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.

Factoring in proximity to bike lanes, street connectivity, topography, and commuter cycling rates, the Bike Score algorithm rated Minneapolis America's most bikeable city. Image: Walk Score

The people behind Walk Score, the real estate rating service that goes by the slogan “Drive Less, Live More,” are out with a new rating system, based on hard data, that should prove useful to prospective city dwellers: Bike Score.

The company launched the Bike Score website today, using its new algorithm to rank the ten most bikeable cities in the country. (We covered their release of city rankings for transit last month.) Minneapolis ran away with the top prize with a 79 percent bikeability rating. San Francisco tied Portland for number two, despite the fact that hilliness was a factor. D.C. and New York also placed highly (while the NYC core rates very highly on Bike Score, the bike lane deserts outside the center city score quite low).

The staff of Walk Score is made up of a whole lot of bike commuters. No wonder they were excited to launch a new bikeability ranking. Photo courtesy of Walk Score

In other bikeability rating news, the League of American Bicyclists released its 2012 list of Bicycle Friendly Communities today. There’s a lot of overlap between the BFCs and the Bike Score winners, but they are compiled use vastly different methodologies. For one thing, you won’t find two of the League’s top three cycling cities on the Bike Score list because Bike Score, so far, only looks at cities with populations over 200,000. Sorry, Boulder and Davis.

Colorado and Montana did well in the League’s rankings this year. Missoula and Durango moved up to gold, and the Colorado towns of Gunnison and Aspen made it onto the list for the first year, rolling in at the silver level. Look for your city on their updated BFC list [PDF].

The League bases its BFC choices on somewhat subjective criteria. They look for the “five Es”: engineering, education, encouragement, evaluation & planning, and enforcement. Decisions are made by staff and external reviewers, in consultation with local stakeholders.

Bike Score, on the other hand, is based on pure numbers. Individual addresses are rated on a scale of 0-100 based on four factors:

• the availability of bike infrastructure (with on-street and off-street facilities weighted differently)
• the hilliness of the area (the one factor a city can’t control)
• amenities and road connectivity
• the number of bike commuters (because “biking is social” and there’s safety in numbers, explained Walk Score’s chief technology officer and co-founder Matt Lerner)

To then determine the score for the city, the individual address scores are used to compute scores for each block, and then the block-by-block scores are weighted by population density.

“For every location in the city, we add up the number of meters of bike lane, and there’s a distance-to-K function so the closer you have a meter of bike lane, the more valuable it is, and we don’t give you any credit after about a mile out,” said Lerner. “For every address, we do that calculation. It’s a new metric that is really about a specific location, not about the city overall. So what we’re really measuring is, for average person in that city, how good is biking.”

Note: The capability to score your own home isn’t available on the website yet, as it is for Transit Score and Walk Score, but Lerner says they hope to enable that soon so real estate agents can use Bike Score to advertise the homes they have for sale, as they do now with the other two. Walk Score has an Apartment Search function that allows renters to search by nearby amenities, distance to transit, commute time, price, number of bedrooms – and, of course, Walk Score. It interfaces with craigslist to show the complete ad all in one place with the walk/bike/transit information.

Right now you can plug in any address in the country and get a Walk Score for it, but even once Bike Score’s full functionality is rolled out, it won’t be so widespread. “With Bike Score we have to go out and get bike lane data from each city,” Lerner said, “so it’s more of a manual process.” They’re taking votes via Twitter for the next cities they should score.

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

Image: SFBC, based on data from SFMTA

San Francisco’s streets are expected to fill with bike commuters tomorrow for the city’s 18th Bike to Work Day.

The city has more bike lanes, more people on bikes, and more political momentum for bike policy today than in years past. ”We definitely expect to see more people bicycling on Bike to Work Day this year than ever before,” said San Francisco Bicycle Coalition Executive Director Leah Shahum, “given that the number of people of biking every year has been increasing significantly — 71 percent over the last five years, given that it’s supposed to be really lovely warm weather, and given, most importantly, that the city has added more dedicated bike space in the last year than ever before.”

In San Francisco’s most visible display of bicycling growth, SFMTA Bike to Work Day morning commute counts show that bike traffic has risen steadily over recent years on Market Street, which the SFBC now calls the busiest bicycling street west of the Mississippi. Last year at the Van Ness Avenue intersection, bikes made up 75 percent of vehicle traffic as car traffic plummeted on the corridor.

Since the bike injunction was lifted in 2010, the SFMTA has striped bike lanes in locations around the city, including some of SF’s first physically protected routes. The parking-protected bike lanes on John F. Kennedy Drive in Golden Gate Park are “substantially complete” as of this week (save some finishing touches), according to the SFMTA. Construction is also nearly complete on a two-way bikeway on Cargo Way.

The 23 miles of bike lanes added by the SFMTA since August 2010 “really cover very diverse neighborhoods,” said Shahum.

Bike commuters tomorrow will benefit from new curbside, post-separated bike lanes on Division, Laguna Honda, Alemany and Cesar Chavez as well as the green lanes on Market. Buffered bike lanes have also been striped on Bayshore and Sloat, and new conventional lanes can be found on 17th, Folsom, Illinois, North Point, Townsend, Kirkham, Phelan, Holloway, Ocean, Portola, and McCoppin. The SFMTA also continues installing bike racks (in corrals and on sidewalks) and sharrows throughout the city.

“When there’s more dedicated bike space, time and time again we see more people bicycling, and we see a more diverse cross-section of people biking,” said Shahum. “We see more parents riding with their kids to school, we see more older folks riding to a farmer’s market, we see more of San Francisco’s work force biking downtown rather than heading in in their cars.”

Market Street commuters on Bike to Work Day last year. Photo: Aaron Bialick

Riding into City Hall tomorrow will be a large cast of city officials, including Mayor Ed Lee and all but one member of the Board of Supervisors. (D7 Supervisor Sean Elsbernd said he used to ride every year prior to his son’s birth, but bicycling is no longer “practically an option” as he needs to drop his wife and son off by car.)

Almost every member of the SFMTA Board of Directors (save Jerry Lee, who is out of town) will also be riding, according to Shahum, including Christina Rubke, Mayor Lee’s recent board nominee to replace Bruce Oka. Other officials expected to ride include SFMTA Director of Transportation Ed Reiskin, Department of Public Works Director Mohammed Nuru, SF Environment Director Melanie Nutter, and Carla Johnson, the new director of the Mayor’s Office on Disability.

The decision makers participating in tomorrow’s event will have to raise their commitment to safe cycling throughout the rest of the year to help the city reach its bike mode-share goals. As the SF Bay Guardian pointed out yesterday, while cycling is on the rise, the current rate of improvements is far from sufficient to meet the city’s goal of getting 20 percent of commuters on bikes by 2020 (it’s currently estimated at 3.5 percent).

Despite some recent high-profile project delays, Shahum said, “It’s really exciting to see that some of the problem areas that the mayor and others experienced riding last year are getting stepped up attention and are getting improvements now.” She noted that the long-awaited protected bikeways on Fell and Oak Streets are also headed to an SFMTA hearing next Friday, May 18.

Tomorrow morning, 11 commuter convoys will head to City Hall from various neighborhoods throughout the city, and 27 energizer stations will be set up along the way, half of which will have a “bike doctor” on hand to help commuters keep their bikes in shape. The SF-to-Google (SF2G) Peninsula convoy, which Shahum noted usually carries about 40 riders on its regular rides throughout the year, is expecting to be joined by 500 people (they had 400 last year).

At City Hall, Shahum said the SFBC will be highlighting the economic benefits that bicycling brings to the city, announcing six of the city’s top bike-friendly businesses chosen from “tons and tons” of applicants who are encouraging their employees to bike with incentive programs and secure bike parking.

“We’re hearing from so many people that there are employers who are deciding to move to or stay in San Francisco because their employees love living in a city, and they want to be able to bike and take transit,” she said.

Image: Mark Dreger/SFBC

Alta runs Boston's Hubway Bike Share system, among others. Photo: The Fosbury Flop

A board committee of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) is expected to recommend selecting Alta tomorrow, according to a memo [PDF] from CEO Jack Broadbent. The memo says that Alta ranked the highest out of six bidders in meeting the agency’s criteria.

If awarded the contract, Alta would run a system initially consisting of 1,000 bicycles and 100 station kiosks – half in San Francisco and the other half in four cities in Silicon Valley. The contract would be capped at $5,969,000, according to the memo.

The Portland-based Alta already runs systems in Boston, Montreal, Melbourne, and Washington D.C., where the wildly successful Capital Bikeshare was recently reported to be nearly operationally profitable. Alta has also been selected to run systems in New York City and Chicago, expected to launch later this year.

In each city Alta has partnered with the Montreal-based Public Bicycle System Company, which manufactures the bikes and kiosks. PBSC also makes the equipment for the Barclays Cycle Hire in London.

Alta Bikeshare is an affiliate of Alta Planning + Design, a bicycle- and pedestrian-focused transportation planning firm which has an office in Berkeley.

The system is expected to be rolled out throughout August and September.

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

A photo simulation of a bike share station from the SFMTA.

The launch was pushed back one month from its previously proposed date “to give prospective vendors more time to develop thorough proposals and more time to prepare for the system’s launch,” said SFMTA spokesperson Paul Rose.

According to a document [PDF] from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD), the lead agency for the program, the submission period for proposals from prospective bike share vendors was extended until today following numerous requests.

The launch, originally scheduled for spring, may be rolled out in stages throughout August and September, depending on which vendor is chosen, the document says. While August 1 is the new “desired start date,” October 1 is the deadline for the vendor to complete the rollout of 100 bike share stations planned for the pilot — 50 of which will be in downtown San Francisco.

Questions submitted to the BAAQMD, listed in the document along with the agency’s responses, include several complaints from vendors that a July 1 launch would be unrealistic.

“Unless a preferred vendor has already been chosen and has begun manufacturing, it is not possible for any vendor to manufacture, deliver, test, and deploy the equipment required to support 100 stations, 1,000 bikes, and 1,500 to 2,000 locking docks over five cities, spread out over the 50 miles between San Francisco and San Jose, in the ten weeks from contract award to launch,” writes Richard Layman of BicyclePASS, in a preface to an extension request.

A promise of a quick and cost-effective installation is one of the many criteria by which the BAAQMD and transit agencies will select a vendor. Other factors include the sustainability of the vendor’s price structure, the vendor’s experience launching other bike share systems, the durability and design of its bikes and stations, and how well the vendor adheres to technical and legal requirements.

The other companies that submitted questions addressed by the BAAQMD were Alameda Bicycle, Blazing Saddles, Serco, Library Bikes, and ParkWide, which launched a park-to-park bike rental system in San Francisco in October.

Following today’s submission deadline, the agencies plan to announce a chosen vendor in May.

Find more details about Request for Proposals criteria on the BAAQMD web site.

A mini-documentary out of Portland, Oregon showcases the vibrant bicycle culture the city enjoys, from “bike trains” of kids riding to school on traffic-calmed bike boulevards to a range of everyday people getting around by bike simply because it’s “accessible.”

As San Francisco strives to be the most bike-friendly city on the west coast, we can only hope it won’t be long before we see as many two-wheeling families on our streets.

H/T Ron Richings for the video, filmed by Kona Productions.

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.

Photo: SP8254/Flickr

The board has also reportedly approved a fare increase proposal which the Mercury News detailed earlier this week:

The new proposal recommends just a 25-cent increase for a one-way ticket, no matter how far the route, and a 50-cent increase for the one-day pass.

But if at least half of the ticket buyers don’t switch to Clipper cards by March 1, 2013, staff is suggesting that the board reconsider the original proposal.

Meanwhile, staff has backed off a plan to eliminate the popular 15 percent discount pass for Clipper riders who take the train eight times within a 60-day period. Most of the complaints Caltrain received after announcing the fare increase proposal on Jan. 17 centered on elimination of the eight-ride ticket. Staff now is recommending that the pass has to be used within 30 days, at a discount of only 7.5 percent.

The fare increase is set to take effect July 1.

SF Bike Coalition Executive Director Leah Shahum (left) stands with transportation officials at Warm Planet's grand opening in January 2008. Photo: SFBC/Flickr

“Caltrain needs to provide interim funding for uninterrupted service of bike parking at Fourth and King,” said Shirley Johnson, vice chair of the Caltrain Bicycle Advisory Committee and head of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition’s Bikes ONBoard Project. “To expect Warm Planet to stay open without paying for it, that’s just not possible.”

When the bike shop opened in January 2008, it had room to provide attended parking for up to 100 bikes. But over the years, demand has grown, and managers have sacrificed more and more retail space to accommodate parking and avoid “bumping” bike commuters the way Caltrain often does.

Today, Warm Planet parks up to 170 bikes per day, all for free. But the grant the shop had originally relied on ended a year and a half ago, and without a lift from agencies like Caltrain — the transit system whose customers it serves — the shop can’t sustain itself much longer.

“It’s been difficult, but I’ve been making a go of it,” said Warm Planet’s owner and president, who goes by the single name Kash. “This facility doesn’t exist so I can run a bike shop. This facility exists so that people who want to get on Caltrain can park their bikes.”

Kash has sought out other sponsors but says it’s difficult to attract support, since Warm Planet is a for-profit business despite the bike parking services it provides for a public transit agency. Advocates have been pushing Caltrain to find interim funds to keep the shop going, and though staff is negotiating one, a proposal has yet to be put on the table.

“We are very pleased to have a bike parking facility there,” said Caltrain spokesperson Christine Dunn. “We know how important it is, and we have no intention of closing it.”

The original three-year grant included $36,000 from the SFMTA, the SF County Transportation Authority, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, as a well as $300,000 in federal funding. However, there are no plans to renew it.

In September 2009, Caltrain issued a request for proposals (RFP) to give other prospective competitors a shot at the space, but it was canceled in October 2010, because “during the process, the companies that applied all seemed to think that there would need to be a subsidy,” said Dunn. “The RFP didn’t include that, so we are taking that into consideration right now.”

Although Caltrain is developing a new RFP that would include funding support, it could take 12 to 18 months before Warm Planet gets it, assuming it is selected to continue. Kash doesn’t expect the shop to last that long.

Johnson said issuing the RFP in the first place was unnecessary “when they already have a very successful operator,” especially with Caltrain’s ongoing financial problems. “It seems strange to take that expense and the risk of a new operator there. Why not just extend the contract with Warm Planet?”

Since the shop opened, “it has changed people’s commute,” she said. “It’s a win-win-win for everybody. Caltrain gets more customers, we get cars off the road, there’s not as much congestion, there’s not as much pollution, and people are happier on their commute.”

While Caltrain has long subsidized car parking at its stations at below-market rates, Johnson pointed out that bike parking provides a sustainable solution particularly well-suited for a linear transit system like Caltrain. Walking or taking other transit to and from the stations along the Peninsula can be too difficult and time-consuming for many.

“The bicycle solves that problem on both ends,” she said. “There are some people who can walk on the other end, so great — let them park at Warm Planet.”

Rose Garrett, a Peninsula commuter who lives in the lower Haight, started biking to Caltrain and parking at Warm Planet after two frustrating years riding the N-Judah.

“The situation became so out of hand, (crowded trains, unreliable service) that I missed my train to my Redwood City office on many occasions, causing me to miss hours of work,” she wrote in an email to Caltrain, along with dozens of others urging the agency to provide support for the shop [PDF]. “Warm Planet’s service has allowed me to to park my bike every day and continue my commute without aggravation. My good mood lasts me all morning, whereas in my Muni-riding days, my bad mood often persisted all week.”

In addition to meeting the current need, Caltrain will need to plan for a much larger facility if it is to accommodate the growing demand for bike parking in the coming years, said Kash.

“There’s no plausible future in San Francisco that doesn’t include more bicycles, so we should get ahead of the curve.”

The next meeting of the Caltrain Board of Directors is on Thursday, February 2 at 10 a.m., in the Edward J. Bacciocco Auditorium, located on the second floor at SamTrans Administrative Offices, 1250 San Carlos Ave. in San Carlos. Supporters can voice public comment there or send an email to board@caltrain.com.

A rendering of CPMC's proposed 555-bed hospital and medical office building at Van Ness and Geary. Image: Rebuild CPMC

Nearly 10,000 additional cars [PDF] are predicted to travel every day to the gigantic Cathedral Hill California Pacific Medical Center (CPMC) at Van Ness and Geary after it opens in 2016. While the city is negotiating how much the institution will pay to help mitigate the impacts those cars will have on Muni and pedestrian and bicycle safety, some advocates argue that won’t make up for a fundamental flaw: The medical center will include too much parking.

The 555-bed hospital and medical office building will include more than 1,200 parking spaces. CPMC projects half the visitors and employees to come by transit, foot or bike. But based on CPMC’s track record at three of its existing sites in the city, Marlayne Morgan of the Cathedral Hill Neighborhood Association doesn’t think that’s likely.

CPMC’s transit incentives for employees aren’t enough, says Morgan. “Even with giving $100 to take public transit, they can’t get 50 percent of their employees out of their cars,” she told the SF Board of Supervisors at a four-hour hearing last week on the transparency of CPMC’s negotiations with the city. “There’s no way to mitigate the impact of this facility unless you take it down in size.”

Cathedral Hill’s staff will be comprised largely of current CPMC employees at its other San Francisco locations, just under half of whom live outside the city, according to the transportation analysis in the CPMC’s Institutional Master Plan [PDF].

“They’re taking three hospitals and putting them in one location,” said Morgan. “It’s hard to believe that this is going to change the patterns at Cathedral Hill.”

Trip mode share at three existing CPMC campuses, from the Institutional Master Plan PDF

CPMC spokesperson Kevin McCormack said employees can get “up to $230 a month in pre-taxed pay to buy commuter checks for use on all Bay Area mass transit from MUNI and BART to Caltrain and van pools,” seemingly a reference to federal tax benefits that also provide incentives for employees to drive to work. (In fact, as of January 1, 2012, the maximum monthly pre-tax benefit for parking will be $240, while the maximum benefit for transit will drop back down to $125.)

“We also have shuttles that run between campuses and to and from Muni and BART stations so staff don’t have to bring their cars into the city or into downtown,” McCormack added. He couldn’t provide information on the parking benefits CPMC offers.

Ultimately, to reduce traffic generated by a specific facility, sustainable transportation advocates say that planners must reduce the amount of parking. “Parking spaces – particularly commuter or visitor spaces – are like magnets for cars,” writes Jeffrey Tumlin, a principal at San Francisco-based Nelson/Nygaard Associates, in his upcoming book Sustainable Transportation Planning.

The Cathedral Hill center would be more transit-accessible than the existing CPMC sites. Its location at the intersection of two BRT lines set to open on Van Ness and Geary in 2016 could lure more employees to take transit. But that also makes the high volume of parking all the more superfluous and the traffic generated all the more harmful to transit performance. As Livable City Director Tom Radulovich told Streetsblog last year, “If you’re going to maximize damage to Muni’s network, that’s where you would do it.”

While no bicycle improvements have been promised, CPMC could help fund an SFMTA study under the agreement being negotiated with the city. But unless protected bikeways are added to streets like Post, Sutter, and Polk, few commuters are expected to bike to the center.

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, which is pushing for a protected bikeway on Polk Street in its Connecting the City campaign, said in a statement that it “is looking to the CPMC Cathedral Hill to really embrace bicycle transportation for its staff and visitors. Supporting the creation of a top-notch bikeway on Polk Street will benefit the hospital, the neighborhood and countless destinations and people throughout the city.”

The Cathedral Hill center is set to begin construction next year and open in 2016.

Bicyclists have to contend with a mess of taxis, delivery trucks and other vehicles obstructing the bike lane on Townsend Street near the entrance to the Caltrain station, to the right. This is why some ride on the sidewalk. Photos by Bryan Goebel.

San Francisco police returned to the Caltrain station at 4th, King and Townsend streets this morning to warn bike commuters not to ride on the sidewalk one day after a sting that resulted in a number of citations for people on bikes. Bike advocates complained, however, that Caltrain has known for years the station presents a challenge to bicyclists, and said the agency’s inaction has allowed conflicts between bicyclists and pedestrians to continue.

Instead of seriously addressing flaws in the street and station design, the situation has led to the selective enforcement of bicyclists. Police told Streetsblog they have received complaints from pedestrians about bike commuters, and yesterday issued a number of citations to bicyclists for riding on the sidewalk. SFPD Lt. Troy Dangerfield said today it was part of a “month-long campaign on bicycle and pedestrian enforcement.” However, the officers did not target drivers obstructing the bike lane.

Shirley Johnson, a member of Caltrain’s Bicycle Advisory Committee and a longtime leader of the Bikes ONBoard program, said she’s been riding on the sidewalk for years.

“I just thought that’s how you’re supposed to get to the station. There’s a curb cut right there, on the sidewalk,” she told Streetsblog. “No one has ever said anything and people are getting ticketed. That seems very unfair.”

“I’m very careful. I ride really slow on the sidewalk,” she continued. “But I can only imagine if someone’s late for the train they’re probably coming along at a pretty good clip. I always got there early enough that I never had to do that but I can see that it’s a safety concern.”

A great many bicyclists walk their bikes into the station. The bike parking building is to the left.

Hundreds of daily bike commuters use this facility to park their bikes, and on many days it's over capacity. It's also the home of Warm Planet Bikes

The bike lanes installed on Townsend Street on the north side of the Caltrain station were ushered in with quite the fanfare, just days after the permanent injunction against bike facilities was lifted in August, 2010. But this morning, like any other typical weekday (according to bike commuters I spoke to), the bike lane was at various times blocked by taxis, a Bud Light delivery truck, a shuttle bus and private automobiles. Some taxi drivers like to make sudden u-turns out of the taxi station, endangering bicyclists riding in the bike lane.

Caltrain’s 2008 Bicycle Access and Parking Plan acknowledges the challenges for bicyclists here:

There is no clearly‐delineated routing for cyclists to transition from riding to walking their bike to reach the station entrance and platforms. Cyclists are frequently observed riding on the section of sidewalk between the taxi stand (where there is a curb cut and a signed bollard) and the station entrance. This exacerbates passenger flow issues, as there are also many pedestrians in this area.

The plan recommended working with the SFMTA to consider relocating the taxi stand but nothing has been done since it was adopted, according to Caltrain spokesperson Christine Dunn, who added that “none of the recommended projects in the plan are funded.”

Johnson said Caltrain needs to address the problem immediately. “They need to have a safe, clearly marked pathway for cyclists to get to the station that does not interfere with pedestrian traffic.”

This taxi driver begins making a dangerous u-turn.

Law enforcement vehicles are often parked on the sidewalk, even during rush times. Caltrain was ordered to install the black bollards as a security measure.

"Bike parking for Alta office. We replaced a parking spot with this wall-mounted rack." Flickr photo: Lauren Buckland

Commercial buildings in downtown San Francisco could be required to provide indoor bicycle parking accommodations under a proposal introduced at last week’s Board of Supervisors meeting.

“One of the ways that we can really assure our bikes are safe from theft is to be able to bring them into our buildings,” said Supervisor John Avalos, who has asked the City Attorney’s Office to draft the legislation.

Providing secure parking would encourage would-be bicycle commuters deterred by the prospect of leaving their bicycle locked to on-street poles and bike racks for hours, where they could be vulnerable to theft. In 2007, police estimated 2,000 to 3,000 bikes are stolen in the city every year, according to the Bay Guardian.

“For many existing commercial buildings, there isn’t bike access,” said Avalos, “and we want to be able to provide that access in the future for cyclists in San Francisco.”

“It’s the last major gap in solving the commuter bike parking problem,” said Dave Snyder, executive director of the California Bicycle Coalition. Many office buildings, he noted, have room for bike parking but don’t allow access.

“If you’ve got a car parking garage, it’s easy to convert enough space to provide secure bicycle parking,” he said, “and a lot of people already work in situations where their company doesn’t mind if they bring their bikes in as long as they stash it out of the way.”

The legislation would “either require commercial buildings to provide space, locker rooms for cycles, or to allow workers to bring bicycles into the buildings,” said Avalos, and would be modeled after a New York City law which yielded an estimated 1,764 indoor parking spots just five months after being enacted in 2010.

“It’s good that San Francisco is serving as a best practices city,” said Snyder.

It is not known when the legislation will be officially introduced, but Avalos said he intends “to be working with bike advocates as well as the building owners and managers associations and related unions that do work in the buildings to make sure that we have a plan that can move forward and be successful.”

McAllister Street looking west at Leavenworth Street. Flickr photo: geekstinkbreath

Two-way access on the east end of McAllister Street has been restored for Muni buses, bicycles, and commercial vehicles, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) announced last week.

The conversion, completed last Thursday, provides a more direct route to Market Street for the 5-Fulton Muni line, which has long been forced to detour off McAllister at Hyde Street. The bus line is expected to save three minutes on inbound trips for its nearly 16,000 annual riders and save the SFMTA an estimated $200,000 per year, the agency said.

“For folks that are riding the 5, it will really help with quicker trips and reliability and make sure that buses are more evenly spaced apart,” said San Francisco Transit Riders Union spokesperson Robert Boden. “One of our members rides it on a daily basis and she mentioned that sometimes that turn onto Market Street can be very difficult for drivers, and there were times when the trolley buses would become disconnected from the wires.”

Under the reconfiguration, three one-way lanes were converted to one through lane in each direction, bringing calmer and more inviting conditions for people walking and biking on the two blocks between Market and Hyde Streets.

McAllister, which serves as a relatively flat and direct link between the Civic Center and NoPa areas, is a popular route for bicycle commuters. The SFMTA painted sharrows in the westbound direction to connect with those installed in June.

Private automobiles are still prohibited from using McAllister as an eastbound through route. However, drivers can access street parking and drop-off zones in front of the Renoir Hotel from the end of 7th Street, also known as Charles J. Brenham Place, which was also converted to a two-way block. Private auto and delivery drivers are required to make a right turn onto Market Street at the east end of McAllister.

Two-waying McAllister was recommended in the SFMTA’sTransit Effectiveness Project as a way to improve bus service. The overhead wires were installed as part of the Capital Investment Program, which “includes the rehabilitation of the aging trolley bus Overhead Contact System in various parts of the city.”

The new overhead wires on McAllister are currently being tested, and SFMTA spokesperson Paul Rose said the 5-Fulton route change will take effect sometime this month.

Image: SFMTA

McAllister looking east toward Market, where drivers must make a right turn. Flickr photo:

Freshly painted sharrows set to dry. Flickr photo: geekstinkbreath

Nevius finally gets a handlebar perspective. Photo: Myleen Hollero/Orange Photography

It’s safe to assume that one year ago few bicycle riders who read the Chronicle would have ever imagined that Chuck Nevius would one day declare: “Bikes are the future. We need to do a better job of dealing with it.”

But that’s exactly what happened yesterday. Nevius’ sudden embrace of “the inevitable conclusion” is a milestone as bicycling becomes more and more mainstream in San Francisco.

“After all,” concedes Nevius, “more people than ever are pedaling the streets of San Francisco … riding a bike to work makes sense for even those who aren’t fanatic bike messenger types.”

You read that right. Not only did Nevius have an epiphany riding the Wiggle and write a column about it, but said he now uses a bicycle three times a week.

Nevius reintroduced himself into the urban wild just over a year ago after 20 years in captivity in Walnut Creek. If Chuck is an indicator species of cultural attitudes towards cycling as transportation, the experience has been nothing less than a metamorphosis from his windshield-perspective cocoon.

In the eyes of Nevius two years ago, San Francisco could never be a bicycle-friendly place, and to pursue such an idea would be to impose “the wishes of the few versus the needs of the many.” And in those days, daring to cross the street with him behind the wheel was just asking for it (now, it’s his bike lane you shouldn’t “cluelessly stroll into”).

Drivers, according to Nevius as late as January, were being “singled out because they own a car, drive in the city, and reliably pay their bills. And they are tired of being treated as the city’s cash cow.”

But now, it would seem he has since taken former Streetsblog reporter Matthew Roth’s suggestion and “ridden in that small crevice between the door zone and speeding traffic and wondered why a mode of travel you’ve chosen should feel so fraught with peril.”

After being “cut off, nearly hit, and honked at while riding in a bike lane,” Nevius has seen the light: ”Bicycling is for grown-ups. It’s time everyone acted like it.”

You might even spot him at Critical Mass tonight. After all, he says, it’s “mostly harmless good times.”

Flickr photo: zigdon

BART staff has shot down a proposal from Director Robert Raburn to allow commuters to bring bicycles aboard the back cars of rush hour trains. In a memo [pdf] to the BART Board, Executive Planning and Budget Manager Carter Mau recommended maintaining the current policy, which prohibits bicycles aboard its most crowded trains during peak hours.

Raburn couldn’t be reached for comment but BART Director Tom Radulovich said the response from staff was frustrating. He said they’ve been “stonewalling” the issue for years.

“I think the BART staff need to be doing more to expand bike access to all trains at all times,” he said. The issue is not dead yet, however. Radulovich said the board could revive the proposal and call for a public hearing.

San Francisco Bicycle Coalition (SFBC) Executive Director Leah Shahum said “BART is forgoing a major source of new riders and new revenue” by “refusing to even consider easing the existing black-out period for bikes and allowing escalator access for bikes.”

“We urge BART to modernize their approach to bicycle access to support the growing number of people who bicycle in the Bay Area and depend on regional transit, from lawyers to waiters to architects to small business owners,” she said.

According to an article on BART’s website, “while BART ridership has grown about 15 percent [since 2002], the number of riders bicycling from home to BART rose almost 65 percent, from 2.5 percent of all passengers to 4.1 percent.”

But “BART has unfortunately been reducing the lengths of trains to attempt to cut costs without opening up access to cyclists on these trains (which could boost ridership and generate more revenue),” says the SFBC’s website.

Mau, who addressed the memo to BART Director Thomas Blalock, cited six reasons for the decision:

1) There will likely be insufficient capacity for bikes on the last car of trains during the peak period causing confusion, queuing on the crowded platform and spillover into adjacent cars.

2) It will be very challenging to enforce this policy. Once bicyclists are on the platform, if the last car is crowded they will likely board other cars (cars that may become more crowded as the train progresses).

3) This would permit bikes on crowded rush-hour platforms potentially leading to safety concerns and conflicts with other passengers.

4) Vertical circulation is already crowded in busy stations. Allowing more bicycles in the system during peak periods would further tax busy stairways and elevators.

5) Overall this would complicate the enforcement issue for the BART Police Department.

6) As ridership increases, trains will be getting more crowded and room for all passengers will be impacted. When new cars start deploying and potentially there may be more train capacity, we may have an opportunity to revisit this policy.

BART is in the process of updating its Bicycle Master Plan and surveyed riders earlier this month “to understand how and why people access BART today to be able to understand what encourages BART passengers who can bicycle to BART to do so, rather than drive to their station,” according to survey consultant Victoria Eisen.

But Shahum said the SFBC is “concerned that the current Bicycle Master Planning process omits the two most important issues: greater on-board access for bicycles and better station access.”

The next generation of BART cars could potentially provide better accommodations for bikes, but Radulovich says they’re “a decade away.”

In lieu of expanding bike access aboard trains, Mau’s memo recommended “clear communication regarding when bikes are and are not allowed on trains” and “continuing to improve bike parking at stations to give riders a safe, secure parking option.”

Mau pointed to recent parking additions at the Ashby and 19th Street stations as well as plans to add bike stations and lockers at Civic Center and MacArthur. BART also plans to add “up to 1,000 electronic lockers at 25 stations over the next few years,” according to the memo.

Radulovich said staff has been slow to act on bike parking expansion and pointed out that it won’t address the core issue for riders who need to use their bikes on both ends of a trip.

East Bay Bicycle Coalition Executive Director Renee Rivera called Mau’s citation of “safety concerns and conflicts with other passengers” on platforms at rush hour “a total non-issue.”

“The platforms have plenty of room for people to be there with their bikes,” said Rivera.

Restrictions at 12th and 19th Street stations in downtown Oakland, said Rivera, prevent riders with bikes from entering the stations during rush hour, even if they want to access trains that are unrestricted at that time.

“They are a real barrier to people and totally unnecessary,” she said.

On its website, the SFBC urges BART to make numerous access improvements to BART stations, “including wide fare gates that allow wheelchairs and bicycles through, stair channels to allow cyclists to wheel their bikes up and down stairs, and improved bike parking, such as racks inside the paid areas, on demand bike lockers, and bike stations.”

Radulovich said concerns about circulation in some BART stations like Embarcadero are legitimate, but that staff is falling back on the excuse after years of citing train capacity as the issue. BART has added some room for bikes over the years when it refurbishes cars.

“I just want to know, ‘what do you need to do to fix this?’” he said. “We need to get our act together on capacity.”

Cities like Portland, Oregon have found solutions to better accommodate bicycles on commuter trains. Portland’s MAX rail system provides hooks near doorways to allow passengers to hang their bikes, providing more bike capacity with less space.

Bikes hang on hooks on Portland's MAX rail system. Photo: TriMet

“I’d love to see BART consider on-car bike parking racks,” said Rivera. “That would solve the issues brought up in the memo around people being able to get on and off the cars during peak hours.”

The SFBC has also urged allocating dedicated space “for bikes so that they won’t interfere with other passengers and can be stowed safely for the duration of your trip.”

“It is very hard right now when trains are full to get bikes on and off because of the way the BART cars are configured with the seats right next to the doorway,” added Rivera.

But more crowded systems like the New York City subway, Radulovich pointed out, allow bikes aboard at all times and rely on “a common sense rule.”

“You don’t take your bike on if it’s too crowded,” he said. “Someone will yell at you. I think people in the Bay Area are both a little more polite and tend to be more rights-conscious.”

“That whole ‘common sense of how to share space’ thing, we’re not as good as New Yorkers are at it because we don’t live in crowded conditions.”

Bicyclists on their way through the city are part of city life. They can, with ease, switch between being bicyclists and pedestrians. Photos by Jan Gehl.

Editor’s note: This is the final installment in our series this week featuring Danish architect and livable streets luminary Jan Gehl. The pieces are excerpts from his book, “Cities for People” published by Island Press. Donate to Streetsblog SF and you’ll qualify to win a copy of the book, courtesy of Island Press.

Bicyclists represent a different and somewhat rapid form of foot traffic, but in terms of sensory experiences, life and movement, they are part of the rest of city life. Naturally, bicyclists are welcome in support of the goal to promote lively, safe, sustainable and healthy cities. The following is about planning good cities for bicyclists, and is handled relatively narrowly and in direct relation to a discussion on the human dimension in city planning.

Around the world there are numerous cities where bicycles and bicycle traffic would be unrealistic. It is too cold and icy for bicycles in some areas, too hot in others. In some places the topography is too mountainous and steep for bicycles. Bicycle traffic is simply not a realistic option in those situations. Then there are surprises like San Francisco, where you might think bicycling would be impractical due to all the hills. However, the city has a strong and dedicated bicycle culture. Bicycling is also popular in many of the coldest and warmest cities, because, all things considered, even they have a great number of good bicycling days throughout the year.

The fact remains that a considerable number of cities worldwide have a structure, terrain and climate well suited for bicycle traffic. Over the years, many of these cities have thrown their lot in with traffic policies that prioritized car traffic and made bicycle traffic dangerous or completely impossible. In some places extensive car traffic has kept bicycle traffic from even getting started.

In many cities, bicycle traffic continues to be not much more than political sweet talk, and bicycle infrastructure typically consists of unconnected stretches of paths here and there rather than the object of a genuine, wholehearted and useful approach. The invitation to bicycle is far from convincing. Typically in these cities only one or two percent of daily trips to the city are by bicycle, and bicycle traffic is dominated by young, athletic men on racing bikes. There is a yawning gap from that situation to a dedicated bicycle city like Copenhagen, where 37 percent of traffic to and from work or school is by bicycle. Here bicycle traffic is more sedate, bicycles are more comfortable, the majority of cyclists are women, and bicycle traffic includes all age groups from school children to senior citizens.

At a time when fossil fuel, pollution and problems with climate and health are increasingly becoming a global challenge, giving higher priority to bicycle traffic would seem like an obvious step to take. We need good cities to bike in and there are a great many cities where it would be simple and cheap to upgrade bicycle traffic.

Bicycle traffic should be automatically integrated into an overall transport strategy. (Copenhagen).

If it is possible to take bicycles on the train, subway and by taxi, then travel can be combined over great distances. (Copenhagen)

A Whole Hearted Bicycle Policy

The cities that have successfully promoted bicycle traffic in recent decades can be tapped for good ideas and requirements for becoming a good bicycle city. Copenhagen is a compelling example of a city whose longstanding bicycle tradition came under threat from car traffic in the 1950s and 1960s. However, the oil crises in the 1970s were the catalyst for a targeted approach to inviting people to ride their bicycles more. And the message was received: today bicycles make up a considerable part of city traffic, and have helped keep vehicular traffic at an unusually low level compared to other large cities in Western Europe. The experiences from Copenhagen are used in the following to provide a platform for discussion about the good bicycle city.

In Copenhagen, a cohesive network for bicycles comprising all parts of the city has gradually been established. Traffic is so quiet on small side streets and residential streets in 15 and 30 km per hour/9 and 19 mph zones that a special cycle network is not necessary, but all major streets have one. On most streets, the network consists of bicycle paths along the sidewalks, typically using the curbstones as dividers toward the sidewalk, as well as parking and driving lanes. In some places bike lanes are not delimited by curbstones, but rather marked with painted stripes inside a row of parked cars, so that the cars protect the bicycles from motorized traffic. In fact, this system is known as “Copenhagen-style bicycle lanes.”

Another link in the city’s bicycle system is green bicycle routes, which are dedicated bike routes through city parks and along discontinued railway tracks. These paths are intended for bicycles in transit and are viewed  as a supplementary opportunity, a sightseeing possibility and a green option for bicycles. However, the main principle of bicycle policy is for bicycles to have room on ordinary streets, where just like the others in traffic, their owners have errands in shops, residences and offices. The principle is for bicycle traffic to be safe from door to door throughout the city.

Room for this comprehensive bicycle network has been largely gained by downsizing car traffic. Parking space and driving lanes have been gradually reduced, as traffic patterns have moved from car to bicycle traffic, and therefore bicycles needed more room. Most of the city’s major four-lane streets have been converted to two-lane streets with two bicycle paths, two sidewalks and a broad median strip intended to make it safer for pedestrians to cross the street. Roadside trees have been planted and traffic is two-way as before.

Bicycle paths are placed along sidewalks in the same direction as ve- hicular traffic, and are always on the right and thus “slow” side of vehicular traffic. That way all traffic groups know — more or less — where they have the bicycles, which is the safest system for all parties.

Bicycles as Part of Integrated Transport Thinking

The invitation to bike must mean that bicycle traffic is integrated into the overall transport strategy. It has to be possible to bring bikes on trains and the metro lines, and preferably in city buses so that it is possible to travel by combining bike trips with public transport. Taxis too must be able to transport bicycles when needed.

Another important link in an integrated transport policy is the possibility to park bicycles securely at stations and traffic hubs. Good bicycle parking options are also needed along streets in general, at schools, offices and dwellings. New offices and industrial buildings should include bicycle parking, changing rooms and showers for bicyclists as a natural part of their planning.

Traffic safety is a crucial element in overall bicycle strategies. A cohesive bicycle network protected by curbstones and parked cars is an important first step. Another key concern is the experienced and real safety of the city’s intersections. Copenhagen is working on several strategies. Large intersections have special bicycle lanes of blue asphalt and bicycle icons to remind drivers to watch out for bicycles. Intersections also have special light signals for bicycles, which typically give a green light to bicycle traffic six seconds before cars are allowed to move. Trucks and buses are required to have special bicycle mirrors and frequent media campaigns admonish drivers to watch out for bicycles, particularly at intersections.

Good bicycle cities know that good visibility at intersections is vital. In Denmark vehicles are not allowed to park closer than 10 meters/33 feet from an intersection for this very reason. The widespread American practice of allowing cars to “turn right on red” at intersections is unthinkable in cities that want to invite people to walk and bicycle.

The volume of bicycle traffic is one of the most significant safety factors for making bicycle systems safe. The more bicycles there are, the more it forces drivers to watch out for bicyclists and be constantly on guard. There is a considerable positive effect when bicycle traffic reaches a reasonable “critical mass.”

A Comfortable Network

It is also relevant to mention comfort and amenity value in terms of bicycle networks. Bicycle trips can be pleasant, interesting and free of unnecessary irritations, or they can be boring and difficult. Many of the criteria for good places to walk can be transferred to bicycle routes. It is important for bicycles to have enough room so that they won’t be pushed or crowded. Bicycle paths in Copenhagen vary in width from 1.7 to 4 meters/5.5 to 13 feet, with 2.5 meters/8.2 feet as the recommended minimum.

As bicycle traffic is gradually developed into a versatile, popular transport system, many new and wider bicycles appear on the street scene. These include three-wheeled transport bicycles for children and goods, handicap bicycles and bicycle taxis. All of these transport options require room, and senior bikers as well as the many parents who transport their children by bicycle need increased reassurance that they won’t be pushed and crowded. As bicycle traffic successfully develops  as an alternative transport system, more room is needed. Despite the new demands for more room, the bicycle continues to be the superior means of wheeled transport, which requires the smallest amount of room per person in the streets of the city.

A study conducted in Copenhagen in 2005 concluded that one of the city’s most pressing problems was heavy congestion on bicycle paths. The city council has since adopted an expansion of the width of bicycle paths in the most popular streets and is currently carrying out this policy.

Frequent interruptions are irritating and destroy the rhythm of the bicycle trip. Over the years Copenhagen has introduced several solutions to reduce the problem. Bicycle paths are often carried across minor side streets without interruption, which results in bicycle trips with fewer interruptions and lets drivers know they must wait. Introducing green waves for bicycles on selected street helps correspondingly to reduce irritating stops. In order to create these green bicycle waves, stoplights are set so that when bicycles bike at about 20 km/h (12.4 mph) they need not stop when they bike to and from the city during rush hour. That service used to be provided for cars. Another form of comfort and safety for bicyclists in Copenhagen is the city practice of snow removal. The bicycle lanes are always cleared before driving lanes to emphasize bicycle priority and the invitation to bike — despite the season.

Bicycle Cities and City Bicycles

In recent years, many cities have introduced various types of city bicycles that can be borrowed or rented from stands or depots. The idea is to reinforce bicycle traffic by making it easier for people to use bicycles for short trips in the city, while providing a collective bicycle system so that individuals do not need to buy, store and repair their own bicycles. Amsterdam’s white bicycle bike-share system came and disappeared quickly from the street scene in the 1970s. More stable and well organized systems were established in the 1990s, in Copenhagen, for example. Today Copenhagen has 2,000 city bicycles available at 110 bicycle stations in the city center. The bicycles are free, financed by advertisements. Users pay a coin deposit, which is returned when the borrowed bicycle is returned to one of the official bicycle racks. Copenhagen’s city bikes are used primarily by tourists, who can bicycle around town easily and safely, thanks to the well developed bicycle network. Copenhageners rarely borrow city bicycles, because they prefer their own bikes. In brief, the principle underlying city bikes in Copenhagen  is to enable inexperienced city bicyclists to ride around in a relatively safe bicycling environment.

City bike programs have by now been introduced in numerous European cities. In Paris, the pattern of use is different from that in Copenhagen. Under the Vélib program, city bicycles are used primarily by Parisians themselves. By renting a Vélib by the hour, week or year, they are able to ride a bike without the trouble of storing and maintaining it. The bicycle rental companies handle the bother in return for the rental fees they charge the bicyclists.

The idea of offering bicycles to bor- row or rent has spread rapidly (Lyon, France).

During 2008 the Vélib system in Paris was expanded to comprise 20,000 rental bikes parked in about 1,500 bicycle racks. In a very short time the Vélib bicycles have become a well-used service, primarily for short trips: 18 minutes on average. Here the idea is to enable many more or less experienced  bicyclists acquainted with the locality to bicycle in a network that is neither very safe nor well developed. Although there have been a number of accidents, the program has had the valuable result that more people now bicycle in Paris — on rental bikes and personal bikes. In only one year the number of trips on personal bicycles has doubled, an increase that has doubtless been inspired and reinforced by the bicycle traffic on the new Vélib bicycles. The Vélib bicycles accounted for one-third of all bicycle trips in Paris in 2008, and bicycles in total accounted for between 2 percent and 3 percent of all traffic in Paris.

Inspired by the development in Paris, among other cities, many new city bicycle systems are underway at this time, also in cities that have essentially no bicycle infrastructure or bicycle culture. The idea seems to be that easily accessible city bikes can kick-start development of more bicycle cities on the principle that first you send people out on city bicycles and then you gradually develop comfortable, safe bicycle networks. There are good reasons to be cautious about sending inexperienced bicyclists out on two wheels in cities where bicycle traffic and networks do not have the critical mass to allow city bikes to reinforce ongoing development. Bicycle traffic and traffic safety must be taken seriously, and experiences from good bicycle cities incorporated, before experimenting with cheap bicycle campaigns. City bikes must be a link in efforts to build and reinforce bicycle culture — not the spearhead.

On the Way to a New Bicycle Culture

A number of cities, particularly in Scandinavia, Germany and Holland have witnessed a considerable development in bicycle use in recent years. The number of bicyclists and bicycle trips grows gradually as it becomes more practical and safe to bicycle. Biking simply becomes the way to get around town. Bicycle traffic changes gradually from being a small group of death-defying bicycle enthusiasts to being a wide popular movement comprising all age groups and layers of society from members of Parliament and mayors to pensioners and school children.

Bicycle traffic changes character dramatically in the process. When there are many bicycles and many children and seniors among them, the tempo is more stately and safe for all parties. Racing bicycles and Tour de France gear is replaced  by more comfortable family bicycles and ordinary clothing. Cycling moves from being a sport and test of survival to being a practical way to get around town — for everyone.

This shift in culture from fast slalom bicycle trips between cars and many infringements of traffic regulations to a law-abiding stream of children, young people and seniors bicycling in a well-defined bicycle network has a big impact on society’s perception of bicycle traffic as a genuine alternative and reasonable supplement to other forms of transport. The shift in culture also brings bicycles more in line with pedestrians and city life in general, and is one more reason that bicycles have a natural place in this book about city life.

In New York City 300 km/180 miles of new bicycle paths were built from 2007 to 2009. A comprehensive program to introduce the idea of bicycling to New Yorkers was instituted at the same time. Car free “summer streets” are arranged in the summer months, so that residents of the city can experience the delights of walking and bicycling in comfort (Park Avenue, Manhattan, summer 2009).

Cities are wonderfully innovative in their efforts to strengthen a broader bicycle culture and demonstrate that bicycles are an obvious choice for almost everyone. Schools offer intensive bicycle training, companies and institutions compete to have the highest percentage of bicyclists among their employees, and information campaigns, bicycle weeks and car-free days are held. Many cities now open bicycle streets on Sunday in campaigns to develop bicycle culture. Sunday is a particularly good day for two reasons: car traffic is usually limited and people usually have more time for exercise and experiences. The idea of closing city streets to car traffic, turning them into temporary bicycle streets instead, has been popular in Central and South America for years. The extensive “Ciclovia” program in Bogotà, Columbia is one of the best known and best developed initiatives of this kind. In the post-millennium years, the idea of reinforcing bicycle traffic has spread to more and more of those cities where cars have dominated planning for decades.

Ambitious strategies have been developed to establish extensive bicycle networks in the large Australian cities Melbourne and Sydney. Planners in both cities are hard at work laying out new bicycle lanes and moving existing lanes away from traffic and into safer “Copenhagen-style bicycle lanes” where bicycles move inside the rows of parked cars. New York City planners are working on a new traffic plan that will make NYC one of the world’s most sustainable metropolises.

New York City’s building density, flat terrain and wide streets provide good opportunities for converting car traffic to bicycle traffic, and a new bicycle network of 3,000 km/1,800 miles of bike lanes is planned for the city’s five boroughs: Manhattan, Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island. Work on the new bicycle lanes started in 2007 and already in the course of 2007 – 2008 about one-quarter of the planned bicycle lanes have been established and significant growth in bicycle traffic is evident. In New York the idea of closing streets to car traffic on Sundays, which NYC calls “summer streets,” was introduced in 2008 as a popular link to the efforts to develop a new bicycle culture.

In the future, concern about sustainability, climate change and health will most certainly mean that increasingly more cities, like New York City, will double their efforts to develop a new culture for city life and movement. Increased bicycle traffic is an obvious answer to many of the problems cities struggle with worldwide.

Bicycles play an important role for transport and mobility in many developing countries.

Bicycling in Economically Developing Countries

Bicycle traffic already plays a key role in the overall traffic picture in many cities in economically developing countries. However, bicycle traffic is typically given poor and dangerous conditions. People bicycle by necessity, and individual mobility is often a prerequisite for being able to get to work and earn a living. In many cities bicycles or bicycle rickshaws handle the lion’s share of goods and people transport. Dhaka in Bangladesh has 12 million inhabitants, and the city’s 400,000 bicycle rickshaws ensure cheap sustainable transport as well as providing a modest but vital income to upwards of one million people.

Many of the cities that actually have extensive bicycle traffic today unfortunately also have forces at work to reduce bicycle traffic in favor of more room for vehicular traffic. In Dhaka, for example, bicycle taxis are considered a problem for the ongoing development of the city. Small motorcycles have replaced bicycles in many cities in Indonesia and Vietnam. Only a few decades ago, large Chinese cities were world famous for their volume of bicyclists, today bicycle traffic has in many cities almost disappeared from the street scene due to traffic reprioritization or even direct bans on bicycles.

In this category of cities, giving bicycle traffic a higher priority needs to be a key ingredient in a policy aimed to effectively utilize street space, reduce energy consumption and pollution, and provide mobility for the great majority of people who cannot afford cars. In addition, investing in bicycle infrastructure is affordable in comparison with other types of traffic investment.

New direction and reprioritizing of city policy is underway throughout the world. Fortunately, this includes prioritizing bicycle traffic in many cities in economically developing countries such as Mexico City and Bogota, Columbia.

Market at Mcallister and Jones Streets, near where Huckleberry Bicycles will open in the fall. Flickr photo: pbo31

Venturing into the Mid-Market area this fall, Huckleberry Bicycles aspires to go well beyond selling bikes. As co-owners Brian Smith, Jonas Jackel, and Zack Stender launch the first full-service bike shop to open on Market Street, they aim to bridge more everyday riders with bicycle advocacy and provide a much-needed service along the busiest bicycling street west of the Mississippi.

The shop’s simple motto is “Bikes are for people,” and it will specialize in bikes designed for everyday urban transportation. But Stender sees an opportunity to fulfill a greater role in the promotion of cycling.

“Bike shops are kind of this access point where you get to touch every cyclist out there and talk to them personally,” said Stender. ”We can be this awesome connection between cyclists and the advocacy world if we want to be.”

Bicycle advocacy will be incorporated into the shop’s everyday conversation, says Stender. As a member of the SF Bike Coalition (SFBC) Board of Directors and an experienced bike shop manager, he feels bike shops typically fall short of engaging in that effort.

Huckleberry owners Jonas Jackel, Brian Smith, and Zack Stender load up recycled wood for the store's construction. Photo courtesy of Brian Smith

“A lot of times, people just need to know that the SFBC is trying to get a bike lane on that street or trying to get bike access in these office buildings, and they’ll be engaged and help. It’s just getting the word out,” he said.

“It’s always been a tough relationship between shops and advocacy. They’re both going for the same goal – getting more people on bikes and to enjoy cycling – but it’s always been a tough issue how they can work more seamlessly together.”

“It takes educating staff and getting them excited about these opportunities to help spread the word,” he added.

That education would be a part of the owners’ efforts to encourage the heavy involvement of employees in the store’s management. ”In a lot of shops, employees are stuck with not having much of a say in anything, and we want to involve our staff in the decisions we make,” said Stender.

The shop will be located at 1073 Market near the intersection with McAllister and Jones Streets across from the Civic Center BART Station. Stender said he envisions a full bike commuter station eventually opening nearby that would provide bike parking, lockers, showers, and even coffee.

This rendering from the SFBC's Connecting the City campaign depicts a bike station on Market. Image: SFBC

“We want to serve the folks that are riding to work and the people in the neighborhood,” said Stender. ”It’s an area that is in need of a bike shop. It’ll give people an opportunity to stop in Mid-Market where most people are just riding by.”

The owners, who each plan to work full-time at the shop, will begin offering free minor repairs at a sidewalk kiosk during morning commuter hours this summer before it opens. They’ll also be at the SF Arts Market at UN Plaza on Thursdays.

“Huckleberry Bicycles will be a welcome addition to this neighborhood,” said Leah Shahum, executive director of the SFBC, whose office is located a few blocks down at 4th Street. “It’s fantastic to see more services coming to Market Street to support the growing number of people bicycling on and near our city’s main street.”

Opening their own shop was a dream for Stender and Jackel, who both have over 12 years of experience managing bike shops. Co-owner Brian Smith is leaving his career as an attorney to join them and follow his true passion: promoting bicycling.

“I love what’s happened over the past ten years with cycling and how it’s transformed urban areas,” said Smith. “When I got a closer look at how these groups and people are making the city a better place to live through cycling, it just sort of coalesced for me.”