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.”

Flickr photo: b|m

Six months ahead of schedule, Caltrain announced today it has increased its bicycle capacity to two cars on every train. The move is expected to provide some relief to the many Caltrain riders who bike and are routinely bumped from trains when the bike cars are full.

“This is going to make a huge difference for cyclists using Caltrain on a daily basis,” said cycling Caltrain rider John Murphy. “This should have happened a long time ago, not only because it provides better service for those customers, but because it makes financial sense. A cyclist with a bike in the rack and sitting in a seat pays more fare money than two empty seats ever will.”

“Caltrain’s parking lots are full, and the population in walking distance or willing to use Muni, SamTrans, and VTA has been tapped out,” he added. “The bike program is a winner.”

The older Gallery-car trains, which make up 70 percent of Caltrain’s fleet, can now carry a total of 80 bikes each, while trains with the newer Bombardier cars hold 48 spots, according to a news release. The $300,000 project marks a 50 percent increase in the system’s bike capacity since 2008.

“To provide consistent service and facilitate boarding, bike cars are in the same position on every train,” the release states, with “one at the northern-most end of the train and one near the middle of the train, two cars north of the locomotive. Bike cars are identified with a yellow bike decal on the outside.”

The addition comes after strong calls were made to increase bike capacity from advocates like Caltrain Bicycle Advisory Committee Chair Shirley Johnson, who leads the SF Bike Coalition’s Bikes ONboard Project. A Caltrain study conducted last May showed that increasing capacity would benefit all passengers.

“The financial data was pretty clear cut, and this should not have been as hard as it was,” said Murphy. “This is a tribute to the hard work of the Bikes ONBoard program, the ridership as a whole, and to Caltrain for responding, in the end, to customer feedback.”

A folded bike on board the Los Angeles Metro. Flickr photo: davidagalvan

Muni rail and bus passengers can now bring folding bikes aboard, the SFMTA announced today. The measure will help provide more commuting options for residents who rely on Muni’s metro and bus lines but aren’t able to easily connect to them by foot or other transit.

“This will make bicycling an option for even more people more often,” SF Bike Coalition (SFBC) Executive Director Leah Shahum said in a statement. “We commend the SFMTA for helping even more people move around our city easily on both bicycles and transit.”

Cycling San Franciscans have long bemoaned the inability to bring bikes aboard Muni and still look forward to the day when trains can accommodate regular bicycles. Front racks installed on Muni buses have allowed them to carry bicycles for a number of years, but the Breda light-rail vehicles currently used by Muni are poorly designed for the task. Folding bikes are still prohibited on cable cars.

“In the eyes of the SFBC and many in San Francisco’s cycling community, there has long been a need for bicycle access on Muni’s light-rail lines,” the SFBC explains on its webpage about light rail, noting that “almost all other U.S. cities now allow bikes on their light-rail systems.”

In addition to supplementing longer trips, transit can serve as a vital safety net for bicycling in circumstances where bicycle users are unable to ride such as inclement weather, flat tires or exhaustion.

The SF Bicycle Plan, approved in late 2009, lists folding bicycle access on rail vehicles as a priority along with trials for allowing all bicycles during off-peak hours. SFMTA spokesperson Paul Rose told the SF Chronicle today that the “idea is being studied but could prove problematic, given that the trains are often crowded before and after the morning and evening commutes.”

Bike commuters in Berkeley on Bike to Work Day last year. Flickr photo: EBBC

Bicycle coalitions around the Bay Area will be rolling out the red carpet for bike commuters for the 17th annual Bike to Work Day (BTWD) this Thursday with energizer stations, commuter convoys, after parties, and other fun events. As cycling continues to grow throughout the Bay Area, bicycle advocates and city officials are expecting it to be the biggest Bike to Work Day yet.

Here’s a round-up of what’s going on around the Bay on Bike to Work Day this Thursday, May 12:

Market Street at Octavia Boulevard. Photo: Aaron Bialick

San Francisco

San Franciscans are already enjoying the slew of new green paint that’s been laid down along Market Street from Octavia Boulevard to 8th Street over the past few weeks, as well as improvements to the Upper Market bike lanes.

“Along with all the new improvements on Market Street and neighborhoods throughout the city, we are seeing more people bicycling than ever before,” said San Francisco Bicycle Coalition (SFBC) Executive Director Leah Shahum in a statement. ”This Bike to Work Day is a welcome opportunity for even more people living and working in San Francisco to test-ride the joys of bicycling in our beautiful city.”

The SFBC will have 25 energizer stations ready to meet riders along the city’s major routes. Market Street, the Panhandle, Valencia, Polk, and Third Streets will all have stops for free coffee, snacks, and “bike doctors” at the ready to keep cycling travelers fresh.

Commuter convoys meeting at points throughout the city will also escort riders, including nearly every member of the Board of Supervisors who will be riding from their respective districts. Supervisors Ross Mirkarimi and Sean Elsbernd are the only two members who won’t be pedaling to City Hall on Thursday.

The SFBC’s Dress-Up Challenge will showcase how fashionable riding a bike in the city can be. The organization is accepting photo submissions of riders’ snazziest work outfits to enter into a raffle at the Bike From Work Party and Fashion Show to take place in the evening.

East Bay

Cyclecide Rodeo at last year's EBBC Bike Away From Work Party. Flickr photo: EBBC

Oakland held the Bay Area’s first Bike to Work Day in 1994, said East Bay Bicycle Coalition (EBBC) Executive Director Renee Rivera. Oakland City Council members will continue the tradition by pedaling to a pancake breakfast event at Oakland City Hall. The EBBC will provide all-day valet bike parking, bike safety checks, free goodies, and a raffle. Members of the San Leandro City Council will also take part in a ride.

110 energizer stations will be in place at popular bike junctions throughout Alameda and Contra Costa Counties. One of the busiest hubs will be Ashby BART, the station with the second highest number of bike commuters in the BART system, said Rivera. A new bike parking station is helping to accommodate the 12 percent of users who bike.

The EBBC will also be counting riders at other popular stationed routes such as MacArthur and City Center BART and Lake Merritt in Oakland as well as Sproul Plaza on the UC Berkeley Campus, said Rivera.

The EBBC’s Bike Away From Work Party at 9th and Washington Streets in Old Oakland is expected to be the biggest in the Bay Area, said Rivera. It’ll be jumping with live music, the Cyclecide bicycle rodeo, and an award show for the Bike Commuter of the Year and Bike-Friendly Business Awards for Alameda and Contra Costa Counties.

South Bay and the Peninsula

San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed will be biking with the thousands of others expected in Santa Clara in San Mateo Counties on Thursday, said Colin Heyne, communications and development manager for the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition.

Bike parking at San Jose's Bike From Work Bash last year. Flickr photo: richardmasoner

With 70 energizer Stations in Santa Clara and 23 in San Mateo County, commuter convoys, and two Bike Away From Work Bashes set in San Jose and Palo Alto, the Peninsula and South Bay are set to see huge numbers this Bike to Work Day.

On May 3rd, bicycles beat both cars and light rail in the two-mile Clean Commute Challenge with San Jose Councilmember Sam Liccardo, Silicon Valley Leadership Group CEO Carl Guardino, and others. Yesterday, San Jose city officials, including Vice Mayor Madison Nguyen, took to the streets by two wheels for a City Hall press event.

North Bay

The Marin and Sonoma County Bicycle Coalitions will be ready with 17 energizer stations in Marin and at least two dozen more in Sonoma. Marin’s BTWD After Party and Bike Expo will include Bike Commuter of the Year and Cal Park Tunnel awards, while Bike Home Celebrations can be found in several Sonoma County cities.

Over the past few years, not only are bicycle counts showing that more and more commuters are taking up cycling on Bike to Work Day, but newcomers can be seen making it a habit throughout the rest of the year in the Bay Area. East Bay cycling on Bike to Work Day has increased 250 percent over the last three years, said Rivera, and counts on San Francisco’s Market Street showed 32 percent increase last year.

“San Franciscans are biking in record numbers,” said Shahum. “This Bike to Work Day is a welcome opportunity for even more people living and working in San Francisco to test-ride the joys of bicycling in our beautiful city. It gives the entire community a chance to show our appreciation for people who bike.”

Photo: Aaron Bialick

SFMTA crews continue laying out the green carpet on Market Street in time to welcome the thousands of bike commuters expected on the 17th annual Bike to Work Day May 12. The improvements will help invite first-time riders to embrace the bicycle as their regular choice for commuting to work.

Bike lanes were greened on the block between 8th and 9th Streets yesterday, and crews said they’re on their way to filling in the gaps all the way down to Octavia Boulevard in time for the event.

Crews have also installed green bike boxes and highlights at bike lane merges on Lower Market Street in past weeks. They also expect to implement a particularly innovative upgrade that would add a green rectangles underneath the sharrows at Van Ness Avenue guiding riders through the interchange.

The turnout of new riders is expected to continue its strong growth over the past few years. Thirty three percent more people biked on Market Street between Bike to Work Day 2009 – 2010, bolstered by ongoing improvement efforts like reducing automobile traffic.

See more photos and a video from last year’s event after the break.

Market at Gough and Page Streets. Photo: Aaron Bialick

Market Street approaching Van Ness Avenue. Photo: Aaron Bialick

A woman turns left onto the Fell Street bike lane. The new signal can be seen on the left covered with white "X"s until they're turned on. Photo: Aaron Bialick

The commute on the busy Wiggle route will be made a little easier with the installation of a left turn signal at Scott and Fell streets today. The new system is expected to provide ample time for bicycle riders to make the left turn from the bike lane on Scott to Fell Street.

“We determined it has a great ‘bang for the buck’ value on improving safety and bicycle flow on a heavily used crosstown route,” said Mike Sallaberry of the SFMTA Sustainable Streets Division.

“We want to make that left turn easier for cyclists so that it’s a smoother, easier, and safer move, and to also encourage people on bikes to stay in the left turn bike lane on Scott rather than cut up the wrong side of Scott or onto the sidewalk there to make the turn illegally or dangerously,” he said.

The intersection’s traffic signals have long been unsuitable for the platoons of riders making the short-distance turn onto Fell Street, many of whom opt to avoid waiting for the small window of time left after yielding to oncoming cars. The issue has also posed a problem for pedestrians, whom many bike riders forget to watch for when making the harrowing turn at the high-motor traffic intersection.

“The goal is to time the left turn arrow to go on so that if you start riding up Scott at the beginning of the green there at Scott and Oak, and ride at a medium or easy pace, the arrow should go on right as you arrive there at Fell Street,” said Sallaberry.

“Some people are calling it a bicycle signal, but it’s designed to also let northbound cars go straight or make a left at the same time, which does not conflict with the left turn move cyclists are making,” he added.

The lights aren’t operational yet, but Sallaberry said they should be turned on before Bike to Work Day May 12.

Many riders find this to be the easiest way to make the turn. Photo: Aaron Bialick

Enjoying car-free streets at Redding's first-ever ciclovía-style event, Shasta Living Streets. Photo: Jeff Worthington

Redding, California, with a population of 90,000, is probably best known for its sunshine, breathtaking landscapes and conservative politics. Located 200 miles north of Sacramento in Shasta County, the lush region surrounded by the Trinity and Cascade mountains offers an abundance of recreation, including a growing number of paved multi-use trails that draw large crowds of bicyclists and pedestrians.

The seven-year-old Sundial Bridge, a 700-foot long steel marvel on the Sacramento River designed by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, has become Redding’s living room.

“It is where everyone hangs out in town, especially when the weather is nice. In a normal community, whatever normal is, you would see that sort of energy in a downtown square, or park, or even a downtown third place, but it happens to be out at the Sundial Bridge,” said Paul Shigley, the senior editor of the California Planning and Development Report (CP&DR), who lives six miles west of Redding near Whiskeytown Lake.

Downtown Redding does not draw a similar convergence of people enjoying public space because like many California cities it was designed for the automobile, and is not a particularly welcoming place for pedestrians and bicyclists.  The city ranks 40th among 103 cities in California “for the number of pedestrian collisions by population,” according to a recent report [pdf]. Just last week, a 16-year-old boy was struck and killed by a driver while walking across a bridge that lacked a sidewalk.

“The town is set up to conduct motorists fast and to allow them to drive up to 50, 60 miles an hour right through the middle of town,” said Scott Mobley, a reporter for the Record Searchlight, the city’s daily newspaper.

“It’s dangerous,” said Anne Wallach Thomas, a former San Francisco resident and bicyclist who helped found the Shasta Cascade Bicycle Coalition. “Some people are lucky and they can go around some little side streets, and if you’re not lucky like me, I can’t ride my bicycle to my sister’s house, I can’t ride to the grocery store.”

In the late 1970s, the city made a poor planning decision to build a mall in the center of town and designed a network of one-way arterial streets. The mall failed not long after it opened, becoming what CP&DR described as “a glum collection of offices, struggling shops and vacant space.”

“Downtown has been pretty much a dead zone for decades. There are areas that have signs of life but the big problem is very few people live downtown,” said Shigley, who a few years ago in CP&DR named Redding one of California’s most disappointing mid-sized cities. But “check back in 10 years,” the report added.

The Sundial Bridge was designed for pedestrians and bicyclists. Photo: Jeff Worthington

The Demand

Judging from the crowds of bicyclists and walkers who show up to enjoy the region’s vast network of scenic trails, there is an increasing demand for bicycle facilities and better conditions for pedestrians. Like the Sundial Bridge, Shigley said weekend crowds pack the one-mile Dana to Downtown bikeway and walking path recently constructed by Caltrans as part of a Highway 44 bridge improvement and widening project.

“It goes from the Dana Drive big box area over to the convention center area, and it’s proven wildly popular that you can get to those two parts of town on foot and on bike,” said Shigley.

“The reason people live up here primarily is because it’s really beautiful. We have access to amazing recreation opportunities. So lots of people have multiple $1500 bikes in their garages. They put them on the car and drive some miles to get on a trail,” said Wallach Thomas.

Driving to one of the region’s popular riverfront trails might be an easy venture, but try walking and bicycling there and the conditions can be treacherous. The region’s bike network lacks good connectivity to major destinations. That doesn’t mean, however, that bicyclists are staying off the streets. Bicycle traffic counts taken last September by Redding’s Bicycle Advisory Committee and Healthy Shasta showed a dramatic 80 percent increase in riders at major intersections.

“I have no trouble being a cyclist here. I’ve been doing it for 10 years,” said Mobley, the newspaper reporter, who is an everyday bicyclist. He thinks many drivers are beginning to adjust to having more bicyclists on the streets.

“It’s been years since someone’s called me an idiot or flipped me off or gunned their engine as they go by just to intimate me. I mean, that’s happened to me but not in a long time,” said Mobley.

Although he finds it easier to bike, Mobley pointed out that a friend, who is also a regular cyclist, got run off the road last year by a driver who “literally came right up behind him and made damn sure he was in a ditch. He hurt himself. Ripped open his knee and was quite debilitated after that.”

Many cyclists are forced onto the shoulders of roads, if there are any, or the sidewalk, where it is legal to ride in Redding.

“On many days while attending Shasta High School I rode my bike several miles a day to and from school. Redding has always offered so many ways to enjoy the outdoors and now has great bike facilities along the river and so much potential for more,” said Jim Brown of the California Bicycle Coalition.

Bicyclists and other vulnerable users are lucky to get a shoulder. Photo: Jefferson Thomas

Changing Hearts and Minds

Advocates say the popularity of Redding’s biking and walking trails, along with a desire to get healthy are indeed causing more people to second guess their traditional mode of transportation. According to the Shasta Coalition for Activity and Nutrition, 66 percent of adults in Shasta County are overweight, along with 27 percent of teens.

“You start off maybe riding your bike for entertainment on the river trail and then you think, ‘wow, maybe I could ride my bike to work,’ ‘maybe I could ride to the store, ‘maybe I could ride my kids to school everyday,’” said Francie Sullivan, a member of the Redding City Council who is a recreational cyclist.

The five-member council recently began working on a Complete Streets policy and decided to make completing it “our number one priority,” said Sullivan, adding that Redding, like other California cities, is grappling with budget woes and 17 percent unemployment. “But the good news about the economy is that more people are walking and riding bikes out of necessity.”

Sullivan, a Democrat who has served in public office for more than 20 years, said Shasta County is a “conservative community” but the issue transcends party lines.

“If you go to the river trail I would venture a guess that a majority of the people who cross you on roller blades and their bikes and who are walking and running are conservative Republicans. Everybody wants to be fit and everybody gets the same mood elevation from being outside,” said Sullivan.

Father and son enjoy Shasta Living Streets. Photo: Jeff Worthington

Challenges

For the first time, Redding has hired a full-time bicycle and pedestrian coordinator who is working on improving the city’s bikeway plan, which until recently had not been updated since 1998. Realizing the increasing demand for bicycle facilities, the Bikeway Action Plan [pdf] envisions increasing the current bikeway network from 124 miles to 162 miles to “improve the connections for cyclists to prime destinations.”

Changing the culture of old-school traffic engineers who are primarily concerned with moving automobile traffic and adhering to Level of Service (LOS) standards remains a difficult challenge in Redding, like a lot of California cities. Road and highway widenings are popular, while road diets are practically unheard of.

“You feel like you’re fighting an uphill battle every time,” said Zachary Bonnin, the city’s new bike/ped coordinator. “It’s a challenge to implement bike stuff.”

Bonnin, who grew up in Phoenix and got an environmental science degree at Northwestern Arizona University, also manages the city’s transportation system, the Redding Area Bus Authority (RABA), which sees anywhere from 2,000 to 2,400 daily passengers.

“They put me on board to challenge the engineers and to look at every project and to say ‘why are we doing it this way’ or ‘why can’t we do it this way’ or ‘what about bike and ped’ access and ‘where’s our bike lane’ and ‘why can’t we add a sidewalk here?’” he said.

The one-way arterials in downtown Redding are like freeways. Photo: City of Redding

The drafting of the city’s Complete Streets policy is also making some of Bonnin’s old-school transportation colleagues rethink the way they’ve designed the streets. The National Association of City Transportation Officials’ recent update of its bikeway design standards is also helping.

“They see these things and say ‘well, it would cost us more money not to do that now, then to have to deal with it later,’” said Bonnin.

The city is also hoping to incorporate improvements to the pedestrian realm in its Complete Streets policy, including strengthening its Safe Routes to Schools program, developing a pedestrian safety program and Pedestrian Master Plan to implement capital and maintenance projects. A pedestrian safety assessment prepared by transportation consultants Fehr & Peers and Oakland-based Dowling Associates recommends road diets on some downtown streets, along with bulbouts and median refuge islands.

The city’s efforts are also being bolstered by a burgeoning group of living streets advocates with ties to San Francisco’s bicycle and transit advocacy community who are working to help transform Redding into a more bikeable, walkable community.

Wallach Thomas and some longtime members of the Norcal Bicycle Partnership, Shasta Wheelmen, the Redding Mountain Biking club and some other bicyclists recently formed the Shasta Cascade Bicycle Coalition to lobby for better conditions and help educate city planners and the public. The group meets once a month.

“The safe and inviting part is important,” Wallach Thomas told the Record Searchlight. “We have world-class facilities for mountain bikes and incredible park trails. What we can’t do is leave the house and safely get anywhere.”

The reaction to Shasta Living Streets was overwhelmingly positive and even skeptics praised it. "One mother said to me, 'Anne, I want to thank you. My kids are in heaven. They're having so much fun,'" said Wallach Thomas. Photo: Jeff Worthington

Shasta Living Streets

Last weekend, after months of planning, discussion and wading through city bureaucracy, Redding held its first ciclovía-style event, Shasta Living Streets, converting a two-mile stretch of Park Marina Drive near the Sacramento River into car-free space for people. It was the first open streets event in Northern California outside of the Bay Area.

“It was a success,” said Wallach Thomas, who was the main organizer. While some city bureaucrats had doubts that anyone would show up, Wallach said well over 500 people turned out on a rainy day. It helped that the event was timed with the popular Whole Earth Festival.

“I think it’s really going to make a big difference up here changing hearts and minds,” said Wallach Thomas. “It has implications and leverage far beyond the five hours of the actual event.”

Wallach Thomas got advice from her friend Cheryl Brinkman, a member of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s Board of Directors who has been involved with San Francisco’s Sunday Streets since its inception. Brinkman and her husband Rich Coffin took a trip to Redding to speak to a group of advocates interested in launching Shasta Living Streets.

“Gil Peñalosa, the father of ciclovías, always said that it’s not a competition among cities or towns.  Every city or town which starts a car-free streets program helps the next city or town start their program.  I’m thrilled that Redding had its first car-free event,” said Brinkman.

The organizers of the event actually received an email from Peñalosa offering his congratulations, and encouraging them to carry on their work.

“I hope this event will be a means to many great initiatives,” Peñalosa wrote. “Living Streets will show residents that streets can be used for more than just moving cars; streets are our largest and most valuable assets, the space the belongs to all, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, social or economic background.”

“As other programs inspired you, now you are inspiring others.”

Group exercise was part of the program for Shasta Living Streets. Photo: Jeff Worthington

"This is so cool," was the reaction of many kids to Shasta Living Streets, said Wallach Thomas. Photo: Jeff Worthington

The proposed configuration for the east sidewalk. Image: Alta Planning & Design

The Golden Gate Bridge staff wants to impose a 10 mph speed limit on bicyclists – with a $100 fine for violators – following a year-long study that excluded input from local cycling groups.

The speed limit would drop to 5 mph around the blind corners of the bridge’s towers and in construction areas.  There currently is no speed limit for bicycles on the bridge.

The plan is intended to reduce bike-related collisions. With up to 6,000 cyclists using the bridge on busy days, the study says speed was cited as a factor in 64 crashes during the decade from 2000 to 2009.  The other 101 bike crashes during that time were attributed to causes like inexperience.

The proposal is likely to spark controversy among cyclists, in part because the speed limit is 15 mph on almost all other bike paths in the San Francisco Bay Area. The plan will be discussed at 10 a.m. tomorrow at a public meeting of the bridge’s Building and Operations Committee at the bridge toll plaza. If approved by the committee, the bridge district board would take up the matter on May 13.

“Our initial concern is that this was released, and a hearing scheduled, without us even knowing about it,” said Andy Peri, a spokesperson for the Marin County Bicycle Coalition. “We’re hoping we move forward to work collaboratively on this process because this was brought forward without any input from us at all, and we have a lot of comments we’d like to make on these recommendations.”

According to the study, most crashes occurred on the bridge’s bike-only west side, where the average speed of cyclists was estimated at 10-13 mph on flat portions and 13-17 mph on the downhill areas. Those speeds would put most cyclists in violation of the proposed limits.

Faster Riders

The report said the greatest “potential” for crashes involved experienced “road cyclists” who, on average, cruise at 17 mph on the uphills, 20 mph on the flats and 23 mph on the downhills of the bridge’s western sidewalks. However, the report doesn’t say whether this group, which makes up about 10 percent of all cyclists, was actually involved in more crashes. Nor does it break out the number of crashes involving tourists on rental bikes.

The speed limits would be enforced by bike-mounted California Highway Patrol officers, whose main goal is to reduce accidents, according to Officer Chris Rardin, a spokesperson for the CHP’s Marin office.

“We would prefer to do that through education and engineering, and to use enforcement as a last-ditch effort. We have not been approached by the bridge to provide that,” said Rardin. “We had no input on what the speed limit should be or what the fines should be or anything like that. Our only input in this entire matter was whether it was legal for us to enforce the speed limit.”

Neither the bridge district nor the CHP would receive the revenue generated by the fines, according to both Rardin and bridge spokesperson Mary Currie. That money would go to either San Francisco or Marin counties, depending on where the ticket was issued.

“I think a 10 mph speed limit would raise such an alarm among so many of us that the result could be a Bridge-specific Critical Mass,” said Roger Marquis, a former Northern California Coaching Director for the U.S. Cycling Federation. “It would be a powerful incentive to get together for many of us who otherwise avoid the Critical Mass crowd.”

Bike Lanes

The plan also would create separate lanes for bikes and pedestrians on the east sidewalk. That could ease the mid-day congestion that, while frustrating to both groups, currently helps to minimize the number of serious accidents.

“The congestion itself controls the bicycle speeds on the east sidewalk, and thus plays an important role in controlling the severity of injuries resulting from the bicycle accidents on the east sidewalk,” said the report, which was prepared by Alta Planning & Design.

Alta Project Manager Brett Hondorp declined to answer any questions about the study, saying his firm had been ordered by the bridge district not to comment.

According to the report, about 2,500 cyclists use the bridge on a weekday, including 600 who ride on the bike-only western sidewalk after it opens at 3:30 p.m. About 1,900 cyclists and 4,200 pedestrians share the eastern sidewalk on weekdays.

An estimated 4,600 cyclists ride on the west side on weekend days, according to the study. And the total of cyclists on the bridge soars to about 6,000 on the busiest days.

Of the 165 total crashes, 51 percent occurred on the west side and 48 percent on the east side. It wasn’t specified where the other 1 percent occurred.

“To be sure, the number of bicycle accidents on the west sidewalk is not increasing nearly as quickly as the number of cyclists on the sidewalks,” the staff report said. “Moreover, the vast majority of the incidents that do occur generally have not resulted in significant injuries.”

There were 16 head-on crashes on the west side, with just one resulting in serious injuries, in 2005, the staff said.

Past Discussion

The idea of a speed limit came up twice before, in 2000 and 2003. It was rejected both times, partly because speed “did not appear to be a dominant factor in the majority of bicycle incidents” and partly because neither the bridge district nor the CHP wanted to assume responsibility for enforcement, according to a staff summary.

At those times, the district worked with the local cycling groups and bike rental companies to develop safe-riding guidelines. The accident rate has risen slightly since then “as the number of bicyclists using the bridge rapidly has increased,” a staff report said.

Currie said local bike groups will have an opportunity to comment on the proposals, now that the district’s study is complete. Alta, the consulting group, worked only with other public agencies in preparing the data, she said, although several out-of-state cycling and transportation groups are cited among the report’s 30 references.

Currie said the 10 mph speed limit was proposed in deference to the “configuration and geometry” of the bridge’s design.  The main sidewalks are mostly 10 feet wide with clear sightlines, but narrow to as little as 5.5 feet near bridge pylons and 7.5 feet near the towers.

Asked why the report doesn’t address solutions for the 61 percent of crashes that aren’t caused by speed, Currie acknowledged there is a “data gap” in the report.

“Personally, I ride a bike on the bridge” with a cyclometer, she added. Asked if she typically stays under 10 mph, she said, “I probably could.”

Photo by Celeste LeCompte

The following story is being republished from the blog of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition.

Join parents and thousands of kids across San Francisco for the third annual Bike to School Day Celebration, Thursday, April 7. For more information, to find out which schools are participating or to volunteer go to sfbiketoschoolday.org.

On a bicycle, San Francisco’s hilly neighborhoods can be daunting, but for 8-year-old Aidan, the rides up are well worth the work for the rides down: “Faster! Faster!” he shouts, telling me about his early days riding to school on a trailer bike with his mom, Maureen Persico.

It’s a Saturday morning, and we’re sitting around the kitchen table of their Bernal Heights home, peering at the city’s bike map and tracing out their daily ride to Starr King Elementary School at the crest of Potrero Hill.

Over coffees, we nudge our fingers along the map to Cortland Ave., out to Mission and through the block where the Safeway parking lot provides access to Valencia St. This is first leg of their daily, 40-minute commute. From there, the route varies, depending on the day, but the duo wends their way across the numbered streets of the Mission and up to school in Potrero.

The most direct route would be Cesar Chavez, Maureen acknowledges, tracing the street on the map.

“Look! It’s The Hairball!” says Aidan, pointing at the snarl of interchanges and overpasses that ties Cesar Chavez to Potrero. The interchange he’s pointing out with a gap-toothed smile has long been a confusing and dangerous tangle of merges for people walking, driving and biking , but a new plan to address safety and livability along the street is aiming to improve the accessibility of the roadway for cyclists and pedestrians.

However, unlike a similar project aimed to improve Masonic Ave., the approved plan doesn’t include a fully separated bike lane. Instead, a new bike lane will be painted between the lanes of vehicle traffic and the parked cars. For Maureen and Aidan, the changes won’t be enough to bring them onto Chavez for their ride. But Maureen says she is glad to see the changes underway.

I ask Aidan what his favorite thing about the ride is, and without a moment’s hesitation, he exclaims, “DONUTS!”

For Maureen, the donut stop is just one way that they’ve turned the daily commute into a chance to spend time together and have fun. Along with their regular visits to Dynamo Donuts, the two spice up their ride with a portable set of iPod speakers and good conversation. “We listen to a lot of Dr. Demento,” Maureen adds.

Photo by Celeste LeCompte

The duo’s fun approach to riding extends to their bike gear as well. “I don’t understand why more people don’t decorate their helmets,” says Maureen, showing off her brightly colored helmet with a large plastic fly attached. She says it attracts smiles and attention.

But don’t let their laid-back attitude fool you. They’ve worked at making this their routine. “People see us biking up Potrero, and they think they could never do this,” Persico says. “But it’s not like we just woke up one day and did it. Start small, and build up!”

Maureen started by educating herself, first. Through the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition’s free Introduction to Urban Bicycling Workshop, she got comfortable riding on the streets by herself, and over time started to bring Aidan on her rides using a range of trailer bikes. Aidan took a YMCA course for kids that helped him learn to ride his bike.

Before making the commitment to bike to school, she started out riding the route herself, alone, to familiarize herself. Then, the two of them did a couple of test runs on Sundays, when the time pressure was off and vehicle traffic was less.

“We took baby steps,” she says. And they’re still building up —the two ride to school, but drive home. Aidan has a folding bike, which makes it easier for them to take the bus or share rides with other families.

Riding with kids also requires good communication, Maureen notes. “All the things we internalize, say them out loud,” she recommends. That means commenting on stop signs and traffic lights, as well as on loose gravel in the bike lane. She might also point out exhaust from a parked car, using the opportunity to teach Aidan good lane position to help him learn to share the road.

We go outside in the sunshine on bikes and the two of them peddle off down the block, side by side. Everyone’s smiling, and Aidan inches ahead of his mother slightly, pushing up his speed and showing off his missing teeth with a big grin. And that’s a big part of why they do it: It’s fun!

Photos: Bryan Goebel

Working in 80 degree weather, smiling SFMTA crews installed two green bike boxes in both directions of Market Street at Van Ness Avenue today, the latest pieces of innovative infrastructure to grace the city’s main thoroughfare, which continues to become a much friendlier street for people who bike, walk and take transit.

In addition to providing bicyclists an opportunity to queue up in front of waiting autos, the bike boxes are designed to prevent bike riders from entering the crosswalks on Market Street. Recent surveys have shown that in addition to growing numbers of bicyclists, pedestrian volumes have also risen on Market Street, thanks to a number of improvements the SFMTA began implementing in 2009.

It took SFMTA crews nearly 5 hours to install the two bike boxes on eastbound and westbound Market at Van Ness Avenue today. The preformed themoplastic is designed so that “both skid resistance and retroreflectivity are maximized,” according to the manufacturer,” Flint Trading Inc of Thomasville, North Carolina.

In addition to the green bike boxes, the SFMTA is expected to fill in the gaps on Market Street between Octavia Boulevard and 8th Street before Bike to Work Day May 12. Crews will color in the remaining standard bike lanes with green paint, and add soft-hit posts on some sections. In addition, the sharrows across Market at Van Ness will be enhanced. A combination of green pavement and white sharrows will guide bike riders through the intersection.

A fifth green bike box will be installed sometime this week or next on westbound Market Street at Gough, but it will likely be done in the early morning hours because daytime work would affect somel Muni lines. See more photos after the break and on my Flickr page.

Because drivers are allowed to turn right here, the bike box will not extend to the curb. The dashed bike lane leading up to the intersection will eventually become a green dashed bike lane.

I didn't see very many bicyclists using the new green bike boxes, but that behavior is likely to change as they get more accustomed to them. The bike boxes are also meant to help keep bike riders out of the crosswalk. The dashed bike lane here will also become a green dashed bike lane.

Today's sunny weather meant shortened drying times, which allowed crews to work faster on this bike box.

In Portland, the green bike lanes are connected to the bike box. The SFMTA says because right turns are allowed onto Van Ness, that can't be done for the bike boxes installed today. However, a similar configuration may be done on other green bike boxes on Market Street. We're trying to get some clarification from the SFMTA. Photo: itdp

Cycling commuter crossing Middlefield Road, Menlo Park. Flickr photo: Richard Masoner

The wheels are turning slowly in the movement to improve biking and walking conditions in San Mateo County as a lack of cohesive political will leaves little traction for any real changes.

A new plan drafted by the Peninsula’s twenty sprawling cities is bringing some overdue attention to the need for safer streets, but critics say it comes with no guarantee of action and sidesteps some of the area’s biggest obstacles.

“There are some things the cycling community has repeatedly asked for for over three or four years that have been ignored,” said Carlos Babcock, community advocacy coordinator for the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition (SVBC). “But we are happy that they’re actually making a concerted effort for both bike and pedestrian issues. It’s the first time it’s ever going to include a pedestrian plan, as well.”

The San Mateo County Comprehensive Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan would update an 11-year-old blueprint for a countywide bikeway network, marked primarily with signage and some striped bike lanes, as well identifying focus areas to make pedestrian improvements. However, advocates say the plan creates an often inconvenient and spotty network of bike routes, doesn’t compel cities to actually implement the changes, and fails to address fundamental issues such as dangerous freeway crossings.

“There’s really no overriding leadership,” said Caryl Gay, Peninsula advocate for the SVBC, who described the plan as a “wish list” pieced together by a disjointed collection of municipalities. “There’s nobody at the county level to shepherd projects through to completion.”

Municipalities can use the plan as a guideline for implementing and obtaining funding for projects, but “if a city doesn’t want to submit a project for funding, they don’t have to,” said Gay. It does go as far as recommending that each city hire a bicycle-pedestrian coordinator, but in a geographic area spread so thin, “that’s a really unrealistic and not a very cost-effective way of doing planning and implementation.”

“This bottom-up style of government is one of the unique features of San Mateo County. We need a countywide network that will serve cyclists that are going the entire length of the Peninsula,” she said.

The lack of coordination between the county’s numerous city and transit agencies seems to lead to finger-pointing, leaving cycling commuters to suffer the results of a patchwork bike network, advocates said. Despite their lobbying efforts, dangerous freeway crossings and indirect bike routes remain on the list of major deterrents to cycling not addressed by the plan.

One of the largest bureaucratic obstacles to improving street safety around freeway intersections is Caltrans, the state’s highway agency, which has jurisdiction. Narrow bridges, a lack of bike facilities, and high volumes of car traffic accessing freeways like 101 present hazards intimidating enough to discourage most residents from cycling.

However, “the cities have no authority to make [improvements] happen,” said Steve Vanderlip of Bike San Mateo County. ”That’s a huge issue that’ll take a lot of money and a lot of pressure from a lot of people to get done.”

Advocates also bemoan the plan’s one-mile diversion of the north-south bicycle route from Middlefield Road connecting North Fair Oaks and Redwood City. Project Manager John Hoang says it is necessary due to dangerous conditions on that stretch of the arterial road, including fast car traffic and risky railroad crossings. However, despite the many businesses and public institutions the road serves, there is currently no plan to improve conditions for cycling.

C/CAG, the county-wide agency managing the project, expects to approve the final plan in May, but with a public comment deadline of April 15, “there’s not a lot of time to address those comments,” said Gay. “I’m not sure if they just think accepting the comments is adequate or if they have to try to address them in some way.”

Hoang said that although C/CAG will be making an effort to incorporate concerns into the current draft plan, comments on specific parts in the plan will need to be addressed by the individual municipalities.

The prevailing “pass the buck” attitude doesn’t seem to be showing any sign of change on the horizon, let alone a fundamental shift toward safer streets. What’s included in the plan “tends to be the low-hanging fruit”, said Gay, who noted that anything that interferes with car traffic or requires major capital investments isn’t even on the table.

“Bicycling is still perceived as a marginal activity in San Mateo County. We still have a long way to go for it to be considered a normal mode of transportation,” she said.

Elected officials and members of San Mateo Bike and Ped Advisory Committee who didn't show for a workshop on the county bike plan. Photo: Bryan Goebel

Grace, Xavier and Brook depart on their morning commute to school. Photo by: Gary Cook

The following story is being republished from the blog of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition.

Grace Malizia is up early working on an assignment.

“Mama,” Grace looks up at her mother, “How do you spell arena?”

Grace is seven. In her first grade class at Spanish immersion school, she is learning about maps. On this particular morning, she is labeling important geographical features on her atlas of the Precita Park playground. First a swing, then the sand.

“A-r-e-n-a.”

But there is one route for which Grace needs no map, and that’s her bike ride to school.

Grace’s parents have chaperoned her daily trip to school by bicycle since she began kindergarten at Marshall Elementary. Xavier, Grace’s two year-old brother, is too little for his own set of wheels, but he seems happy to be along for the ride.

David, Grace’s dad, earned his bicycling wings early as well. As a youngster he had a newspaper route for the Baltimore Sun, making deliveries by bike, and he hasn’t stopped riding since. He now works at a school in Potrero Hill, and it’s a good thing he no longer has newspapers to haul because he climbs up there each morning by bicycle from their home on the flats of Cesar Chavez Street.

Grace’s mom, Brook Broughton, used to be a professional dancer at the San Francisco Ballet. She’s glad to be able to do more biking now that her legs aren’t like Jell-o every day at the end of a rigorous dance workout.

The whole family gears up for their respective commutes together, strapping on helmets, zipping jackets, and securing backpacks. Then Brook, Grace and Xavier bid farewell to David before they set off in different directions.

Brook rides with both of the kids to Grace’s school. Xavier perches on a toddler’s bike seat mounted on Brook’s bicycle, and Grace rides her own purple Magna, which they found at Thrift Town, a second-hand store on Mission Street, for only $3 (it was half off).

A crossing guard helps Grace, Xavier and Brook safely cross the street to school. Photo by: Gary Cook

Because Grace is so small, she legally rides on the sidewalk. They take a mellow route through the Mission neighborhood down Harrison Street, where the sidewalk is very wide and quiet in the mornings. There are a few other kids from Grace’s school along their route, and once in a while they band together, a gang of miniature bikers growing in numbers as they migrate toward the school.

“I totally think that being able to bike in the city improves our quality of living,” Brook says. “I hate putting kids in car seats. I would much rather put them in helmets on the bike.”

Brook and David do own a car as well, which they use in bad weather or when there’s more to haul than their bike trailer can handle.

In reference to their bike commute Brook adds, “I really like it for Grace because it’s pretty fun.” She appreciates that her daughter gets fresh air before starting her school day.

And fun they are clearly having as they make their way down Harrison Street. Grace and Xavier especially light up as they approach their favorite part of the ride.

“The ramp! The ramp!” they exclaim.

The ramp, as the kids call it, is a raised section of sidewalk that leads up a short incline and across a brief plateau, but the real thrill is zipping down the other side back to street level. It’s the only “hill” on their route.

Xavier, on the back of Brook’s bike, is eager to start biking on his own. Back at the house, he had been practicing in the garage on his Skuut, a wooden bike without pedals or training wheels that works like the Flintstone-mobile, propelled by Xavier’s feet. Though he can’t ride his Skuut to school alongside his sister, Brook expects him to start bike commuting when he enters Kindergarten too.

“The thing I like best about biking is that people smile at us,” Brook says. “It seems to make them happy to see us.” As she says this, a crossing guard smiles and waves the trio across the street.

Since they had Grace seven years ago, many more people are biking with their kids, which she says adds to a stronger feeling of safety. “Now it’s common to see kids on bikes,” Brook explains.

She and David are looking forward to even more walking and biking improvements along their route, like bulbouts at crossings, flashing lights in crosswalks, and a separated bike lane down Cesar Chavez Street.

With the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition and transportation agencies already working together to help San Francisco streets catch up with the tremendous demands for bike improvements, Grace’s family will surely get their wish, allowing her family to go more places in the city by bike.

Join parents and thousands of kids across San Francisco for the third annual Bike to School Day Celebration, Thursday, April 7. For more information, to find out which schools are participating or to volunteer go to sfbiketoschoolday.org.