Streetsblog San Francisco

The SFMTA laid down preliminary markings for the Oak Street protected bike lane yesterday, and says it aims to have it ready by Bike to Work Day next Thursday. Photo: Aaron Bialick

Crews erected the bicycle counter on Market Street earlier this week. Photo: SFMTA

The SFMTA expects to have the protected bike lane on Oak Street and the Market Street bicycle counter ready on Bike to Work Day — next Thursday, May 9 — according to agency staff.

As we reported Wednesday, construction on the three-block Oak bike lane has been held up by renovation work at the Kelly-Moore paint shop. However, the agency apparently found a way to work around it, and yesterday laid down the first markings for the bike lane buffer zone on Oak between Baker and Broderick Streets. “Crews are trying to get the work completed by Bike to Work Day,” said Ben Jose, public information officer for the agency’s Livable Streets subdivision. “But at this point we are not certain that given all the work to be done, it will be totally completed.”

Meanwhile, the bicycle counter has been erected on Market between Ninth and Tenth Streets, and is being calibrated. SFMTA spokesperson Paul Rose said it will start counting bicycle traffic at its official unveiling on Bike to Work Day.

Photo: Aaron Bialick

The protected bike lane on Oak Street may not be constructed until some time after May 19, when the permit for renovation work on the Kelly-Moore paint shop on the corner of Oak and Divisadero Street ends, according to planners from the SF Muncipal Transportation Agency. Because the permit allows the paint shop to occupy the parking lane where the bike lane will go, the bike lane can’t be completed until after it’s done, agency staff said.

The project was originally promised this past winter, then delayed to February. SFMTA planners said they are now looking at ways to work around the renovation to start preliminary work on the bike lane, but that the agency’s hands are largely tied until it’s finished. Agency staff also said the paint shop owners have indicated they’re unlikely to need an extension of the permit.

The main cause of the delay seems to be of lack of coordination between the SFMTA and the Department of Public Works, which issues permits to occupy street space for construction.

SFMTA staff has said that unlike the Fell lane, installing the Oak bike lane will require crews to re-stripe all of the traffic lanes on the three-block stretch, in order to fit it into the street’s geometry.

The SF Bicycle Coalition is counting, down to the second, how long it's taking city agencies to install safety upgrades on Fell and Oak Streets.

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In January 2011, David Chiu rode on Polk Street and said the expansion of protected bikeways was his top transportation priority. Photo: Bryan Goebel

Supervisor David Chiu has paid more lip service to making San Francisco a bike-friendly city than any other politician in recent years. Yet even as the SFMTA backs away from protected bike lanes on Polk Street — which not only lies partially in Chiu’s District 3, but also serves as his own bike commute route to City Hall — San Franciscans have yet to see the Board of Supervisors president stand behind the vision he’s touted.

Chiu has taken just about every opportunity to portray himself as City Hall’s champion for bike-friendly streets. During his short stint as acting mayor in January 2011, he invited the press and bike advocates to join him on a ride down Polk to City Hall, where he told Streetsblog that his top transportation priority “is ensuring that we’re expanding our bike network, starting with Market Street, but through all of the major thoroughfares in San Francisco, creating what I think of as bike thoroughfares that we can use to easily get folks around the city.”

But when it comes to the actual decisions that shape the city’s streets, Chiu hasn’t backed up his rhetoric with action. As soon as the Polk Street redesign hit a political rough patch, drawing fire from merchants with a cars-first mentality, Chiu had no bold words about making SF more bike-friendly. Instead of setting the record straight when merchants spread misinformation about the project and throwing his support behind a real-life protected bike lane proposal, Chiu said he had not taken a position.

So perhaps it’s fitting that while the SFMTA holds two high-profile public meetings about the Polk Street project, Chiu is absent, on a study trip to Israel. His office has yet to respond to Streetsblog’s request to weigh in on the current state of the Polk Street project, and the news that protected bike lanes are no longer under consideration for most of the corridor.

At a November forum about how San Francisco can follow in the footsteps of Copenhagen, Chiu himself provided an apt description of the political state of bike policy in the city: “I think we have a little bit of a politically correct culture at this moment of a lot of elected officials who say the right things when it comes to our commitment towards biking, but I don’t think we’re pushing the edge.”

For Chiu to pass his own litmus test, he’ll have to show some courage at times like this — when the future of a major street is actually at stake — not just at pro-bike rallies. This is the only time when championing safer streets really counts.

It’s Bike to School Week. That’s right — the burgeoning event is no longer confined to a single day.

Walter and son rode to Buena Vista Horace Mann school this morning. Photo: SFBC/Flickr

Over 2,500 kids and adults at 52 schools are expected to participate, up from 40 schools last year, according to the SF Bicycle Coalition, which coordinates the event. SFBC Communications Director Kristin Smith said organizers expanded the event to a full week to ”make it easier for more schools to participate.”

“With standardized testing and other school activities, some schools were not able to participate on the single day, so transforming Bike to School Day into Bike to School Week ensured we could get more kids, parents and teachers on bikes,” she said.

An SFBC news release [PDF] highlighted the recent successes at Grattan Elementary in Cole Valley, which has seen major increases in biking and walking, coupled with a reduction in driving, since the Safe Routes to School program began holding regular events like “Carbon Free Fridays” to encourage students and parents to change their transport habits:

Since 2010, when Grattan Elementary school started working with Safe Routes to School, the elementary school has decreased the number of single vehicles dropping off kids from 60% to 47% of all morning and afternoon trips. In just last year, they reduced the car trips by 8.5%. In the last year, Grattan has also seen a 4.5% increase in the number of students walking and biking to school, and 34% of their students participated in Bike to School Day. This decrease in car trips and increase in biking is helping San Francisco meet its official goal of 20% of trips by bike by 2020.

Last year’s Bike to School Day saw an estimated 2,000 participants, and that was on a rainy day, so the jump in kids cycling this year could be huge. Can we get a bike counter at every school to get an accurate measurement?

Photo: SFBC/Flickr

Images: SFMTA

The SF Municipal Transportation Agency is pondering the most effective way to improve the city’s bicycle network in the coming years as it rolls out its Bicycle Strategy: Should planners focus bicycle improvements on dangerous and stressful spots throughout the city, or focus on upgrading major bike corridors to the highest quality of comfort first?

Tim Papandreou, deputy director of transportation planning for the SFMTA Sustainable Streets Division, posed the question to the SFMTA Board of Directors Policy and Governance Committee today, presenting a color-coded map showing the level of stress posed by traffic conditions at almost any given spot on the city’s official bicycle network.

On one end of the spectrum, spots that are comfortable for most anyone aged eight to 80 to ride a bike were colored with a deep blue. On the other, high-stress spots that are “tolerated only by the ‘strong and fearless’” were marked with a deep red. Needless to say, the map had lots of red, and very little blue.

The “primary corridors” include popular bicycling streets like Market, Polk, Folsom, San Jose, and the Embarcadero. “That’s where the majority of people are already cycling, and that’s where the majority of people will increase their cycling as well,” said Papandreou.

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The pomp and circumstance for the most recent effort to mandate a 3-feet passing distance for cars overtaking bicyclists is noticeably more quiet than the past two years. Whatever the reason, perhaps cyclists aren’t willing to get their hopes up again after Governor Jerry Brown’s two incoherent veto messages in 2012 and 2011, the statewide cycling movement doesn’t seem as revved up this time around. Even the “Give Me 3” website created by the California Bike Coalition for the specific reason of passing such legislation has not been updated to mention 2013′s AB 1371 by Assembly Member Steven Bradford (D-Gardena).

Take 3.

However, all of that is starting to change. On Sunday, Bradford will stand with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who had backed a safe passing law following his own bike crash in 2010, and hundreds of cyclists at the “opening” of CicLAvia to call for the legislature and Governor to act quickly to make a three foot passing law a reality in California. On Monday, the Assembly Transportation Committee will hear AB 1371, the bill’s first step on its way to becoming a law.

“I am thrilled to join Mayor Villaraigosa at CicLAvia which will, for the first time, come to the 62nd District by way of Venice,” Bradford said. “This is a great event to raise awareness of cyclists’ right to ride safely on our city streets, and this bill will do the same.”

An SFBC rendering of the bike counter coming to Market Street's eastbound approach to Ninth Street.

San Francisco will get its first bicycle traffic counter within the next month. The SF Municipal Transportation Agency Board of Directors sealed the deal yesterday on a bike counter for Market Street between Ninth and Tenth Streets.

The Market Street bicycle counter. Image: SFMTA

Bike counters, which have been installed on major cycling streets in cities like Copenhagen, Portland, Seattle, and Montreal, help the city get an accurate count of bike traffic and promote bicycling by showing that number on a digital display. Every time someone bikes by, the number ticks up. SF’s bike counter will show daily and annual counts of how many people have biked on eastbound Market approaching Ninth.

“The installation of this innovative bicycle barometer comes at a critical moment in San Francisco,” said SFMTA Director Ed Reiskin in a statement. “As more and more San Franciscans are using a bicycle as part of their everyday commute, this visual bike counter will raise awareness of the positive impact bicycling has on traffic congestion, air quality and personal health.”

“I think this will go a long way to make the case for why significant improvements are needed on Market Street,” said Leah Shahum, executive director of the SF Bicycle Coalition.

The SFBC is hoping the SFMTA will install the counter by Bike to Work Day on May 9 to showcase the growing bike traffic on Market, which is one of the busiest bicycling streets in the nation, said Shahum. Manual bike traffic counts from the SFMTA have shown a 98 percent increase from 2006 and 2011, with 750 eastbound bike riders traveling along Market at Fifth Street in one hour on an average weekday morning, she said.

Come Bike to Work Day, said Shahum, “I think we’ll see some pretty astronomical numbers.”

The counter is partially funded by a $20,000 grant from Kongregate, a locally-based online gaming company. The other $50,000 will come from SFMTA operating funds, according to an agency document [PDF], and the Central Market Community Benefit District will maintain the counter.

“This will be a fun opportunity to measure ourselves against the other great biking cities in America,” noted Shahum. “I have a hunch that San Francisco’s going to hold it down.”

Evening commute traffic on Market approaching Valencia Street. Photo: Aaron Bialick

Valencia Street. Photo: Aaron Bialick

Amsterdam. Photo: Preservation Institute Blog

I was recently rolling down the 14th Street bike lane when a man standing on the far side of the Guerrero Street intersection flagged down a taxi that had just passed by me. I saw where this was going: The taxi driver stopped next to the bike lane, and the man stepped quickly into it to open the door, without a glance to check for bicycle traffic.

Fortunately, I was prepared to slow my downhill descent and make a safe stop well before running into this man, but not without feeling some fight-or-flight adrenaline. The man and the driver looked at me speechlessly when I said, “Seriously? Have a safe day,” before continuing on.

Dangerous and frustrating situations like that are a routine part of using San Francisco’s bike lanes. In fact, since the vast majority are striped between parked cars and moving cars, or curbside without protection from traffic, taxis are actually legally allowed — and instructed — to stop in the bike lane if there’s no better place to pull over.

Marc Caswell, program manager for the SF Bicycle Coalition, teaches a class for the SF Municipal Transportation Agency where taxi driver applicants learn the law and best practices on how to negotiate with bicycles. If no parking spot is available, or it’s not practical to pull around the corner, Caswell tells students that loading in the bike lane is the safest and most legal option, compared to directing taxi passengers to step into the bike lane.

“If there is not a bus stop, there is not a fire hydrant, there is not a side street, and the driver does need to pull over and pick up or drop off, say, on a busy corridor even like Valencia Street, [loading in the bike lane] is legal and it is the safest thing to do,” said Caswell. He did note, however, that drivers legally “can’t stay there, they can’t double park there.”

A taxi driver unloads a passenger into rush hour bike traffic at Market and Gough Streets. Photo: Aaron Bialick

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