Construction on the JFK Drive bikeway in Golden Gate Park should begin next week, the SFMTA tells Streetsblog. The agency recently posted street plans [PDF] on the project website, showing how the geometry of the city’s first parking protected bike lane will work.

John F. Kennedy Drive is still without parking-protected bikeways. Photo: davidhanddotnet/Flickr

If construction does begin next week, it will mark tangible progress on a project that was initially supposed to be completed in December 2010. Even now, new delays seem to come each week. Following the initial delay, prompted by revisions to the project scope, implementation had been slated for December 2011. Then it was pushed back again one month.

That delay, an SFMTA planner said, was due to further revisions to the project design and concerns that construction could negatively impact museums during a peak season. An exact construction date didn’t surface until two weeks ago, when SFMTA spokesperson Paul Rose said the project would start last week. Today, work still has yet to begin, but Rose says it will start next week.

The reasons for the recent delays are unclear, but at a Pedestrian Safety Advisory Committee meeting last month, SFMTA planner Dustin White said staff has had to make last-minute modifications to assuage concerns raised by some disability advocates that the project could hinder wheelchair access to pedestrian pathways. The first phase of construction will involve adding a number of curb ramps, and a number of parking spots will be reserved for disabled placard holders, he said. Construction will also involve drainage improvements. The overall project is expected to take at least several weeks, and according to the latest update from transportation staffers it will be completed in March.

Stay tuned for updates as construction gets underway (or doesn’t). After the jump, see samples of the project drawings.

Click to enlarge.

A bike-share vendor demonstration at Civic Center in December 2010 (this is not necessarily what the system will look like). Photo: SFBC/Flickr

The system will include 500 bicycles at approximately 50 stations in downtown San Francisco, plus another 500 bikes and 50 stations located near Caltrain stations in Redwood City, Mountain View, Palo Alto, and San Jose. The scope is more ambitious than San Francisco’s previous proposal for bike-share, but smaller in scale than the world’s most successful systems.

“A large-scale citywide bike-share will make it easier for locals and visitors alike to see San Francisco by bike, and help our city reach the goal of 20 percent of trips by bike by 2020,” said San Francisco Bicycle Coalition Deputy Director Kit Hodge.

While the SFBC is looking forward to the pilot launch this summer, Hodge said it “also believe[s] that the pilot should be quickly expanded into a robust, big-enough-to-succeed phenomenon that have proven successful in Paris, China and London.”

SFMTA spokesperson Paul Rose said San Francisco stations will be “centered in SF’s employment- and transit-rich Downtown/SOMA corridor between the Financial District, Market Street and the Transbay and Caltrain terminals with connections at Market Street BART stations and the Ferry Terminal.”

The system will launch “just in time for America’s Cup,” said Rose, as a key component of the “People Plan” announced by Mayor Ed Lee last April. Bike-share will be part of the initiative to encourage the hundreds of thousands of spectators expected to travel to the Embarcadero this summer to get around by foot, transit, and by bike.

The July launch was pushed back a few months from its original spring schedule, but Rose says the SFMTA is “confident that all the work we’ve done over the last year to ensure that the project meets the needs of all of our project partners throughout the region will yield a better result when we deliver the pilot later this year.”

The program is not San Francisco’s first plan for bike-share — a previous plan for a meager pilot of 50 bikes was dropped in late 2009 when Clear Channel backed out of a partnership with the city, after which then-Mayor Gavin Newsom pledged to launch a larger system. Santa Clara County’s VTA was set to launch the region’s first bike-share in 2010, but delayed its own program until it could be integrated into this broader regional system. Agencies are currently selecting a vendor to operate the system.

Stay tuned to Streetsblog for more details as the program develops. For more information, check out the SFMTA’s website, which includes this presentation [PDF].

Map of San Francisco bike share areas. Specific locations are to be determined. Image: SFMTA

Regional locations for bike share stations along the Caltrain line.

Note: The discussion on the Fell and Oak bikeways begins at about 11:05.

Mayor Ed Lee and SFMTA Director Ed Reiskin (a.k.a. “the Eds”) faced questions about the city’s extensive delivery time on the Fell and Oak bikeway project at Google’s recent “Fireside Chat” forum. A questioner asked why the project is coming in 2013 rather than this year (though, as of last week, staff has moved the timeline up a few months to next winter).

Reiskin repeated the SFMTA’s assertion that it’s not a “delay” at all, and claimed that complaints about losing car parking are important enough to prolong safe bicycle access for the public. As for the mayor, he said he would “bring leadership” to the project and mentioned that he’d rode on the route in a caravan of public officials before pointing to progress on the long-awaited JFK Drive Bikeway (which, as of last weekend, still hadn’t started construction despite promises of starting in January).

Technically, the SFMTA is correct that Fell and Oak’s official delivery date was originally set for the fall of 2013 in project funding documents [PDF] approved last summer. But its public relations staff hadn’t openly announced that fact at public meetings or elsewhere, and expectations were still mostly set on this year based on the originally proposed date for a trial in June 2012, which Mayor Lee told Streetsblog a year ago he wanted to implement “quickly.”

When staff told Streetsblog recently that implementation would wait until some time in 2013, it was, by and large, news to most people who’ve been following the project. The main reason for the delay (what else to call it — a “timeline change”?) cited by the SFMTA is its decision to abandon what would have been an efficiently-delivered trial project in order to create a more permanent project that tries to appease pushback from car owners over 80 parking spots (despite the roughly 120 overnight paid spaces opened at an adjacent lot last May).

“We had been talking about trying to pilot something sooner, but we have run into a pretty significant amount of opposition in the directly impacted neighborhood… and we don’t want to steamroll over folks,” said Reiskin. “We’re taking the time to try to find ways in which we can mitigate the parking loss.”

Good public process and outreach are key in turning out the best project possible. But that’s not the same as letting the terms of public safety improvements be dictated by those who want to keep on receiving precious public space to store their private automobiles for free — a status quo bias which has “steamrolled” nearly everything else on the city’s streets for most of the past century.

H/T Streetsblog commenter Mike Sonn for the video.

San Francisco's first green bike box installed along with a left-turn bike lane on Scott Street two years ago. Photo: SFBC/Flickr

As bicycle traffic increases along the Wiggle, improved crosswalks and other potential traffic-calming measures could help assuage complaints police say they’ve heard from some residents that stop sign violators are making it a less comfortable place to walk. Though no significant bike-pedestrian crashes are known to have been reported, police have begun stepping up enforcement in the area against bike riders (and drivers, they say) who officers determine to be running stop signs and red lights.

“That’s not going to solve the problem,” says Morgan Fitzgibbons, co-founder of the Wigg Party, a group focused on promoting environmental sustainability in the neighborhoods around the Wiggle. He said rude or dangerous behavior is limited to a minority of bicycle riders, and while an education and outreach initiative on the streets would be a good idea, the root of the problem is that “these streets are simply designed for cars.”

Current stop sign laws, pointed out Fizgibbons, are tailored for car movement. While Idaho has allowed bicycle riders in that state to treat stop signs as yield signs with positive results for nearly 30 years, California requires both bicyclists and drivers to come to a full stop. Advocates say the Idaho approach — which still requires bicyclists to slow down and yield to others who have the right-of-way — simply legitimizes common practice, since bicycle riders can safely negotiate smaller intersections like those on the Wiggle without the need for a full stop, while also clarifying expectations between different users.

“If you start designing the streets for the use that it actually receives, then you’re going to engender an attitude of respect from cyclists,” said Fitzgibbons. “I think when you start making the Wiggle a known place [for bicycles], and create that identity around the Wiggle, then you can start holding the cyclists who use it to a higher standard.”

Last September, SFMTA planners looking to transform the Wiggle into a more walkable, liveable, and bikeable place sought inspiration from Dutch planners, who in recent decades have pioneered and refined street designs to safely accommodate people on foot, on bikes, and in cars.

Waller Street at Steiner on the Wiggle, where a temporary bike corral was installed for display in late 2009. Photo: SFBC/Flickr

During the two-day ThinkBike workshops, planners took a ride along three of the city’s main bike corridors: Market Street, Polk Street, and the Wiggle. Drawing on Dutch expertise, the groups sketched conceptual re-imaginings of the streets and listed recommendations for a more pedestrian- and bike-friendly environment. This year will see the first of those ideas [PDF] implemented on the Wiggle.

In the coming months, the SFMTA plans to install “green-backed” sharrows (seen already on Market Street at Van Ness) and continental crosswalks (a.k.a. “zebra-striped” — one was installed along Steiner last year) along the route from Steiner to Scott Streets, states an SFMTA report [PDF] submitted to the SF Bicycle Advisory Committee last week. The report also mentions that “wayfinding and traffic engineering improvements to the Market/Duboce/Buchanan intersection are under consideration.” The critical bikeway link on Fell and Oak Streets, connecting the Wiggle to the pathway on the Panhandle, will also come next winter — a few months sooner than recently reported — according to an SFMTA presentation.

"Green-backed" sharrows, also called "super sharrows", will be painted along the Wiggle in the coming months, the SFMTA says. Photo: Bryan Goebel

Come summer, the Church and Duboce Track Improvement project is expected to be completed with an exclusive green bike “channel” on Duboce near the Church intersection, connected by paint markings guiding bike riders across rail tracks in the intersection, said SFMTA planners. Green-backed sharrows will also be installed on Duboce to complement the others, and other improvements include new lighting, wider sidewalks and boarding islands, greening, new pavement treatments, sculptures, and more.

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition “looks forward to immediate and longer-term improvements to the Wiggle, a critical biking pathway and a wonderfully vibrant residential and commercial area,” said deputy director Kit Hodge. “Communities in the Duboce Triangle, Lower Haight, Alamo Square Area have been making piece-meal improvements to the Wiggle area for years, which has improved local commercial corridors and enhanced the experience for those walking and biking.”

“The creative energy and desires for art and greening can be joined with long-supported traffic calming in the neighborhood to create an improved large-scale neighborhood — starting right now.”

Measures like raised and more-visible crosswalks, bulb-outs, reduced car traffic, and other traffic calming improvements could help make walking across streets on the Wiggle more comfortable. But until they come, police seem to be targeting behaviors that aren’t necessarily the most dangerous, particularly when compared to the danger from drivers. Bicycle commuter Stuart Krengel said he and a friend were ticketed by an officer last week for a stop sign violation while making a right turn onto Pierce Street from eastbound Page Street.

A rendering of Duboce at Church Street after the completion of the Track Improvement Project expected this summer. Image: RHAA via SFMTA

The officer, according to Krengel, told the riders they were required to put their foot down at the stop sign. ”We made a safe right turn, and got made an example of,” said Krengel, who claimed the officer dodged questions about the legitimacy of the citation and seemed unfamiliar with the Wiggle, but said police would be targeting stop sign violations there for six weeks. On Market Street, police were also spotted today “running a sting on cyclists running red lights,” according to a report from Uptown Almanac.

SFPD spokesperson Albie Esparza denied that police were targeting bicyclists for any particular period of time. “There is enforcement because of complaints from the community that bicyclists are running red lights, not stopping at stop signs,” he said. “It’s a safety effort. We want to make sure that people are aware that they can get a citation for not obeying the rules of the road.”

The SF Bicycle Coalition, said Hodge, believes “there shouldn’t be any question: pedestrian safety always comes first.” At the same time, the organization continues “to work with the city to prioritize the enforcement of the most dangerous behavior from all road users, ensuring that our streets are safe for everyone,” she said. ”We’re excited to see the city putting energy into this vibrant corridor, where a huge and growing number of people are biking and walking.”

The ThinkBike sketch of Scott Street between Page and Oak.

While Page and Pierce — the corner where Krengel was ticketed — isn’t technically on the Wiggle, Scott Street (one block over) could benefit from concepts sketched at ThinkBike. Many drivers and bicycle commuters move quickly through the somewhat wide intersection of Scott and Page, which lies next to a slope on Page — another popular bike route.

To calm Scott, ThinkBike planners recommended redesigning it as a “slow shared street” which doesn’t separate bikes and cars, but deters cut-through motor traffic and slows speeds using features like wider sidewalks with chicanes, more greening, and a planted traffic circle in the intersection (an idea that has been tried unsuccessfully on Page before).

Plans to implement the more substantial recommendations have yet to surface, but Fitzgibbons says the ThinkBike workshops and the initial projects coming out of it are encouraging. Still, he’ll wait until they’re on the ground before declaring progress.

“There’s often a gap between the good intentions of many people who work [at the SFMTA] and the implementation,” said Fitzgibbons. “What you end up having is a political leadership — namely the mayor, and on down from there — who instead of wanting to do the right thing and improving the city, they’re more concerned with taking everybody’s temperature.”

“When that’s your goal, you’re always going to run into people who aren’t on board. If that’s your tactic, you’re never going to get anything done.”

The SFMTA plans to implement guideway markings recommended at Duboce and Church Street.

A sketch of the intersection at Duboce, Steiner, and Sanchez Streets drawn by planners at ThinkBike.

An SFMTA report says staff is considering "wayfinding and traffic engineering improvements to the Market/Duboce/Buchanan intersection," where the gateway to the Wiggle lies.

Bike commuters will continue to face dangerous conditions on Fell Street for at least another year. Photo: Aaron Bialick

Separated bikeways on Fell and Oak Streets won’t come until spring 2013 at the earliest, nearly a year later than originally proposed, the SFMTA told Streetsblog today.

SFMTA planner Dustin White said the delay largely comes from opposition from some car owners to the removal of curbside parking, which is leading staff to create more parking spaces on nearby streets as it plans the bikeways.

“We have started to receive feedback opposing the parking removal, and I anticipate that developing parking mitigations will be one of the most difficult aspects of building community support for the project,” said White. Before presenting a proposed design this spring, staff will be “working on refining intersection design options and seeking mitigations to the proposed parking loss” and fielding input from bicycle, pedestrian, and disability advisory committees, he said.

Although SFMTA Sustainable Streets Division Planner Mike Sallaberry said last June that the project could be fast-tracked as a trial and be on the ground as early as this June, White claimed the project was actually ahead of an original target of fall 2013 officially set in a funding grant document approved by the SF County Transportation Authority (SFCTA) [PDF]. “We don’t think the environmental review process will take as long” as originally envisioned in the SFCTA document, he said.

On top of environmental review, staff must complete detailed design, legislation, and acquire funding for construction before implementation, said White.

The bikeways, which would vastly improve a vital bicycling link on three blocks between the Wiggle route and the Panhandle, would replace up to 80 parking spaces depending on which design alternative is chosen. However, about 120 paid parking spaces were opened to the public last year at the adjacent lot at the Department of Motor Vehicles, and the city has a nearly forty-year-old Transit First Policy which generally says safe bicycle access should take precedence over car storage.

Mayor Ed Lee told Streetsblog's Bryan Goebel last February, "I want to get to that experiment on Fell Street quickly." San Franciscans will have waited at least two years since that statement for the city to make good on it. Photo: Christine Falvey

While Mayor Ed Lee‘s administration continues to let complaints from car owners impede safety improvements to city streets, San Francisco is falling farther behind cities like New York and Chicago when it comes to 21st Century bike infrastructure. New York has implemented about twenty miles of on-street protected bikeways in recent years; in no instance has the city delayed a project to make up for the loss of on-street parking. In Chicago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel installed the Kinzie Street protected bikeway just days after entering office and plans to add 100 miles of protected bike lanes within four years.

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition is urging supporters to call on Lee and SFMTA Director Ed Reiskin to take a stand behind the long-overdue project and implement it with haste in pursuit of the city’s official goal of reaching 20 percent of trips by bike by 2020.

“A safe separated bikeway on this key biking corridor can’t wait,” said SFBC Executive Director Leah Shahum. “We are urging the city to move this project forward more quickly, and ensure the safety of the thousands of San Franciscans who use this crosstown route daily.”

Photo: Aaron Bialick

A new set of reports released yesterday by the Better Market Street Project, a coordinated effort between San Francisco city agencies and urban designers, presents ideas for optimizing the mobility, safety and overall experience on lower Market Street when it is rebuilt in 2015.

While the authors didn’t explicitly recommend the growingly popular idea of a car-free Market Street, they did point out that “car volumes… are low, but have disproportionately high effects on other modes” and recommended a study of vehicle restrictions “both for traffic along Market Street and for traffic turning onto Market Street…to determine what diversion may occur and what benefits to other modes might be derived.” (For a full-throated endorsement of a car-free Market, check out yesterday’s editorial in the Huffington Post, where Michael Portanova points out that “most anyone who has ever used a car in San Francisco knows that if you’re driving on Market Street, you’re doing it wrong.”)

Urban design consultants have been teaming up with a raft of public agencies the last couple of years to analyze Market Street and collect public input on the upcoming reconstruction. The reports include some interesting output from that partnership, including a summary of the top priorities voiced at public workshops last May. Creating a more attractive pedestrian environment and more comfortable bicycling infrastructure are toward the top of the list.

“The Better Market Street Project is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to transform Market Street and bring this major artery for the Bay Area to its full potential,” said Mohammed Nuru, director of the Department of Public Works (DPW), one of the leading agencies on the project.

The reports present a collection of best practices from similar streets throughout the world that can be adapted to improve Market Street. “It’s very valuable background information to help us know if we’re on the right track with our design concepts,” said DPW Project Manager Kris Opbroek.

Drawing on some of those celebrated streets for inspiration, the reports make a wide-ranging series of recommendations to improve safety and mobility on Market. To speed Muni vehicles, the recommendations include extending and enforcing bus-only lanes, optimizing stop locations, longer boarding islands, off-vehicle ticket machines, bus-priority traffic signals, and seeking alternative locations for deliveries. The reports also suggest that continuous protected bikeways could reduce conflicts with pedestrians and buses, and recommend multi-modal solutions like locating bike share stations at transit hubs.

“We are looking forward to this much-needed renewed commitment and sense of urgency from the city to design and construct a next generation Market Street,” said San Francisco Bicycle Coalition Executive Director Leah Shahum. ”We hear every day from the huge and growing number of people biking on the street about how important a better Market Street is for getting them to work, school and around town.”

Here are a few of the more intriguing ideas and possibilities:

The "Copenhagen left turn," the report notes, could help bicyclists cross streetcar tracks safely. Click to enlarge.

Street trees like those on Las Ramblas in Barcelona, Spain could create a more attractive pedestrian environment. Click to enlarge.

A few treatments that could improve the pedestrian experience at side streets. Click to enlarge.

Ideas for "flex" loading zones include a local proposal from the San Francisco County Transportation Authority to create sidewalk extensions on Columbus Avenue that would also be accessible by delivery vehicles. Click to enlarge.

In the meantime, the SFMTA is testing two pilot projects to reduce the impact of cars on Market, said spokesperson Paul Rose, including the removal of peak-hour parking bans near Market on Sixth Street, which had led to speeding, and the installation of a right-turn traffic signal at Market and New Montgomery to reduce back-ups.

This year, Better Market Street planners will consider the practices showcased in the reports as they develop conceptual drawings and begin the environmental review process – a promising sign that Market Street’s next redesign could be the most thorough plan developed yet.

Since the construction of BART, ”there’s been no holistic re-envisioning of Market Street such as this,” said Opbroek.

The public will be invited to review the first concept drawings at a meeting to be scheduled in the spring. The full reports can be viewed on the Better Market Street website.

The proposed bikeway would replace a parking lane as seen here on Fell at Divisadero Street. Alternative designs could include a separate signal phase for bikes and turning vehicles. Image: SFMTA

Planners are narrowing down the final designs for the Fell and Oak bikeway project, and the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition (SFBC) is calling on supporters to ask the mayor and SFMTA Director Ed Reiskin to ensure the project gets on the ground by summer as expected.

“The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition urges the SFMTA to implement separated bikeways on Oak and Fell Street between Scott and Baker Street as soon as possible,” said SFBC Executive Director Leah Shahum. “We know city officials have heard from hundreds of people that these blocks are some of the most frightening for everyday bike commuters, and countless more just won’t bike because it feels so unsafe. Our goal is to connect the city with safe, comfortable bikeways that are welcoming for people of all ages, especially the growing number of families riding in this area.”

SFMTA planners are currently selecting a final design proposal after fielding community input last month. Among the decisions they have to make: whether to install a two-way bikeway on Fell that then splits into separate east- and west-bound routes at Divisadero, or go with completely separate one-way bikeways; which design treatments to use at intersections; and whether to include an overnight car parking lane [PDF].

A two-way bikeway option would split eastbound bicyclists off Fell Street right onto Divisadero to connect to Oak Street. Click to enlarge. Image: SFMTA

SFMTA staff announced at the meeting that they eliminated the contentious option of removing a travel lane due to the car congestion that might result. Instead, the bikeways will replace car parking — a choice that has met with resistance but could show the SFMTA is willing to stand behind its Transit First Policy as it builds out bikeways identified in the SFBC’s Connecting the City campaign.

Shahum said the SFBC is “eager to help the city look for replacement parking to offset those that might be lost on those six blocks of Fell and Oak in order to make conditions safer for all road users. We’ll also continue to work with neighborhood groups to improve safety from the Panhandle to Market Street both for those living in the area and those traveling through, whether bicycling, walking, or driving.”

The project may include some novel intersection treatments to help minimize conflicts between bicycle traffic and turning drivers, including separate signal phases, similar to the signals at Fell and Masonic. Another design adapted from the NACTO Urban Bikeway Design Guide, known as a “mixing zone,” would merge the bikeway with a turning lane for vehicles, using green paint and bicycle sharrows to highlight space that cyclists and drivers share.

The SFMTA plans to present its final designs at a community meeting by April, and bike advocates are hoping the agency can implement the project by Bike to Work Day on May 10.

Click to enlarge. Image: SFMTA

Click to enlarge. Image: SFMTA

The overnight parking option with a one-way bikeway. Click to enlarge. Image: SFMTA

CA legislators have removed language from AB 819 that would have facilitated the implementation of bikeways like this one in Chicago. Photo: CDOT via The Bicycle Blog of Wisconsin

Assembly members undermined the bill’s original intent by removing language allowing planners to use guidelines that have been established outside Caltrans, like the NACTO Urban Bikeway Design Guide, which includes designs for protected bikeways. Instead, the amended bill would only require Caltrans to create an experimentation process through which engineers can establish bikeway standards. That process is likely to be a lengthy one.

Advocates say the amended bill could be an improvement over the status quo, but it’s a far cry from giving local transportation agencies the freedom to implement bikeway designs that cities such as Chicago, New York, and Washington D.C. have rolled out with impressive results.

“The committee’s amendment is a step toward our goal of permitting the kind of bike infrastructure that we need,” said California Bicycle Coalition Communications Director Jim Brown. “How big a step this will be depends on the kind of experimentation process Caltrans comes up with. But it’s not the blanket authorization we’re seeking for local agencies to design the safest possible bikeways.”

Local transportation officials can still implement protected bikeways, but the process is much more complex than it needs to be. Without a set of approved standards to work from, agencies are subject to greater liability, and each project must contend with the red tape of Caltrans approval — a time-consuming and expensive process.

Brown said the AB 819 amendment was passed without deliberation but still requires approval by other committees as well as the State Senate. It was introduced by the California Association of Bicycling Organizations, a group which distrusts the NACTO guide and has traditionally resisted protected bikeways despite their proven benefits in safety and increased ridership in California cities, other American cities, and abroad.

“Whether through legislation or other means,” said Brown, “we’re continuing to work with Caltrans to figure out how innovative bikeway designs already used in other parts of the U.S. and Europe can be implemented in California.”

New York City's Eighth Avenue protected bike lane. Photo: BicyclesOnly/Flickr

That could change under a state bill called AB 819, which would give California cities more flexibility to implement bikeway designs that are fast becoming the best practices in leading American cities.

“The goal of AB 819 is to free up communities to implement the kind of innovative facilities we’re seeing in use in other parts of the country and in Europe,” said Jim Brown, communications director for the California Bicycle Coalition.

Under current state law, facilities like protected bike lanes and bike boxes – which are not established within Caltrans guidelines — must go through an expensive and time-consuming approval process. Although some have been built in cities like San Francisco and Long Beach, they haven’t come easily.

“Cities can get permission to experiment through Caltrans, but it’s a really long decision process,” said Brown. Using “experimental” designs also leaves planners subject to greater legal liability. “It means that cities are less willing to install facilities that might actually increase bicycle ridership.”

AB 819 would allow planners to use guidelines that have already been developed outside the state, like the Urban Bikeway Design Guide, released last spring by the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) and approved by U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, to help them plan and fund those projects.

But the bill’s reach could be limited by an amendment proposed by the California Association of Bicycle Organizations (CABO), a smaller coalition which argues that using outside guidelines for bikeways could be problematic. Their alternative proposal, which will be considered at a State Assembly Transportation Committee hearing on Monday, would only allow new types of bike facilities to be established under an experimentation process within Caltrans.

“If you want to provide separate facilities for beginning cyclists, or for people who don’t want to ride in traffic, fine,” said CABO President Jim Baross. “Let’s do it right through an experimentation process and a design criteria that comes up that’s safe and actually works.”

A reliance on outside standards, Baross argued, could lead planners to build facilities that are inconsistent and don’t necessarily translate from other states. As an example, he pointed out that drivers in Oregon are taught to yield to bicycle riders passing on the right when making a right turn, whereas California drivers are instructed to merge into the bike lane. That, he said, could create problems within bikeway designs imported from Portland.

But Brown argued that city planners would still ultimately be responsible for the designs they choose, and repeating the work done by transportation planners in cities like New York would be superfluous.

Protected bike lanes have been proven to improve safety for all street users, and they’ve been credited with significant gains in bicycling rates, as more people become comfortable cycling on the street. Roughly twenty miles of on-street protected bike lanes have been implemented in New York in recent years. Traffic injuries have fallen by as much as 35 percent on some routes, and bike counts have soared since the city started using the new designs.

“They have thousands and thousands of people using these facilities every day,” said Brown. “Do we really think that we need to second-guess the judgment of the New York City Department of Transportation?”

There's nothing like the smell of fresh thermoplast in the morning. Photos: Ruth Miller

As city contractors stenciled new bike lanes last Friday at Oakland’s 25th and Webster Streets, a group of advocates, city staff, and elected officials celebrated the final project in Oakland’s busiest bicycling year to date.

“This year we put in 18.1 miles of new bike lanes and 292 new bike parking spots,” Council Member Libby Schaaf told the group.

Oakland Council Member Libby Schaaf, an early member of WOBO.

Oakland was recently recognized by the League of American Bicyclists as a Bronze Bicycle-Friendly City and “named one of the 20 most bike-friendly cities in the country,” noted Mayor Jean Quan, and “we’re working to get into the top ten.”

On top of a major expansion of bikeways this year, Uptown Oakland will get its own bike station as soon as 2013 near the 19th Street BART station, announced Jason Overman of Council Member Rebecca Kaplan’s office, which recently won a $500,000 grant from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s Safe Routes to Transit program to create a space similar to the Downtown Berkeley bike station and host valet bike parking and repairs.

Over the next two weeks, crews will complete the bike lane along the one-way Webster Street south to 14th Street, and a complementary bike lane will be installed on the parallel Franklin Street in January. Combined, the pair will create a north-south corridor to Downtown Oakland.

Many of Oakland’s 2011 bike projects focused on completing the network of bike lanes and sharrows, including segments of major crosstown routes like Fruitvale, Lakeshore, Telegraph, and West Grand Avenues, as well as Foothill Boulevard and East 12th Street.

East Bay Bicycle Coalition Executive Director Renee Rivera addresses the crowd.

The Webster-Franklin route, an alternative to the high-speed Broadway, is a key victory for EBBC and WOBO’s joint Oakland Bikeways Campaign, which calls for the city to implement its entire Bicycle Master Plan by 2020 and prioritize key routes like Webster and Franklin.

Mayor Quan challenged the bicycle community to focus on advocating for underserved and disadvantaged communities, evoking the 100 Block Crime Plan from her mayoral campaign. East Bay Bicycle Coalition Executive Director Renee Rivera heartily agreed, commending city staff and leadership for putting bikeways where they’re needed, not just where they’re easy.

“It’s not just putting down more miles, but miles that connect, and create a safe, continuous network that really gets you where you need to go and doesn’t drop you along the way,” said Rivera. “We need to make Oakland a safe place to bike for everyone. We need to pay more attention to the eastern side of town, working with great partners like Cycles of Change and their earn-a-bike program, and bringing more infrastructure to the east side where it’s so badly needed.”

Mayor Jean Quan: "I've only missed one Bike to Work Day in the last nine years, and I'm looking forward to being with you again this year."

Gloria Bruce, Chair of Walk Oakland Bike Oakland, struck a similar chord. “It’s a relatively small public investment that pays huge dividends for the thousands of Oaklanders who want to, or need to, walk and bike around the city,” she said. “They’re very hip and cool, but in addition to hip and cool folks, they also serve folks that want to be empowered, that want to access work and play in safe and green ways.”

While 2011 was a big year for bike improvements in Oakland, the 18 miles completed fall far below the city’s goal of 32 miles.

“We expected so much more to get done this year,” explained Jason Patton, manager of the city’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Facilities Program. “We’ve got about 20 additional miles of striping alone. We’re just waiting for [the contractors] to stripe, we’ve got another 20 miles of sign projects, and we’re just waiting to do those. All of the major striping contractors have active work in Oakland right now.”

Mayor Quan preparing to cut the ribbon on the Webster Street bike lanes, with Public Works Director Vitaly Troyan, Councilmember Libby Schaaf, and Jason Overman of Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan's office.

“We’re probably still going to hit” 32 miles, he said, “but it will be fiscal year [ending June 2012] or even August 2012. It looks like 2012 will be the year where more happens than ever.”

In 2012, Oakland expects to implement bicycle improvements on:

From left to right: Deputy Director of Public Works Iris Starr, and Bike and Pedestrian Facilities staff Jennifer Stanley and manager Jason Patton.

• Fourteenth Street from Mandela to Brush, connecting the edge of downtown to the center of West Oakland
• Broadway from 22nd Street to I-580, or approximately 35th Street
• MacArthur Boulevard between Telegraph and Broadway, where six vehicle lanes will be reduced to four

The Webster-Shafter corridor, between Rockridge and Downtown Oakland, will be painted with sharrows, of which Patton remarked, “We’ve never seen such a positive response in public comment before.”

After that? “We’re running out of easy projects,” said Patton. “At some point it’s going to start slowing down.”

“You’ve got to realize that we didn’t start putting in bike lanes until 1976 and today it’s 110 miles, plus or minus,” said Public Works Director Vitaly Troyan. “We’ve got 800 miles of streets, we’ve got 100 miles of bike lanes, so what does that mean? We’ve got 700 more to go.”

Bike advocates in Alameda County will face a challenge next year when Measure B, the county’s transportation sales tax, comes up for renewal on the November ballot. Measure B funds, pointed out Quan, made the Webster bike lane project possible, and advocates will have the chance to increase the proportion devoted to bike infrastructure in next year’s vote.

“Oakland has always fought for larger share of that not just to be for cars,” she said, “but to be for buses and public transportation and bike lanes. Those hearings will be coming up and we need you to all to come out and speak for bikes.”

Quan dedicated the Webster Street project to the memory of Ron Bishop, a long-time cycling advocate who passed away earlier this week. Bishop, Rivera said, would have been proud of the Webster/Franklin bike lanes, but friends privately noted later that he would probably call it a good start.

Breaking in the new lanes.

Images: MTC

For more than 15 years, bicycle advocates in San Francisco and the East Bay have pushed for a west span path to connect bike commuters to the east span path expected to open between Oakland to Yerba Buena Island by 2014.

“We’re very encouraged that Caltrans and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) have come up with a design that works for the west span and the touchdown on either end,” said Dave Campbell, the program director for the East Bay Bicycle Coalition.

“This new study not only affirms the feasibility and benefits of the pathway, it also puts this important project in line for funding,” said San Francisco Bicycle Coalition Executive Director Leah Shahum. “Now, the city and the region are showing their commitment to connect not only the East Bay and San Francisco, but also San Francisco’s own neighborhoods, which is critical as Treasure Island is developed. This is an exciting step for a much-needed bridge between communities.”

The project would still take up to ten years to plan and construct once the estimated $500 to $550 million in funding is secured, said John Goodwin, spokesperson for the MTC, which manages regional transportation funding. Last night’s presentation of the project study report, funded by toll revenue, was just one step in developing the project initiation document, expected to be completed next summer, which will allow agencies to begin the funding search. After that, roughly five years of planning and five years of construction lie ahead.

The study report “shows that the project is possible, but not that it’s affordable,” said Goodwin.

While the cost has risen about $200 million from its original 2001 estimate, potential transbay bike commuter Tina Crawford pointed out to KTVU today that “we spend a lot more on transportation options for cars so I think it’s about time we offer this alternative and have a showcase for bike commuting in the Bay Area.”

Despite the lengthy project timeline, advocates praised MTC Executive Director Steve Heminger for helping to push reluctant engineers and staff to take on the daunting design and funding challenges.

Engineers from Caltrans and the Bay Area Toll Authority last night presented a number of possible ways [PDF] to connect the path to downtown San Francisco and the bridge’s east span across Yerba Buena Island. The impact of the additional weight would also have to be mitigated, possibly by counter-weights and shortening the suspension cables, they said.

In downtown San Francisco, the west end of the path would have to navigate around the existing off-ramp as well as buildings and other planned developments, but engineers presented several possible configurations. The ramp could land bike riders and pedestrians in parks planned for the areas near the highway offramp, or on the short and narrow Lansing Street. One proposal would even connect to the roof of the planned Transbay Terminal, where stairs and elevators would provide the only way down. In any case, ADA requirements would mean the path would have to avoid including steep slopes and narrow passages.

On Yerba Buena, planners must also determine the best way to connect the east and west spans of the bridges by navigating the island’s terrain. Nine alternatives had already been considered and put aside, including a path suspended through the bridge tunnel above motor traffic, due to reasons including the lack of right-of-way, poor user experience, and interference with Coast Guard operations.

Advocates and officials said they plan to begin searching for funding after the project initiation document is completed and a preferred alternative is chosen next summer.

One proposal for a downtown off-ramp.

Another proposal includes two variations that would land the ramp adjacent to a planned dog park.

One proposal for the connection on Yerba Buena Island.

The project schedule.

An artist's representation of what streetscape improvements to 21st Avenue could look like.

When San Franciscans voted to fix crumbling streets by approving Proposition B, they also approved nearly $90 million for pedestrian, bike, and transit projects. It will give certain Muni lines the power to change traffic signals, and pay for sidewalk improvements and bike lanes.

“Prop B gives us the opportunity to really catch up on our streets—not just fixing potholes, but actually making the streets better from an urban design perspective,” said Gabriel Metcalf, executive director of SPUR.

Elizabeth Stampe, executive director of Walk SF, said the value of these projects will make the borrowing worthwhile. “These are exactly the kind of investments that it makes sense to use a bond for,” she said. “They are long-term improvements that will improve the safety and walkability of our streets.”

Much of the money is assigned to specific projects, but the largest chunk—$50 million—will be divvied up through a political process. This money could be used to stripe bike lanes, plant trees, install new lights, or otherwise improve streetscapes. Planners will be holding meetings in 2012 to determine where this pot of funding should go.

“I think the biggest opportunities for pedestrian improvements are on the neighborhood commercial streets,” Metcalf said. “These are the central places within every neighborhood in the city, the places where activity is concentrated and where we want to create a truly comfortable and inviting public realm.”

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition will be advocating for money to go to dedicated bike lanes, said Executive Director Leah Shahum. “They are proven to draw more people onto bikes, improve safety, and connect neighborhoods with real, low-cost, bang for your buck,” she said, before reeling off a list of streets where a little money could go a long way: Masonic Avenue, Jefferson Street near Fisherman’s Warf, Polk Street, the Embarcadero, Ocean and Geneva Avenues. “This is just a partial list,” she said. “Obviously there’s not enough money to do everything.”

The funding has the potential to save lives. More than half of pedestrian deaths and severe injuries occur on just 6.7 percent of streets by length, noted Tom Radulovich, head of Livable City. “I don’t want to miss that opportunity. As they move through the city, any time the resurfacing touches on of that 6.7 percent, we should be making improvements.”

The rest of the $90 million, beyond the $50 million for streetscapes, breaks down as follows:

• $20.3 million for Muni signal priority: Stoplights will be programmed to sense approaching Muni vehicles and turn green, said Municipal Transportation Agency representative Paul Rose. “It will give signal priority to our fleet so that when they come to a stoplight they get through faster,” he said. “It will cut travel times and prevent bunching up.” Rose said Muni has not determined which routes will receive this technology first.
• $14 million for pedestrian curb cuts: Pays for the construction of 1,767 new curb ramps to make sidewalks more accessible to wheelchairs, strollers, and those using walkers. Spots that people with disabilities have identified will get top priority.
• $8 million for sidewalk improvements: Flattens sidewalks cracked by age or tree roots.
• $7.3 million for seismic retrofits: This will go to fix concrete that has buckled with movement, and to repair structures (bridges, tunnels, retaining walls, and stairs) that could fail in an earthquake.

Enjoy the Thanksgiving weekend. Streetsblog San Francisco will be back publishing on Monday.

The bikeway runs alongside the end of the Central Freeway. Photos: Aaron Bialick

New markings are on the ground delineating the short two-way bikeway linking the Market and Octavia intersection to Valencia Street and the future site of the McCoppin Hub plaza.

SFMTA crews made the improvements two weeks ago, according to the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. The pedestrian and bicycle shortcut has existed for years, but the new center line, bike markings, and signage should help increase its visibility and discourage blockage by parked vehicles.

The bi-directional bikeway is by my count the third to be marked in the city, after the Panhandle and Duboce Street.

The improvements also mark a step towards shaping the McCoppin Hub plaza, which is currently being designed. The project’s latest concept renderings show the bikeway slightly wider than it was in the first draft, and it now includes a public bike pump and an ample row of bike racks.

Construction on the plaza is expected to begin next summer. More pics after the break.

One of the latest concept renderings for the plaza. Image: Boor Bridges Architecture via Facebook

Where the bikeway will run through the McCoppin Hub plaza. Photo: Aaron Bialick

Photo: Aaron Bialick

Valencia Street's bike lanes are notoriously full of stopped taxis. Photo: bbond, MyBikeLane

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) is officially allowing taxi drivers to block bicycle lanes.

A memo [PDF] from Deputy Director of Taxi Services Christiane Hayashi and Accessible Services Manager Annette Williams says the agency is issuing bumper stickers to taxi drivers telling Parking Control Officers not to cite them.

John Han of Taxi Town SF first reported the story, writing that the move has been “more than a year in the making”:

The memo, signed by Deputy Director of Taxis Services Christiane Hayashi, says not only will the SFMTA issue the bumper stickers, but it has also issued “guidance” to the Parking Control Officers instructing them not to ticket taxi drivers who are actively loading or unloading in bike lanes.

Taxis stopped in bike lanes routinely endanger people on bikes in San Francisco, and legitimizing the practice could encourage more of it. When blocked, bicycle riders are typically forced into passing motor traffic or between parked cars, where drivers or taxi passengers may open doors in their path.

Condoning such a dangerous practice seems incongruous with the SFMTA’s goals of improving the safety of bicycling in the city.

Leah Shahum, executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, said the organization “has real concerns about the agency’s confusing policy regarding taxi pick-ups and drop-offs in bicycle lanes, which seems to invite conflict and unsafe conditions.”

“In order to reach the city’s official goal of 20 percent of trips by bicycle by 2020, we urge the SFMTA to develop a more coherent policy that prioritizes safe conditions for all road users, while also setting up more dedicated taxi stands for greater predictability,” she said. “Increased use of both bicycles and taxis will help the city meet its transit-first goals and can be complimentary of each other.”

The SFMTA’s decision, according to the memo, comes from “the need to provide access to the curb for taxi and paratransit van customers with disabilities.”

“The proliferation of new bicycle lanes throughout San Francisco has caused some confusion for taxi drivers and led, in some cases, to citations being issued while loading and unloading passengers in these bike lanes,” the memo states.

“We work hard to find workable solutions to address safety concerns for all modes of transportation in our scarce right-of-way,” said SFMTA spokesperson Paul Rose. ”This plan allows for the safe use of bike lanes, while at the same time, providing curb access for paratransit van and taxi customers with disabilities.”

Shahum said the SF Bicycle Coalition “is understanding of the SFMTA’s imperative to provide access for taxi and paratransit van customers with disabilities,” and that it “supports a flexible approach to assure full access for these road users as we build out the citywide bike network.”

However, the decision seems to have been made without an opportunity for public input. Cheryl Brinkman, a member of the SFMTA Board of Directors, said she’d heard discussion about the needs of disabled passengers, but not of the wider policy change. Rose, the SFMTA’s spokesperson, offered no comment on the public process.

The memo also includes a set of instructions for taxi drivers on how to “safely” stop in a bike lane, stressing the use of bike lanes as “an absolutely last resort” after looking “for other safe locations to stop (such as an open curb space, taxi stand, or side street).”

For physically separated bike lanes, like those on Market Street, the memo says taxis may only enter them to drop off “disabled or elderly customers who require direct access to the curb,” and pick-ups are only allowed when the dispatcher tells a driver that “the customer is disabled and must be picked up at a location that is next to a separated bike lane.”

Drivers are still forbidden from using them “for any other reason.”

The SFBC, Shahum said, is encouraged by measures included in the memo to mitigate the increased danger to bicycle riders. Taxi driver training must now include a “defensive driving training module specific to driving safely around people on bicycles and bike lane policy.”

The SFMTA will also issue decals “cautioning passengers to took for people on bicycles when exiting the vehicle to be affixed in the lower right hand corner of the rear window,” according to the memo.

Alternative measures to help accommodate the needs of both bicyclists and disabled passengers could include converting more car parking into taxi stands.

New York, a city comparable to San Francisco, prohibits [PDF, pg. 52] motor vehicles from stopping in bike lanes at all.

Bike lanes can also be raised up near the level of the curb, allowing passengers to access the curb without conflicting with bicycle traffic. This practice can be seen in successful cycling cities like Copenhagen, Denmark, and similar features will be included in the coming redesign of San Francisco’s Masonic Avenue.

Bikeways in Copenhagen are commonly near-level with the sidewalk and sometimes include buffer areas that make them easily accessible to passengers without endangering cyclists. Photo: Mikael Colville-Andersen, Copenhagenize

The Masonic Avenue redesign. Image: SFCTA

The Masonic Avenue Streetscape Project took another step forward today after the board of the San Francisco County Transportation Authority approved funding to conduct an environmental impact report (EIR). The board also gave the green light to funds to construct the city’s first on-street two-way protected bike lane on Cargo Way in Hunter’s Point.

The Masonic Avenue redesign will transform the dangerous corridor with traffic calming, greening, and other improvements for pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit. The project’s EIR will be completed by the SFMTA and the SF Planning Department by June 2012, according to memos accompanying the resolution passed by the SFCTA [PDF]. Once cleared, the SFMTA would approve the report as an addendum to the San Francisco Bicycle Plan before beginning a 12- to 18-month phase of “detailed design work” on the project.

The $41,000 required for the EIR, as well as the $94,000 for the Cargo Way bikeway construction, come from Prop K sales tax funds.

The SFCTA is still seeking funding for the project’s estimated $18 million construction, but potential sources include the Proposition B bond measure and grants from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and Caltrans, the agency memos state.

Residents will have to wait until at least 2014 for construction to begin on the Masonic redesign, which will bring the city’s first physically raised bike lane to the corridor.

Cargo Way, meanwhile, will see the city’s first two-way, on-street bikeway protected by a raised concrete barrier and fence, according to the memos. The bikeway will fill a gap in the San Francisco Bay Trail, connecting Third Street and existing bike lanes on Illinois to Heron Head’s Park and Hunters Point. It will be placed along the south side of the street to minimize conflicts with trucks accessing the north side.

The project was approved in the 2009 Bike Plan and is expected to be completed by March 2012.

The plan for a bi-directional, protected bikeway on Cargo Way. Image: SFCTA

Image: SFCTA

]]> http://sf.streetsblog.org/2011/10/25/funding-approved-for-masonic-eir-and-cargo-way-protected-bikeway/feed/ 15 http://sf.streetsblog.org/2011/10/21/jfk-bikeway-gets-final-approval-from-rec-and-parks-commission/ http://sf.streetsblog.org/2011/10/21/jfk-bikeway-gets-final-approval-from-rec-and-parks-commission/#comments Fri, 21 Oct 2011 21:00:55 +0000 Aaron Bialick http://sf.streetsblog.org/?p=275285 [...]]]>

Image: SFMTA

San Francisco bicycle advocates are celebrating a major milestone after the city’s first parking-protected bike lane cleared its final hurdle yesterday. The San Francisco Recreation and Parks Commission approved the John F. Kennedy Drive bikeway, which will be installed in Golden Gate Park this December.

“The new, dedicated bikeways coming on JFK Drive will be a great benefit to the growing number of people, including so many families with children as well as seniors, biking in the park,” said San Francisco Bicycle Coalition (SFBC) Executive Director Leah Shahum. “These parking-protected bikeways have been proven in cities such as Portland, Oregon and New York City to make the streets safer and more inviting not only for people biking but also for people walking. And there’s nowhere this is more needed than in a park.”

The bike lane will be the city’s first to place a row of parked cars between motorized traffic and bicycle traffic, protecting bicycle riders from the dangers of passing vehicles and opening car doors. It will also be the first completed project that the SFBC called for in Connecting the City, its plan for a citywide network of protected bikeways.

“As an agency that is committed to providing safe and efficient streets for all users,” said SFMTA Director of Transportation Ed Reiskin, ”including cyclists, pedestrians, people with disabilities, and cars, we are pleased that this project has taken a significant step forward.”

Installing the bikeway “allows the city to further enhance our bike network and create a safer environment for those who travel throughout the park. Going forward, we will continue to meet with all stakeholders to gather feedback and answer all questions,” he said.

John F. Kennedy Drive serves as a popular road for recreational cycling as well as a critical connection for cyclists traveling from the Sunset and Richmond districts to one of the city’s most heavily-trafficked bicycle routes along the Panhandle and the Wiggle. Connecting the City envisions a continuous, three-mile “Bay to Beach” bike route all the way from downtown Market Street to Ocean Beach, comfortable enough for anyone 8 to 80 years old.

Bicycle advocates have long called for greater use of protected bikeways instead of the bike lane designs that American cities have historically provided. The shortcomings of those traditional designs help explain why, in San Francisco, “dooring” is the top factor behind cyclist injuries caused by vehicle drivers or passengers. Where implemented, protected lanes have strongly increased cyclist safety and bicycling rates, as well as pedestrian and motorist safety. The world’s most successful cycling countries, like Denmark and the Netherlands, have made protected bike lanes the standard over the past few decades. Recently, American cities like New York, Washington, Chicago and Portland have adopted them.

A plan for protected bike lanes is also being developed for three blocks on Fell and Oak Streets, the second project in the “Bay to Beach” route.

The new plan would replace car parking with buffered bike lanes on Cesar Chavez. Image: SFMTA

SFMTA hearing officers today approved a plan to replace car parking on Eastern Cesar Chavez Street with buffered bicycle lanes. A previous iteration of the plan was dropped in June after industrial businesses in the area pressured City Hall because they objected to losing traffic lanes for trucks.

The new redesign would add buffered bike lanes separated by “safe-hit” posts along the stretch between the 101 and 280 highways. On most of the route, the proposal calls for replacing parking lanes instead of traffic lanes.

The project, along with a set of twelve new bicycle parking corrals, next heads to the SFMTA Board of Directors for final approval.

“The project that’s coming back is coming back better,” said San Francisco Bicycle Coalition Policy Director Andy Thornley. “This will be an even more comfortable bike lane than what we had approved in June of 2009.”

SFMTA Engineer James Shahamiri said that some design details on the project still need to be worked out, but they likely won’t require any further legislative approval. Removing travel lanes in the westbound direction along that stretch, he said, is “still on the table.”

Twelve new on-street bicycle corrals also passed the hearing with a unanimous show of support – including 40 emails – at the following locations:

• 18th and Dolores Street
• 29th Street and Tiffany Avenue
• Powell and Chestnut Streets
• Harrison and 20th Streets
• Haight near Clayton Street
• Valencia near 24th Street
• Judah Street near 45th Avenue
• Polk and Washington Streets
• Fillmore near Sutter Street
• 16th near Mission Street
• 18th and Collingwood Street
• Valencia near 23rd Street

An additional bike corral was proposed at Minnesota and 22nd Streets, but SFMTA staff said it will be re-worked to accommodate plans to add an intersection bulb-out.

Also approved was an initiative from Caltrans to remove travel lanes and add bike lanes on a section of southern San Jose Avenue.

The removal of a Muni bus stop shelter on Turk and Hyde, which residents complained attracts drug activity, was approved, although many spoke in opposition.

See the rest of the items on the agenda here.

The American Dream...

As a teen, I adored “Thunder Road.” From Bruce Springsteen to Madison Avenue, our society glorified the status, freedom, power, identity, safety, protection and even redemption that cars offered. Cars were our Iron Man suit extending our physical abilities to unprecedented levels. We could eat, sleep, and live in them. Anyone over the age of 16—especially anyone male—without a car was a loser of the first degree, to be scoffed at and ridiculed. Given this heritage of the last sixty years, it’s not surprising that we Americans are now resistant to trading in our all-powerful motorized conveyances for a bicycle or a seat on the train.

Though times are clearly changing and an energy-scarce future means the internal combustion engine, with its extravagant inefficiency, will fade away, some people will continue driving no matter what. Especially people who are 55 or older, who have a substantial income, and who have a decent nest egg saved for retirement—some of them may indeed never ride a bicycle or take public transit.

...and the American reality. Flickr photo: cbcastro

So how to convince well-to-do, aging urbanites who will drive until their car keys are pulled from their infirm hands that it is in their best interest to support the creation of good, safe bicycle infrastructure that allows people ages 8 – 80 to bike confidently and without fear, especially when at times this infrastructure will come at the expense of car parking or a lane of car travel? Such reallocations of space strike a chill in many a car driver’s heart. There will be traffic nightmares! The economy will collapse! If more space is given to bicycles, before you can say “Harvey Milk,” crazy liberal cities like San Francisco will outlaw cars altogether.

Or so the protestations go. But the truth is that even car drivers should welcome and support bicycle infrastructure. Here are six reasons why, drawing heavily from the theory of Other People.

1) Congestion is mostly caused by Other People in cars and will only grow the more Other People keep driving. When you drive in a city, what holds you up, slows you down, wastes your time, keeps you from where you want to go, are Other People. These Other People are sometimes on foot or bicycle, but mostly these Other People are in cars, though as car drivers we may not want to admit it.

What we have to understand is that Other People in cars take up an enormous amount of space. Other People in cars are, in fact, the biggest hogs on the road by a factor of at least ten. In addition, as the cost of gasoline and other energy increases, people are growing more interested in urban living, so population density and congestion will continually increase in most cities until complete gridlock is reached and no car driver can get anywhere except perhaps in the dead of night. It has been proven worldwide that car infrastructure induces driving and bicycle infrastructure induces bicycling. If you want to have room to drive, inducing Other People to travel by foot, public transit, or bikes means a lot more room for your car. On space issues alone, as a driver you want as many Other People as possible not in cars. In addition, as the ranks of bicyclists are swelled by ordinary Other People who are more risk averse than the early-adopter cyclists (who had to be aggressive and even daredevils to cycle on car-dominated streets) bicycle traffic will grow more orderly, predictable, law-abiding, and calm.

But, you might counter, if Other People stop driving, then all cars will go away, and that can’t be good for me. On this point you can relax. Cars are not going away in our lifetime. Some dense, downtown areas might become pedestrian-only, but pedestrianizing dense downtown areas won’t impact 99 percent of driving trips (but it will make shopping or going to a restaurant downtown much more pleasant). If vast numbers of Other People stop driving, there may be some reduction in the number of lanes dedicated to cars on city streets, but since cars will still be useful for some activities, Other People will still own enough of them (or rent them via a car-share program) that roads will continue to be open to them for the foreseeable future. Road speeds may be a little slower to increase safety for pedestrians and bicyclists, but it’s not road speeds that slow you down right now, it’s all the traffic. Get rid of the traffic and even 20 mph will get you around swiftly.

2) Healthier Other People cost you less. When Other People ride bicycles instead of drive cars, they are healthier due to the exercise, and all the people around them are healthier due to breathing cleaner air.  This means that your city’s health care costs, the nation’s health care costs, and your health insurance premiums will all be lower. Obesity and diabetes are leading causes of skyrocketing health care costs.  (In car-congested areas, we can add asthma to the list.)  The more people drive, the fatter they are. Health care now consumes 17.3 percent of our nation’s GDP. (France, a weak runner-up in the Let’s-Destroy-Our-Economy-Via-Health-Care pageant, clocks in at a paltry 11 percent.) Skyrocketing health care costs are one of the prime reasons why small businesses are reluctant to hire new employees. Though there are many other pieces to the health care mess that need to be addressed, by making Other People less sedentary and their air less polluted, you will directly benefit economically. And in terms of getting sedentary people fit, integrating exercise into their daily activity via walking or biking costs one-fourth as much as getting them to go to the gym.

Total health expenditure per capita in US and selected countries, 1970-2008. Source: Kaiser Family Foundation

Providing safe routes for children to walk and bike to school is especially important to reduce epidemic childhood obesity rates, especially since 70 percent of obese children go on to become obese adults. In addition, children who walk or bike to school watch less TV and are less likely to smoke, girls who walk or bike to school have higher cognitive test scores, and children who are physically-fit have higher scores in math and reading than their less-fit classmates. More children walking and biking to school would also provide a huge benefit directly to drivers: right now parents driving children to school create 20-30 percent of morning traffic congestion in urban areas.

3) When Other People switch from cars to bicycles it improves the local economy. San Francisco, for example, benefits very little from money spent on gasoline, cars, and car insurance.  And, as we all know, roughly half of our national trade deficit is due to importing oil. When Other People free themselves of the $8800/year cost of car ownership, they have a great deal more money to spend locally, creating an economic boost for your city far more powerful than a temporary tax cut or (unless you live near Wall Street) various iterations of the Fed’s quantitative easing. In addition, the less oil your city uses, the more your city’s economy will be impervious to the economically destabilizing effects of Peak Oil.

The growing gap between oil discoveries and production. Source: Energy Bulletin

In the coming decades of tightening energy supply, the cities and regions that are able to produce the most GDP with the least energy will be the most resilient and stable. Even if you personally have the money to withstand economic crashes, a wealthier city with a healthier tax base will be a more pleasant place in which to live out your golden years. Last but not least, employees who bicycle to work have 15 percent less absenteeism than non-cyclist employees, making them more economically productive.

4) Good bicycle infrastructure encourages tourism. This concerns the ultimate Other People—tourists. Bicycling is a lovely way to the see a city, and parents especially appreciate an active, healthy way their whole family can participate in a vacation. San Francisco, for example, with all its natural attractions, could be a great city for tourists to bicycle in. Already the ride through Crissy Field over the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito is world famous, and an equally nice ride someday could take visitors up Market Street, through the Wiggle and on to the attractions of Golden Gate Park. But the bicycle infrastructure at present is not safe enough or simple enough or pleasant enough for anyone not girded for the teeth-gnashing rigors that bicycling in San Francisco currently entails. Cities with tourist-friendly bicycle infrastructure will find that tourists on bicycles are more likely to stop at shops along the way than tourists in cars or buses. And they will also find that tourists on bicycles are less likely than tourists in cars to kill or maim their city’s citizens as they try to negotiate complex urban traffic. (Anecdotal, I know, but the two times my family members have been hit by cars, both cars were driven by tourists.)

5) Bikes consume far less taxpayer subsidy than transit or car driving. Though it’s true that not all Other People can ride bicycles on all occasions, each time one of them does take a bike instead of a car it saves you money. Since gas taxes have not increased for decades, they cover only half the cost of road construction, maintenance and repair costs. General taxes cover the other half.  (See the excellent report, Whose Roads? Also see Do Roads Pay for Themselves?) Factoring in the indirect costs of parking, crashes, congestion and land, cities also shell out $.28 for every mile driven on their streets. Bicycles, in contrast, cost cities one cent per mile traveled in indirect costs. To illustrate the point with data from Whose Roads?, let’s take two neighbors, Driver Dan and Biker Betty, who each pay $300 annually in local taxes that fund roads and traffic services. Dan drives 10,000 miles per year on local roads and also pays $24 in gas taxes that go towards local roads. The direct cost of his driving to the local community is $560 and the indirect cost is $2,800. Total cost of his driving to the public: $3,360. Net loss to the public taxpayer: $3,360 – $324 = $3,036. In contrast, Betty, who bikes 3,000 miles in a year and pays no gas tax, costs the city $48 in direct costs and $30 in indirect costs. Total: $78. Net gain to public taxpayer: $300 – $78 =  $222. It’s pretty clear who is the better deal for the public purse.

Then there’s the amount taxpayers subsidize each gallon of gas through federal subsidies of corn, ethanol and oil companies that comes to $13.3 billion/year or $.10/gallon. (Corn subsidies = $3.6 billion/year, ethanol subsidies = $5.7 billion/year, tax breaks to oil industries = $4 billion/year.) And there’s also the largest military in the history of the world controlling the oil supply in the Middle East and North Africa, so Other People can have cheap gas. (If we estimate half of the US defense budget goes toward oil procurement—$331.9 billion—and divide that by U.S. consumption of oil—132 billion gallons, it comes to $2.51 for every gallon of gas put into an American gas tank.) You would be far better off with Other People paying the true cost of gas, which would result in lower taxes for you (perhaps as much as 25 percent less) and fewer cars on the roads.  You would be far better off economically if most freight were moved by rail, and roads were routinely tolled based on road damage inflicted by a vehicle’s weight. When the true cost of any kind of energy is masked, people continue to vastly undervalue things like efficiency, make poor investments in energy-squandering ventures such as far-flung suburbia, and fail to make investments that are truly economic like rail. If you drive less than the average American and pay more taxes than the average American, you should wince every time you see Other People filling their gas tank up because you are footing nearly half the true cost.

Even as Other People consume less oil, the price of gas will still climb due to Peak Oil and the Export Land Model (rising internal consumption of oil in oil-producing countries will sharply curtail their exports) but if you are wealthy, gasoline still won’t be entirely beyond your reach. Whereas, if oil continues to be subsidized in the face of declining supply, shortages will be inevitable due to the lack of an appropriate price signal to decrease demand. Contrary to what oil and car companies would like us to believe, if gasoline reflected its true costs (not even factoring in the damage it does to the environment) the economy wouldn’t end; we as a nation would adjust our economy to reflect reality. Masking reality doesn’t make reality go away—it only delays the inevitable at tremendous cost that we pay for one way or another, even if we refuse to acknowledge it.

In terms of road repair and maintenance, bicycles are preferable to buses because their negligible weight inflicts a micro-fraction of the damage. (Light rail, while requiring more initial upfront investment, is also far easier on the roads.)  Compared to maintaining roads, subsidizing oil, or building out transit, bicycle infrastructure is cheap, cheap, cheap. (For $75 million you could put in over a thousand miles of bike lane, say one that stretched from Los Angeles to Seattle. Or you could repave 3 miles of Interstate 710 in Los Angeles. Or you could rebuild about half (1.6 miles) of San Francisco’s Market Street. Or you could install 1.15 miles of high speed rail in California. Or you could extend Washington D.C’s Metro a little less than one-third of a mile towards Dulles Airport.) Of course, offering public transit that’s pleasant, frequent and reliable will be an important way of encouraging businesses to locate in your city to keep your economy afloat, but the more you can get Other People to bicycle, the lower the taxes you will have to pay for transit, roads and other transportation infrastructure. In addition, bicycle infrastructure also gives a city an edge in wooing companies over its car-centric counterparts. The city of Chicago is putting in bicycle infrastructure precisely because it attracts high tech start-ups with bike-riding employees.

Photo: I, PRA via Wikimedia Commons

6) Other People become happier, more energetic, more empowered and more connected to their community when they ride bicycles. How this might benefit car drivers may not be obvious, so let me explain. When Other People ride bicycles, they begin to feel better along a number of measures. Their health improves, they have less stress, they have more money to spend, they need to use less pharmaceutical drugs with all their debilitating side effects, endorphins are released naturally, and they being to feel empowered and self-actualized. Cars may make people feel psychologically powerful and privileged, but it is actually a physically inactive, enervating form of transportation that undermines basic self-reliance.

Driving a powerful car can be thrilling, but in the end the power belongs to the combustion of gasoline, not oneself. Most people cannot repair or modify their cars and must take them to a specialist, whereas bicycles are simple enough to allow mastery of their basic mechanics and further feelings of competence. And because in a car Other People are locked away from both their environment and their fellow citizens, car use tends to make them much more alienated than bicycle use. Without the armor of a car, Other People on bicycles are more vulnerable, but this means they also have more visual and physical connection with both their fellow human beings and their environment. There is no anonymity to screen their actions, no hiding who they are.

Like it or not, we are all interconnected, and the well-being of others affects our own. Biking is an inherently pleasant and easy activity that most people find enjoyable, so it’s not surprising that the top cities for bicycle commuting are also the cities with the top levels of happiness and well-being. In general bicyclists are a pretty happy bunch as long as they have smooth pavement, not too many stops, and aren’t physically threatened or intimidated by cars. The beauty of well-designed bicycle infrastructure is that it reduces the conflict between car drivers and bicyclists, leaving everyone more peaceable.

The plain, simple bicycle is one of the most efficient machines ever devised and one of the best tools we have to prosper in a lower-energy future. (And for people who live on hills, adding an electric-assist is also very energy-efficient, if not quite as simple.) Bicycles induce good health. They create self-reliance that can expand to other areas of people’s lives. They are cheap to own and operate. They free up money for the local economy. They do little damage to our expensive roads. They don’t take up much space. They don’t pollute the air. They increase people’s feelings of well-being. Their infrastructure is the cheapest of any form of transportation, including walking, and requires the least subsidy. They are fundamentally empowering and democratic.

Repurposing some city space now dedicated to car storage or car travel to bicycle infrastructure may seem like it will induce congestion, but it is a proven way to get Other People to convert — happily — to bicycle riding in droves. Unhappy conversions through rising gas prices or shortages under conditions of bad or no bicycle infrastructure will result in unhappy Other People who are likely to make you unhappy in a multitude of ways. Based purely on enlightened self-interest, urban car drivers stand to gain much from the installation of bicycle infrastructure in our cities.

Karen Lynn Allen is the author of Pearl City Control Theory, a novel of city Buddha-mind walking, love, and breaking free (Cabbages and Kings Press, 1999) and Beaufort 1849, a novel of antebellum South Carolina (Cabbages and Kings Press, 2011). She lives up a big hill in San Francisco and rides her Xtracycle cargo bike (with an electric-assist) for utility trips and her regular (non-electric) bike to get around town.

Image: SFMTA

Anticipation is building for the arrival of San Francisco’s first parking-buffered cycle track along the eastern stretch of John F. Kennedy Drive in Golden Gate Park this December. The project received approval from the Golden Gate Park Concourse Authority on Wednesday, and the final step in its approval will come at a Recreation and Parks Commission hearing on October 20.

“We are happy to see such strong public support for the proposal for a dedicated bikeway on JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park from key city leaders as well as hundreds of citizens who have sent letters of support,” said San Francisco Bicycle Coalition (SFBC) Executive Director Leah Shahum. “We hope that the Recreation and Parks Commissioners will also prioritize safety and access in the park by making the street safer for the growing number of families, locals, and visitors who bicycle.”

Recreation and Parks General Manager Phil Ginsburg testified at Wednesday’s hearing in support of the project, and it also has the backing of District 1 Supervisor Eric Mar and San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee. Lee, who announced the project’s December arrival at Bike to Work Day, sent a letter [PDF] to the Concourse Authority lauding the project.

“The city must work to improve our streets with innovative designs in order to attract more people to this healthy, fun, low-cost transportation option,” wrote Lee in the letter. “Following significant public input, the SFMTA has developed designs for JFK Drive that will create San Francisco’s first parking-buffered cycle tracks, providing a protected space for bicyclists and attracting those who are less comfortable riding in traditional bicycle lanes.”

The design [PDF] proposed by the SFMTA features one-way cycle tracks on opposite sides of the road in each direction, separated from motor vehicles by a striped buffer of at least three feet along the entire length of the bikeway. A lane of parked cars would also provide a physical buffer where room is available. Safer conditions created by the project could invite many visitors who don’t currently feel comfortable biking outside the weekend motor vehicle closures.

The project faces some opposition from the neighboring de Young Museum and the California Academy of Sciences, who have come out publicly against it in favor of preserving car parking.

Just 5 percent of the existing 1,900 free car parking spaces that line the roads of eastern Golden Gate Park would be replaced by the redesign, according to the SFMTA website. That number doesn’t include the 800-space underground paid parking garage which has invited car traffic to congest the park and its adjacent neighborhoods since it opened.

The Academy’s opposition runs in sharp contrast with its image as a beacon of sustainability. Its stated mission involves “raising public awareness about the urgent problems” of sustainability and “minimizing its own environmental impact,” including in the area of transportation.

In spring of 2009, Academy of Sciences Chief Revenue Officer Don Skeoch even testified at a Concourse Authority hearing on local vehicle congestion that “Golden Gate Park is too car-friendly.”

Despite the broad public support for the project and the dissonance between the Academy’s recommendations and its stated commitment to sustainability, representatives from the two institutions are expected to testify at the final hearing.

The SFBC is urging supporters of the project to email Phil Ginsburg and to testify at the hearing on October 20 at 10:00 am at City Hall, Room 416.

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.