Far more effective in reducing pedestrian injuries will be the SFPD’s new targeted enforcement plan, which focuses on the most dangerous violations in the areas with the highest rates of pedestrian crashes. As Stampe pointed out, over half of the city’s pedestrian injuries occur on just five percent of its streets — namely, high-speed roads in areas like the Tenderloin and South of Market.

“It’s pretty intuitive. It’s the wide, fast streets that act like freeways, where folks feel like they can drive really fast and don’t have to watch out for each other,” said Stampe. “What that tells us is if we can target our enforcement and our fixing the streets in those areas, we can make a big difference pretty fast and keep a lot more people safe.”

SF Bike Coalition staffers enjoy the partially-completed JFK bikeway. Photo: SFBC/Flickr

Bike network expansions are going in at a rapid clip so far this spring. In Golden Gate Park, parking-protected bike lanes on John F. Kennedy Drive are mostly finished on the stretch in front of the Conservatory of Flowers, and drivers already seem to be picking up on the new parking arrangement.

Progress on new bike lanes connecting eastern neighborhoods continues on Bayshore Boulevard, Eastern Cesar Chavez Street, and Cargo Way. Folsom Street in the Mission has also been re-paved, and the SFMTA said bike lanes should be striped there soon.

New buffered bike lanes are almost finished on Bayshore. Photos: Aaron Bialick

On Bayshore Boulevard, the SFMTA is striping buffered bike lanes similar to the recent Caltrans project on Sloat Boulevard, reclaiming a roughly 9-foot travel lane for bicycle traffic. In the coming weeks, the street markings should create a safer bicycling connection and calm traffic between Cesar Chavez at the 101 Highway south to Silver Avenue.

Buffered bike lanes on Eastern Cesar Chavez also passed a milestone this week after the SFMTA Board of Directors finally approved the safer bike lane plan for the Evans Street intersection. According to the SFMTA’s Livable Streets Facebook page, a water main break caused a delay in the construction, but it should be completed this month.

Eastern Cesar Chavez yesterday.

Cesar Chavez at Evans, where the newly approved plan will relieve bike commuters of having to merge with trucks.

On Cargo Way, a two-way bikeway project led by the Port of San Francisco is on its way to completion in May and will connect Hunter’s Point to bike lanes on Illinois Street. A fence separating the bikeway from motor traffic is starting to take shape.

A two-way bikeway under construction on Cargo Way.

Finally, here’s one more shot from JFK Drive. We’ll be keeping you posted on the city’s first parking-protected bikeway as it takes shape.

A bicyclist enters a "mixing zone." Photo: Aaron Bialick

Fell Street looking west from Divisadero. Images: SFMTA

The SFMTA revealed the design [PDF] for protected bike lanes on three blocks of Fell and Oak Streets at an open house on Saturday. The plan would create a safer connection from the Panhandle to the Wiggle by installing a one-way buffered bike lane on each street, partially separated from motor traffic by planters. The proposal would also paint green markings where bike traffic merges with turning motor traffic, re-calibrate the traffic signals for 20 MPH movement, construct pedestrian bulb-outs and zebra-striped crosswalks, and add angled car parking spaces (mostly on Baker Street) to replace over half of those removed to make way for the bikeways.

Leah Shahum, executive director of the SF Bicycle Coalition, said the organization is “encouraged to see the city officially proposing wider, physically separated bikeways on Fell and Oak Streets” and “grateful to see that the design includes many new corner, sidewalk bulbouts that will make it easier and safer for people to walk across these intimidating streets.”

“We believe the designs shared at the community workshop should move forward and be implemented to make it safer for the thousands of people who bike this corridor every day,” she said.

Although in January the SFMTA set the implementation timeline for next winter, staff said it has again been pushed back until spring, almost a year later than the city originally predicted. The SFMTA asserts that the project is on schedule according to the new timeline.

The plan uses green pavement treatments to emphasize a number of bike markings, including bike boxes, ”super” sharrows where bikes and cars mix, and bike lane “entrances” at the beginning of each block. The approach at the intersection of Fell and Divisadero Streets, where green markings have already been added to reduce conflicts with drivers queuing up for the Arco gas station, would remain mostly as it is, though a bike box would be added.

The hot spot in front of the Fell and Divisadero Arco gas station would look mostly like it does today.

At Oak and Broderick Streets, drivers would be prohibited from turning right across the bike lane onto southbound Broderick using a physical barrier. That would also prevent through-traffic on Broderick from crossing Oak in the southbound direction.

Oak and Broderick Streets, where a physical barrier would prevent cars from crossing the bike lane in the southbound direction.

Turnout at Saturday’s open house wasn’t as robust as at December’s meeting, but comments from attendees seemed overwhelmingly supportive of the project. Still, a few critics seemed to keep staff and other supporters busy fielding complaints about the perceived trade-off of losing car parking – the main reason the agency ditched the original idea of implementing the bikeways as a trial this June.

Under the proposed plan, 57 of the 103 parking spaces displaced by the bike lanes would be replaced, mostly by converting existing parallel parking spots to back-in angled parking and perpendicular parking, mostly along the west side of Baker Street between Fell and Haight Streets. The real estate for those spots would come from excess road space on Baker. In a post on the Panhandle Park Stewards blog yesterday, Dale Danley argued that the added parking “would make the entrance to the Panhandle less attractive, from the vantage point of anyone traveling along Baker St or approaching from the east.”

Fourteen more parking spaces would be created on Hayes Street by removing bus stops at Broderick Street and Central Avenue, which could also speed up travel times on the 21-Hayes line.

SFMTA staff also provided a form for residents to petition for the creation of a residential parking permit (RPP) zone on their block, which would give residential car owners priority for curbside parking by imposing restrictions on non-permit holders. A block can only be added to an RPP zone with signatures from 51 percent of the residents. Roughly 120 paid parking spots were also opened for overnight parking at the Department of Motor Vehicles last year.

To implement the project, staff said the SF Planning Department must complete environmental review, which would then need approval from the Planning Commission. He also said an SFMTA public hearing on the project will likely be held in May, although no decision would be made then. The project would then need to be finally approved by the SFMTA Board of Directors.

“Given how many people are biking and walking on these stretches of street — despite how intimidating they are without proper facilities for biking and walking,” said Shahum, “we hope the city will conduct the environmental review with all due haste and get these important safety improvements on the ground by this fall.”

Stay tuned for more details on the implementation process.

An overview of the project. See more in the PDF document.

A map of where car parking would be added and removed.

"Mixing zones" would merge the bike lane with vehicular turn lanes at some intersections.

As illustrated here, the project area is currently a hole of unrestricted parking surrounded by several RPP zones.

A handy set of topography graphs illustrating why neighboring streets like Page and Hayes don't serve bicycle traffic very well compared to Fell and Oak. See more info in the PDF document.

A rendering of what a protected bikeway on Fell could look like. Image: RG Architecture for SFBC

The SFMTA will reveal the proposed design for protected bike lanes on Fell and Oak Streets tomorrow, and supporters need to make their voices heard to ensure the agency doesn’t water the project down or it delay it any further.

The project was significantly delayed after the SFMTA set out to replace some of the free curbside car parking that would make way for the bike lanes. Construction is now slated for the winter, but a small group of vocal opponents are still pushing against major safety improvements for this crucial bicycle connector.

SFMTA staff will present a design for the project tomorrow, but could still make minor changes based on the input they receive at the charette. (See here for designs presented at the last workshop.)

The open house will be held tomorrow from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the San Francisco Day School, located at 350 Masonic Avenue (at Golden Gate).

The bike lane and the parking lane will soon swap sides around this ladder-shaped striping, which outlines the future buffer zone of the JFK Drive bikeway. Photos: Aaron Bialick

Crews have placed preliminary road markings for the coming re-design of JFK Drive in front of the Conservatory of Flowers.

Next month, JFK will become the first street in San Francisco where cyclists are protected from moving traffic by parked cars. The markings, for the time being, give bicyclists a teaser of how the protected bikeway will look, with the traffic pattern remaining the same for now.

Over the past few weeks, crews have been adjusting storm drains, adding curb ramps, and removing road stripes on JFK in preparation for the re-design. The project should be completed just before the city’s first on-street, two-way protected bikeway debuts in the southeastern neighborhoods.

See more photos after the break.

A view of how the parking-protected bike lane will be arranged. Image: SFMTA

When the re-design goes into effect, these cars will park to the left of the cross-hatched area, where the woman is riding, and bicyclists will ride to the right of it along the curb.

Preliminary markings delineate the "mixing zones" at intersections, where right-turning drivers will enter the bike lane and yield to bicyclists on approach.

A view from the future bike lane approaching the mixing zone.

Preliminary markings are already making room for bike commuters on Cesar Chavez just east of the Evans Street intersection. Photo: SFBC/Flickr

Two bike corridors connecting the city’s southeastern neighborhoods should be safer after crews finish constructing buffered bike lanes on eastern Cesar Chavez Street and a two-way protected bikeway on Cargo Way.

Bike commuters are already enjoying more room on a section of eastern Cesar Chavez, where car parking has been cleared and preliminary striping put on the ground, as shown in photos posted by the SF Bike Coalition yesterday. The SFMTA writes on its Livable Streets Facebook page that the construction is only in its first phase. The plan for the Evans Street intersection, which recently cleared a public hearing, must still be approved by the SFMTA Board of Directors on April 3 before it is implemented.

The project will also include green pavement treatments and soft-hit posts separating the bike lanes and will be completed some time in the summer, according to the SFMTA’s latest report [PDF] to the SF Bicycle Advisory Committee.

Photo: Mark Dreger, San Franciscoize

Just to the southeast, crews are building a two-way protected bikeway linking Third Steet to Hunter’s Point and Heron’s Head Park. The project, led by the Port of San Francisco, will include a chain-link fence separating the bikeway from motor traffic as well as green pavement treatments and bicycle traffic signals. The SFMTA report says the bikeway will be completed in May.

Read more about Cargo Way at San Franciscoize, and check out more photos of both projects after the break.

Cesar Chavez. Photo: SFBC/Flickr

Cesar Chavez. Photo: SFBC/Flickr

On Cargo Way, "This isn't your typical patch pave job – crews actually grinded away poor pavement and repaved with real asphalt," writes Mark Dreger of San Franciscoize.

On their ride home from a Valentine’s Day dinner, Ian Long and Johanna Weaver were harassed by an angry driver and allegedly threatened by a police officer who didn’t want to hear their story.

Long and Weaver were riding in the right-hand lane of Oak Street along the popular Wiggle bike route around 8 p.m. on February 14, when they say a Toyota Prius driver approached from behind and began honking before swerving in front of Weaver first and then Long. After the driver and the couple all turned right onto Scott Street (following the topography of the Wiggle), the two say the driver slammed on his brakes and forced Long to crash into the back of the car, causing injuries to his hands. The driver stayed at the scene, though Long said he was initially unresponsive to his questions.

The two officers who responded weren’t much more helpful, according to Long, Weaver, and at least two other witnesses. According to a video interview with the couple and Long’s roommate, who drove to the scene, San Francisco Northern District Police Officers Joshua Olson and Melvin Maunu interviewed the driver, but seemed reluctant to take testimony from the victims and other witnesses.

Long said that as he attempted to explain his side of the story, Olson interrupted him and threatened to throw him in jail “for vandalizing the vehicle,” even as Long’s finger bled “quite profusely.”

In fact, Long said he feared the officer would have arrested him had he not accepted medical attention from paramedics.

SFPD Northern Station Captain Ann Mannix says that although she hasn’t spoken with the officers about the incident, the story in the police report is very different. ”This is a case of one side having a completely different view from the other side,” she said.

Mannix doesn’t contest that the driver “behaved badly” on Oak Street, but she said the police report claims that Long appeared to follow the driver onto Scott and continue the confrontation. She said the driver claimed that Long “intentionally hit the car,” adding that “following too closely” is a traffic violation. Both the driver and Weaver, who said she saw the crash from behind, called the police.

But because the officers arrived late, Mannix said “tensions were pretty heated” when they got there. The crash happened in SFPD’s Park District, but officers from that station were tied up for unknown reasons, so Olson and Maunu were dispatched from the neighboring Northern District.

Alex Page was riding on Scott Street when he saw the crash, and he confirmed Long and Weaver’s description of events. “Investigation,” Page said, is ”too generous a word” to describe Olson’s efforts to interview witnesses. Page said the officer told him, “‘I don’t care what you have to say.’”

“He came in with serious bias, and even commanded his partner to cease taking the statement of the victim (the bicyclist) and considered the driver the victim of vandalism after about 10 seconds on the scene and speaking to zero witnesses, only the driver,” Page told Streetsblog.

However, the report, which cites a witness identified as a bicyclist, says eight or nine bicyclists surrounding the car were “yelling and banging on” it. Long and Weaver said they were only there to prevent the driver from fleeing the scene.

Eastbound bicycle commuters are squeezed on Oak Street between the Panhandle and Scott Street along the Wiggle. Photo: Aaron Bialick

Weaver said Officer Maunu seemed more willing than Olson to listen to her statement. But in the middle of doing so, Maunu apparently told Weaver the officers needed to move their police cruiser out of the way of moving traffic before completing the statement and providing her a case identification number. The officers sat in the vehicle for about a minute before driving away.

“I was kind of in disbelief,” said Weaver.

Looking at the police reports, Mannix said the officers “felt they had enough information to complete a report, and that’s why they left, I would assume. I don’t know if they were called away to something else.”

Long said Olson “should have been impartial and tried to get the facts about the case and he definitely did not, and behaved in a manner not befitting a public servant at all.” A police lieutenant apparently told him there wouldn’t be an investigation because “there’s too much information on both sides for them to do anything,” and that it would be only be considered a “traffic incident.”

The reports of the officers’ behavior in the incident are in line with the general perception that bias against cyclists is entrenched among some SFPD officers. Reports of officers unfairly blaming, targeting, and even yelling at people on bikes aren’t uncommon.

“Too often we hear of incidents on the road in which people bicycling are harassed or even hit by motorists and then, making matters worse, the incidents are not treated seriously by the police,” said Leah Shahum, executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. “We hope to have commitment from the SF Police Department that their officers will not discount incidents in which people bicycling are physically harassed by motorists, as this is a serious problem that should be enforced fully.”

“The police department that’s put in place to make sure that the law is served, and that justice is done — that is partially their responsibility — have basically failed in assessing the situation correctly in a way that would provide some sort of legal recourse,” said Long. He plans to file a complaint once he receives the police report.

Mannix said the reason the officers may have seemed reluctant to take witness statements was that “police don’t handle people very excitedly trying to tell them their stories very well.”

“When you get there, you try to determine what happened,” said Mannix. “It’s kind of difficult when people are yelling at you. Rightfully so, these people were mad — they’d been fighting with each other, the cops took a long time to get there, I don’t blame them for being mad.”

“So we go in and we try to find out what happened — is it a traffic accident? Is it a vandalism?” said Mannix. “Both sides said absolutely the opposite happened.”

Long and Weaver said they don’t know much about the driver, and that he didn’t provide his insurance information, though they do know his license plate number. Long’s roommate, Ryan Gantz, said he heard the driver mention that he would “drop any charges.”

Long said he won’t take legal action against the driver because he can’t afford to hire an attorney. But the incident reminded him of the Los Angeles driver who slammed on his brakes in front of two men on bicycles, seriously injuring both. That driver was sentenced to five years in jail for aggravated assault.

As indicated by many road signs posted in San Francisco, under California vehicle code 21202 bicycle riders are allowed the full use of any lane that can’t be safely shared side-by-side with another vehicle, especially to avoid hazards like opening car doors. Drivers are expected to pass in another lane as they would any other vehicle. But many SFPD officers share Mannix’s interpretation of the law, which says that bicyclists like Long and Weaver should ride “to the extreme right, or the extreme left.”

Los Angeles and Berkeley have adopted anti-harassment laws to allow bicyclists greater legal recourse against harassment and to promote awareness of bicyclists’ right to use the road. The SFBC is considering whether to push for a similar law in San Francisco.

The whole conflict on Oak could have been avoided, Long believes, if the street had a protected bike lane like the one planned for that section of Oak and its one-way counterpart, Fell. Come next winter, the project is expected to fill in a crucial three-block link on the Wiggle route, which is otherwise comparatively calm and serves as the flattest, most direct connection for bike commuters in the area between the city’s east and west neighborhoods.

“If you look at this from the motorist’s view, he was upset because we were taking up space that he thought was rightfully his,” said Long. “The fact that he had little regard for my life or Johanna’s life, and also for the law, would not actually have really mattered [with a protected bike lane] in this situation because we wouldn’t have been vying for the same space on the street.”

Still, he said “it’s frustrating to see that there is someone out there who has such disregard for other people who, definitely on a bike, [are] not nearly as protected as him in his car.”

Thanks to Janel Sterbentz, who is filming a documentary making the case for the Fell and Oak bikeways, for the video.

Employee bike parking at San Francisco City Hall. Photo: Aaron Bialick

“Today’s vote is another way that San Francisco is proving itself to be a great place to do business and to bicycle,” said Leah Shahum, executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. ”The city took a significant step forward today in recognizing that more people bicycling benefits our city’s economy.”

“An impressive number of businesses ranging from law firms to tech companies to real estate firms are already making it easier for more of their employees to bike to work, and this legislation will help even more companies become more bike-friendly,” she added.

Supervisor John Avalos, who introduced the legislation, noted the broad support it enjoys, particularly from the Building Owners and Management Association (BOMA), which was involved early on in its development. All supervisors except for Carmen Chu and Sean Elsbernd voted in favor of the proposal.

“With many companies expressing the desire for bicycle parking and storage, BOMA recognizes the need to provide safe, secure parking for bicycling employees,” said BOMA President Meade Boutwell in a statement. ”Members of [BOMA] are concerned about the environment and promote the use of sustainable transportation options, including bicycles.”

BOMA’s support, noted Avalos, “says a lot about where we’ve come from in terms of how much cycling is accepted as a means of commuting in San Francisco.”

At a recent hearing on the proposal, SFBC Program Manager Marc Caswell pointed out that it will benefit far more than the “hundreds of thousands” of San Franciscans who already bike to work. It will also provide incentive for “the thousands of other people who are interested in biking to work, but are discouraged because they do not have a secure place to park their bike right now,” he said.

New York City's Prospect Park West parking-protected bike path. Photo copyright Dmitry Gudkov

New York City has raised the bar in recent years for rolling out bicycle improvements and reclaiming public space from automobiles. While San Franciscans have come to expect major delays for bike projects as the norm in their city, New York, the only American city more dense than SF, has zoomed ahead by adding roughly 20 miles of protected bike lanes since 2007, with more on the way. After each new NYC bikeway is built, injuries to all users decline and bicycling increases along the corridor.

How can San Francisco emulate New York’s success? In short: San Francisco’s public officials need to exert bold leadership to hasten a painstakingly slow planning process intended not so much to achieve specific goals, but to avoid rocking the boat. That was the general sentiment at a recent forum where local bike advocates popped questions at Paul Steely White, the executive director of Transportation Alternatives, New York’s leading advocacy organization for bicycling, walking, and transit.

“New York’s success, tenaciousness, vision, and drive have been guiding the way for other American cities,” San Francisco Bicycle Coalition (SFBC) Executive Director Leah Shahum told an audience at the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association last Thursday, where she and White discussed the state of the bicycling movement in the two cities.

“We all know that we talk about Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Berlin, and Barcelona as being these wonderful bicycling cities, and many getting better and better, but [with] that European model, you really lose people,” said Shahum. ”To have a great American city guiding the way in being a great bicycling space, and really reclaiming space from the automobile and creating public space for people, frankly, is making our job a lot easier in San Francisco.”

NYC DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan has earned a reputation for pursuing groundbreaking projects like the two-way bikeway on Prospect Park West, which produced major benefits and, despite high-profile resistance from a small group of politically-connected NIMBYs, has been largely embraced by the public.

“We’ve been very lucky to have such great leadership that has managed, nevertheless, to involve communities and be very democratic while at the same time acting swiftly and decisively to implement safer streets,” said White. “I think one way to cut through the red tape, and maybe some of the needless process, is to appeal to safety, and say that every day that a street goes without pedestrian or bike infrastructure is putting people in danger.”

“There’s enough data now to show that it’s simply inhumane not to add bike lanes and pedestrian infrastructure when there’s an opportunity,” he added.

One of the main barriers preventing San Francisco from experiencing the same “impressive explosion” of visible change, said Shahum, is that SF transportation officials and politicians like Mayor Ed Lee haven’t been as willing to commit to completing bike projects, and that New York planners don’t have “to go through as much process as we do in San Francisco.”

Mayor Ed Lee shows up to the press events, but how long will he let San Francisco fall behind on improving safety on its streets? Photo: Bryan Goebel

San Francisco’s “consensus-democracy style” is “fantastic,” Shahum said, eliciting some appreciative chuckles in the audience. “But it slows things down quite a bit.”

In the SFMTA’s most recent bikeway project delay on three critical blocks of Fell and Oak Streets, the agency abandoned their initial approach — building it as a trial project that staff said could be implemented within a year (by this June). Instead, they tried to appease car owners upset over the loss of 80 curbside car parking spots, adding nearly a year to the project timeline (construction has since been moved up to next winter). In NYC, protected bike lanes on some corridors have re-purposed hundreds of on-street parking spaces without replacing a single one. While NYC DOT has looked to offset the parking loss for some bike projects, the agency has never delayed a safety project solely to blunt complaints from car owners.

New York’s leaders have shown that progress ultimately depends on the willingness of transportation officials and politicians to stand behind the proven safety and mobility benefits of improvements like protected bike lanes. ”The leadership they have at the Department of Transportation and the higher level of political leadership has meant they have been able to move faster,” said Shahum.

While San Francisco’s leaders haven’t stepped up for safer streets in the same way New York’s have, it’s not for any lack of popularity with the public. The SFBC has recently touted its findings that 7 in 10 San Franciscans rode a bike in 2009, and the SFMTA announced last month that bicycling rates have jumped 71 percent in the last five years. Comparing membership rates alone, White pointed out that San Francisco’s bicycling movement is actually larger than New York’s — in fact, the SFBC has more members than Transportation Alternatives, despite New York being 10 times bigger.

San Francisco also has the advantage of a driving culture that’s more respectful towards bicyclists than New York’s, said White.

“I’m jealous of the humanity that I see here in your ‘little seaside village,’” remarked White, adopting a characterization proffered by Jeffrey Tumlin, the forum’s moderator. “It looks like sort of Portland and New York together here, in a way.”

Demonstrating existing community support and the documented benefits of street improvements, White said, has been a successful strategy for Transportation Alternatives in dispelling myths about street redesigns. To counter opposition spouting doomsday predictions of traffic congestion, failing businesses, and increased danger, TA has promoted findings that bikeway projects in New York have consistently made streets safer for all users, with decreases in traffic injuries as high as 56 percent.

“Our job at TA has increasingly been to show that that support exists, going out there, collecting letters, collecting signatures, convincing the politicians to stand up and be vocal, getting positive media for them,” said White. “Because of initiatives like this, we are seeing a new generation of these protected lanes and other facilities expanded into new neighborhoods.”

The SFBC has employed a similar tactic, promoting findings like the demonstrated boon for bicycling and transit speeds on Market Street since the SFMTA began diverting car traffic off the street and painted the city’s first physically-separated bike lane.

San Francisco planners often point to bureaucratic obstacles and a lack of street space as barriers to street improvements, but White said such excuses were ultimately shown to be invalid in New York. A major lesson advocates there have learned, he said, is “not taking ‘No’ for an answer.”

“One thing that Jan Gehl said when he came to New York, because we were throwing up all the reasons why we had heard we couldn’t do what they did in Copenhagen, or Paris or wherever — he says, ‘What the hell are you talking about? You have these enormous, wide streets,’” said White.

In San Francisco, he pointed out, the streets are even wider.

“I come here, and see all this real estate,” he said.

Image via SFBC

The SFBC writes in its newsletter this week that it ”is building off the SFMTA’s ThinkBike event in 2011, and developing concepts for an improved Polk Street.” The organization’s new survey asks members to weigh in on ideas like the vision for a protected bikeway in its Connecting the City campaign.

Polk, a key commercial corridor and connection to the waterfront, has received more attention lately as the city eyes improving bike access to the America’s Cup yacht races, which will be held over the next two summers. One much-needed improvement is a northbound contra-flow bike lane connecting to Market Street. Currently, the southernmost block between Market and Grove Street only permits one-way traffic.

“Polk Street connects thousands of San Franciscans to work, school, the waterfront and thriving commercial corridors from Market Street to the Bay,” writes the SFBC, noting that “a separated bikeway, calmed traffic and improved intersections” on the street would make it safer “for the large numbers of people walking and biking to the local businesses, shops and restaurants.”