The SFMTA is already surveying locations where bike racks have been requested and plans to add 750 racks as soon as the injunction is lifted. Photo: Dave Snyder.

Superior Court Judge Peter Busch could make a ruling on the state of the injunction as early as this Friday, though it is likely he will wait until after the November 2nd hearing. The City Attorney's office filed its response [PDF] yesterday to an opposition brief [PDF] from Rob Anderson's attorney, Mary Miles, which argues that claims the city must prove the adequacy of an exhaustive EIR before dissolving the injunction have no merit.

Most advocates and City Hall insiders who have followed the case closely don't expect a ruling before mid-November, though they are hopeful the judge's recent actions are a positive sign: the litigants had asked for a continuance to a later date, but they were denied.

"We believe the city completed a comprehensive and unprecedented EIR, but there is no certainty what the court will do," said MTA spokesperson Judson True. "Our charge is to be ready when the injunction is lifted and we are. Of the 45 projects we hope to complete, we anticipate more than 20 in the first year after the injunction is lifted."

The cost of the 56 priority projects in the Bike Plan was projected in June of this year to be about $14 million, a trivial sum compared to the agency's annual capital budget of approximately $700 million, but far more than the $1 to $2 million the agency spent on bicycle improvements before the injunction. Subsequent design changes have shaved several million dollars off that total, and only 45 of the 60 projects in the bike plan were approved by the MTA Board of Directors in June. The cost to build all 45 projects, plus bike racks and parking corrals and signage, is estimated at $10 million over two years. 

According to Timothy Papandreou, the MTA's Deputy Director of Transportation Planning, the agency is prepared to spend what is necessary to build the network, even if they have to use funds not specifically dedicated to the bike network. "We don't feel we don't have enough money to fund the majority of the program," he said. In addition to grant sources dedicated to bicycle improvements, the city could spend its flexible surface transportation money on bicycle improvements, but to date, it has not done so.

"I can't guarantee that we're going to get the funds we apply for next year, but we will find the money to build everything that's approved within the next two years," Papandreou said.

For fear of upsetting the court further and adding delay to the injunction, MTA staff repeatedly told Streetsblog any preparation they were planning was contingent on the judge's decision. The injunction was punitive, after all, and any action by the MTA that is perceived as disrespectful of the strict interpretation of environmental law -- the grounds for his earlier decision to impose the injunction -- might be reason to continue it for a longer period of time.

True said he was cautious about sharing any specifics of the more than 20 routes the agency intends to paint in year one, but he said some of the obvious ones would get priority, though they could be subject to change. From his shortlist:

• Townsend Street, project 2.16
  
• Alemany Boulevard, project 5.2
  
• Illinois Street, project 4.3
  
• Clipper Street, project 6.2
  

True also said the agency would paint all 75 miles of sharrows in the first year and planned to increase the total supply of bicycle parking by nearly 50 percent, adding 750 new racks to the 1550 total citywide. Hundreds of those racks are sitting in a warehouse ready for installation and agency staff have already been surveying locations where bike racks have been requested by the public.

According to Bridget Smith, Director of the Livable Streets Program at the MTA, the agency is even studying low-cost ways to build on-street parking corrals, which accommodate 10-15 bicycles in the same parking space holding only one car. She said up to a dozen could be constructed soon after the injunction is lifted.

In the end, True said it would be an understatement to say that bicycle advocates are "chomping at the bit," but he cautioned patience in the lead-up to the court's decision

"We can mobilize paint crews quickly and we have projects identified that are ready to go. We've identified wet-weather projects, for example," said True. "I think the cumulative effect of the work that we plan to do, even in the first few months, will be noticeable to everyone. It's a big deal."

Dave Snyder contributed reporting.

In some cities people are so desperate for bike lanes they'll mark their own. Elizabeth Press of Streetfilms in New York City, on the other hand, had this to say about the work the NYC Department of Transportation has been doing in her city: "It feels like every time I get on my bike there is a new bike lane -- sometimes on the left, sometimes buffered, and sometimes completely separated from automobile traffic."

For those of us who live in cities that haven't caught the bicycle infrastructure fever or have been prevented from such by a bicycle injunction, perhaps the best we can do is tag along with her as she rides the streets with NYC DOT bicycle infrastructure staff as they show off the many classes of bike lanes and inventive facilities they have added in the past few years.

Behold and be bicycle-lane green with envy!

PARK(ing) Day 2008. Flickr photo: plaid iguana

A majority of spots in the city will be set up along the Valencia Street corridor and Civic Center. The SFBC plans a demonstration of on-street bicycle parking in front of Four Barrel Coffee and Bi-Rite Market while in North Beach the Great Streets Project will showcase "the future of what an official 'flexible parking space' will look like" in front of Caffe Roma and Caffe Greco.

Although 34 San Francisco locations are highlighted on the official PARK(ing) map, there are probably a lot of other locations that haven't been reported. Unlike cities such as New York and Santa Monica, San Francisco does not require a permit, which allows it to be "a little looser," said Matthew Passmore of Rebar. "The overall climate is pretty permissive."

So what are your plans tomorrow? Let us know! And please add your photos to our Flickr feed.

Flickr photo: Cheryl and Rich

From the press release:

"Due to a dramatic increase in the use of bicycles on the Capitol Corridor trains, all 14 of the original 1995-era cab cars have been retrofitted to accommodate an additional four bicycles on the lower level," CCJPA Chair Jim Holmes said. "These new bike racks are in addition to the three bicycle racks that already exist on the cab cars. When we combine the retrofit cabs with the five newer, 2002-era cab cars, which utilize wall-mounted storage racks to accommodate 13 bicycles, it provides about 130 more racks each weekday to help accommodate the hundreds of cyclists who bring their bikes on board."

Once funding is secured and a retrofit is complete, Holmes said at least one cab car on each train should be able to accommodate up to 13 bicycles "plus an additional three on all coach cars." All in all, bicycle capacity will increase by 34 percent.

Capitol Corridor spokesperson Luna Salaver said she hasn't heard of bicyclists getting bumped because of overcapacity, which happens all the time on Caltrain, but says agents usually work with them to find space.

"We have to think of our passengers who are mobility-impaired. There has to be room in the first level of the cab car for someone to negotiate in a wheelchair or some other mobile device," she said. "But we try to accommodate [bicyclists] even if it means the [bicycle] has to go in areas typically used for luggage."

Capitol Corridor, on its website, says it is "committed to helping achieve greater environmental sustainability for a healthier planet. We believe in getting more cars off the highways and more people onto the train." The latest passenger survey (PDF), conducted in June, found that 64 percent of riders get to stations by car, but 34 percent would consider riding a bicycle. The majority of riders live in Sacramento, Alameda, Placer, Yolo and Contra Costa counties.

Flickr photo: kate at yr own risk

Like New York's, San Francisco's zoning code already requires new and significantly renovated commercial buildings to provide a certain number of bicycle parking spaces, depending on the size of the building. Amendments proposed by the Bicycle Plan would strengthen those requirements slightly, removing a loophole that exempted multi-use buildings from the requirement. Marc Caswell of the SFBC said he hopes to further strengthen those codes by increasing the amount of bike parking required and reducing the expenditure threshold when a renovation triggers the requirement.

The requirements are not retroactive, however, so they do not serve almost all workers whose buildings were permitted before 2001. Nearly half, 42 percent, of the cyclists responding to a recent SFBC member survey said they did not have bicycle parking at work. The lack of secure bicycle parking is the "number one reason seasoned bicyclists do not bike to work" in New York, according to surveys by New York's Transportation Alternatives.

San Francisco would surely see an increase in bicycle commuting if a version of New York's law passes here. How might the San Francisco version — and the politics around it — be different?

New York's law does not actually mandate indoor bicycle parking; it simply requires buildings to allow entry to bicycles if the tenant can store the bicycle in their rented space. It applies only to office buildings, not all commercial buildings, and only if the building has a freight elevator. Building owners may request an exemption if the freight elevator has peculiar issues that make it unsafe to carry bicycles or if there is sufficient, no-cost, indoor secure bicycle parking on the premises or nearby (and under control of the owner requesting an exemption).

These provisions probably mitigated some of the opposition from the Real Estate Board of New York, which opposed the mandate. Copying those same provisions in a San Francisco ordinance would result in fewer buildings being covered, because so many of San Francisco's downtown office buildings provide garage bicycle parking in conformance with San Francisco's strong garage parking requirements. But that's no substitute, says Caswell, because such parking is open to the public, it's next to impossible to make garage parking nearly as secure as bringing your bike into your office. Having your bike in your own view insures the safety of all of your components as well as your entire bike.

A San Francisco building access law could prompt better enforcement of the garage parking requirement, which is strong. It is retroactive, applying to residential and commercial garages of ten spaces or more, and requiring bike parking spaces in relation to the number of car parking spaces. Some garages are out of compliance and so far no fines have been levied to force compliance. Also, no standards ensure that the parking is something better than a U-rack in the dingy corner of the garage, hidden from the public except for the enterprising bike commuters and bike thieves who know about it.

A San Francisco building access ordinance will have to navigate likely opposition from the Building Owners and Managers Association, which historically has opposed mandates on building owners.

"Obviously this is a property rights issue," said Ken Cleaveland, BOMA's Director of Government and Public Affairs, "but I do believe that most owners want to work with their tenants in a way that keeps them happy, if it means accommodating bikes I can't imagine they wouldn't allow that. But they will want some level of assuredness that the building will be protected from damage, particularly in older buildings with historic elevators, like an additional deposit like you would pay with a pet."

Do they want a deposit "in case the bike pees on the carpet?" asked Noah Budnick, Deputy Director of Transportation Alternatives, who stressed the "grassroots and grasstops" organizing work the T.A. did to win passage of the law. "The difference between three years ago [when T.A. first introduced this bill] and today is marked. The time has come."

The MTA and City Car Share are welcoming the Bixi bicycle share program from Montreal, Canada, to San Francisco this Sunday to demonstrate how bicycle share could work if this city embraces it. City CarShare is using the event to conduct a user survey and provide information about the service to interested riders in the park.

“At City CarShare, we know first hand that San Franciscans are open to sharing a mode of transportation and we are excited to see this concept explored further," said Anita Daley of City CarShare. "With this demo, we hope to foster enthusiastic discussion about the service, as it can be a great way for riders to bypass traffic and lower their carbon-footprints while enjoying a healthy activity.”

As Streetsblog has argued more than once, were San Francisco to develop a bicycle share program with sufficient ubiquity, the city would need far more than the 50 bicycles originally suggested by Mayor Newsom to be installed on private property while the bike injunction is in place. Using Paul DeMaio's metric of 1 bicycle for every 150 people and five stations per every square kilometer, San Francisco should have over 5300 bicycles at over 600 stations.

Given that the bicycle injunction will likely be a distant memory by the time we have a working system, policy makers should have sufficient opportunity to find fiscal sponsors to underwrite a much larger program, one that wouldn't be set up from the start to fail.

At a minimum, the demonstration this Sunday should whet the public's appetite for bicycle sharing and perhaps plant a seed to demand a solid and workable system when that time comes.

MTA spokesperson Judson True sounded an optimistic tone, saying that this Sunday's event was part of Bixi's west coast tour and a natural synergy for City CarShare to promote alternatives to personal car ownership. While the MTA is studying the various possibilities for bicycle sharing, it has no concrete timeline for a system.

"We're excited to have this groundbreaking system from Montreal visit SF and we'll be watching closely how much people like it," said True. "With JFK closed on Sunday, it's a great opportunity to have people try it out. Let's hope the sun comes out too."

Could cantilevered racks help San Francisco get more out of vacant curbside street space?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bike/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

In a city strapped for bike parking and sidewalk space, there is an abundance of one commodity: small strips of curb that seem to be of use to no one. As the lifting of the bike injunction in San Francisco draws nearer, it might be time to consider how these carved-up spots of curbside space can serve a new function.

Could small strips of curb between driveways, like this one, be turned into parking for multiple bikes? Photo: Michael Rhodes

In lieu of engaging in a gargantuan political battle to begin removing driveways, the first step might be to find a better use for the curb space that's left over. After all, unlike nearly anything else in San Francisco, no one else is using it.

Enter the Bike Arc, a curved bike rack that can actually cantilever bikes from the curb into the street. Part hanging system and part roll-up rack, it's designed to save space and make a strong visual impression.

Jeff Selzer, co-founder of Bike Arc, said they're intended as "a way to park a bike, but more like display it." The racks are intended to put bikes "in a place of honor," said Selzer. "A car gets an entire big spot that's just that car's spot. A bike gets a pole to lean up against, or a tree to lean up against. It doesn't really have a spot that's its spot to park." The bike doesn't touch metal at all, except for the lock itself, and so is less likely to get incidentally scratched up.

The Bike Arc does not allow bike owners to lock their front wheel, which is undoubtedly a security drawback. The aesthetic value of the rack, however, means they're more likely to be displayed in a more prominent - and thus secure - place.

"The security starts because the aesthetic is so pleasing that you're willing to put it right front and center," said Selzer. Businesses "have a tendency to put bikes in the back corner," he said, but this design allows them to display the bike rack prominently, "as opposed to hiding it behind."

Marc Caswell, the program manager at the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, was more skeptical.

The Bike Arc racks undoubtedly cost more, with the the most basic model costing three times what the city's standard inverted U rack generally runs. For cities looking to brighten up their commercial strips, however, Selzer thinks the Bike Arc is more economical. "They're spending an obscene amount of money to put a bench in, or a new ornate light pole," said Selzer, noting that the Bike Arc might achieve the same goal while also serving an important function for bicyclists.

Bikes, newspaper stands and utilities jostle while cars have exclusive use of curbside space. Photo: Michael Rhodes

In San Francisco, the real benefit of the Bike Arc rack could be to greater utilize the small strips of curb that are so prevalent on its blocks. On some busy commercial streets, the contrast is striking between the scarce sidewalk space for pedestrians, bike parking, trees, utilities and newspaper boxes and the abundant vacant pavement on the curbside between driveways.

Even a few feet of curb space could accommodate several bikes, and Selzer says a full-size car space can be converted to about 20 cantilevered bike parking spots, while leaving nearly the entire sidewalk for pedestrians. The remaining space between the racks and the traffic lane might even be landscaped, like in the Palo Alto Bike Arc installation pictured above.

In lieu of the Bike Arc, the city might find other creative ways to use the leftover curbside space for bikes, not only freeing up sidewalk space but also filling in some of the buffer zone between the sidewalk and the street, which is so often compromised in San Francisco. With the proper alignment, perpendicular to the curb, even the standard inverted U racks might be able to serve this purpose.

Best of all, making use of these vacant spaces for bike parking could afford great benefits to bikers and pedestrians without requiring a fight to remove existing parking spaces. Of course, with areas like Dolores Park nearly overwhelmed by bicycles on sunny weekend days, even that might be on the table.

Toronto's Post and Ring solution for bicycle parking on old parking meter poles. Photo: David Baker

"This was the last breath of turning your back on cyclists. It was obscene," said East Bay Bicycle Coalition (EBBC) Executive Director Robert Raburn, who admitted that they weren't prepared for the change and the effect it would have on cyclists, so their advocacy was "reactionary." 

The EBBC lobbied the Oakland City Council to retain what meters they could after the process had started. "What we were asking for was to make sure there was some integration between the installation of parking kiosks and bike parking," said Raburn

Jason Patton, Oakland's Bicycle and Pedestrian Program Manager, said that the initial problem stemmed from the fact that two divisions of two separate agencies within the city weren't on the same page about bicycle parking and so the provisional solution was the best they could do.

"The plan for the new parking stations didn't address bicycle parking. Really the only option we had in working on their timeline was to leave meter heads," said Patton.

Over the complaints of the parking division, the EBBC worked with Oakland's bicycle program to develop an interim policy of preserving a minimum of two meter heads per block space in the areas where kiosks were installed. The bicycle division then spent a good deal of time and money surveying bicycle use on every street where the meters were being replaced to maximize the benefit to cyclists. Parking managers removed the "guts" of the meter heads so that drivers were less confused and affixed small yellow stickers that remind cyclists to park their bicycles parallel to the curb.

Still, all sides agreed bicycle parking at meter poles is not ideal. "The problem with leaving the head on is that it's confusing and unsightly and often times the pole location is not an ideal place to park bikes," said Raburn. Through sales-tax funding, the EBBC and the Oakland Bicycle Program have collaborated to methodically add bicycle racks on sidewalks in front of businesses, parks, and other destinations frequented by bicyclists.

Toronto, Canada

Oakland's story is very similar to many other cities, though unfortunately it seems that few city managers are sharing best practice examples with each other.  Toronto, Canada, was an early adopter of multi-space meters and parking managers there learned quickly how to use the old meter poles for bicycle parking.

Daniel Egan, Manager of Pedestrian and Cycling Infrastructure for the City of Toronto, said the parking managers were on the same page with his division when they began installing multi-space pay stations in early 2001. "Any time they were taking out a parking meter head, we would review them," he said. "Sometimes they were too close to the curb or to other structures, so they were removed."

For every parking meter the parking authority removed it would pay for a retrofit to old posts, what has been dubbed the Post and Ring. The initial metal rings were $40 a piece and were attached to the existing meter pole with large bolts. The complete retrofit cost was about $80 per post if they were keeping the original post, $125 per post if installing a new post. 

Egan admitted that the original ring design was not as secure as it should be, so that crafty thieves had figured out how to break them off and remove the entire ring, which they would presumably cut off the bicycle when not in public.  "We had a problem a couple of years ago with people breaking them off. So now we put in a double ring, which looks good: two 250 lb guys from our staff couldn't break it."

Toronto currently has 16,000 of the Post and Ring bicycle parking poles, of which about were 8,000 paid for by the parking authority. "They basically agreed to put a ring on every post in the city," said Egan. 

Los Angeles has affixed a small, decorative top to old meter poles as it transitions to new mult-space pay statinos like the one at left. Photo:LADOT

Both Chicago and Los Angeles are trying out small pilot programs to convert meter posts to bicycle parking, though neither have developed a comprehensive policy to address every meter pole being removed.

In Chicago, the city is leaving one or two poles per block as conversions occur.  Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) spokesperson Brian Steele said: "Chicago is working with the bike community to identify high-priority parking locations, and continues to explore locations for permanent bike racks--our bike parking program has already installed more than 11,000 racks citywide."

As for meter conversions, he said they started a program this spring to leave one or two meter poles per block face and more in priority locations. When preparing a conversion, CDOT posts information on its Bike Program web site seeking input from the cycling community.  Additionally, they have a full-time student intern who goes to conversion locations to identify which and how many meter poles to retain for future retrofit as bike racks.

The policy was put in place this spring and further elaboration of it is a priority of the Chicago Bike 2015 Plan, according to Steele. "We are exploring equipment to retrofit the poles with an attachment to allow bike parking. We have received samples from at least two manufacturers and are currently testing them."

In Los Angeles, the city installed 285 new meter heads adjacent to multi-space pay stations two weeks ago, what they call the Meter Hitch Bicycle Rack. The new Meter Hitch racks are in eight neighborhoods along commercial corridors and cost the city $50,000 to install, money which came from sales-tax and property tax increments agreed to in voter initiatives. According to LADOT's primer:

The new bicycle racks take advantage of the work of the Smart Meter Parking Pilot Program and re-use existing meter infrastructure to convert old parking meters to new Bicycle Parking Racks. The Bicycle Outreach and Planning staff has worked very closely with the Office of Parking Management and Regulations, the six different city council offices affiliated with the installation areas, business improvement districts, and local businesses to complete the project.

In New York City, former Department of Transportation (DOT) Commissioner Iris Weinshall embraced multi-space meters in the city's Central Business District, but wasn't so hot on bicycle infrastructure. As a result, much of Manhattan's business districts were converted to the multi-space meters without any consideration of bicycle parking.

When asked if NYCDOT has a policy to convert remaining single-space meters in other business districts in the city that still have them, NYCDOT Senior Policy Advisor Jon Orcutt said, "The ship sailed on that one before anyone looked at the policy. There's not much bike parking left to preserve."

Orcutt said the agency's priority now is installing new bicycle racks as quickly as possible throughout the city. In fiscal year 2008, the agency installed 1,377 racks, up from 320 the year before. They've set a goal to add 5,000 new racks over three years in addition to the current 6,100 racks. 

About retrofits, Orcutt admitted the agency didn't do as much as it could have. "We really should have gotten on that five years ago. When we looked at that universe, it didn't make sense to do retrofits. What we need to do is basically catch up with installing new bike racks and we'll try to be sensitive and coordinated with it."

Bicycle advocates are not thrilled with that response, however. "That's one rack for every 31 cyclists. That's completely inadequate," said Caroline Samponaro, Director of Bicycle Advocacy for Transportation Alternatives, who hopes that San Francisco and other cities look at New York to avoid the same issue. "Lack of bicycle parking is one of the biggest deterrents to bicycle riding in this city."

In San Francisco, the MTA is debuting its much heralded SFPark pilot program, which will affect more than 6,000 metered spaces. Though many of those meter poles will lose their heads or be removed completely because the agency doesn't think they are aesthetically pleasing and doesn't want to confuse motorists with pockets full of change, they will keep a number of meter poles for SFPark and simply retrofit the single space meters with radio technology.

MTA spokesperson Judson True said they are committed to providing better bicycle parking than what exists, but that they don't have a policy on meter pole retrofits. "We have all these strategies for bike parking that don't rely on meters. It's not to say we won't have an official policy, but we're not developing one now."

True added that they aren't rushing out to cut off the heads of all the meters. "It's going to be a while before the meters are gone."

True wanted to focus instead on what his agency could do to try more dynamic bicycle parking options, such as converting vehicle parking spaces to bike parking on street, which has been successfully implemented on Grove Street in front of the main branch of the San Francisco Public Library.

Advocates said they have been discussing the issue with the agency for over two years and they've been given assurances that the MTA will not allow a decrease in available bicycle parking citywide. SFBC Executive Director Leah Shahum agreed with True that more innovative parking like bicycle corrals in vehicle spaces is where they would like to focus.

"On-street corrals are the prize," said Shahum, who also noted that cleaning up clutter from sidewalks was important for her group and for pedestrian advocates. "One of the sub goals is to remove clutter from the sidewalk.  There's a goal of having more efficient bicycle parking and better parking management, but in terms of the clutter challenge, I think there's not enough consideration to the ramifications on bike parking in the city."   

She also said businesses were anxious to convert the vehicle parking spaces in front of their stores to bicycle parking to target their bicycle-riding patrons and maximize the number of customers that could park in the space. "Over a dozen businesses have expressed interest in removing the car space and replacing it with bicycle corrals," she said.

Berkeley and East Bay bicycle commuters will have many more bicycle parking options with the opening of a new storefront bicycle station near Downtown Berkeley BART later this year. East Bay Bike Coalition Executive Director Robert Raburn and a spokesperson for BART confirmed that a lease was signed last week at the site of the former Shoe Pavilion store on Shattuck Avenue, just steps from the Allston Way entrance to the BART station. The new bike station will be operated by Alameda Bicycle, which runs the current station.

"BART and the City of Berkeley look forward to opening a world-class bike station by the end of the year," BART Public Information Officer Luna Salaver wrote in an email to Streetsblog San Francisco. "The new Berkeley Bike Station is a triple win for BART and Berkeley. It will support cycling to BART, help protect the environment, and increase access to jobs, to other transit systems, and to shopping, arts, and education. The new Bike Station will include over 200 secure bicycle spaces and commuter support services such as bicycle repair and retail, bicycle rentals, showers and lockers, and community bike education classes."

The new bike station is at least partially the result of successful lobbying from the East Bay bicycle community, including the EBBC and Bicycle Friendly Berkeley, which saved the proposal after it neared the brink of losing funding late last year.

The new station will be paid for by a mixture of a Safe Routes to Transit (SR2T) grant, a program funded by Regional Measure 2, and contributions from BART ($53,000 per year) and the city of Berkeley ($60,000 per year). BART is also paying the utilities, estimated at $24,000 per year.

The SR2T grant, which is managed by TransForm and EBBC, was in serious danger of being forfeited last December, when its three-year term was set to expire if Berkeley didn't contribute its portion of the funding. Advocates showed up in force to the December 8 meeting of the Berkeley City Council, concerned that the Council would not provide the funding, or would support a stripped-down proposal for a less visible station located in an existing auto parking garage. District 3 BART Director Bob Franklin also strongly urged the council to take action at the meeting.

These efforts paid off, as the Council unanimously approved providing $60,000 annually in funding for the expanded station, and TransForm consequently extended the grant's term.

"This is exactly the kind of project that SR2T conceptualized: a transit station that has no car parking and a desperate need for safe, convenient bicycle parking to attract riders," said TransForm Executive Director Stuart Cohen. "The existing bike station was both overcrowded and difficult to get to, as it was subterranean. This will put bike access to transit where it should be, at ground level in a visible space."

The existing bike station in the Downtown Berkeley BART station. Flickr photo: emptyhighway

Streetsfilms documented the existing Downtown Berkeley Bike Station in 2007, which the EBBC's Raburn calls "just a cage," since it lacks even a counter for customers with bikes to sign in and receive a claim check, and provides no additional services to commuters. Though it was a major advancement for biker commuters when it opened in 1999, it has since outgrown its 77-bike capacity, and regularly holds 100 bikes, some of which overflow into racks outside the cage.

"A bike station should offer full service," said Raburn. "We want a product mix that's very commuter-oriented." Its storefront location will also give it extra visibility to passersby downtown who may have missed the existing subterranean station.

When the new bike station opens, it will represent a strong political victory for East Bay bicycle advocates, as well as an encouraging case of multiple jurisdictions coordinating to build a deserving project. Raburn explained that SR2T "ideally rewards multi-jurisdictional projects, to get past finger pointing between different jurisdictions, and 'incentivize' multi-jurisdictional projects."

With the Embarcadero BART bike station holding 97 cycles, less than half what the new Berkeley facility will hold, and with San Francisco's bike injunction nearing its end, cyclists in San Francisco may be looking to best practice examples of facility design and advocacy just across the bay.

All morning I've been asking myself (and some others) why kids riding bicycles to school is a pressworthy event. Don't kids always ride bikes to school or have we become so car-dependent that even this sancrosanct part of being young and carefree is a thing of the past?  Unfortunately, the latter is the case, as no school in San Francisco sees even 5 percent of walking and bicycling trips to school.

Today's inaugural Bike to School Day is the start of a shift for the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) to promote cycling as a healthy and environmentally sound way to get to school.

"The school district has recently started promoting biking to school as a way to commute efficiently, however they haven't done an actual event to promote biking to school before this," said SFBC Program Manager Marc Caswell.  "Today is the day we're actually going to reward students that want to ride to school."

Nik Kaestner, Director of Sustainability for the SFUSD, said the district is now focusing on expanding bicycling through its Safe Routes to Schools educational efforts.

"The more that this becomes commonplace, the more we change culture, the more people will come around," he said. "I think that’s the goal around the district. If you're just throwing facts at them, I don't think that makes a difference. I think it needs to be cool."

Kaestner relayed an anecdote from this morning at Roosevelt Middle School, where a kid came up to him after seeing the bagels and juice that kids who cycled enjoyed and said he needed to ride next year. "It's nice to see the kids that are biking are being rewarded for doing it and other kids are taking notice."

When asked why the walking and bicycling numbers are so low in San Francisco, Kaestner suggested that many parents fear for their child's safety on the street.  "There's a general fear of what might happen to their kid if they walk or bike. They think putting them in steel boxes is safer."

Ironically, one of the biggest dangers to kids near schools is parents in cars. According to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, parents dropping off their children in cars are responsible for half the car-kid injuries reported around schools.

Organizers of Bike to School Day hoped to draw at least 500 students at the 22 schools that participated and if the action at Monroe Elementary School in the Excelsior was any indication, they will reach their target.  At final count, there were over sixty kid's bicycles and scooters, which represents more than 10 percent of the students at Monroe.

Monroe parent Birgit Cory and her two sons. Photo: Matthew Roth

For kindergartner Yoloxy Escobar, the experience was new, though her mother, Sara Torres, said she would continue to ride. "She loves it," said Torres. "This was a success today."

Mario Malagon, a special education teacher at Monroe, saidthey rarely get more than four or five students riding to school regularly and asserted that events like today were important to change that low number. "I'm very happy and satisfied.  We're going to try to get the kids excited about the bicycle movement, because it is extremely important.

Pointing to the railing where the bicycles were leaning as part of bicycle valet at Monroe for the day, Malagon highlighted one of many obstacles for increasing riding: lack of a safe place to lock the bicycles. "Right now one of the parents wants to get this access here for the students to park their bikes in the future," he said.

Leah Shahum of the SFBC said that only eight schools had added bicycle racks this year and the SFBC had to raise the funds from a foundation on the East Coast to pay for them. Monroe was not one of the schools to get racks and is not on the list for new racks. In reference to the SFUSD, Shahum said, "They're being skiddish about finding funds while the injunction is in place."

She said the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) had paid for bike racks elsewhere and suggested that the agency could be approached by the SFUSD.

When asked if the SFUSD would consider reaching out to BAAQMD, Kaestner said, "We're working with the BAAQMD in other ways, so that makes sense. We'll consider everything."

Another concern often cited by school principals as a rationale for not adding bicycle racks is fear of lawsuits.  Shahum said that liability issues are a red herring, that schools are no more liable if a child gets hurt on the way to school riding a bicycle than they are riding in a car.

Kaestner agreed with that logic and said, "We just passed a board resolution to dispel those issues and put the board's weight behind increasing bicycling."

Continuing the Streetfilms tour of envy-inspiring bike parking garages, Clarence Eckerson files this report from the McDonald's Cycling Center in Chicago's Millennium Park, operated by Bike and Roll on behalf of the city. Says Clarence:

It's enough to make bike commuters in many cities drool. The center boasts state-of-the-art showering facilities, secure bicycle parking for 300, a repair station, towel service, is temperature-controlled, and features the constant presence of the Chicago Lakefront Police bike patrol, which shares the facility and maintains its bikes on site. The station is extremely popular, with 500 members at a time and a waiting list of eager riders ready to join. But even if you aren't a member you can still take advantage of the free bike parking, and mechanics are on duty to repair anyone's bikes seven days a week.

Caltrain destination tags. Photo by Shirley Johnson.

We are done expanding the number of bike spaces on all our gallery bike cars – each gallery bike cars now have 40 bike slots each, up from 32 bike slots each.

We have completed the expansion of bike capacity on the first of our seven Bombardier bike cars.  That leaves six more Bombardier bike cars to be altered to accommodate additional bike racks, and we expect to complete that work by the end of July.  Converting the Bombardier cars is more complicated than anticipated and will take longer than originally expected.

When we are done, all current Bombardier bike cars will have 24 bike slots each, up from 16.

Our popular yellow destination tags – reusable, sturdy plastic – are coming back.  We eliminated them some time ago as one more cost-saving measure, and directed people to a downloadable tag on our Web site.

You can still use those downloadable tags, but we figured out a way to squeeze a little more money out of the budget to bring back this popular item.

We have ordered 10,000 of the new tags and it is our hope that will last us for a while. They should be available by mid- to late June.

Shirley Johnson, who heads the SFBC's Bikes ONBoard campaign, had lobbied to get the tags back, and the SFBC decided to help out, making temporary tags. She said they are an indispensable part of Caltrain’s on board bicycle service.

"We couldn’t just stand by and watch the situation deteriorate, so we stepped in to provide destination tags to cyclists."

Bicyclists have complained that even though Caltrain is expanding capacity, and doing more to accommodate bicyclists, it's not enough, as bicyclists continue to get bumped or denied boarding on a daily basis because there isn't enough capacity.

We’ve been waiting for years now to see some physical changes to accommodate the huge increase in daily bicycling. We did get an odd set of painted bike lanes and green bike route signs, and a significant number of bike racks for parking, before it all came to a halt due to the injunction three years ago. After perusing the much-anticipated Draft Bicycle Plan and its dense bureaucratese, full of overlapping redundant promises, I’m afraid we’ll be waiting a good while longer to see the kinds of changes that we ought to be getting.

It’s really hard to believe that after all this organizing and earnest campaigning we’ll basically end up with a few thousand “sharrows” and another batch of partial, end-in-the-middle-of-nowhere bike lanes, lanes which in any case are horribly inadequate patches on our misallocated and car-centric public streets. How is it that after almost two decades of rapidly expanding bicycling, the city’s transit priorities still treat bicycles as an annoyance that they only grudgingly are willing to accommodate? When will there be a systematic commitment to altering the streets of this city to create dedicated bikeways, separated from cars and pedestrians, comprehensively linked to provide for easy, graceful, convivial bicycling to all parts of the city?

Over at the blog Copenhaganize their basic point is summarized in two short sentences:

Each and every day 500,000 people ride their bicycle to work or school in Copenhagen. This blog highlights who they are, why they do and how it was made possible.

Forty years ago Copenhagen was just as car-clogged as anywhere else but now 36% of the population choose the bicycle. Copehagenizing is possible anywhere.

My mother is from Copenhagen so I’ve visited the Danish city many times. I think it must have influenced my early thinking, because it was back in 1987 when I drew up a little flyer calling for a “City of Panhandles.” San Francisco cyclists all know the Panhandle’s cyclepath as one of the real pleasures around here (granted, it would be better if pedestrians would have their own path to its side!) and the way it links to the Wiggle route between the Mission and the Haight is just icing on the cake. A city with some vision, rather than a plodding traffic planning bureaucracy that is led by a Mayor who is only interested in what is going to facilitate his election to the next office (and always blatantly biased towards car owners and the wealthy), would have already been working on converting key routes across the city to bicycle boulevards… not just car-centric streets with “bike boulevard” signs, but whole thoroughfares that are closed to cars and only open to bicycles and emergency vehicles. Going a couple of steps further, why not open such thoroughfares to horticultural design and public art? Imagine sculpture gardens, curving murals, daylighted creeks, linear food forests, vegetable gardens, benches and fountains… the list goes on. The city would benefit in so many ways through such a comprehensive conversion of space currently sacrificed to the insatiable uses of private automobiles.

It’s self-evident how much better such street spaces would be for neighbors, pedestrians, children, and cyclists. It would open space for a systematic approach to re-localized food security. For those who clamor for “green jobs” (I’m not one of them), such natural ribbons crisscrossing the city would require first a lot of major construction work, and then a great number of gardeners, farmers, bicycle mechanics, bike parking attendants, landscapers, artists, and more. Juxtapose such quality, engaging, meaningful work to the stupid jobs that pass as “important” in the financial district, or the wasted labor producing so many luxury highrises, office buildings and other pointless projects of “economic development”… Let the tourists join us in riding and walking through the garden paths of San Francisco! Let’s think about the work we do and the design of our city as a canvas on which to create something really astonishingly better than what we’re settling for now. The SF Bike Coalition should be a lot more aggressive and push for much more far-reaching and far-sighted transformations than this tepid and uninspiring Bike Plan, in order to live up to its political and social responsibilities!

Flickr photo: tokek beland (busy fora while)

I am very interested in having the pump stations installed and will be working with the MTA to move forward on them. I believe cyclists have an enormous interest in the stations.

I can't tell you how many times I have been in need of a little air while being in parts of SF without a pump nearby. The stations will also help to encourage greater cycle amenities throughout the city, encouraging greater bicycle use.

Avalos became even more interested in the idea after a constituent, Adam Burgess, wrote to him, relaying his flat tire experience at Ellis and Franklin on his way to Golden Gate Park:

In that area there are no gas stations and thus no air pumps.  The closest gas station was at Pine and Franklin, but I was not ready to walk my bicycle up that hill.  So, I walked my bike to Divisadero and Fell (the direction I should be headed) where an air pump cost me 75 cents.

Burgess, in his letter to the Board of Supervisors, explained that he got used to public bike bumps while living in Japan:

I lived in Yokohama for a year before moving to SF, a "sister city" of SF, according to wikipedia.org.  There is a large amount of bicycle commuters in Yokohama and Tokyo, Japan and they do provide public air pumps.  Thus, I am comparing my last residency with my current home.

Some of the bike pump stations could also double as bike racks.  Avalos said he's been told by the MTA they're pretty busy working on the the much-anticipated implementation of the Bike Plan, but he's been assured bike staffers will look into it after the bike injunction is lifted. 

"This is one of those creative policy ideas we will consider for the future," said MTA spokesperson Judson True. "Right now our focus is on completing the EIR and preparing to implement the Bike Plan."

What do you think? Would you like to see bike pump stations around the city?

A bike pump station in the Netherlands. Photo: Geekologie.com

An inflation station in Stockholm. Flickr photo: jvoss

Leah Shahum addresses hundreds in the crowd at City Hall

San Francisco's annual Bike to Work Day drew a record 200,000 bicyclists this morning, according to early estimates, making it the most successful bike to work day since it began 15 years ago. Crowds of cyclists took advantage of the SFBC Energizer Stations to get food and coffee and make new friends in what has become the most exciting and politically important year for bicycle improvements in the city.

Eight supervisors, including car-free Board of Supervisors President David Chiu, and other dignitaries and agency staff, rode from locations around the city to City Hall, where they held a press conference to call for quick action on the Bicycle Network once the longstanding injunction is lifted. 

"I'm so proud to say our movement both politically and at a grassroots level is stronger and more successful than ever, and I think it's fair to say is one of the strongest advocacy movements in the city today," SFBC  Executive Director Leah Shahum told the crowd, urging city leaders to move forward. "They all know this: we are never satisfied. So what we've accomplished up to today does not compare to what is coming."

Chiu gave props to the Bike Coalition and cyclists in general, saying, "I've only been in office a few months and there are hundreds of interests that troll the halls, but what's different between them and the SF Bicycle Coalition is that you are actually real people. You guys are real San Franciscans.  This is a real movement, this is a revolution.  We are looking forward here at the Board of Supervisors to making sure that every one of these bike lanes gets developed and gets built."

Pointing at the map of the Bicycle Network, he added, "I don't think we should stop at what this map looks like.  We need to keep on going."

City Attorney Dennis Herrera arrives at City Hall.

Bicycling Numbers are Way Up

Bike to Work Day was bolstered by the news that the number of people bicycling the streets of  San Francisco has dramatically increased since 2006, according to the Municipal Transportation Agency's first State of Cycling Report issued today:

The Report documents a 43 percent increase in bicycling citywide in the past two years shows that 128,000 trips daily—or 6 percent—are via bicycle.  The Report provides a baseline analysis of bicycling from information gathered via bicycle counts and surveys conducted during 2006, 2007 and 2008. 

In addition, the agency counted record numbers of bicyclists on Market Street at Van Ness Avenue this morning:

A count taken between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. this morning found that twice as many bicyclists as motorists traveled eastbound on Market Street past Van Ness Avenue.  A total of 776 bicycles were counted, compared to 374 automobiles.  Bicycles made up 66 percent of the total vehicles headed eastbound, while automobiles came in at 31 percent (transit and taxis accounted for the remaining 3 percent of the vehicles).  In 2008 bicycles accounted for 64 percent of the vehicles and automobiles for 32 percent.

Photos from the rides are coming in on our Streetsblog San Francisco Flickr pool, which you can see here.  Send us your photos and we'll post the best ones!

It's Bike Month - which means there are scads of neophytes out there nationwide giving cycling a try.  Oh goody! But, oh baddy - it also means more improper locking - and we all know there are predators just licking their chops at the thought of stealing all or part of your bike. So we want to do all we can to preach good locking technique and thwart thieves.

We need a sage in these times to remind us how easy it is to roll your bike.  Once again enter the immortal, Bicycle Habitat mechanic Hal Ruzal to give us the straight dope in what he's calling "your final warning" in this last chapter of our exclusive trilogy.  Let's hope the third time is a charm!

This time around Hal's not only grading bike locking ability of anonymous locker uppers, but he also shows you how he secures his bike so you too can score an "A" (or at least have a decent shot at an A- or B+.)  And if you love the humorous anecdotes and musings here, don't miss our first two chapters:  "Hal Grades Your Bike Locking" and "Hal (and Kerri) Grade Your Bike Locking".

Flickr photo: richardmasoner

It's bad enough Caltrain already has an image of being unfriendly to bicyclists, despite its efforts to prevent bumps on the system by boosting bicycle capacity on its trains, now comes this word: Staff is toying with the idea of making bicyclists pay a $1 surcharge that would raise an estimated $800,000.

How the surcharge would be collected is anyone's guess, and it may not even be legal, according to some commenters on the San Franciscio Bicycle Coalition's public listserve.

Mark Simon, special assistant to the CEO at Caltrain, stressed it's just an idea, and not a formal proposal. But in an interview with Streetsblog San Francisco, he explained it this way:

"A cyclist takes up two seats. One for where the cyclist is sitting and one for the bike, and there's always been a question among some people about whether or not a bicyclist is already subsidized because they're getting to use two seats for the price of one. We hear more frequently about how much we subsidize parking lots and I think that's one of the things we're going to analyze because I don't think we subsidize parking lots quite to the degree that everybody seems to say we do. But there is a school of thought that bicyclists are subsidized too and more than they realize."

Marc Caswell, the program manager at the SFBC, isn't buying it:

Without bicyclists on Caltrain, the trains would be empty and per rider subsidies would go up, not down.  Unless there are capacity issues among all riders, penalizing riders for biking should be the last option. If Mr. Simon is correct that Caltrain does not currently have those numbers available, I would be curious to know how the $20 monthly parking pass was formulated.

At today's Caltrain Board of Directors meeting, staff also put several options for dealing with a $10 million deficit on the table, including raising fares, eliminating weekend service and scaling back mid-day service. From the San Jose Mercury News:

Riders would take an estimated 1 million fewer trips but the agency would save $2 million under that scenario. Caltrain currently operates 16 trains on Saturdays and 14 on Sundays.

Caltrain will also discuss reducing midday weekday service from about every 30 minutes to hourly, Harvey said. By doing so Caltrain would save $2.5 million but riders would take 100,000 to 200,000 fewer trips.

A public hearing will be held June 4th.

A group of tourists visiting from Venezuela. Photo by Pam MacLean.

The council voted 4-1 last night for a plan that provides racks - lots and lots of racks - in three strategic locations so that cash-bearing cyclists can park-and-spend their way through the scenic city on the shore of Richardson Bay.

The city won't even have to pay for the $8,000 in racks; they're being provided by companies that rent the bikes to tourists, including Blazing Saddles, Bike and Roll, and Bay City Bike Rentals. Together, the racks will add about 360 new bike parking spaces to the 120 slots now available.

The council's action follows heated complaints from residents and merchants, who say the vacationers cause more problems than they're worth. About a quarter-million rental bikes rolled into Sausalito last summer, drawing comparisons to a swarm of locusts from many critics. Even some cyclists crossing the Golden Gate Bridge have complained about inexperienced bike renters who clog the narrow bike paths, stopping unpredictably to snap a picture or wait for a friend.

Although the city benefits economically from cyclists, bicyclists are a frequent target of complaints from city residents. Beyond the issue with the tourists, many complain about scofflaws from the city who soar through stop lights, drawing fines that run into the hundreds of dollars. Many local cyclists say the city is overreacting and should do more to restrict automobile traffic and better-educate drivers on how to share the road with the two-wheelers.

Separately, as reported here March 2nd, the city is currently studying new routes to get cyclists through town safely, and with less controversy.

'Aesthetic' Issue

In addition to installing racks, the city will also post signs instructing touring cyclists to ride single file and avoid riding on sidewalks. But the straightforward approach wasn't enough to appease Councilwoman Linda Pfeiffer, who, according to a report in the Marin Independent-Journal, worried the racks would create "aesthetic" issues in the city known for its million-dollar views. To be sure, the scenic bayside ferry plaza is now crowded with industrial-looking gray steel racks.

The racks also complicate the crowding issue near the ferry, where many townfolks like to stroll on lazy summer afternoons. With the racks, it now gets even more crowded when more than 100 cyclists line up for the next boat.

As we noted last Friday, parking is only one of the issues with the tourists. Another round of complaints stems from the homeward-bound ferry commuters in San Francisco, who saw boats running 30 to 60 minutes behind schedule last summer as the cyclists disembarked one-by-one from the ferry.

The slow offloading stems from the fact that the bikers can roll their bikes onto the lower level of the boat in Sausalito, but then must carry them up a steep and narrow staircase so they can leave the boat from the upper level.  With each cyclist taking about 20 seconds to mount the stairs, it can take an extra 20 minutes for just 60 cyclists to leave the boat.

The Golden Gate Transit District added a second boat last year to ease the problem, and plans to modify the docks in San Francisco to allow the bikes to exit from the lower level. District spokeswoman Mary Currie estimates that modification will take about two years, which could prove to be a case of too little too late. The number of cycling tourists has roughly doubled in each of the past three years.

Screenshot from the Stolen Bikes Database website

With spring here and nice weather, a lot of us will be riding our bikes more often, which means thieves will be on the prowl for poorly locked bikes. For anyone who has had a bicycle stolen, there are few feelings as dreadful. The SFBC has a great resource page with tips on how to secure your bike properly and what to do if you lose it, including calls to the SFPD and posts on Craigslist.

If you have had your bike stolen, a new website is building off of that loss and attempting foster a community of people who are in the same predicament. Stolen Bikes Database, a project started by CHS Consulting Group's Nino Genoese, allows users to geocode the location where their bicycle was stolen and share a description of the circumstances.  It also serves allows you to see high theft areas on a map.

As Genoese writes on the website, "I've had my bike stolen from me and so have you.  My goal for this database is to first maybe provide a channel for someone to find and return a stolen bike and second spread awareness of the locations of higher incidence and maybe decrease the occurrence of bike theft."

Many of you have already watched this excellent Streetfilm with a bike mechanic from New York City as he grades the quality of the locks people use to lock up, but if you aren't sure you're locking your bike properly, we would recommend checking it out again.  Safe riding!