Photos: Aaron Bialick

A man was hit by a driver while riding his bike across Fell Street at Lyon Thursday night at approximately 9:40 pm. The victim, 25, appeared to have just entered the crosswalk from a pathway on the Panhandle when the driver, a 30-year-old woman, hit him from the side.

Police said the victim was lucid and his condition was not serious, though he was transported to San Francisco General Hospital for minor injuries. Park Station Captain John Feeney said a citation would not be issued because the victim’s condition was not life-threatening and the driver stayed on the scene and called 911.

According to officers at the scene, the driver said she was driving in the left lane in search of a parking space when the bicyclist appeared in front of her car unexpectedly. The driver and bicyclist gave conflicting stories about who had the red light, and other witnesses were not available to testify. Feeney said the bicyclist would not be faulted and that it would be treated as an “accident.”

Fell, a one-way street that acts as a four-lane residential freeway alongside a major bike route on the Panhandle, is known for its dangerous conditions and high volumes of car traffic. Possible factors in the crash include poor visibility hindered by cars parked next to the crosswalk as well as the driver’s speed. An officer questioning her was overheard saying the size of the victim’s impact on the windshield indicated that she “must have been going pretty fast.”

See more photos after the break.

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.”

A driver violates the left-turn signal in front of a bicyclist at Fell and Masonic. Photo: Aaron Bialick

Dale Danley at the Panhandle Park Stewards blog first reported the new automated enforcement mechanism, as well as a crosswalk upgrade at the nearby Oak Street intersection.

The red light camera was installed just days after a December 20 crash in which a driver injured a man on his bicycle at the busy crossing.

SFMTA spokesperson Paul Rose told the SF Examiner the camera will be activated this month and that fines “will range from $480 to $522, depending on whether the offender takes traffic school.”

According to the SFMTA website, San Francisco was the first city in California to pilot photo enforcement in 1996, and the program resulted in a 40 percent decrease in violations at five intersections after six months. As of 2010 [PDF], 24 intersections in the city were photo-enforced.

The additional enforcement could provide a quick safety boost, but as Bike NoPa writer Michael Helquist pointed out in the Examiner, the number one priority for the neighborhood is the “Boulevard” redesign of Masonic. That project was approved by the SFMTA board of directors in the summer. However, advocates are concerned that Mayor Ed Lee’s commitment to the redesign has waned and that implementation could get bogged down in bureaucratic red tape.

See photos of the improvements after the break.

Photo: Panhandle Park Stewards

The upgraded crosswalk at Oak and Masonic. Photo: Panhandle Park Stewards

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 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.

Close passes like this one on Market Street would be explicitly illegal under the three-foot passing law, which is already in place in 20 states. Flickr photo: Richard Masoner / Cyclelicious

This article is re-published with permission from the California Bicycle Coalition blog.

Update: Governor Jerry Brown has vetoed the 3-foot passing bill. His statement can be found here [PDF]. 

The California Bicycle Coalition has compiled evidence showing that 3-foot-passing laws haven’t had any negative impacts on traffic flows in other states that have enacted these laws, and that such laws are actually boosting bicycle ridership and changing driver behavior for the better.

CBC is responding to reports that the California Highway Patrol is conjuring up worst-case scenarios as part of its whispering campaign to persuade Gov. Jerry Brown to veto Senate Bill 910, the 3-foot-passing bill cosponsored by the CBC and the City of Los Angeles.

The CHP reportedly is telling Gov. Brown that SB 910 would cause an epidemic of rear-end collisions as drivers slam on their brakes when they realize they don’t have space to pass bicyclists by at least three feet. Yet the CHP hasn’t produced any evidence of such problems in any of the 20 states that have 3-foot-passing laws on the books.

Andy Clarke, president of the League of American Bicyclists, the nation’s oldest bicycling advocacy organization, wrote this week in a letter to Gov. Brown, “In our experience working with the 19 [sic] other states that have passed three-foot passing laws, we have heard of no increases in the number of motor vehicle crashes due to the new requirements or any increased burden on law enforcement. In contrast, we have received nothing but positive responses to these laws.”

The Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin has seen no traffic problems in the 38 years since Wisconsin enacted the nation’s first 3-foot-passing law. “I’m not aware of any negative repercussions on traffic safety or capacity due to the passage of this law,” wrote Kevin Hardman, the federation’s executive director, in a letter to the CBC.

That’s also been Minnesota’s experience under the nation’s second 3-foot-passing law, enacted in the mid-1980s. “[The law] has, however, had a positive impact on bicycling,” wrote Bicycle Alliance of Minnesota Executive Director Dorian Grilley. “Over half of Minnesotans bicycle and they are bicycling more frequently.  Motor vehicle drivers seem to have noticed this fact and appear to be at the beginning stages of a significant cultural shift toward respecting bicyclists and pedestrians….”

Grilley’s observation is supported by the landmark 2003 study, Safety in Numbers, which demonstrates that increases in bicycle ridership reduce the incidence of all types of bike-car collisions.

Nothing like the CHP’s nightmare occurred in Arizona after it became the nation third state to enact a 3-foot-passing law. “With respect to any assertion that this kind of law may cause some major difficulties or ‘mayhem,’ we simply have not found that to be the case in Arizona, where the law has been in effect for approximately ten years,” wrote Coalition of Arizona Bicyclists President Robert Beane.

Same in Oklahoma, according to Mike Flenniken of the Oklahoma Bicycle Coalition: “No motorists have died or been injured because of the law, not one editorial or letter to the editor has been published against the law, [and] in fact, one municipality that I know of (Edmond, Oklahoma) acted at the request of their police officers to install an ordinance to add teeth to the State law which would make it enforceable even if there were no injuries incurred.”

Nor did anyone in Nevada raise the possibility of problems when that state’s bill was being debated. According to the Nevada Department of Transportation, Nevada’s 3-foot-passing law, which took effect last Saturday, attracted no opposition at all. The Nevada Senate unanimously approved 3-foot-passing legislation in April 2011.

Originally CHP supported SB 910, a surprising sea change from five years ago, when it managed to get CBC’s earlier 3-foot-passing bill killed in its first legislative hearing.

Throughout the legislative debate over SB 910, CHP said it supported the idea of giving bicyclists at least three feet of space. And CHP actually wrote the portion of SB 910 that authorizes drivers to cross a solid double-yellow centerline – currently prohibited under CA law – to give bicyclists at least three feet when passing.

Dan Empfield, publisher of Slowtwitch, contacted the CHP’s legislative representative Capt. Avery Brown about the CHP’s opposition to the bill. Brown told Empfield the CHP prefers to see text in the bill that does not mandate a specific distance.

In effect, the CHP endorses the status quo in California, where existing state law leaves drivers to figure out what constitutes a “safe” passing distance and where more bicyclists are killed by drivers passing from behind than by any other single cause. CBC and the City of Los Angeles continue to insist that the situation is unfair to drivers and presents an unreasonable hazard for people who rely on bicycles for transportation.

Meanwhile, more than 1,500 Californians, including bicycle advocates, bicycling club officials and members, survivors and the families of victims of passing-from-behind collisions, parents, teachers, healthcare professionals and corporate leaders, have written to Gov. Brown to urge him to sign SB 910.

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.

Photo: Waltaar

The California Bicycle Coalition is hearing that Governor Jerry Brown is getting pressure from the California Highway Patrol and AAA to veto SB 910, the safe passage bill for bicyclists. Known as the “Give Me 3″ bill, it would require drivers to give people on bikes at least 3 feet of space when passing from behind. It cleared both houses of the Legislature with overwhelming support, and is awaiting the governor’s signature.

From the CBC:

CHP and AAA are recommending that Gov. Brown veto SB 910, yet neither one has produced any evidence of problems from the 19 other states with these laws, including Wisconsin, which has 38 years’ experience under its 3-foot-passing law.

Most CA drivers try give bicyclists enough space, but they get no guidance from CA’s vague and subjective passing law.

Many CA drivers also willingly cross the double-yellow line to pass bicyclists on narrow two-lane roads, but why is it reasonable to ask them to break the law in order to do the right thing?

More bicyclists die from being hit from behind than from any other type of vehicle collision — it’s the single biggest cause of adult bicyclist deaths. Is this the status quo CHP and AAA want to preserve?

The CBC is encouraging Streetsblog readers to email Governor Brown’s office asap and tell him: sign SB 910 into law! You can download a sample letter and get more instructions here.

Photo: Myleen Hollero/Orange Photography

An unprecedented planning effort is currently underway to redesign Market Street, and transform it into a grand car-free thoroughfare in 2015, when it’s scheduled to be repaved. But why should we have to wait that long for a car-free Market Street? There is a growing momentum to do more aggressive trials that would inform the Better Market Street planning process, and divert more private automobiles off Market to improve conditions for people who ride transit, walk or bike.

“I do think that now is the time to accelerate our efforts to improve Market Street,” said Board of Supervisors President David Chiu.

The District 3 supervisor and mayoral candidate introduced a resolution [pdf] yesterday that calls on the SFMTA to implement more “near-term pilot projects, including increased private automobile diversions, to speed up transit along Market Street while improving the safety and comfort of people walking and biking, and supporting the local commercial and cultural function of the street.”

His comments at Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting followed a q-and-a session with Mayor Ed Lee, who was asked by Chiu if he supports more trials to improve Market, and specifically what “on the ground pilot programs should happen soon while the long-term planning process goes on.”

Third Street and Kearny is often congested with private auto traffic during peak hours, delaying Muni and creating unsafe conditions for bicyclists and pedestrians. Drivers, fresh from the Bay Bridge, continue to drive like they're on a freeway, instead of an urban street. Photo: Bryan Goebel

A frustrated 30-Stockton driver gets stuck in the intersection at 3rd/Market behind private auto traffic. Photo: Bryan Goebel

Lee said he is “supportive of initial trials and projects” and that the SFMTA is working on more experiments, including allowing all-door boarding on surface transit vehicles from Van Ness to Market (50 percent of Muni delays on Market are due to slow boarding), “new and expanded bicycle treatments,” and “improved crosswalk conditions” for pedestrians, especially at 6th Street, which has been identified as one of the city’s most dangerous intersections for walking.

“The staff of the MTA is getting a real important message from both the leadership of City Hall and the leadership of MTA that it’s time to move forward more creatively and in a timely way,” said Leah Shahum, the executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. “I think this is pretty significant.”

Further details and a timeline for more improvements were not released, but Lee said any new trials would have to involve “input from multiple stakeholders.” The talk concerning reducing more private autos centers mostly around preventing turns onto Market Street, and not the cross traffic, which accounts for 85 percent of the private auto traffic on Market. Calming the cross traffic is definitely another concern among advocates, though.

Since the SFMTA implemented the required right turns at 10th and 6th streets, which are now permanent, conditions for transit, pedestrians and bicyclists have improved. The green protected bike lanes along stretches of Market also provide bicyclists with some dignified space, but it certainly isn’t enough.

The initial trials have also helped lead to a shift in public opinion about Market Street. A majority of the top mayoral candidates now support a car-free Market Street, and many residents and merchants who were originally opposed to the trials have come around to supporting them.

“I’ve not heard a lot of negative feedback to date, so that’s a good sign,” said Ken Cleaveland of the Building Owners and Managers Association of San Francisco, who supports more trials on Market Street, as long as people are allowed “to get accustomed to it gradually.”

While the two required right turns “did reduce traffic a little bit, they haven’t fixed the problems that I see every day on Market Street,” said Tom Radulovich, the executive director of Livable City. “There is a fairly small number of autos, and especially autos trying to turn right on Market Street, that plug up that right lane for buses and bicyclists trying to move through.”

Fifth, 4th and 3rd Streets and New Montgomery are congested during peak hours and Radulovich suggested prohibiting turns at those intersections, or “just making them free of private cars.”

At Montgomery, frustrated afternoon drivers will often turn left, and get onto 2nd Street to cut over to the Bay Bridge. That often creates a line of cars stuck at the intersection, bringing Muni traffic to a halt in both directions (sometimes all the way to 6th Street), and making conditions difficult for bicyclists and pedestrians.

One solution being talked about is to deploy a team of traffic control officers to the intersection to prevent cars from blocking the box, or to just ban the turn entirely, and make the last block of 2nd Street at Market open to northbound cars only.

Aside from reducing more private auto traffic, other ideas for speeding Muni include painting the transit lanes red, and extending the transit-only lane eastbound beyond 5th Street.

“Given these opportunities, we need more pilots now,” said Chiu. “I believe a viable vision for the future of Market Street is a world class avenue that draws its success from the huge number of people it attracts through transit and taxis, on foot and on bicycle, and without private automobiles except for delivery vehicles.”

“We’ve heard too many stories of people having close calls or worse caused by drivers not giving enough space as they pass someone on a bicycle. This new law will make it easier to educate drivers to give a little more space,” said California Bike Coalition Executive Director Dave Snyder. “Protecting people who want to bicycle – and making that choice an easier one for people to make – is an important step in making California a healthier and safer place to live.”

Assuming the Senate and then Governor Brown approve and sign S.B. 910, it will mark the end of a long road that began well before the Mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa, had his elbow broken when forced off his bicycle by an inattentive cab driver. Following the crash, Villaraigosa made bike safety a legislative priority in Los Angeles. Safe passing laws have come and gone from the legislative docket in the past, but none have ever achieved passage by both houses.

Who would believe this poster contest would lead to a statewide campaign, that would lead to passage of California's 3-foot passing law?

While Bike Coalitions around the state made passage of S.B. 910 a priority, Los Angeles riders played a special role. It was a joint campaign of the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, Midnight Ridazz and LAPD that adopted the “Give Me 3″ postering campaign that became the slogan for S.B. 910 supporters. The posters appeared at hundreds of locations around Los Angeles during the summer and fall of 2010 and caught the attention of campaign organizers with the California Bicycle Coalition.

When S.B. 910 becomes law, California will be the 21st state to pass a safe passing law that specifies a distance. Despite the rhetoric from AAA and their water carriers in Sacramento, none of these laws have been seriously challenged in the courts or have been shown to confuse drivers.

Streetsblog will let you know the moment S.B. 910 is vetoed or signed into law.

There's no Google street view of the intersection where Tryon's daughter was stopped for riding her bike, but here's the same street, close to the school.

And now, we have the case of Teresa Tryon of Tennessee, threatened with criminal charges for letting her child ride a bike to school.

Bike Walk Tennessee highlighted the case on its blog, saying it was “crazy” to threaten a mother with arrest for doing more or less what all parents should be doing: encouraging active lifestyles for our kids.

“On August 25th, my 10-year[-old] daughter arrived home via police officer,” Tryon said. “The officer informed me that in his ‘judgment’ it was unsafe for my daughter to ride her bike to school.”

Bike Walk Tennessee says Tryon’s daughter’s route to school was reasonably safe, and Tryon herself said Monday that she “passed a total of eight cars in the four times” she was on that road that day. Observers say it is an unlined, residential street.

Nonetheless, when Tryon complained to the police, she was reportedly told that until the officer can speak with Child Protective Services, “if I allow my daughter to ride/walk to school I will be breaking the law and treated accordingly.” She asked what law she would be breaking, and was told the answer was “child neglect.” The officer acknowledged Tryon’s daughter wasn’t breaking any laws.

Columnist Lenore Skenazy regularly writes about giving children the independence to make their way around their neighborhoods freely and unsupervised. In a recent post, she points to a child development book from 1979, when six-year-olds could be expected to be able to “travel alone in the neighborhood (four to eight blocks) to store, school, playground, or to a friend’s home.”

Skenazy is regularly chastised for trying to grant her kids a similar level of independence, and in Elizabethton, Tryon is defending herself against possible legal action for doing so.

According to Elizabethton Police Chief Matt Bailey, the street Tryon’s daughter was riding on is a busy street with a blind curve and a hill. Tryon says her daughter has taken a bicycle riding course, but the chief said an officer saw her passing a stopped school bus and a stopped police car in a particularly busy intersection in a manner that he thought was unsafe. When he approached her, he says she admitted that the traffic made her nervous, and he said that’s when he brought her home to talk to her mother about it.

Passing motorists had also expressed their concern to the police, and Child Protective Services had already talked to Tryon about it. Commenters on the Bike Walk Tennessee blog post were suspicious of the chief’s assertion that his only concern was for the girl’s safety, but that’s his position.

Still, the chief acknowledged that there’s no sensible alternative route or even a safe way to cross that intersection. There are portions of the route with no sidewalk. Apparently taking the school bus wasn’t an option for her – according to the police report, the girl said “she had been kicked off the bus before and did not like it.”

Her mother maintains that the bus isn’t necessarily much safer. “She could take the bus and be bullied, punched, hit, kicked, stabbed,” Tryon wrote. “On the way to the bus she could be hit by a car, attacked by a vicious dog, the victim of a drive by shooting. Realistically the school bus COULD crash and kill her.”

Andy Clarke, president of the League of American Bicyclists, just commented on the League’s blog that Tryon’s is “a frustrating story with no obvious winners and lots of people left feeling aggrieved.” Rather than take a position on whether or not the police were correct to intervene, Clarke makes the case that the situation points to the need for greater investment in safe routes to school for kids.

A bicyclist getting ticketed on Valencia Street earlier this year. Photo: Bryan Goebel

In light of the increased enforcement on Market Street, and stories I’ve been hearing from bicyclists about being targeted for minor infractions, I’ve had a number of questions for the San Francisco Police Department. I decided to turn to the person who heads up the SFPD’s Traffic Company, Captain Al Casciato, who is also a bicyclist.

We talked about a wide range of issues involving cops and bicyclists. Reading the transcript I realized there were some missed opportunities and follow-up questions I should have asked, but I hope it will be part of an ongoing dialogue with SFPD, and welcome your questions for a future interview.

Bryan Goebel: The first question that I would like to ask cuts right to the heart of what some bicyclists feel about SFPD, and that is, does the San Francisco Police Department have a bias against bicyclists?

Captain Al Casciato: No, I don’t think so. I don’t think that’s true. Because we have a lot of officers who are bicyclists, and a lot of us are bicyclist enthusiasts in our off duty time, and the officers you see on bicycles at the various stations and stuff, they’re all volunteers. And when we put the bicycling course out for officers to become bicycle officers there are plenty of sign ups, more than there are positions.

BG: So when an officer goes through training at the academy does he or she learn how to deal with bicyclists?

AC: I don’t know what the academy curriculum is right now.

BG: Let me rephrase the question. What type of training do San Francisco police officers receive to deal with bicyclists?

AC:  Generally, I don’t have an answer to that, because I’m not in the training department. But within traffic we train ourselves, we have our own in-service training, and our liaison officer, Sergeant Pat Tobin, is responsible for keeping our officers on the motorcycles up to date on everything that’s going on with the Bicycle Coalition, and with issues regarding the bicyclists. And he coordinates the programs, like when they handed out all the lights, the bicycle lights, he coordinates those programs. He coordinates the enforcement programs. They do give bicyclists a lot of admonishments. They do cite bicyclists for going through crosswalks and running the red lights, especially with pedestrians present. And they also cite for bicyclists who cut off vehicles, large vehicles, and are driving through traffic cutting off vehicles, because those two violations are what causes the most injury to pedestrians, and the other one is how bicyclists mostly get killed.

BG: The chief has denied this, and I know public affairs has denied this as well, but we are definitely seeing a lot more bicyclists getting ticketed, especially on Market Street. Is there a targeted effort to crack down on bicyclists?

AC: On Market Street it’s a targeted effort to crack down on everybody’s behavior. You see, on August 6th all the officers that remained at the Traffic Bureau, a lot of officers were assigned to the stations, but the officers that remained at the Traffic Bureau became citation-only officers, or enforcement only. Not citation, enforcement only. And what you’re seeing is a greater presence on Market Street, because Market and 6th Street are our target corridors. Market, Mission, 6th Street. And that’s in response to requests from the MTA and the Mayor’s Pedestrian Safety Task Force.

BG: Can you clear up some myths about giving out tickets? For example, do officers have a quota to reach with bicyclists?

AC:  A quota is illegal by the California Vehicle Code.

BG: So none of your officers are under any pressure to go after bicyclists?

AC:  No, no.

BG: We did a story recently that talked about the special enforcement that was done on a Friday, and SFPD has said that it’s not targeting bicyclists, and yet the amount of tickets that were handed out were mostly given to bicyclists, and there wasn’t a single driver that was cited.

AC: That was Southern station’s program?

BG: Exactly.

AC:  Right.

BG: So I guess my question to you is folks like Walk SF and the Bike Coalition believe that the enforcement should be targeted, and that basically, as Leah Shahum said, there should be equal opportunity enforcement of those actions that are putting others at risk. She says there’s a hierarchy of dangerous types of behavior and that those threatening the most people should be prioritized for enforcement. What is your response to that?

AC: I agree. That’s why – in particular to the bicycle, bicyclists putting the pedestrians at risk by going through the cross walks and violating the pedestrian right of way is number one. Number two is the bicyclists who are riding unsafely and cutting off large vehicles and vehicles, and cutting in and out of traffic, and that’s how they get killed, that’s the other violation that needs to be addressed. I think those two – everything else in between is probably admonishable, but I think those two are something that we need to concentrate on, because those are behaviors that put people at risk. Mostly one, putting others at risk, and two putting yourself at risk.

BG: And you said that you ride a bike?

AC:  Yes I do.

BG:  Well, I’m just curious, what do you feel – I mean, there obviously is a big rise in bicycling on Market Street, which is great to see, and I know that as there are more bicyclists that perhaps there may be some period of adjustment?

AC: I agree. I mean, there’s an aggression out there too. I was at Embarcadero the other day, and I walked my bike because there was a lot of people, and I was down near the Waterbar heading up towards the Ferry Building. So I was walking, and some guy about 300 pounds, I mean this guy was in shape, 300 pounds, he’s on a bicycle, he’s flying through all the people. I mean, I could feel his blast of wind when he passed me. And I mean if he hit somebody, especially somebody frail, they’re going to really go down hard. But he wasn’t doing anything illegal because it allows for bicyclists to ride on the promenade. It allows that. But in my opinion he was unsafe because he was going too fast for the conditions.

BG: I hear you there. And I guess as the chief was explaining the idea behind the enforcement is a lot of it is just about getting the word out that you’re doing the enforcement, which can have the ability to change behavior.

AC: Right, exactly. But here what you’re looking at is huge cultural change. I mean, if you think about cultural changes, what has been the major cultural change in traffic in San Francisco in the last ten years? What do you think it is? It’s running red lights. Do you know why?

BG: Why?

AC: We installed the cameras. When we installed the cameras, tickets were left and right. Everybody knew there was a red light problem, because people sped up to get through the red light. When the light turned yellow that meant speed up, get through the red, okay? And we have a horrible number of accidents related to red light violations. And so when we put up the cameras we had thousands of tickets. It was like a money boom. But it isn’t a money boom that we should have or expect. So now what’s happened is when you look at jurisdictions throughout California, people are obeying the law and they’re not running through the red lights. So the camera tickets are really, really down, so revenues are down, and some jurisdictions which were only doing it for the revenue and not for the safety factor are thinking about cancelling their programs because they’re not making any money out of them. But what’s the value of human life?  But here, now most of the tickets that we see on the red light camera are people from out of town not accustomed to the area.  There are not a lot of tickets from the people who reside in the area, or work in the area, because now that they’re used to the red light cameras.

BG: Since you are a bicyclist, let me ask you this question. I really feel personally like the only dignified space bicyclists have in the city are those green protected bike lanes on Market Street, and some of the other areas in the city where it’s either a path or a protected bike lane. Do you agree that as we get more infrastructure like this behavior will change?

AC: I think it will change, but I think – I mean, as a bicyclist I feel vulnerable. And actually the green lanes, those are dangerous unless they’re really painted correctly. Any painted surface, once it gets wet, you’re asking for problems. And we had problems with the first green paintings, now they’ve put some other material on them, and some sand and stuff to try to make them less slippery, especially when the fog comes in. One of the reasons I ride a mountain bike is because I want the larger tires to feel safer because there’s too many other hazards in the city. Especially tracks. So both as a motorcycle officer, and as a bicyclist, and then as a pedestrian, I feel vulnerable because we are living in a city that’s very crowded and has a lot of activity, so that it causes a lot of dangers because you have people who are not paying attention, for whatever reason.

BG: Here’s another question about bias. Last year I wrote a pretty long article about a crash that I stumbled upon in which two of the officers on the scene were talking about how bicyclists and pedestrians were always to blame in crashes. And I wrote a huge article about it, I think something may have happened to these officers, they may have been disciplined, I’m not sure what the outcome was.

AC: I don’t remember either.

BG: But when officers are investigating a traffic collision involving a bicyclist, and this is what I’m trying to understand, very often the driver is not cited, the driver is not charged, and I don’t know if this is true or not, but I keep hearing that the officers have to have some kind of special training in order to properly investigate collisions. Can you clear that up for me, is that true or not?

AC: Some of the officers have special training, especially reconstructionists, that’s why we have a major accident investigative team called MAI (Major Accident Investigation). And they’re trained, and they go out with the total station and they take all the measurements and recreate it, and everything else like that. The reason we normally do not cite is because if you issue a citation you muddy up the District Attorney’s case for issuing a charge of vehicular manslaughter, or something like that, whatever the criminal charge is going to be. So that’s why you don’t issue a citation. And also you don’t issue a citation based on the original facts because you don’t know if the original facts are true or not, and in a lot of them we’ve had situations where what is believed to have been the initial – I don’t want to compromise any cases we’ve got now, but what you believe the initial story to be is not what is the true story once we review it with the coroner. Maybe we might find film, cameras, additional witnesses, the physical evidence when the reconstruction is put together that says ‘this couldn’t have happened in the way it’s said in the first report.’ And that’s why you have a preliminary report. And I’ve been around long enough that you look at them and you go ‘Huh?’ Because if you’ve got an intersection and you’ve got four people, one at each corner, you’ve got four different perspectives, and you have four different stories. Two witnesses said one thing to the officers. They both said the same thing. And when we finished, and then when we found that there was a camera on it, and then when we looked at it and put it back together, the two witness statements were partially correct, but totally – for the accident facts, totally not true. And it was because of perception versus what really happened.

BG: So do you have any kind of data on the books to say this amount of drivers is being charged?  I guess there’s really no way to track all that, is there?

AC: No. I mean, you could ask the District Attorney for all their charging records.

BG: On behalf of the San Francisco Police Department, what is your message to bicyclists?

AC: I would say to bicyclists just follow all the rules of the road. For your own safety and the safety of others. Or reverse that, for the safety of others and your own safety. But I would say follow the rules of the road, and don’t be aggressive. What happens is we get hurt when we get aggressive on a bicycle. Because think of it this way: bicycle hits pedestrian, pedestrian loses. Car hits bicycle, bicyclist loses. Truck hits car, car loses. Train hits truck, truck loses. See what I mean? And it’s the mass. And the biggest factor, what people don’t consider, is speed, that it doesn’t matter. It’s like the runner versus the pedestrian that’s walking. The runner that’s running hits a person walking, it’s that speed that causes great injury. And the factor of speed keeps going up and up, and you see it as the factor of injury rises proportionally to the factor of speed. So I think for the bicyclist it’s really picking out your routes. We have to plan different routes depending on how you’re going to go to work, or whether you’re going to something socially, or recreationally, but I think you have to pick in advance, use your safety equipment, use your helmet. A big thing is the helmet. I mean, we look at so many head injuries that we go ‘Oh no, what a waste.’  Because they could have survived. Or the injuries could have been mitigated in some way, even when they do survive.

BG: Well, helmet use is the most contentious issue in the bicycle community. In Europe they generally don’t wear helmets, and there’s research to support both sides. I mean, I don’t like writing about helmet use because it’s just an endless thread that goes on, and on, and on.

AC: Right. But all it is, is then it’s like personal choice. If you wear a helmet, it’s your personal choice. So when you have an accident and you’re not wearing a helmet and your head hits the cement and you get that type of injury, you got it because you weren’t wearing a helmet. I mean, that’s the bottom line. There’s no real debate there, it just happened, it’s factual.

BG: Do you think there is a misconception among some officers though that wearing a helmet is the law? Because I’ve heard this in New York, of cops citing bicyclists for not wearing helmets, but it’s not actually the law in California.

AC:  No, I don’t know of any citation for not having a helmet, except for those under 18.

BG: What do you think the general perception is of bicyclists among officers at SFPD?

AC: I think most of them don’t give it a second thought. I mean, we’re dealing with so many other things too. You’re going from case to case. I mean, it’s almost kind of a neutral. I’ve ridden on the Critical Mass thing for nine years on my motorcycle, and I’ve been involved, engaged with all the officers who have passed through here on their motorcycles in different things, and then I’ve worked with them, and I’ve been the Captain of Tenderloin, Mission, and Northern stations, besides traffic, and I mean, I hate to tell you, we’re not talking about you that much. <laughs>.

BG: So you’re the head of the Traffic Company, right?

AC: Correct.

BG: So what exactly does that job entail?

AC: We’re part of MTA, and so we work with Cheryl Brinkman and that group, that board. We sit on the enforcement committees, and the statistical committees, and the engineering committee for the mayors, and the Pedestrian Safety Executive Directive. And then we also have the red light cameras here, and we have all the safety programs, and the car seat programs. We also have the report review officer. Oh, that goes back to one of the questions you asked earlier, why we don’t cite at the scene. The reports come into the Report Review Officer, and the report review officer goes over the report, we’ll talk to the inspector, and we’ll talk to somebody else, and cases that are not going to be prosecuted then somebody might get a citation in the mail about six weeks later.  So that’s part of the Report Review Officer.  So we have those functions.  We have Hit and Run, we have the Major Accident Investigation team, which is the reconstruction people, they go out. We have the Commercial Vehicles, who are investigation commercial vehicles, citing commercial vehicles, and some of those citations are like $4,000. We have the Hearing Officers here, and the Court Officers. So we have – for the tows, Tow Hearing Officers, and then we have the Court Officers up in the three traffic courts. Actually four now with the juvenile court out at Woodside, 37 Woodside.

BG: So personnel wise how many people do you oversee?

AC: I would say right now about 50 here, and we have 27 that are assigned to the district stations, motorcycles that are assigned to the district stations, that we also coordinate their activities.

In a five foot standard bike lane, bicyclists really only have about one to two feet, if you consider the door zone. Animation/graphics by Carly Clark. Photo of Polk Street between O'Farrell and Geary by Bryan Goebel.

The door zone is one of the biggest urban threats to bicyclists. Conventional bike lanes that squeeze bicyclists between the door zone and automobile traffic leave little room for error, but the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency is piloting a series of projects designed to encourage bicyclists to steer clear of the door zone.

On sections of Polk Street, pictured above (and yes, we added the green but do hope to see green bike lanes on Polk Street some day soon!), the SFMTA has painted in a batch of T’s in the bike lanes that are supposed to guide bicyclists away from the door zone. While the treatment seems to be an improvement over typical door zone lanes, it also highlights how little street width is available for cyclists to ride safely.

I asked our graphics designer Carly Clark to do a little photoshopping to illustrate how much real space bicyclists have if you consider the door zone. If you take a standard five foot bike lane, like the one above, and factor in the door zone, you realize bicyclists are only given a sliver of a space that is about one to two feet wide, depending on the width of the lane, and the size of a car door.

According to the SFMTA, dooring is the second most common form of injury collision involving cyclists, behind unsafe speed, though the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition (SFBC) points out that dooring is the highest injury collision type caused by motorists or their passengers.

A "T" on Howard Street. Photo: SFMTA

The SFMTA has installed the T treatments on Polk between Post and Golden Gate and in the bike lanes on Howard Street between 5th and 7th. So far, according to the agency, they seem to be effective:

We’ve done before/after studies on both Polk and Howard where we were able to reduce the number of cyclists riding in the door zone. On Howard Street (study conducted 2006) the average distance from the curb where cyclists rode increased from 10.3 feet to 10.9 feet, with 24% riding in the door zone before and 10% after.  On Polk Street (study conducted 2009-10) the average distance from the curb where cyclists rode increased from 10 feet to 10.4 feet, with 41% riding in the door zone before and 30% after.

The SFMTA is also experimenting with a cross-hatch design to keep bicyclists out of the door zone on 17th Street between Dolores and Guerrero streets.

The T treatment is becoming common in more cities, and is also highlighted in the Urban Bikeway Design Guide, said David Vega-Barachowitz, the sustainable initiatives program manager for the National Association of City Transportation Officials.

Designing Better Bike Lanes

“I think that cities are really embracing the general principle that you shouldn’t put a bike lane right in the door zone,” he said.

NACTO’s recently released Urban Bikeway Design Guide encourages left-side bike lanes on one-way streets and buffered bike lanes to “provide greater shy distance between motor vehicles and bicycles.” The minimum requirements are outlined in the guide, said Vega-Barachowitz, but creating a buffer zone between moving and parked cars is what’s recommended.

When placing a bike lane next to a parking lane, the guide also encourages a 4-inch solid line between both lanes, with a 14.5-foot distance between the edge of the bike lane and the curb. A 2006 study by the SFMTA found that placing the right stripe of the bike lane farther from the curb was more effective at keeping bicyclists out of the door zone than it was at keeping cars closer to the curb.

Some cities have opted for sharrows on some streets instead of bike lanes to keep bicyclists out of the door zone, but Vega-Barachowitz noted that a bike lane has a greater calming effect on a street than just shared lane markings. A street with sharrows may also not meet the 8 to 80-year-old standard being pushed by bike advocates. More cities are now recognizing, however, that door zone bike lanes are not good engineering.

Long Beach and Salt Lake City recently began experimenting with hybrid sharrow lanes. Green paint and sharrows demarcate the space for bicyclists while improving their lateral position in a lane that is also shared with auto traffic.

“Those kinds of solutions are going to emerge in a more sophisticated way over the next five years as people use color more frequently and understand riders’ habits when they’re in consistent streams,” said Vega-Barachowitz.

The cross-hatch marks on 17th Street. Photo: Bryan Goebel

Education

Of course, staying out of the door zone is not only about design, but about educating bicyclists “to make sure that their lateral positioning in the bike lane is outside the door zone,” said Vega-Barachowitz.

“In general, the designer should design it so that bicyclists will use it that way, but you know, in a street in Boston where there’s really not that much right of way to begin with, you’re going to have people that aren’t necessarily that comfortable riding in the road that are going to be riding in the door zone because they’re trying to move as far away from cars as possible.”

Bert Hill, a certified cycling instructor who teaches the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition’s popular Urban Cycling Workshops, advocates staying four feet away from car doors and said most students are not aware of the door zone.

“What they do understand after a little while is the biggest danger in the door zone is not hitting the door with your bike. It’s actually being on the outer edge and having your handlebar encounter the door edge,” he said. “What happens is it pulls your front wheel hard to the right and when you do that your bike frame moves to the left and so you’re almost always thrown into traffic.”

And that, according to Hill, is what has lead to many dooring fatalities.  “That’s why we advocate the full four feet, because you can be outside of the door itself, but if just the edge of your handlebar catches it, that does it.”

Hill said if he had a choice between door zone bike lanes and sharrows, he would prefer sharrows. And while he’s supportive of the SFMTA’s door zone treatments, he’s not sure that bicyclists understand what they are.

“I think it’s a really good idea where you don’t have sharrows,” said Hill. “But I think the only problem with it is that nobody understands that very well. I think it’s a good thing to know if you’re a bicyclist, but in my opinion it’s not as good as sharrows at telling motorists that the bicyclist is expected to be there.”

Eastbound Market Street at Octavia Boulevard. Photo: Bryan Goebel

John Billovits is all too familiar with the perils of one of the city’s most hazardous intersections for bicyclists. For the past decade, he has traveled through the Market and Octavia intersection on his daily bicycle commute. As a senior planner at the San Francisco Planning Department, Billovits was also the project manager for the Market and Octavia Neighborhood Plan, and fought against building the Central Freeway touchdown on Market Street.

Right turns for eastbound drivers on Market Street are prohibited at Octavia because they present a danger to bicyclists and pedestrians. Allowing the right turn would also create a huge traffic queue on Market Street, causing congestion on the city’s most important transit and bicycle corridor. Billovits outlined the case for banning the right turn in this 2003 memo [pdf].

Drivers who have made the illegal sudden turn south onto the freeway, where there is a bike lane and pedestrian crossing, have caused numerous right-hook collisions over the years, leaving dozens of people hurt. Two people, a pedestrian and a bicyclist, have died from injuries suffered in collisions caused by drivers at the intersection.

Yesterday, Billovits became the latest victim. As he was pedaling his Bianchi Volpe through the intersection around 9:25 a.m., on his way to work at the Planning Department, a German tourist behind the wheel of a rental car made the dreaded right turn and sent the 49-year-old flying.

“I just kind of plowed right into it, and bounced off the car, flew over it, and landed on the concrete, kind of head first, on the other side,” a shaken Billovits told Streetsblog, just hours after being released from the hospital yesterday. “I had a helmet on, which is a sturdy helmet, and so it felt pretty good. I just kind of crumpled over to the side, and it happened really quick.”

“It doesn’t appear right now that I have any kind of broken bones, or broken back, or anything like that. I’m a little achy. I have to wait to see how my body reacts,” Billovits explained, adding that doctors are monitoring him for a concussion. “I wouldn’t say I’m seriously injured. I’m not broken down. I’m at home, you know. They brought me home this afternoon. I think I’ll be okay.”

Billovits wasn’t riding fast “because I’m not much of a speedster person,” and he always slows down because he gets off Market and takes the McCoppin Street cutoff for bicyclists. After the collision, he found himself conscious, but lying injured on the pavement, directly under the no right turn sign.

“I can’t imagine a situation where a citation would be more blatantly called for, you know what I mean? Somebody lying under the sign and a car there at an angle, obviously just made the turn, you know?”

But there was no citation issued. “Impairment is not suspected. No citation issued at this time,” a spokesperson for the San Francisco Police Department, Sgt. Michael Andraychak, wrote in an email to Streetsblog. He described the collision itself in cop talk that seems forgiving of the driver, with no mention that the turn was prohibited.

A small white Chevy sedan driven by an adult female, resident of Germany, made a turn from eastbound Market to Octavia on ramp to US 101.

An adult male bicyclist traveling eastbound Market Street contacted the Chevy, ejecting the bicyclist.

The driver of the car remained on scene.  The bicyclist was transported by ambulance to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

Impairment is not suspected.  No citation issued at this time.

“I really am not aware of what transpired there, besides me just getting carted away,” he said of the police investigation. “This hasn’t happened to me before like this, but it was a little confusing. I’m in an accident and they took a report with a piece of paper that says I can request a copy of the report in writing in 7 days.”

Lax Enforcement

As this latest case illustrates, drivers routinely get away with causing collisions and injuring bicyclists and pedestrians at Market and Octavia without so much as a slap on the wrist.

On the engineering front, the SFMTA has tried a number of fixes, and the latest — a concrete median with signage and soft-hit posts — has certainly improved the situation, but not enough, said Leah Shahum, the executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition.

“We call on the SF Police Department to step up enforcement at this known problem area, and we urge the city to add camera enforcement at Market-Octavia to better deter drivers from behaving illegally on San Francisco’s busiest bicycle and transit route,” she said.

Last September, then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill by Assemblymember Tom Ammiano, AB 2729, that would have allowed the SFMTA to install an automated traffic enforcement system at Market and Octavia to photograph infractions and issue citations to drivers who make the illegal right turn. In his short veto message, Schwarzenegger said current law already allows the city do it.

Earlier this year, Ammiano sent a letter [pdf] to the state Attorney General’s Office requesting a legal opinion on the issue. Eight months later, Ammiano has still not gotten a response, said Quintin Mecke, the state legislator’s communications director. A phone call to the press office of California Attorney General Kamala Harris, the former San Francisco District Attorney, was not returned.

“It is frustrating that after many months, we are still waiting on an opinion from the Attorney General’s Office as to how best to do this,” said Shahum. “We hope this unfortunate incident will spur state and local leaders to act with more urgency to improve safety on San Francisco’s streets.”

From Billovits’ perspective, there shouldn’t be any turn movements at all at Market and Octavia because “there’s just too much going on.” It’s a case he made 11 years ago.

“I wanted to get rid of both the turning movements, the right hand off and the right hand on,” he said, before reflecting on yesterday’s collision that left him injured. “It’s just so ironic after all the stuff we’ve been through with that, to be lying there and lying under the (no right turn) sign, more or less.”

The new bike lane leading into San Francisco International Airport. Photos by John Murphy

New bike lanes were recently installed around San Francisco International Airport, and the reviews are coming in. Streetsblog San Francisco reader John Murphy, who was the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition’s 2010 Commuter of the Year, thinks there’s lots of room for improvement. He sent us this scolding review, along with the photos:

The new bike lane through here is completely asinine. As they started construction I thought it was decent, but as construction has progressed they keep producing new features which completely suck.

The lane starts just after you pass the United Airlines building heading SB. As you make the left hand bend to head straight south on McDonnell, there was a streetlight pole in the way of where they were building the bike lane. So they widened the road a little bit right where this pole is and send cyclists on a sharp right then left bend around this pole. At speed, this is extremely “annoying.” Attempts to bypass this feature by riding left are discouraged by soft-hit poles that start before the chicane.

The next challenge is set up by another set of soft-hit poles that force the cyclist to the right, where the lane abruptly joins a bus stop. Cars are forced left, except for the buses which basically pull right, into the bus stop. I sort of understand this treatment as it prevents the bus from driftng right though cyclists, but if the bus is already at the stop, you are sort of screwed here.

After this, the lane continues on McDonnell along the 101. McDonnell is separated from 101 by a jersey barrier/fence combo. In this spot the bike lane is unacceptably narrow, forcing cyclists to ride in a very tight spot against a barrier from which there is no escape. Previously, with no lane, cyclists would drift far enough to the left to allow some buffer from the wall in the event of something going on in the roadway.

Then things get ridiculous as you veer left a gain to go under the terminal. The unacceptably narrow bike lane continues – and in said “bike lane” are drainage grates which span the entire width of the bike lane. This continues as you enter the underpass of the terminal, and then as you go uphill out of the underpass, a set of soft hit barriers attempt to force the cyclist to the right, into a narrow crappy chute, in practice I just go to the left of the soft hit barriers.

The drainage grates in the bike lanes continue as you approach the left hand bend that takes you to Millbrae Ave. Here, the bike lane is still pinned against cement barriers. At this spot, the majority of cyclists veer into the left hand lane to continue straight onto Bayshore, but the bike lane sticks to the wall, counter-intuitive to where it should be placed, as a straight ahead lane and letting right turning cyclists take the right turn pocket.

We’ve sent Murphy’s comments to SFO for a response, and are waiting to hear back. What do you think? Have you ridden the new bike lanes at SFO?

Got an idea, or content to share for a story? Please send your text and photos to tips@sf.streetsblog.org and we’ll consider publishing them.

Kimberly White

Only two speakers at this week’s Safe Routes to School National Conference in Minneapolis earned a standing ovation. For former Minnesota Congressman Jim Oberstar the crowd stood out of honor and gratitude. For Kimberly White, the audience shot out of their seats with sheer awe and inspiration.

A resident of Flatbush, Brooklyn, and a sophomore at Baruch College, White’s a recognizable face to some in New York City. She appeared on a Times Square billboard with a solar bicycle and organized the recent Youth Bike Summit, attended by several hundreds students from 14 states.

Addressing her first national audience during the closing plenary of the Safe Routes conference, White described her evolution from passively accepting injustices in her low-income neighborhood to discovering bicycling as a vehicle for environmental activism and personal transformation. Given the crowd of educators and officials, White didn’t shy away from one key point: Adults too often discount the intellect and ideas of youth.

Ranging from feminism to education, here are some of the highlights from White’s rousing keynote.

• After moving from the island of St. Vincent, gentrification pushed White’s family from Park Slope to Flatbush — and into near abject poverty. “I questioned why, in my family and neighboring households, food scarcity was the rule and not the exception… I wondered if the lack of bike lanes was unique to my neighborhood or if there were issues surrounding this lack of infrastructure that could be attributed to something else. At the time I had many questions that I thought no one could answer and it drove me to action.”
• At 16 years old, she discovered Recycle-A-Bicycle. “It seemed like such a weird place. Bicycles everywhere in sight — hanging from the ceiling, tiny parts in drawers, and rows and rows of bikes on the ground… I was so intrigued. You see, while I could appreciate what bikes meant for sustainable, alternative transportation, I had never actually learned to ride a bike.”
• So White resolved to learn, but there was another obstacle — and opportunity. “I really wanted a bike but I couldn’t afford one… I coordinated an Earn-a-Bike internship with Recycle-A-Bicycle that enabled me and my friends to receive a bike as long as we put in the sweat equity and learned how to build the bicycle ourselves… Our instructor dumped us in a sea of about 1,000 bicycles and frames at the warehouse. It was fabulous to feel inundated by beautiful bicycle frames. When I saw the frame of my bicycle, I experienced true love for the first time.”
• Almost immediately, White became a bicycle advocate. “I have come to believe that bicycling is like the hub of a wheel; it’s the central point to which all the spokes connect. Building a bike at Recycle-A-Bicycle led me to advocate for Safe Routes to School at the National Bike Summit in DC. This lead to the creation of the Youth Bike Summit, which led me to this podium from which I greet you all today.”
• Bicycle advocacy, she explained, isn’t just about transportation. “Bicycles are an articulation of feminism, youth empowerment and an understanding of the power dynamics and systems of oppression. Susan B. Anthony articulated it best when she said, ‘… [Bicycling] has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel, the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood.’ Along with the pursuit of untrammeled womanhood, cycling led me to other people and it brought me many surprises, such as being on a giant billboard in Times Square this year posing with a solar bike.”
• White thanked her mentors, like Pasqualina Azzarello, the executive director of Recycle-A-Bicycle. “But it’s important to note that the inter-generational exchange goes both ways… Every generation of young people has been discriminated against by older people and their peers… We should hold young people to a higher standard, because young people — myself included — are ready to change the status quo. We just need adult support in the actions we pursue.”
• Yes, Safe Routes to School is a positive, progressive idea. “But it’s how we implement the opportunity that validates its meaning in our local, national and global communities. By insisting on an inter-generational effort, we secure the longevity and broader community investment in our growing movement.”
• Her own family is proof. “We’re now brokering a deal with Recycle-A-Bicycle to get my mom a bike, too.”

"Walk SF has been working on this campaign to get 15 mile an hour safer speed zones around schools for a long time, and we're so excited that it's coming to fruition," said Elizabeth Stampe of Walk SF (at microphone). In background: Mayor Ed Lee, SFMTA Director Cheryl Brinkman, Police Chief Greg Suhr and far right, SFMTA Chief Ed Reiskin. Photo: Bryan Goebel

San Francisco became the first large California city to implement a 15 mph speed zone around a school this morning, as SFMTA workers installed one of four signs that will go up around George Peabody Elementary School on 7th Avenue in the Richmond District. It’s part of a groundbreaking citywide initiative pushed by walking advocates to implement safe speed zones around 200 schools, and comes right as the school year is beginning this week.

“It’s really a very simple issue. Kids need to be able to get to school, to leave school and to have any other interface between the school and the street happen safely,” said SFMTA Chief Ed Reiskin, who started his job as the head of the agency on Monday. He was joined by Mayor Ed Lee, SFPD Chief Greg Suhr, Supervisor Eric Mar, walking and biking advocates, SFMTA officials, San Francisco Unified School District officials and others.

“It’s verified that the streets and areas around our schools are dangerous, that they need to be slowed down,” said Lee. “It’s been shown in study after study, and the last one that we looked at was in London, and it showed that when you slow down, even a fraction of the speed, you can get a high increase in safety and a reduction in the amount of fatalities that result from a car collision.”

Lee said the signs, funded by $361,700 in Prop K sales tax funds from the San Francisco County Transportation Authority, should be in place at all schools in San Francisco by early 2012.

An SFMTA worker installs a 24x48 inch 15 mph zone sign, as the Mayor and other officials look on. Photo: Bryan Goebel

The 15 mph campaign is a victory for the pedestrian advocacy group Walk San Francisco, which has been relentlessly pushing the issue for some time.

“We’re here today to establish these speed limits because the thing is, speed kills. If you’re hit by a car that’s going 30 miles an hour you’re six times more likely to be killed than if that car is going just 10 miles an hour less, 20 miles an hour,” said Walk SF executive director Elizabeth Stampe. “Establishing these safe speed zones around our schools will make it safer not only for kids to walk to school, but for everybody.”

Stampe said the new speed zones will help make the streets safer for children at a time when the SFUSD has been forced to cut its transportation budget by 44 percent and significantly scale back yellow school bus service. More and more parents, she said, will need to find alternate transportation for their kids. In addition, new school reassignments will have more children going to neighborhood schools, which means they are close enough to walk, or bike.

SFUSD officials said they are working on boosting programs to get more kids to walk and bike to school as part of the Safe Routes to Schools program. Lee said the safe speed zone program will include education for drivers and stepped up enforcement by the SFPD.

“A couple of weeks ago, I was present when the young Phillies fan was hit by a car. Nothing impacts a person more than an injured child, especially as serious as that was, and it was so unnecessary,” said Suhr. “This speed limit will go a long way toward keeping the kids safe, and the enforcement will be strict. It’s a very expensive citation, but it’s one that if you’re putting the kids in jeopardy will be well deserved and will be given. Please, slow down around schools, no electric devices, no texting, avoid the ticket.”

The SFMTA recently legislated the first batch of 15 mph school zones, and another list is scheduled to go before an SFMTA engineering hearing tomorrow prior to proceeding to the SFMTA Board in the next few weeks.

“I think these signs and the community education that the police department and all of the city family will be working on in the 200 different schools and sites will help save lives,” said District 1 Supervisor Mar.

Mayor Ed Lee talks to parents driving their kids to school about the new 15 mph zones. Photo: Francis Tsang, Mayor's Press Office

The pedestrian environment on eastern Cesar Chavez Street is in desperate need of improvement. Photo: SF Planning Department

New designs have been drawn up for eastern Cesar Chavez Street and will be presented to the community next week, nearly two months after a contentious meeting in which attendees were told, just days before the striping of new bike lanes, that plans for a road diet were being scrapped by the Mayor’s Office and Port of San Francisco because of concerns from industrial businesses about reducing road capacity for trucks hauling goods.

The new designs will not be made public until the August 24 meeting, where options for short-term and long-term plans will be presented. Sources who have seen the designs say the short-term plan does not remove a travel lane like the original plan. Instead, it would remove parking to add one-way protected bike lanes on both the north and south sides. The short-term plan is part of an air quality grant to improve biking and would not change the sidewalks.

“The plan that was going to go out in July was going to put a bike lane between a parking lane and a bunch of trucks,” said Peter Albert, the manager of urban planning initiatives at the SFMTA. “It seems like the low hanging fruit in that whole thing was the on-street parking, so why was on-street parking for basically two dozen spaces so sacrosanct that it was forcing bicyclists to pit themselves against trucks and buses?”

Under the new designs, he said, “the bike experience is much better because you’ve got no parked cars or dooring to the right, you’ve got complete clarity on your path and the trucks don’t have to intersect with you in any way.”

The Problem with Evans

The tricky part is where Cesar Chavez intersects with Evans Avenue and turns from four lanes into five lanes. There are two options for what to do at that hairy intersection in the short-term plan.

The first would get bicyclists through the intersection by removing a westbound lane on a 600-foot stretch of Cesar Chavez just west of Evans and east of Connecticut. That would leave enough room to paint protected bike lanes, and when compared to the original Bike Plan proposal, would slightly improve traffic flow for autos. The less-than-ideal option for the intersection, which is sure to encounter opposition from bicyclists, would not include any bike lanes, and only use sharrows to guide bicyclists through. Walking advocates don’t like this option either, as it leaves no room to widen the woefully inadequate sidewalk pictured above.

The long-term proposals, part of the Eastern Cesar Chavez Community Design Plan — which covers Cesar Chavez from Hampshire to Illinois — offer a better solution. The Planning Department is proposing a cantilevered path to widen Cesar Chavez Street around the Evans Avenue intersection to accommodate a total of 4 lanes of traffic, bike lanes, and sidewalks. They also plan to present proposals for a two-way protected green cycletrack with a six-foot buffer, and another option that would offer one-way protected green bike lanes on the north and south sides with six-foot buffers.

Pedestrians Won’t See Immediate Improvements

This is what pedestrians currently have to contend with on Cesar Chavez near Mississippi. Photo: SF Planning Dept.

The new drawings for short-term options don’t address the skinny sidewalks because, unlike the road diet that was originally envisioned, the eastbound lane on eastern Cesar Chavez would not be removed. Without doing that, there is little room left on the 59-foot wide street to expand the sidewalks and build bike lanes.

Albert said a $79,000 Bay Area Quality Management District grant being used to re-stripe Cesar Chavez isn’t meant to cover widening sidewalks, but the paint will serve “as a footprint of a road we’d like to be much better in the long-term.”

“I’m confident that either one of [the short-term options] is vastly better than what we’re living with right now,” he said.

“The sidewalk has got to be fixed. In the near term, at the bare minimum, the bike lane project should set the stage for improving walking conditions,” said Elizabeth Stampe, the executive director of Walk San Francisco.

Albert said he definitely “wants to revisit with the community this whole idea of a transit line along Cesar Chavez,” and that that’s one reason why removing a traffic lane along the entire stretch doesn’t make sense right now.

Trucks, Private Autos and Pollution

The June community meeting where the audience was told the road diet was being taken off the table failed to directly relay what the underlying issue was:  industrial businesses expressing concerns that reducing road capacity would increase congestion and hurt their bottom line. David Beaupre, a senior planner at the Port of San Francisco, repeated this concern in an interview with Streetsblog yesterday.

“If we start to impact the capacity of Cesar Chavez it’s going to negatively impact the economic opportunities to that part of the city,” he explained. “It’s going to begin to push those types of businesses out of the city, which means, you know, the food distribution, the auto repair shops, the cleaning services, and people are going to have to start driving more to get their services in south city or wherever.”

Beaupre acknowledges, however, that the majority of traffic on Cesar Chavez is not trucks, but private automobiles, but said eliminating a lane could impact the transit option, because”Muni can’t run if there’s only one lane.”

As a general rule, traffic engineers consider 2 percent of all vehicle traffic to be heavy traffic, or trucks and buses. Sources told Streetsblog the SFMTA was currently gathering comprehensive traffic flow data on eastern Cesar Chavez that should give everyone a clearer idea of the traffic make-up. It’s expected to be presented at next week’s meeting.

Beaupre also expressed a concern that reducing the capacity would create more pollution because of idling trucks, and force them to divert onto quieter neighborhood streets in the Bayview. But Peggy da Silva, the educating and training manager at Veritable Vegetable, which is located on Cesar Chavez and uses a fleet of trucks to haul organic produce, said trucks face tighter air control regulations than private automobiles.

“There’s a lack of understanding in the community about trucks. People think, because they’re big, that they pollute more and they don’t necessarily. Professional drivers are also probably less of a risk to people than, you know, your average person driving down the street,” da Silva said.

The project area. Image: SF Planning Dept.

Reducing Private Auto Traffic

Da Silva said the city should prioritize the movement of goods on Cesar Chavez by reducing private vehicle traffic on the street, which would reduce air pollution and the risk of injury and “support the health of our re-emerging industrial sector in Southeast San Francisco.”

“We don’t want the trucks idling. I think that’s an agreement for all of us. Therefore, we need to make sure that the essential vehicles on this street can move,” said da Silva.

Albert, the SFMTA official, called the latest designs breakthroughs, and said he hopes the August 24 meeting can move beyond “pitting trucks against buses against bikes against pedestrians.”

“It gives us the opportunity to pilot a much better environment,” Albert said. “If it works really well, if we manage the congestion, we provide the bikes their protected path, then we can come back with confidence and say this works for the community, everybody likes this better, let’s go back and find the capital funding to make the pedestrian improvements substantial.”

The community meeting on Eastern Cesar Chavez will be held Wednesday, August 24th from 6-8 p.m. in the community room of the Good Samaritan Family Resource Center at 1294 Potrero Avenue. Download the flyer here [pdf].

Nancy Ho.

The family and friends of Nancy Ho, the 25-year-old woman who was killed by a delivery truck driver while riding her bicycle on Mission Street in SoMa last month, came together recently to honor her life. Ho’s relatives and closest friends have been too grief-stricken to talk to us, but a college friend recently sent us an announcement about her memorial in Colma that was put together for her friends in New York, where she attended NYU.

San Francisco police said Ho was traveling eastbound on Mission Street around 8:04 a.m. July 20 when she was hit by a Berkeley Farms truck while making a left turn onto Fremont Street. The truck had been traveling westbound. Lt. Troy Dangerfield said that the left turn is prohibited except for buses and taxis, and faulted Ho for the crash.

Today, a spokesperson for SFPD, Officer Albie Esparza, said the case has been closed after a determination by investigators that Ho was at fault. The driver has been cleared and is not facing charges. When asked about whether the police report could be obtained, Esparza cited California Vehicle Code 20012, which he said meant that all “accident reports” are confidential, and not available to reporters.

The California Public Records Act compels law enforcement agencies to release basic information about crashes to journalists and the public, but exempts police reports from disclosure. However, it does not prevent them from releasing reports if they so choose, but most agencies in California don’t, said Terry Francke, the executive director of Californians Aware.

Ho was a sales representative for Marriott International, a writer and a freelance web designer, according to her Google + page. She studied international business at New York University from 2004-2008.

The announcement of her memorial included this heart-wrenching remembrance:

Nancy Suyin Ho was born April 4, 1986 in Mountain View, California to Ling May Chen and Ching Yen Ho. Nancy was a loving daughter, caring sister, faithful friend and devoted girlfriend. Her many interests and talents ranged from playing tennis to practicing piano, organ and clarinet to writing murder mysteries to designing websites.

Nancy’s passion and joy for life was exemplified by her every action. She was well-read and well-informed. She always sought to share her knowledge with others, sending daily e-mails about the newest social media outlet, the state of American politics, or the world’s most expensive noodles. She was also dedicated to the preservation of the earth’s resources and active in energy conservation efforts.

Nancy led a dynamic life and was always looking to the future. She loved meeting new people and exploring different cultures. After San Francisco, she planned on living and working in every continent, eventually settling in Barcelona and opening up her own lounge – she was a live music fanatic and often spoke of creating her own sounds and beats.

What we will all remember about Nancy is her infectious smile and incredible energy. From her hot pink hair to her obsession with corned beef to her distaste for pants, Nancy lived life exactly how she wanted. Her charisma, spontaneity, and strength inspired us all.

Dionette Cherney. Photo: Caring Bridge

A 67-year-old Washington D.C. woman who was hit by a bicyclist on the Embarcadero at Mission Street last month has succumbed to her injuries. Dionette Cherney, a real estate expert who had been visiting San Francisco with her husband, was pronounced dead at 5:20 this morning, said SFPD Sgt. Mark Sullivan of the department’s hit-and-run detail.

Cherney had been a long-time volunteer for Score, a non-profit that counsels entrepreneurs and small businesses, said Arnie Westphal, a volunteer at the organization’s D.C. office.

“I really loved her,” he said. “We volunteered together for 10 years.”

Westphal said Cherney’s husband set up a page on Caring Bridge.org to keep her friends and colleagues updated on her condition. This morning, a woman named Melissa Cherney broke the news of her death online.

“We are so very sad to let you know that Didi passed away this morning,” she wrote, adding that family and close friends were by Cherney’s side at San Francisco General Hospital. “Your loving thoughts and prayers have helped so much over these terrible last four weeks. We still can’t believe that she is gone.”

Sgt. Sullivan told Streetsblog that the case is still being investigated and it will ultimately be up to the District Attorney’s office to decide what, if any, charges will be filed against the 25-year-old bicyclist who caused the July 15th collision.

Police said Cherney was walking in the crosswalk around 8:30 am that day when the bicyclist, identified only as a Bay Area man, ran a red light and struck her. He stayed at the scene and cooperated with investigators, according to reports.  Police have said that he could face the same charges that would be considered for a driver.

Pedestrian deaths caused by bicyclists are extremely rare. While drivers remain by far the greatest threat to pedestrians (811 people were injured by drivers last year, 18 people were injured by bicyclists, according to SFPD data), “the fact remains that a lot of seniors are scared by people on bikes. Ultimately, people on bikes should yield to people on foot,” said Elizabeth Stampe, the executive director of Walk San Francisco.

The mainstream media, however, usually jumps on these types of cases in an attempt to color bicyclists as rule-breaking scofflaws. The number of bicyclists in San Francisco has soared in recent years, and Market Street looks a little like Copenhagen or Amsterdam during commute hours. It’s exciting that so many people are riding bikes in the city, say advocates, but Cherney’s death is a reminder that we need more respect on the streets, especially as the numbers continue to grow.

“In some ways it’s really great that so many people out there are riding bikes and that people complain about them all the time and people perceive them as a big, powerful thing,” said Stampe. “I feel like we’re at a tipping point and that we have reached Critical Mass with bikes, and with power comes responsibility.”

Leah Shahum, the executive director at the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, said “this tragic incident is a stark reminder that everyone – whether you’re biking, driving, or walking — has an urgent responsibility to be safe and respectful on our shared streets. The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition will continue to remind the growing number of people biking of their responsibilities and rights through our popular Bike Education classes, as well as working with the police to educate all road users.”

SFMTA Board Director Cheryl Brinkman, who rides a bike and is a longtime advocate, felt compelled to write Streetsblog this morning, after hearing yesterday that Cherney was near death.

Cyclists violating the pedestrian right of way is what I hear about most often in response to any discussion about adding cycling infrastructure. It is such a tough issue; are cyclists being held to a higher standard then car drivers, or is it the nature of the violations that catch people’s attention? It’s not hard for a cyclist to stop at a crosswalk, and cyclists should treat pedestrians the way they wish car drivers would treat them, but the answer is not to wish for fewer cyclists, or to deny bike improvements. I think the answer is to add more cyclists, particularly females in their 30s, 40s, 50s and beyond.  The more women of a certain age we have out there the more we take the macho out of cycling.  We change it from the few and the brave, to an everyday mainstream activity.  As Gil Penalosa said, some of the men out there on bikes ride as if they have no family that loves them and no one that they love.

If you’ve ever been in a country with a recent surge in automobile ownership you see similar behavior.  The first drivers and owners tend to be men and they tend to drive like aggressive idiots.   We have created a culture of road warriors on bikes due to our lack of infrastructure and I think they only way to tame it is to add more bikes and more infrastructure.  That ill-behaved cyclist will not be able to violate the pedestrian right of way when he is stuck behind 20 or 30 other cyclists at the light.  And he will learn that he is part of the mainstream and there is nothing macho about riding a bike in this city. It is simply one more transportation choice, and it’s as safe as you choose to make it.

My heart goes out the family of the poor pedestrian, and I hope that we all learn from this to just slow down, to watch for the pedestrians who really are our most vulnerable road users, and to be aware that we cyclists should not be one more thing for peds to worry about.  We should be the calming influence, we should help tame speed and aggressive behavior by our very presence on the roads.