A cop ticketing a bicyclist on Market Street earlier this year. Photo: SF Citizen

Despite the department’s insistence that officers are not targeting bicyclists on Market Street, new numbers from the San Francisco Police Department confirm that cops are going after people on bikes following two high-profile crashes.

Last Friday, as part of SFPD’s traffic safety campaign [pdf], officers beefed up enforcement at 5th and Market and issued a total of 83 citations, mostly to bicyclists, but not a single driver was cited.

Here’s the breakdown, according to numbers provided to Streetsblog by SFPD:  30 bicyclists were cited for running red lights, 21 bicyclists were ticketed for riding on the sidewalk, 16 were cited for “bikes without brakes,” 3 “skateboarders on the sidewalk” were given tickets, and 1 pedestrian was cited for “jaywalking.” The SFPD said “12 misc. citations” were handed out, but withheld specifics.

Why weren’t drivers given any tickets?

“Because the drivers actually followed the rules of the road during the period that the officers were out there that day,” said SFPD spokesperson Albie Esparza.

In an interview with Streetsblog yesterday, Police Chief Greg Suhr insisted that officers aren’t specifically targeting bicyclists. He confirmed that the department has stepped up enforcement in general on Market Street.

“It’s just vehicle code violations, generally. It’s actually the pedestrians too. You know, if everybody’s a little bit mad at me, but it’s safer, then that’s okay. It’s basically who raises their hand that’s going to get called on.”

He added he thought the enforcement was “going well,” and further explained: “We’re trying to get Muni to run on time, and we have had a series of accidents. I’m not casting any blame, but just more enforcement.”

The numbers were troubling to biking and walking advocates because the enforcement did not yield any tickets for drivers.

“This is a failure to focus on the real threat. We need to see police out there ticketing the people who pose the greatest risk to others. That means drivers who fail to yield, speed, fail to stop, or are on their phones — those behaviors cause the serious injuries and deaths we see in SoMa and that’s what the police need to tackle,” said Elizabeth Stampe, the executive director of Walk San Francisco.

San Francisco Bicycle Coalition Director Leah Shahum also issued the following statement:

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition supports efforts to encourage safety on our streets among all road users, whether people are bicycling, driving or walking. It is the responsibility of everyone using our roads to watch out not only for their own safety but also for the safety of others.

And we encourage the SF Police Department to focus on those behaviors on our streets that are most dangerous. There should be no selective enforcement of the laws on certain road users, but rather equal opportunity enforcement of those actions that are putting others at risk. There is a hierarchy of dangerous types of behavior and those threatening the most people should be prioritized for enforcement.

We will continue to encourage the growing number of people bicycling in San Francisco — from moms to downtown commuters to people taking care of errands by bicycle — to take our free Urban Cycling Workshops, held regularly in neighborhoods throughout the city and to learn about our Give & Get Respect campaign, which encourages safe, respectful bicycling.

The SFPD is continuing to enforce the required right-turn on 10th Street at Market. Yesterday, an officer was seen ticketing numerous drivers who had violated the rule.

An officer tickets a driver yesterday afternoon for violating the right-turn only rule at 10th Street. Photo: Bryan Goebel

Photo: Myleen Hollero/Orange Photography

San Francisco police officers issued twice as many tickets to drivers operating without a license between January and May this year than they did for all of 2010, according to data from the SF Police Department (SFPD). The spike contrasts with an overall drop in traffic violations.

“I think it’s important to feel like there is active enforcement going on when people drive in a way that endangers other people,” said Walk SF Executive Director Elizabeth Stampe. “It’s good to be paying attention to these numbers.”

In the first five months of 2011, police issued 3,271 citations for driving without a license compared to 1,616 issued in 2010.

SFPD Captain Al Casciato, head of the Traffic Bureau, said he couldn’t explain the jump, and that officers haven’t been targeting license-less drivers. He suspected that there may be more drivers on the road with suspended licenses due to late payments in a tough economy, although suspended license violations are categorized separately in the data.

“Just off the top of my head, what I think it is is a lot more of these state agencies suspending licenses for failure to make payments – child support, welfare, court judgments,” he said.

Traffic citations citywide have declined by 18 percent, except for a few stations like Ingleside, which had a 55 percent increase this year and targeted drivers who violate pedestrian right-of-way in 2010.

In a potential crash investigation, the dangerous situation created by this illegally parked truck shouldn't be ignored. Photo: Aaron Bialick

When someone is hit by a driver on the streets in San Francisco, cultural attitudes typically dictate that the person police determine to be at fault should shoulder the blame. But a new collaborative effort between SFPD and the SFMTA could help expand the scope of crash investigations.

Without taking into account environmental factors, crash investigators are missing the largest piece of the puzzle, says the Department of Public Health’s Rajiv Bhatia.

“When we do routine [crash] investigations, we’re really only looking at behavioral factors: whether the pedestrian or the motorist violated a rule,” he said. “But factors such as the number of cars, the number of people, the speed of the cars, and the ability of the victim are simply not recorded.”

San Francisco Police Department Captain Al Casciato said that since February, traffic engineers from the SF Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) have been training crash investigators to look for environmental factors when writing their narrative reports.

“What they’re asking for is to take a holistic view of the whole area,” said Casciato. “They’re looking at more specifics, like the curvature of the road or the tracks on the road. If the person was a senior citizen, was there a senior center there? Did you notice anything about the trees and vegetation covering the sign?”

Looking at street design, traffic volumes, and visibility is key in the city’s efforts to protect street users from vehicle crashes, says Bhatia. “If we’re not analyzing one of the causes of the problems, we’re unlikely to identify it…and unlikely to focus resources on the solutions,” he said.

Casciato said the education is already having a positive impact on the officers’ attitude toward vehicle crashes.

“One of my officers actually went out and did a comprehensive look at California and Hyde Street, and did a write-up and sent it over to the MTA,” he said. “Even though there wasn’t [a crash], he went and put his thoughts down because he thinks, in his mind, this is a hazardous intersection.”

Too many of San Francisco’s streets are recipes for disaster, with wide roads and intersections that encourage drivers to speed, crosswalks with poor visibility, dangerously placed bicycle lanes, and freeway ramps that spill rushed drivers into dense urban areas.

The new efforts will “hopefully provide more and better data about where we need to focus our street improvement,” said Dave Snyder, executive director of the California Bicycle Coalition. “That’s a positive thing, but it’s not as important as fixing the streets immediately with the data we currently have.”

In addition to using available crash data, Casciato said the SFPD is taking into account complaints from residents to focus on especially dangerous spots. They are also working to change the standard statewide reporting forms to include environmental fields by urging law enforcement lobbyists to push for change in Sacramento, he said.

While the behavioral responsibility of streets users falls most heavily on those permitted to operate multi-ton motor vehicles, the context in which people are hurt is crucial in digging San Francisco out of the hole of favoring motor traffic over public safety.

“We’ve designed the system for moving cars faster, which creates risk for pedestrians, but we’ve not identified that speed and that traffic flow as a cause of a hazard,” said Bhatia. “Culturally, we just haven’t considered this as an environmental health problem as I think we should.”

A woman struck by an SUV driver while crossing Park Presidio Boulevard in the Richmond District Tuesday afternoon remains in critical condition, according to San Francisco Police.

Officer Eric Chiang told Streetsblog the woman was crossing the residential highway westbound along Anza Street when a 92-year-old male driver turning left onto Park Presidio from the same direction crashed into her. The driver “wasn’t paying attention” at the time of the crash, the SFPD told the Examiner. The woman in her 50′s may have incurred life-threatening injuries to her pelvis and head.

The potentially fatal crash is indicative of the dangerous walking conditions caused by the high-speed, high-volume motor traffic traveling on Park Presidio.

“Park Presidio is basically a highway running through a residential area, so it’s a dangerous situation,” said WalkSF executive director Elizabeth Stampe. “It really points to the need by the city to do traffic-calming on its big arterial streets where people get injured the most.”

The one-mile road connects elevated freeways in Golden Gate Park and the Presidio along California’s Highway 1 route, and nearby residents say many drivers there stay stuck in a highway mentality, neglecting to look for pedestrians.

“A lot of drivers, especially there, just look for other drivers while turning onto the street, not realizing there’s somebody still crossing,” said Therese Bataclan, a former resident of the Inner Richmond District who regularly crossed the road to access the 28 bus line. “It’s always pretty tough because there aren’t any countdown timers on a lot of the intersections, so I’d frequently find myself stopping in the middle of the island because the light turns yellow and I’d have to wait. A lot of people have to do that.”

Although initial reports from the SFPD have yet to determine who was at fault in Tuesday’s crash, Stampe pointed out that state law requires drivers to always yield to pedestrians in a crosswalk. Failure to yield remains “the biggest cause of people being hit by cars in the city,” she said.

The SFMTA has said the main obstacle to making pedestrian improvements on Park Presidio is Caltrans, the agency that oversees the state’s highways, and holds jurisdiction. However, inter-agency cooperation has so far brought some upgrades like countdown signals, lower speed limits, and double-fine zones as part of the 19th Avenue/Park Presidio Plan, noted Stampe.

A 2010 drop in vehicle crashes observed in double-fine zones along some of the city’s arterial roads have led some to praise the measures. “It’s better than it used to be, but when you go out there you still see that it’s a wide, fast, dangerous street,” added Stampe.

SFPD records show a driver hit a pedestrian on Park Presidio about one year ago at the Clement intersection just two blocks away. In 2009, two pedestrians were struck along the road.

Now SFPD evidence, this surveillance video shows the front of the bus just to the right of the liquor store sign at the top of the photo just seconds before it hit and killed a 65-year-old woman. The mouse arrow points to the woman as she was crossing. See the KTVU video here. Photo: Bryan Goebel

Surveillance video from a Tenderloin market shows that a 65-year-old woman was in the crosswalk on Geary Boulevard and Leavenworth Street Wednesday afternoon and clearly had the right-of-way when the driver of a UCSF shuttle bus loaded with passengers struck and killed her.

Suman Dhakal, who works at Star Market Liquor and Deli on the southeast corner, played the video for Streetsblog before it was turned over to SFPD investigators. KTVU managed to capture video of the surveillance footage.

“It looks like it’s the driver’s fault from my point of view because it was a green light and she was right in front of him. Maybe he was doing something inside and not paying attention but from the video it looks like he should have seen the lady,” said Dhakal.

The woman was walking southbound in the crosswalk on Geary Boulevard around 12:10 pm when she was hit by the driver, who had been traveling north and was making a left turn onto Geary.  The owner of Star Market, Marwan Aburahma, told KTVU that the shuttle driver backed up after the first impact, running over the woman a second time.

“I don’t know if he was scared or he wanted to back up or something but he backed up the bus and hit her again and she died on the spot,” Dhakal said.

An SFPD spokesperson, Sgt. Michael Andraychak, could not say how many passengers were on the bus, but none of them was injured. The driver was questioned, released and not cited. However, Andraychak said an investigation would be completed by the SFPD’s hit-and-run detail and forwarded to the District Attorney’s office. The driver was also expected to be tested for drugs and alcohol.

Photo: KTVU

“UCSF is deeply saddened by this loss of life and we extend condolences to the family and friends of the deceased,” said a statement issued by UCSF. KTVU and the Chronicle reported that the driver had been operating shuttles for UCSF for three years and “had a clean driving record.”

“This is awful news. San Francisco should be a great walking city, and instead it’s a danger zone. The city needs to focus on how it will make streets safer for all of us as pedestrians,” said Elizabeth Stampe, the executive director of Walk SF.

The intersection of Geary and Leavenworth has been a troublesome spot for years. Dhakal said he sees minor crashes and near misses on a daily basis and some longtime residents who spoke to Streetsblog said they are fearful of the intersection.

“Every morning I have to walk that way and you fight when you have the green light. These drivers just come around the corner, they don’t look and they look at you like you shouldn’t even be there. It’s awful. I complained to the Board of Supervisors,” said Sheryl, 63, a resident who lives on Leavenworth near Post Street, both one-way arterials.

“I think it’s very bad because it’s one-way,” said Colleen, who lives nearby and was shopping at Star Market. “People try to sneak around the corner. They only look to the right and I’ve almost been hit a couple of times.”

According to citywide collision data recently obtained by Streetsblog (that offers only basic information), there were a total of 12 crashes in 2009 on or near Leavenworth Street involving automobiles and pedestrians (including one involving a taxi and a pedestrian on Geary at Leavenworth on 10/19/2009). This year, there have now been six. A number of crashes were also reported involving autos and bicyclists.

In 2007, a 49-year-old woman, Xiao Deng, was killed when she was hit by a Muni bus as it was turning right onto Leavenworth from Ellis Street.

Streetsblog intern Aaron Bialick contributed to this report.

UPDATED Friday, 9:05 a.m.

A 22-year-old bicyclist named Derek Allen was killed by the driver of a 44-O’Shaughnessy on 6th Avenue between Geary Boulevard and Clement Street late Thursday afternoon in the city’s second bicyclist fatality of the year. (The raw video above is from CBS5).

A spokesperson for the San Francisco Medical Examiner’s office said Allen lived in the East Bay but he could not say which city.

An SFPD spokesperson said the crash happened around 4:59 p.m. as the bus was traveling northbound on 6th Avenue. A man who works at a nearby bakery and witnessed the aftermath told Streetsblog the driver may have been attempting to pass another 44 bus when he or she collided with the bicyclist.

At the crash site, the bus involved in the collision, 8456, sat in the southbound lane facing north in the middle of the block near a parking lot while another 44 sat idle closer to Geary Boulevard facing north in the northbound lane.

“One bus was headed in the right direction down 6th Avenue here and then the other bus was passing it on the wrong side of the street, and then we saw a bicycle wedged underneath and the body,” the witness said. He didn’t want to be identified and added that he often sees Muni operators speeding and trying to overtake other buses in the area.

The mangled white bicycle appeared to be a 10-speed. Allen’s body was draped in yellow tarp and two SFPD officers held white tarp over it until it was transported by the Medical Examiner more than two hours later.  The bicycle was taken away by uniformed officers and put into the back of a black SFPD SUV.

Photo courtesy of SF Citizen

Yellow police tape tied around poles and parking meters stretched for half a block. A lone bouquet of flowers was placed in the driveway of the parking lot in memory of the bicyclist. Around 7:40 p.m., a large tow truck hauled the bus away and police began to clear the street.

The driver of the bus will be placed on leave pending the results of the investigation. An SFPD spokesperson said the crash was being investigated by the department’s hit-and-run detail.

Allen became the second person to die on San Francisco streets this year while riding a bicycle. On August 13, 22-year-old Nils Yannick Linke, a German tourist, was killed by a drunk driver while riding a bicycle on Masonic Avenue.

More coverage from SF Citizen, CBS5 and the SF Examiner.

Late night transfer tickets. Photo cbcastro.

What's worse, one of the men arrested is a Muni mechanic. Edmund King, a San Francisco resident and Muni employee, was charged with possession of stolen property and conspiracy, both of which are felonies. The other man arrested, Leroy Gutierrez, was charged with conspiracy and possession of stolen property, as well as two other misdemeanor theft charges and misdemeanor possession of a concealed knife.

Late night transfer tickets are valuable because they don't expire after two hours, like normal transfers. They are given out on surface stops after 8:30 pm and are valid until 5 am the next day.

The sting that nabbed the two men was conducted by the Muni Task Force, a special unit of the SFPD under Deputy Chief John Murphy that operates throughout the Muni system to deter crime. Some of the task force are in uniform, while others operate in plain clothes. The arrests occurred at 16th and Mission Streets, one of the areas of higher incidents of crime related to Muni, according to police data.

"It's a big deal because this has been going on for years," said SFPD Spokesperson Sgt. Troy Dangerfield in reference to selling late-night passes. Dangerfield also said the stings would continue and they hoped to greatly deter the practice. 

Dangerfield, who previously worked Muni enforcement himself, said it was routine to hear people at 16th and Mission and other areas saying, "late night, late night" when trying to sell the transfers.

SFMTA spokesperson Paul Rose acknowledged the problem is not new. "It's an ongoing issue that we're trying to get our hands around. When an instance like this happens, we do what we can to take immediate action."

Rose wouldn't give too many details about an ongoing investigation, but said, "We're investigating it to see exactly how this happens. We'll use the findings of that investigation to make sure this doesn't happen again."

According to the SFPD, this particular operation started in March 2010, when the SFMTA requested help from the SFPD to deter the practice. After surveilling several hot spots for months and investigating the suspects, officers made the arrests on July 15th.

Despite the arrest of a Muni employee, Dangerfield was quick to defend the agency. "Muni has good employees, so you shouldn't paint it otherwise," he said. "This is a bad employee, that's all."

UPDATED 12:45 pm.

A cautionary tale about violating the personal vehicle diversion on Market Street. Photo: Matthew Roth.

As I was riding my bicycle on Market Street to City Hall yesterday, I saw another SFPD sting for vehicles violating the mandatory personal vehicle diversion on Market Street north of 10th Street.

I was stopped at Van Ness waiting for the light to change with a gray Mitsubishi to my left. When the light changed the driver and three others proceeded forward as I negotiated my space leading up to the protected green bike lane starting at 11th. The driver of the Mitsubishi started toward the mandatory turn lane, then made a last-second merge back to the left and into the bus and taxi lane. 

Not an uncommon sight, in my experience, as I've witnessed numerous drivers ignore the signs at the last second to avoid the mandatory turn. The Mitsubishi stopped half a block in front of me at the red light and as I neared him, I was of half a mind to warn him he could get a ticket for violating the lane.

Rather than get into it with him, though, I simply rode by and proceeded through the light at 10th when it turned green. To my (I have to admit pleasant) surprise, there was an SFPD motorcycle cop positioned by the Muni island near 9th and Market who immediately signaled to the driver to pull over (into the bike lane) to get his ticket.

After taking several pictures of the moment, I rode past the officer, who gave me a knowing smile and asked how my day was. Good I said, and thanked him for making it safer.

Several weeks ago I witnessed another officer stopped here with a patrol car, issuing tickets to drivers who violated the diversions. He said he was letting some drivers off with a warning if they were clearly not from San Francisco and he seemed to think the message was getting across.

Although the SFPD Public Affairs office has told Streetsblog there is no special enforcement blitz, nor are they keeping track of the tickets as part of the diversion, this seems to be a fairly regular occurrence. Anyone else have a similar experience? 

Several weeks ago, another officer was making stops. Photo: Matthew Roth

Until a year ago, there was no written agreement between Muni and the city's police department specifying what services Muni was paying for and how much, despite the fact that the police department was sending the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency an $83 million annual bill.

Now, one year after a formal memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the departments was finally released, the City Controller's office has released a report that looks at the patrolling services SFPD is providing in a district that is both the location of a dramatic spike in Muni-related crime and also a potential model for how SFPD can reduce such crime.

The report, entitled "Addressing Crime and Disorder on the Municipal Railway: A Case Study on Data-Driven Policing in the Ingleside District," focuses on the efforts of Ingleside Captain David Lazar to overhaul and strategically target how police are assigned to Muni during their shifts.

The SFPD's Bus Inspection Program, or BIP, which was formally outlined in the 2009 MOU but has been around much longer, requires each sergeant in a patrol division and each officer "assigned to a radio car" to make two transit inspections per shift. Officers on foot patrol are required to make at least four inspections per shift.

But the BIP agreement doesn't give any direction for how officers should choose the time and location of their trips, and for many people who ride Muni, it came as a surprise that officers are required to ride at all, since they have been such a rare sight.

The Controller's report concludes that "the issue with the Bus Inspection Program was that the times, routes, and locations were left to the officers' own discretion which likely contributed to the public's perception about the lack of police presence on the transit system." There's even been widespread suspicion that many officers haven't even met that bare requirement, prompting a pilot program to track their rides using TransLink cards.

For now, the MOU still only requires SFPD to meet the two-inspections-per-shift requirement. But Lazar, working with the Controller's office, developed a new inspection program in the Ingleside, called Operation Safe Muni, based on multiple data sources and community input. Lazar began assigning officers to high-problem transit lines and times, instead of allowing them to simply ride whenever they wanted to.

Image: City Controller's office

The City Controller's office called the results of the program, which launched in October and includes both regular patrols and sting operations, promising.

"While it is too early to know if the strategies employed by the district are having the intended impact of reducing crime and fear, there are promising signs," the report notes. "A comparison of Muni incident data for December 2008 and December 2009 shows that vandalism -- the crime reported most frequently on Muni in December 2008 -- was not reported at all in December 2009. Moreover, the two bus lines that were targeted by the Ingleside -- the 8X San Bruno Express and the 14 Mission -- dropped from being the first and second most problematic lines to the third and fourth."

The Ingleside police station began targeting deployment based on City Survey results, resident focus group results, and security incident data reported by Muni operators. That City Survey data showed that Ingleside was not only the second-most dangerous for riding Muni in the view of residents, it was also the district where the feeling of safety was dropping most rapidly, with 38 percent of residents feeling safe on Muni in 2005, and just 31 percent feeling safe by 2009.

The neighborhood focus groups also pointed to crime on Muni as a major concern in the Ingleside, as did complaints from concerned residents, and Muni operator incident reports confirmed the public's perception that crime on Muni was getting worse.

Oddly enough, the report finds, SFPD didn't notice the spike in Muni crime before because it's still a relatively small volume of the city's total crime.

Fare Inspection Concerns 

One of the key changes in how Ingleside officers did Muni inspections also became a source of controversy as it rolled-out citywide.

Instead of just riding the buses, officers began checking proof-of-payment from riders, on the theory that minor violations were creating a sense of disorder that invites more serious crime and creates a sense of fear. Officers made five outstanding-warrant arrests in October through December of last year as a result, and the City Controller's office report called the tactic "more effective at fighting crime because [officers] can verify if someone has an outstanding warrant for a previous crime or is carrying a weapon."

The principles of Operation Safe Muni have now been expanded citywide, but that central component -- fare inspection by SFPD -- has been suspended for several months until concerns that the inspections are really about immigration can be addressed.

"I don't know the whole story yet, but [the crime] may have eased as a result of our complaints that we want the police to do their police work and to target it, and people to check the fares, but not to intimidate them to the extent that some of them were afraid to ride buses," said Marlene Tran, spokesperson for the Visitacion Valley Asian Alliance. "That was terrible."

Click to enlarge: Ingleside police station used community responses to help target enforcement. Image: City Controller's office.

Still, for the most part, the report confirms what SFPD Chief George Gascón concluded when he expanded Operation Safe Muni to the entire police force: the data-driven, targeted police assignments are much more effective than the haphazard, loosely enforced patrol requirements required by the BIP.

The Controller's report suggests that the SFMTA should provide regular Muni operator security reports from the TransitSafe database to the SFPD, that the two agencies should implement a public service campaign about crime prevention on Muni and the importance of reporting all crime incidents, and that the SFPD should formalize a proof-of-payment fare inspection training program to make sure it's consistent across all departments.

Lazar has since been assigned to help deal with the mess at SFPD's crime lab, and is no longer head of Ingleside station, but a new formal order from Gascón has ensured that the Ingleside approach will be used department-wide. According to the Controller's report, the order requires "all police districts to provide crime prevention and enforcement on Muni based on analysis of crime, community complaints, and Muni operator concerns."

"This is the most significant change in how the SFPD patrols the transit system in over a decade," it notes.

The SFMTA Board will discuss the report at its meeting today, which may provide more insight into whether the SFMTA shares the City Controller's assessment of the program.

With the recent addition of fully separated bright green bike lanes and a set of traffic changes that have improved conditions for Muni and people on bikes, Market's midsection has become a place to watch for innovative transportation trial projects. Seven months after a pilot program launched, local drivers seem to be catching on to the required right turns at 6th and 10th Streets on Market, even without anyone standing around to enforce the rule.

But the city's innovative experiment isn't without some turbulence. Over a 15-minute period on a recent weekday, 24 drivers heading eastbound on Market traveled straight through the intersection of 6th Street. Just seven drivers made the same illegal move at 10th Street during a similar period, suggesting the extra signage and cues are working better at the first required turn. At both locations, a large majority of drivers got the message.

"It's definitely a work in progress," said Great Streets Project director Kit Hodge. "The first turn at 10th street is a lot easier to follow for people no matter what mode they're using. The one at 6th, which doesn't have as much enforcement and clues for people as to what they should do, is definitely more of a challenge."

There's an upside to that: the different configurations are serving as a test of what works and what doesn't. "The goal is clarity for everyone so everyone can have the best possible experiences," said Hodge. The huge LED sign at 10th Street and a number of smaller clues seem to be sending a clearer message than the relatively small sign at 6th Street.

A driver ignores huge signs at Market and 10th Street. Most drivers appear to be getting the message.

Part of the issue, said Hodge, is that Market Street attracts a lot of visitors who aren't familiar with its rules. "Market Street is always a challenge because of the number of tourists who end up on the street," she said.

The San Francisco Police Department doesn't have a special detail assigned to the turns, said officer Boaz Moriles, nor do they have a breakdown of tickets specifically for that area.

A police officer who was issuing tickets on the scene last week said he tends to go easy on out-of-towners, often giving warnings instead. He was stationed there of his own accord, and said adherence was pretty good with enforcement, but seemed to slip when no officers were around.

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency is running the traffic experiment, which is intended to reduce auto congestion on Market to make it more pleasant for people walking, biking, and riding transit on the city's main drag. Early results suggest it's doing just that, speeding up Muni by an average of 50 seconds and making the street safer for those on bikes. None of the vehicles that ignored the require turn rule last week appeared to get in Muni's way, though they did occasionally create dicey situations for people on bikes who didn't expect to be sharing that stretch of street with private automobiles.

The signage at 6th Street is much subtler.

When the trial first launched in September, parking control officers were stationed at the turns regularly, but since then, the SFMTA has called them off, leaving the signage to alert motorists to the changes. It also tweaked the trial in January, moving the western required turn from 8th Street to 10th Street, alleviating a tight squeeze for people on bikes and foot at the former intersection.

Hodge said the SFMTA is collecting data on the trial, and we'll update with that information once we hear back from the agency on it. In the meantime, let us know how the trial is impacting your experience on Market Street, whatever your modes of travel are.

The trial is making it easier for Muni to sail down Market.

A CBS5 van parks on the sidewalk to cover a "high-speed chase" on Polk Street last year. Photo: Bryan Goebel.

One of the jobs I had when I lived in New York City was leading a campaign for Transportation Alternatives (T.A.) against the abuse of parking permits by city, state and federal employees, a rampant problem that led to complete curbside saturation, making deliveries more difficult and compounding New York's infamous traffic. Sidewalk parking and parking in school playgrounds was not uncommon.

We started a user-generated website called Uncivil Servants, which enabled users to take photos of any permit holder parking illegally and geocode the location of the photos; the website then mapped the offenders and classified them by the agency that employed them.

After a number of good stories in the media, including an article in the New York Times and several front-page splashes in the Daily News and the New York Post, Mayor Bloomberg finally got serious about reducing the total number of permits on the street, which he cut by more than half. He also directed the NYPD to enforce the abuse of permits, which upset everyone from teachers to court officers who had previously considered free parking a perk of the job.

So why am I writing this now? We just got an email from the San Francisco Police Department public information office that was sent to the SFPD's media list with the subject header "EMERGENCY ADVISORY." I'd never seen a subject line that distressing, so I was surprised to read the advisory had nothing to do with breaking news:

If you have a Media van parked on California or any other area that is posted NO PARKING please have the vans moved. WE ARE BEING ADVISED THAT THEY WILL BE TOWED. I have no control over this.

Presumably this has to do with President Obama's visit and the Secret Service has a different standard for parking than the SFPD? Is permit parking abuse a bigger problem than we realize?

My request for clarification from the SFPD media team hasn't been answered. I doubt it will.

UPDATED May 26th:

Lt. Lyn Tomioka of the SFPD press office confirmed the advisory was in relation to the President's visit and added the following:

At certain times and situations, it may be okay for media to be in NO PARKING areas. It is best to follow the guidelines on the parking permit and those given by officers on scene. Plus, consider the event...security is so tight during an event like this and we have to be very aware of risks.

Adrienne Johnson riding beside the unmarked police car whose driver she says threatened her. Photo taken by Johnson's husband, who was trailing behind her with her son.

As happens at some point to most people who ride a bike in San Francisco, Adrienne Johnson had a scary brush with an irate motorist, though her story took on much darker implications when she found out who that driver worked for.

The incident occurred a week and a half ago on Valencia Street, between 16th and 17th streets, as Johnson recounted in detail on her blog, Change Your Life, Ride a Bike. She had been riding her bike when a motorist started to turn right on 17th Street, veering into her path. When she told the motorist there were two cyclists trailing her (her son and husband) she thought she heard him call her a bitch. She gave him the finger and he raced up beside her, threatening to knock her off her bike. When he drove ahead of her, Johnson saw red and blue lights through his rear window (visible in the photo above) and realized he was a plainclothes officer in an unmarked patrol car.

Johnson did the prudent thing and filed a complaint with police at Mission Station. She was thrilled with the reception she received from the desk officer and his supervisor, both of whom encouraged her to proceed with her formal complaint and provide as much evidence as possible.

"I went in expecting them to try to talk me down, but I got the sense as soon as I started describing the guy in the car, the officer knew who I was talking about," said Johnson. "There was no doubt that what I was saying was true."

That sense of satisfaction evaporated when Johnson heard that investigations at the Office of Citizens Complaints (OCC) take on average nine months to be completed, and longer if litigation is involved.

"If it were reversed, if I had threatened him or he had perceived that I had threatened him, he would have arrested me and I would have to have a lawyer right now," said Johnson. "Citizens are discriminated against by the fact that they are not in a uniform. It's okay for us to wait."

Joyce Hicks, Executive Director of the OCC, said she takes all allegations of misconduct seriously, but investigations take time. "We need a preponderance of evidence to prove or disprove the complaints that the action happened," she said. "When we have one-on-one, it's hard. If we have credible independent witnesses that assist us, that helps."

Though Johnson's husband and son witnessed the incident, there were two other officers in the car with the driver, so their testimony could be significant and could make a determination more difficult.

"If you have interested parties, then it's again difficult for us to determine whether or not the complaint occurred or didn't occur, and whether it was proper or improper," said Hicks. If there were other witnesses to the incident, that would bolster the case.

Johnson said she didn't stop to ask any strangers if they saw what happened.

Hicks assured Streetsblog that her office had "as much teeth as any police department Internal Affairs department has," because they can issue subpoenas, they have document protocol overseen by the Police Commission, and they have independent authority under the City Charter to take any case to the Police Commission.

SFPD spokesperson Lt. Lyn Tomioka, who said that she was prohibited by law from commenting on any particular personnel investigation, also noted that while she was happy the officers at Mission Station did as they were trained to do and were receptive to Johnson, one should not read anything into their behavior for evidence supporting the misconduct allegation.

"When misconduct comes to a supervisor's attention, they shall and are required to take a statement," said Tomioka, adding that the department relied on the OCC to conduct preliminary investigations, particularly if an officer was on-duty when the complaint occurred. "We have OCC for a reason and that's so we have an independent team to investigate allegations. These are allegations that have to be investigated."

Tomioka said Hicks and the OCC "have a good reputation for being very thorough in their investigations," but added that there isn't a "way of fast tracking one investigation over another."

Johnson wasn't mollified by the assurances made by Tomioka or Hicks. Though she didn't intend to immediately hire a lawyer, she was upset that it could be a year before she had a resolution to the case.

"If this was just an issue that this guy was just jonesing to give me a parking ticket that's one thing, but these are serious allegations," said Johnson.

Johnson, a regular contributor of beautiful photos to our Flickr pool, explained the encounter [edited, read full version at her site]:

Last Saturday I had a very frightening encounter while riding on Valencia St. with my husband and older son. As we approached the intersection at 17th St. I found myself being cut off by a driver turning right, no signal. I was in that weird place where you can't stop but you are still behind the car, so I rang my bell a couple of times and gave a shout out. The driver slowed the car but kept moving, slowly enough for me to pass but fast enough to be nerve rattling. The windows were down on the car and I could see the driver and his two passengers looking out at me. They were paying so much attention to me, I was worried they didn't see James and Cameron behind me, so I told the driver there were two more bikes behind me and kept riding. I could hear the driver yell something at me in an angry voice. It sounded like he called me a bitch but I couldn't really hear him.

At this point I did something kind of dumb, I flipped him off. This wasn't the most intelligent thing, but at some point you just get sick of being called names for not wanting to be run over.

The car raced up next to me, just a little too close for comfort, to force me to slow down. I kept moving but he paced me. The driver leaned over his passenger and said "Shut your fucking mouth bitch or I'll knock you off your bike". He didn't yell it at me, he just stated it like there was no way it could be any other way, straight to my face. My nature is to not show fear, especially with people like this- I have found it makes them more bold. I looked right back at him ( I started taking note of all the details- the driver, the passenger in the back, the colour of the car....) and asked him if he would like me to call the police to report his harassing me? I got another "shut up bitch" and he started to drive away, slowly to see if I would try to pass him.

At that point I was just annoyed- I shouldn't have flipped him off, but he shouldn't have done any of the things he had done (I realized at this point that his almost right hooking me was not an accident). Then I saw what turned the whole thing very frightening- the car was an unmarked San Francisco Police car. Red and amber lights were in the rear window along with what looked like a police citation book.

I was completely floored. I had just been threatened and intimidated by a police officer. His partners in the car had done nothing to stop him. To top it off, this all happened not 100 feet from the Mission Police Station (which I turned around and went straight into to file a report which is now with the Office Of Citizen Complaints). The worst part was that from behind, both James and Cameron thought I was about to be run down in front of them (James pulled out his cell phone to start taking pictures). That was when I started shaking, just a little but for the next three hours.

I will not stop riding. It would take a hell of a lot more than this to stop me. I will not let this situation pass without making this officer face me and tell me why he thinks it is OK to threaten a woman with bodily harm in front of her family. I will fight back so that no one else has to deal with this.

Hardly the experience Streetsblog Editor Bryan Goebel had with SFPD Police Chief George Gascón last week riding through the Marina.

With regard to Johnson's experience, SFPD Spokesperson Lyn Tomioka said the department had no comment on current complaints or investigations. She did recommend that any San Franciscan should go through the Office of Citizen Complaints for allegations of police misconduct. "That's the process that keeps everyone accountable for their actions," she noted.

Complaints can be registered online, in person at 25 Van Ness, Suite 700, or by phone at 415-241-7711.

The citywide Stand Against Sit Lie campaign Saturday March 27 was a big success by all accounts. The website claims over 100 events took place on San Francisco sidewalks, and over 1000 people participated. That doesn’t sound overwhelming at first glance, but if you recall that this began as a brainstorm in a bar just a couple of weeks ago, and relied heavily on Facebook and personal networking, it is an impressive beginning.

Mayor Gavin Newsom, Police Chief George Gascón, and the S.F. Chronicle suburban-values attack-dog C.W. Nevius have been drumming up an Astroturf grassroots effort to criminalize sitting on sidewalks. The focus has been the Haight-Ashbury, where there are actual homeowners who have been contributing their energy to this effort. The joke at our 24th and Shotwell sit-in was that these same upscale homeowners in the Haight have been trying for over 30 years to “clean up” Haight Street. They had an organization for a while in the 1980s called RAD (Residents Against Druggies) and you could reliably buy pot or acid by looking for them, and then seeking the cluster of dealers who trailed them around the neighborhood!

Anyway, these folks, egged on by the powers-that-be, are clamoring for a new law to give police carte blanche to evict anyone they want to from the neighborhood’s sidewalks. The proposed ordinance is drawn very broadly, allowing for police to accost anyone on any sidewalk in the city and fine them and, if there’s a second offense, have them jailed for 30 days. This is being promoted as a means to enhance public safety, despite the fact that there are already laws against blocking sidewalks and aggressive panhandling. It’s unclear what purpose this new ordinance is supposed to fulfill, other than a new tool of arbitrary power for the police to use against “undesirable” populations.

Our group gathered at 24th and Shotwell as part of the citywide effort to say no to this proposed law. My partner Adriana organized it as a Tea Party, matching similar efforts near Buena Vista Park and elsewhere. We also put out some mats and a beanbag toss game, along with cake and tea. You really can’t imagine how fun it is to connect with passersby and neighbors on a local sidewalk until you try it out. First the Palestinian store owner came out wondering why we were there. He loved our tea since it tasted like ‘Arab tea’!

Adriana and Wolf discuss public life.

Our first “guest” was Wolf, a longtime resident of the Mission, a self-acknowledged dope fiend who had done a couple of long stints in jail. His dark leathery skin confirmed his years of living on the street. His mother was a Mission district Italian and his father a Mexican from New Mexico, and he had the distinction of being an American who was deported from Mexico after six years in Guadalajara. He was quite the beanbag tosser too! A white homeless friend of Wolf’s asked, “Just tell me this. “Why can white people sit on tables in front of cafés without being harassed? I don’t cause any trouble here. I’m just enjoying the street too.”

Adriana invited Spanish speakers to stop for tea, while various friends slowly began to gather. I spoke for a while with a British visitor who was walking his host’s dog. He couldn’t believe anyone would want to curb street life, since that was so much of why he and others wanted to visit San Francisco. A young French woman appeared in overalls a few doors down, emerging from her new gardening effort in the backyard. I hailed her and invited her for tea, explaining what we were doing. She too was aghast at the notion that San Francisco would restrict life on the streets this way. Both of them were quick to emphasize that safe streets are crowded streets.

Beanbagging fun on Shotwell.

Of course, the unspoken argument of the Sit-Lie proponents is that there are normative behaviors that must be conformed to. It’s not a problem to be on the sidewalks as long as you’re moving along in the endless process of shopping. It’s stopping to engage in activities that are economically purposeless, that actually animate a public life, that create the serendipitous and unpredictable moments and connections that give city life its strong appeal—those are the activities that must be “curbed.” There are three acceptable reasons to be in public space: working, commuting, shopping. If you’re not doing those things, go home and watch TV. That’s the American Way of Life. Earlier in the week, Adriana asked a local beat cop his opinion about the Sit/Lie initiative. He responded that it was a terrible idea. “Just another way in which a community avoids dealing with a grave social issue by having police move undesired people out of sight. It doesn’t solve the problem.”

We spoke with several dozen people during the three hours we occupied the sidewalk. A couple of local DPW street workers hung out with us and had some cake, played some beanbag. Part of their job is to shoo street people along, so they were sympathetic to the opposition to the proposed law. Two neighborhood  homies, Little George and Rigo, spend a lot of time on the corner, and they were delighted that we were staking it out as public space. Elderly Latinas were quite supportive. One woman, Carmela, came up to us and became quite animated. She told a long story about losing her son —7 years of duty in the army followed by 17 years of duty as a postal worker—who died after being hit by a car. She had earlier lost her husband, a sibling and her parents, but the loss of her adult son sent her into a tailspin of despair. “The loss of a son is like no other loss.” She would go out to the street day after day, sitting on stoops and sidewalks. She imagined people thought she was insane, but she needed to walk, to sit in the sun, to be on the street to heal her pain. “You don’t know what pain people carry in their hearts, only they know. I went to the streets to carry mine.”

A posse of cyclists stopped by, including Sue King who is one of the coordinators of Sunday Streets. She complained that we were engaging in a somewhat misguided effort since the asphalt-covered streets (as opposed to the limited space of the sidewalks) were a huge common space that we should be working to re-purpose. Of course she’s right, but the deeper problem is that we’ve already been put on the defensive AGAIN. So much of what passes for “progressive” politics in San Francisco is actually opposing pro-privatization, pro-business, pro-police initiatives. A forward agenda of urban transformation, whether motivated by the Transition Town logic driven by peak oil and climate change, or just the desire to make us more self-reliant and resilient, remains absent from the political landscape. Local activists continually fall into the trap of calling for “jobs” without any discussion of what kind of work SHOULD be done. Demanding jobs in the absence of a broad agenda of ecological transformation based on mutual aid and a solidarity economy is to reinforce the logic that trapped us in the first place.

22nd and Valencia.

That’s the beauty of opening a public space, even for just a few hours. Across the city, dozens of conversations took place, new friendships were forged, and political networks that might go a lot further in the future started to find themselves. At 24th and Shotwell, we didn’t hear a negative word from anyone until we were wrapping it up. A half dozen young hipsters were entering the apartment building we had been sitting in front of. I asked them if they knew about the proposed ordinance. They hesitated, and then one said, “you know, I actually would support something like that. I’m sick of these guys out here at 4 a.m. drunk, puking, yelling at each other.” It was a telling moment. Here were 20-somethings who thought another law was somehow going to remove undesirable people from their sidewalk, as opposed to a well-resourced campaign of public housing and social services. I pointed out that there were already laws against public drunkenness and a young woman said, “we call the police but they don’t show up.” So, passing another law is going to change that?

Karaoke erupts at corner of Hill and Valencia.

As San Francisco moves closer to a decision on a new sit-lie ordinance that proponents say would facilitate the SFPD's clearing of unsavory elements off of sidewalks in neighborhoods like the Haight, resistance is building, and several organizers have called for a day of sidewalk action on Saturday March 27, from 10 am to 5 pm. I sat down recently with Nate Miller, one of the people who decided that they weren’t going to watch the City succumb to yet another pandering campaign of fear mongering without standing up to say no.

The sit-lie campaign has been orchestrated from behind the scenes for the past few months, trying to appear as a spontaneous grassroots effort by residents of the Haight-Ashbury. But as Miller tells it, there is strong evidence of coordination between “grassroots activists,” the Chronicle’s resident suburban attack dog C.W. Nevius, Mayor Newsom and Chief of Police Gascon. Together, they are using the decades-long presence of impoverished and annoying “gutter punks” on Haight Street to push a law criminalizing anyone who is sitting or lying on a sidewalk anywhere in San Francisco. Gabriel Haaland wrote an intelligent editorial in last week's Bay Guardian calling for a new approach to actual conflicts (greatly exaggerated in this case), rather than expanding the definition of so-called criminal behavior.

Here’s Nate in his own words: 

I grew up in San Francisco and lived here my whole life. For the past few months the Chronicle has been publishing really inflammatory articles talking about “thugs and bullies” in the Haight who are making it a living hell for residents, shoppers, and business people to exist there. The police have been talking about how this is a grassroots effort of the neighborhood, but the timing shows that is false. First the Chronicle starts drumming up all this stuff. Then they have the Mayor walk down the street when he’s supposedly undecided about this. He walks down the street with his baby, and supposedly sees a man sitting on the sidewalk smoking crack. Obviously it’s already illegal to smoke crack (and you can do it standing up!). He uses this to announce that we need to make it illegal to have people sitting on the sidewalk. Two days later he introduces legislation to the Board of Supervisors, already vetted by the City Attorney. He proposes two separate pieces of legislation. If you do anything in politics, you know that’s impossible [to get this done so quickly]. The Mayor must have been working on this since a long time ago.

The same day the Chamber of Commerce/Committee on Jobs does a poll that they claim shows there’s 71% support for a law outlawing sitting on the sidewalks. The question that they asked was not simply if you support a law that will make it illegal to sit or lie down on a sidewalk. It asked if you support a law that would arrest people who were harassing you. I’d support a law like that! I don’t want to be harassed. There are already laws against that. There’re laws against aggressive panhandling, against panhandling, against blocking the sidewalk, against smoking crack.

They say this is “a tool.” Supposedly “the police will use their discretion to use it appropriately.” Public Defender Jeff Adachi pointed out in a hearing that there were a lot of people that could be subjected to this law—tourists sitting on their luggage, students sitting on a sidewalk, homeless people—and all these people would be subject to $100 fine the first time, while repeat offenders could do 30 days in jail. The Chronicle’s Nevius said “that’s ridiculous, the cops would never arrest a tourist for sitting on their bag,” but the law states that it would be illegal to do that.

The argument made by Nevius and other Sit-Lie Law supporters is that the police can be trusted to implement this sweeping legal mandate in a reasonable manner. But the law defines a normal behavior, sitting on a sidewalk, as a crime!

Here’s Nate again:

Obviously the law will be used against the most vulnerable people. It’s a biological fact that some time during the day you’re going to need to rest. If you don’t have a home to do that in and you’re homeless you’ll have to sit on the sidewalk. I like sitting on the sidewalk! I just went to Vietnam and Cambodia to experience the vibrant, amazing things that go on in the streets. People are out there all day and it’s just a much better feeling. I feel a lot safer with a lot of people on the streets.

I think it’s a two-pronged approach. One is to scare people when they’re on Haight Street—just go shopping, minimize engagement with other people … (forget about people watching or anything else). This is also a serious effort by the Chamber of Commerce and conservative politicians to create a wedge issue for the November elections. That’s already playing out. You see people like Scott Weiner who is running for Supervisor in the Castro campaigning by saying “I support Sit and Lie because I care about public safety.” He can now run, playing to people’s fears that have been created by the Chronicle through all this fabrication, and make them feel safe.

There’s a lot of routes you can go besides this idea of “pre-crime,” that you can just make totally normal behavior illegal and then give the cops the discretion to punish people based on how they look or anything. Because if they’re not doing anything else illegal you are just arresting someone for sitting on the ground.

A few other people started talking about the broader implications of this law, that it is going to make it illegal to sit anywhere on the sidewalk. The first response was a very defensive one: hey, we’re under attack. But then we started talking about what we could do with this. What kind of conversations can we have?

Dangerous use of public space! Let's do it! (Photo: Kurt Bank)

Public space is important. On one hand there’s all these greening initiatives going on, but at the same time we’re trying to make it illegal to exist in public space, setting a really horrible precedent. We thought about Park(ing) Days, where people voluntarily occupy parking places and make them parks for a day, and people really enjoy it. We thought, why don’t we bring that on to the sidewalks for a day? We need to be encouraging more people to enjoy public space, to talk to each other, enjoying our vibrant and exciting city. Through talking about that we decided we were going to reach out to people who were interested in that. The basic idea is that anyone can bring out a table, or lawn chairs, or a mat, and do whatever you want, because it’s completely normal.

Bring yourselves and anything you like out to the street, and just relax. You can do whatever you want, argue with your family, party with your friends, make coffee for people. Some people are reclaiming the tea party idea and having a huge tea party. There’s going to be all kinds of fun things for people to go and see and engage with. We want people to contact us through the website we’re developing, or FB or email. Send us a location, a street corner where you will be situated. What time you’re going to be there, and a couple of sentences about what you think you’ll be doing. Afterward, we’re asking everyone to document it with a photo or a video, even a cellphone picture, and send it back to us. We’re creating a Google Map and hopefully there will be dozens or hundreds of locations where people were doing things. It will be a lot more cohesive after that.

Later on Saturday, March 27, everyone is going to Market and Castro to the new plaza there. By going there we want to connect to a bit of local history. In the 1970s Castro, they passed a similar law to target hippies that were laying around smoking pot or staring at the wall on acid or whatever, but what they really used it for was to target gay men who were flocking to the city to see this exciting new scene that was growing. There was this group called the Castro 14, guys who got put in jail for sitting on the streets. Harvey Milk was a huge opponent of this, and it eventually got repealed after he died because it was totally ridiculous and unfair and it was destroying part of the culture of the Castro.

It’s important that people contact us because we want to provide them with some basic infrastructure to make it a bit more focus and pointed. It’s unusual to do this kind of street activism when something is just being voted on at the Board of Supervisors. It’s going to go on the ballot this November regardless of how it’s voted on by the Board. We have this problem with Ross Mirikarimi and David Chiu who are basically bending to political pressure. They haven’t committed either way, but we’re going to send documents to everyone who contacts us with fact sheets and contact information to organize our opposition. Write us at info@standagainstsitlie.org and you’ll be getting good information, not spam, from us.

Another activity on the way to criminalization? (Photo: Kurt Bank)

Photo: markofphotography

"This was something that was an oversight from the initial enactment from 2006, which took effect in 2008," Simitian explained in an interview with Streetsblog. He said he waited a year after the law took effect to make changes, which include the increased fines, adding a point to a driver's record for the infraction, and using a portion of the fine to create an education fund for the dangers of distracted driving. Simitian also said the motivation for adding cyclists to the bill did not come from a dramatic incident nor a trend of increased cycling collisions due to cell phone use.

"Common sense tells us it’s not a safe habit, given all the risks that cyclists have to contend with," said Simitian.

The California Bicycle Coalition (CBC), which was an early supporter of the original distracted driving legislation, was not thrilled about the inclusion of cyclists in the bill. CBC Communications Director Jim Brown said that he was confused about the motivation for extending the same level of fines to cyclists, particularly absent data showing distracted cycling as a public safety hazard.

"The consequences of a distracted driver are considerably more serious than the consequences of distracted cycling," said Brown, adding that safe riding should be encouraged at all times and that talking on a cell phone or any other practice that distracted a cyclist from riding would not be advisable.

As for the actual danger to the public of distracted cycling, Brown said the data didn’t support the presumption of risk the law seeks to redress. "There are theoretical risks and there are actual risks," he said. "As far as I’m aware, there is no accident evidence that points to a problem. In the absence of any evidence against bicyclists, this law seems premature."

Tom Rice, Research Epidemiologist at UC Berkeley's Safe Transportation Research and Education Center, said the issue could be one of data and the definition of a collision. "Unless there is also a motorized vehicle involved, it won't make it into traffic collision reports," he said. The traditional databases, such as the CHP's Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System (SWITRS), don't capture bicycle-pedestrian injury collisions or fatalities. "The data are hard to come by. It's not a nice, easy reliable data set," said Rice.

Photo: Bryan Goebel

Simitian defended his record of support for cyclists, citing his work as mayor of Palo Alto to build that city's bicycle boulevard and numerous initiatives that improved cycling conditions. He also said he would be open to reviewing the fine structure in committee if that was a significant issue.

"I’ve been an advocate for cyclists for 25 years for full rights to the road, but with those rights come a certain degree of responsibility," he said.

UPDATE: The SFBC's Andy Thornley wanted to be sure readers know they don't oppose Senator Simitian's bill: "We're definitely in favor of cell phone and distracted driver/rider prohibitions that create safe streets for all users, no special forgiveness for folks on bikes. The concerns I expressed to Streetsblog about the proposal are not whether bicycle riders should follow the same rules as everyone else (they should), it's whether a distracted SUV driver and a distracted bike rider should be fined the same amount, given the enormous disparity in their destructive potential."

Bryan Goebel contributed reporting to this story.

July 2009, Critical Mass circles Union Square

In the following months, the ride grew steadily, hitting a couple of hundred by February 1993, and still there was no police presence. I think there may have been one motorcycle cop who came upon us during those months and just rode on. In April 1993 it changed though. The ride had grown to several hundred cyclists, and those of us who were publishing the monthly "Critical Mass Missives" and preparing proposed routes with maps, writing flyers, handing out stickers (all under the happy neologism of "Xerocracy") were already worried about the culture of the ride. Too many people were bleating that Orwellian chant "Two Wheels Good, Four Wheels Bad!" and admonishing motorists in an entirely unpleasant self-righteous moralistic tone.

Behaviorally, we already had identified the "Testosterone Brigade" as a problem, young men who seemed to be looking for confrontation, perhaps exercising unresolved anger with their parents by taunting motorists or deliberately riding into oncoming traffic. Another group was dubbed the "snails" because no matter how often we stopped at the front to give everyone a chance to "mass up," a bunch of folks would just dawdle way at the back and never catch up. This led to long stretches of thinly-occupied streets, where just a few cyclists were noodling along. In April 1993 in just this kind of scenario, a motorist tried to cross Market to Guerrero and when cyclists surged in front to block him, he hit one girl. Her bike was totaled, ending up under his car, which careened into a hydrant on the corner while he was trying to escape. The girl was not physically harmed luckily, but her boyfriend, not knowing that she wasn't under the car, reached in and took the keys out of the ignition. The cops came up and arrested the girl and her boyfriend and let the motorist go, treating him as the victim, even though it was widely felt by all present, including bystanders on the street, that he had behaved with homicidal intent.

The 16th birthday ride in Sept. 2008, here on Polk Street.

In June 1997, rumor has it Mayor Willie Brown got stuck in his limo during Critical Mass. He was soon fulminating in the press about how something had to be done! He tried to bring Critical Mass representatives into a meeting (I was invited and refused to go) and managed to get some SF Bike Coalition board members to show up. His pet supervisor at the time was Michael Yaki, and it was Yaki who appeared on the steps of City Hall after the meeting impersonating Neville Chamberlain in 1938 ("peace in our time!"), waving a piece of paper which he claimed was an agreement with Critical Mass (impossible by definition) about how the ride would proceed on the following Friday.

What happened was beautifully documented in Ted White's documentary "We Are Traffic!" which you can see online. The police and Mayor Brown put up a sound system and stage and had the gall to welcome the riders to our own event. They were roundly booed. Brown, realizing that he had not managed to co-opt Critical Mass, decided to unleash the police. They were happy to oblige and a mini-riot took place in mid-Market where several cyclists were arbitrarily pushed to the ground, violently arrested, and their bikes impounded. Critical Mass had split into dozens of groups roaming the city's streets for hours, in what was probably one of the most chaotic evenings in Critical Mass history. The police could not get a handle on things, in spite of their license to repress, and it wasn't until very late that night that they corralled one of the mini-masses still riding, surrounding them in the financial district and arresting them all. The day after the Chronicle's false headline was "250 cyclists arrested!" The actual number was about 112, and most of them had been in the illegal roundup. Howard Besser, one of the arrestees, filed a suit against the police and won, and won a second time when the city appealed, and was awarded about $1,000 in damages. No one was ever convicted of any crimes that occured that night, because there had been no crimes!

The following month, August 1997, after a month of torrid bad press, online flame wars (much like you we still see on the SFGate) denouncing all bicyclists, and a remarkably one-sided representation of what had happened (no mention of Mayor Brown's land-swap shenanigans with the Transbay terminal property that was going on behind the scenes during the same summer), about 5,000 bicyclists showed up in defiant celebration at their own monthly gathering. This time, anticipating a very heavy-handed police presence, the plan was to follow the Good Soldier Schweik approach, that is, ride to rule. Each cyclist would ride as if it were a motor vehicle, obeying all laws, stopping at every light and sign, signaling every turn, etc. That held for the first hour or so, and the traffic downtown was MUCH WORSE than it had ever been before. Thousands of cyclists filling the streets, obeying the traffic laws, turned out to be much more disruptive than following the safe and predictable method of Critical Mass that had evolved over time. 

From that time forward, a kind of truce developed with the police. The ebb and flow of policing over the ensuing years has been unpredictable, going back and forth between angry belligerence and benign tolerance. Sometimes a bunch of bicycling cops joined us, sometimes there were hardly any police at all, and sometimes a whole bunch of motorcycle cops and paddy wagons would come. They've never made any mass arrests, but they do ticket riders on occasion, usually in a somewhat punitive fashion if they see someone they particularly want to inconvenience (it's generally for running red lights, or impeding traffic, or other normal Critical Mass behaviors). When they do, like a few months ago on Broadway coming east out of the tunnel, it led to a half hour traffic jam blocking the streets. Critical Mass riders don't always stop in solidarity with every rider who gets hassled by the cops, but when they do, it raises the costs to the city in terms of traffic blocked and the number of officers who gather to secure the area while a traffic infraction ticket is written.

It is a useful reminder to all that the best approach (usually the one taken by the cops when they're being reasonable) is to facilitate the ride moving continuously through the city until it's finished.

Police repression, when it comes, is part of a larger culture war between those who think the American Way of Life is fundamentally about cars, business, and private property (almost always a strong bias of individual police) and the growing movement to shift into a new way of organizing our lives, based on ecological principles, reduced resource use, and a more convivial, publicly-oriented cityscape. Most of us riding in Critical Mass are not out to break the law or antagonize anyone, but we do feel strongly that we have to demonstrate firmly and directly a different way of life. To those of us committed to a life with a greater sense of conviviality and a commitment to a public sphere, the childish and antagonistic behavior that a few cyclists bring to the ride has been dismaying.

Unfortunately, the old xerocracy mostly died out (with the notable exception of the 10th anniversary ride in 2002--four different beautiful posters were made and put all around town, dozens of stickers and flyers were distributed at the ride, a book was published). Once or twice a year someone shows up with a flyer addressing the culture of the ride, or prepares a suggested route, but in general, cultural production, once so essential to the experience, went into hibernation. After more than a decade the transmission of the culture from oldtimers to newbies has broken down. People riding in Critical Mass these days might have been infants when we started it 18 years ago!

Sadly, some people show up because they believe all the media lies about this big anarchistic confrontational experience, though they are tiny in number. Still, when they behave badly they get an inordinate amount of attention, not just in the media when it deigns to address this ongoing cultural phenomenon, but weirdly, from other cyclists. There's a mentality that has been shaped by our profit-driven media: when it bleeds, it leads. I'm afraid all too many people on all sides of Critical Mass tend to fall into this same mental trap, focusing their attention on the tiny few who behave like jerks, rather than the overwhelming thousands (and not just here, but across the planet in over 300 cities worldwide) who manage things well, extend courtesy and kindness to bystanders, have joyful interchanges with people briefly stuck in buses and cars, and are greeted exuberantly from neighbors in their windows as we roll through central city neighborhoods.

Now the police seem to be threatening Critical Mass again, but to what end?

It's a small thing, lasting 2-3 hours a month, inconveniencing lots of people for a short time, but keeping an important cultural space open. In that space, a different kind of life is in gestation, where new friends and networks continually discover one another, where we experience radical direct democracy, rolling through the streets. And it is available to all comers. Historically it's been self-managed, and recently a new website and discussion list have been started to remedy the fact that the culture hasn't been handed down well between generations of riders.

As for what could work, I'd suggest that Chief Gascon start by removing all motorized vehicles from accompanying the ride, send whatever police he deems necessary on bicycles, and reiterate that Critical Mass is a cultural fact of life in San Francisco. Anything else is likely to make things worse and cost the city a lot more money over the long haul.

Photo: Troy Holden

San Francisco Police Chief George Gascón vowed last week to implement significant crime reducing strategies through his Compstat system and restructured enforcement based on best practices from inside and outside of his department, including two measures that have pedestrian and bicycle advocates astir.

At a press conference with Mayor Gavin Newsom Friday, Gascón said he would reduce overall crime in San Francisco by 20 percent in one year, including a 10 percent reduction in Muni-related crime and a 10 percent reduction in collisions between cars, pedestrians, and cyclists.

When asked for more details about how the SFPD would reduce bicycle and pedestrian injury collisions, SFPD spokesperson Lt. Lynn Tomioka said Compstat would be a start, enabling the department to better analyze data collected about infractions so enforcement could be targeted to dangerous behavior. She also noted that Compstat alone would not be sufficient and that the department is in the process of restructuring its reporting and enforcement policies for drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists.

"It's an area that’s evolving," she said. "The whole report-managing system is being very closely scrutinized, because we track everything by our reporting system. There are a lot of changes that [Chief Gascón] has implemented and a lot more systems that he will change."

Tomioka said the department will look to various station captains for best practices, such as the crosswalk stings conducted by Ingleside Station Captain David Lazar. "Chief Gascón wants to see more visibility for programs that Captain Lazar has found effective and worthwhile," she said, adding that crosswalk stings are good at educating drivers about danger to pedestrians. She said they wanted to see "all stations, not just the pilot station" being more active with innovative enforcement.

"I appreciate Chief Gascon's initiative to reduce vehicle-pedestrian collisions," said Walk SF's Manish Champsee, noting that crosswalk stings were very effective. "By far and away the most common reason for a pedestrian-auto crash is when the driver does not yield the way to the pedestrian."

Tomioka also said they would meld enforcement with education campaigns. "We want to get across that people need to be safe and practice safety," she said, referring to motorists, cyclists and pedestrians alike. Among the dangerous behavior they would target, Tomioka cited drivers running red lights and turning on red without stopping for pedestrians, cyclists running lights and stop signs, and pedestrians crossing on red signals and jaywalking in general.

Champsee was concerned with over-emphasis on jaywalking, which he said, "isn't necessarily a large contributor to pedestrian/auto crashes."

He also noted that "The Netherlands legalized jaywalking several years ago and didn't find an increase in pedestrian injuries and fatalities." 

Bicycle advocates were slow to praise the department's moves, cautioning that enhanced enforcement without a reevaluation of stereotypes associated with cycling, driving, or pedestrian safety could prove ineffective at best.

"How will we bring a focus on the behavior that is most dangerous?" asked San Francisco Bicycle Coalition Program Director Andy Thornley. "It's not just focusing on ticketing people rolling through stop signs but on those behaviors that are truly injurious." When pressed for clarification if that was code for enforcing dangerous driving, Thornley said yes.

"If you walk or bike or take a bus in this city and you watch what happens, it seems pretty clear that most of the danger is coming from the operators of motor vehicles. We are keen to see that the efforts focus on the source of the menace."

Thornley also promoted the change in collision reporting and said that the Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System (SWITRS) often found cyclists equally at fault in collisions, despite recent studies from Toronto and London that found cyclists were at fault in the scantest of cases. Thornley also pointed to anecdotes of bias among officers against cyclists in reporting crashes, such as the incident Streetsblog reported last year with officer bias on clear display (Tomioka said there was fallout from that incident, but wouldn't elaborate).

"That’s not to say that cyclists shouldn’t be exempt from enforcement activity. I think we see, every day, cyclists behaving rudely and selfishly," said Thornley. "We want to emphasize before we go very far, it would be good for all parties to evaluate what really is happening on the streets. If we just go off of our prejudice, we may not get the effective, meaningful enforcement that we really need."

In addition to comments about general enforcement last week, Gascón said he would revisit his department's policy toward Critical Mass bicycle rides and suggested that if a measure banning Critical Mass were put on the ballot, it would pass easily.

Never mind the question of how arguably ineffectual it would be to put bicycle riding on a ballot measure, the threat of clamping down on Critical Mass had regular cyclists fulminating on listservs, and brought up memories of former Mayor Willie Brown's crackdown in 1997. With increased enforcement and hundreds of arrests, Brown only catalyzed cyclists around the resistance to heavy policing and made the rides much larger.

SFPD's Tomioka was cognizant of the ride's history and said her department didn't want to alienate the many people who support Critical Mass. "On the other hand there are those who hate it," she said.

Chief Gascón has tasked Assistant Chief Kevin Cashman to look at their current enforcement policies, particularly in light of budget constraints. She said one solution in addition to possible enforcement changes was the creation of community forums, which she painted as unofficial community advisory councils, where "any member of bicycle groups can inform the community relations unit and the Chief with ideas to make the city much more efficient and safe."

"We’re not naïve to think that everyone will be happy, but something needs to improve with Critical Mass," added Tomioka. "We want to allow people to ride on the streets but not have people stuck in their cars terrified by the riders or unable to get where they need to go."

An injured bicyclist is loaded onto a gurney by paramedics on 14th Street and Market Thursday evening after being hit by a driver. Photos by Bryan Goebel.

Thursday was a momentous day for the growing and diverse population of people who ride bicycles in San Francisco, though as I'm about to relate to you, the city still has a steep hill to climb, particularly in the San Francisco Police Department.

All day, my job took me to the sites of new bicycle improvements: California's first green bike box, the city's first physically separated bike lane and bike racks installed on sidewalks. Although these additions are baby steps toward making the city more bicycle friendly, they are important symbols, and they were roundly cheered by bicycle riders who have been starved for even minimal improvements.

As I coasted eastbound down Market nearing Church on my way home from the Lower Haight last night, I was confronted by a grim picture, the stark reality of life that daily bicycle commuters intimately imagine any time a door is opened into our path, or a vehicle makes an unsuspecting right or left turn without seeing, or caring, that we are riding there.

At the scene, to my left, a woman was lying in the crosswalk on 14th Street, surrounded by paramedics and SFPD officers. The intersection was illuminated by the flashing red and blue lights of emergency vehicles and patrol units. My first thought was, "another serious pedestrian injury or fatality in a crosswalk."

The injured woman, who appeared to be in her 20s, was in fact hit by a northbound driver in a gray Toyota Camry making an illegal left turn onto 14th Street from Church, according to a witness. She was on a bicycle and the wrecked light-blue 70s Gitane ten-speed, with its crank arms and wheels bent, was resting on a utility pole outside Trigger. It was hard to tell, but it appeared as though she had been seriously injured: her head was in a brace. The driver, an unidentified woman, remained behind the wheel, parked in the crosswalk, talking on a cell phone while paramedics tended to the victim and officers interviewed witnesses.

The injured woman was then loaded onto a gurney and into the ambulance, where she remained surrounded by paramedics, and was rushed to the hospital. The only witness I could find was Carlos Corujo, the owner of the Freewheel Bike Shop in the Mission, who saw the whole thing, with his 3-year-old niece in his arms.

"I was walking across the crosswalk and I saw a girl on a bike coming the other direction and she was hit while the driver was taking a left-hand turn," he said. "I looked at the light right after the accident just to see who had the right of way, for sure, and the bicyclist had the right of way." He pointed out that a sign nearby said it is illegal to make a left turn onto 14th Street. In fact, there are three signs around the intersection.

The driver remained in her vehicle talking on a cell phone during the investigation.

And now to the very disconcerting part about the police. As I tried to get information from three SFPD police officers on the scene of the crash, two of them showered me with unadulterated disdain for bicyclists and pedestrians. One officer said she thought bicyclists and pedestrians are always at fault in crashes and that they are stupid for not watching out for drivers. She was very upset with cyclists running red lights. She told me the bicyclist was at fault in this crash without any knowledge that a witness was saying the opposite.

Another officer complained that bicyclists should be ticketed a lot more, then he said that he thought San Francisco bicyclists should all be moved to Treasure Island, where presumably they wouldn't be in the way. Though I deplore the argument made by some that cyclists are second-class citizens or that they face bias and discrimination in a way that resembles African Americans or other people of color in the U.S., this perverse suggestion by a sworn officer of the law is despicable. When it dawned on him that his bigotry might make it into my story, given the bright pink SFPD press badge dangling around my neck, he made a slightly menacing reference to memorizing the information on my pass.

In a follow-up interview today, Corujo said that when he was being interviewed by the officers they seemed to have a preconceived idea of what happened, and were fixated on confirming whether the woman had lights on her bike.

"It seems like they were trying to bias the story to even out the score or something," said Corujo. "I don't know if they were even listening to the idea that [the driver] had made an illegal turn."

Bicycle riders routinely report this kind of hostile reaction from the people sworn to protect and serve, but when I interviewed San Francisco's new police chief, George Gascon, a few months ago, I was encouraged that he seemed to be more open to embracing bicyclists than his predecessor, Heather Fong. He even promised to go on a bike ride with Streetsblog, though we're still awaiting a firm date. 

Even if Chief Gascon's approach to enhancing the effectiveness of his police force through Compstat bodes well for the city in certain respects, no amount of data analysis will dispel preconceived notions and prejudice among his personnel. The bias against bicyclists by some SFPD officers is a deeply endemic problem on the force that needs to be addressed immediately, especially as the city is installing more bicycle improvements, and the number of bicyclists is expected to soar.

I can't help but wonder what the "accident" report from last night is going to say. I imagine it will fault the bicyclist, despite what Corujo said, and it's very likely the driver won't be cited. Clearly, in the minds of these officers, drivers hold an entitlement to the streets, and bicyclists and pedestrians be damned.

For the sake of the injured woman on 14th and Church and for any cyclist involved in a crash in San Francisco, the San Francisco Police Department must not disregard the rights of anyone, particularly people who choose one form of mobility over another.

All of this was no surprise to Leah Shahum, the executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition.

"It's not only deeply disturbing that this bias against bicyclists still exists within the SF Police Department, but I believe it is illegal, given the Department's responsibility to uphold the law fairly and without personal bias. Chief Gascon should make it a priority to educate his officers and hold them accountable. Without leadership from the new Chief, there is no doubt in my mind that bicyclists will continue to bear the brunt of a dangerously biased police force. In this day and age, San Francisco cannot turn a blind eye to this."

SFPD public affairs returned my phone calls late this afternoon, and was expected to get back to me with a response, and more details on the crash.