One section of the faltered plan for Second Street. Image: SFDPW

A plan for streetscape improvements on Second Street has faltered after the city agencies overseeing it neglected to implement them before dedicated funds expired.

The project that won’t receive the funds is a package including bike lanes, pedestrian safety improvements, and road repaving on Second Street between Market and King Streets.

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors, acting as the SF County Transportation Authority (SFCTA) Board, approved a measure today redistributing the expiring $4.8 million in federal funds to three other projects in order to avoid forfeiting them.

The Department of Public Works (DPW) and the SFMTA “failed to steer the project toward successful implementation,” states a memo from DPW Director Mohammed Nuru and SFMTA Director of Transportation Ed Reiskin to Jane Kim, supervisor of District 6, which includes Second Street. “While we are deeply disappointed that the project has stalled at this juncture, we want to assure you that both DPW and SFMTA are dedicated to implementing this project in the near future.”

The SFCTA, which oversees transportation financing in San Francisco, approved the funds in 2010 from a federal Congestion Management Agency Block Grant. That grant was awarded on the condition that it be spent by February 1, 2012.

But in what the SFCTA called a “surprise,” the SFMTA and DPW failed to meet that deadline after a series of communication breakdowns between the agencies. The SFCTA board called today’s special last-minute hearing to vote on a new plan to divert the funds.

According to an SFCTA document [PDF], $3.4 million of the diverted funds will go to the Cesar Chavez Streetscape Improvement Project, $948,200 to the Two-Way Haight Street Project, and $529,815 to add overhead SFGo signs on Second Street — a program aimed at facilitating wayfinding for drivers which has faced criticism for making city streets look more like freeways.

The memo details a long sequence of bureaucratic tangles, including the agencies’ failure to finish revising plans for the bike lanes on Second in response to public feedback. The bike lanes are one of 11 SF Bike Plan projects not initially greenlighted by the SFMTA Board of Directors. The SFMTA’s project revisions stalled in 2009, and DPW’s project manager was not aware the bike lanes have not been legislated.

Biking and walking advocates said that regardless of the merit of the projects now receiving the funding, the redistribution sets a dangerous precedent for protecting dedicated funds.

“While it’s a relief that city leaders are committing to advance critical pedestrian and bicycle safety improvements on Second Street, we are still deeply concerned that nearly $5 million could almost fall through the cracks,” said Leah Shahum, executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. “This should be an urgent wake-up call that city leaders must do a better job of prioritizing pedestrian and bicycle projects and working together for safer streets. As someone who worked hard to pass the [Proposition B] streets bond last fall, I worry about the city’s readiness to deliver on tens of millions of dollars of pedestrian and bicycle projects that people are clamoring for.”

Staffers from the three agencies said they were working on a new plan to fund the Second Street project, which may now cost as much as $8 million, “depend[ing] on the desired level of bike improvements that come out of the planning phase,” according to the memo. Potential funding sources include the Prop B street improvements bond, Proposition AA (a local vehicle license fee), and the federal One Bay Area Grant. Staff said they are continuing the public outreach process, and the new timeline sets project completion at no sooner than 2015.

“This isn’t about picking one project over the other,” said Walk SF President Manish Champsee. “However, I do think there is a contract, if you will, between public agencies and the public, that when the public is promised something such as pedestrian safety and walkability improvements, that those improvements do get made.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Click to enlarge.

Buffered bike lanes now run on fresh pavement on Sloat Boulevard. Photo: Mark Dreger, San Franciscoize

The six-lane speedway known as Sloat Boulevard has been somewhat tamed after Caltrans implemented a road diet last week, reclaiming two vehicle lanes for bicycles.

Long known as a virtual no-man’s-land for biking and walking, Sloat is technically a state highway that runs through the Parkside District. The stretch between 21st Avenue and Everglade Drive should be safer now, with new buffered (though unprotected) bike lanes running along the left side of parked cars and other pedestrian safety improvements.

“For too long, Sloat’s freeway-like design has been a danger to people who walk in the Sunset,” said Walk SF Executive Director Elizabeth Stampe. “This is a great step toward helping people feel safer and more comfortable walking around the Zoo, Lake Merced, and of course San Francisco State University.”

Mark Dreger first reported the installation on his new blog San Franciscoize (a spin-off of the famed beacon of bicycle culture, Copenhagenize):

This development is especially exciting because this portion of Sloat Blvd is a state highway (CA-35) under the jurisdiction of Caltrans. While California’s Department of Transportation does have a Complete Streets Program, they have a longstanding reputation of prioritizing movement of automobile traffic over other modes of transport. Nevertheless, the agency has gone ahead with enhancements to the safety and comfort of walking and bicycling on this important street and deserve some sincere credit.

With the roadway for cars now reduced by roughly 22 feet, drivers should feel less invited to speed. Caltrans also plans to reduce the speed limit in the near future from of 40 mph to 35 mph. Even by Caltrans’ automobile-centric standards, Dreger noted, ”there is not nearly enough volume to justify three lanes in each direction.”

Photo: Mark Dreger

The bike lanes are seven feet wide with four-foot buffers (seemingly plenty of room for protected bike lanes if such designs had the Caltrans stamp of approval). The improvements on Sloat also come with visible ladder-style crosswalks, painted “yield” arrows (often called “shark’s teeth”), and signage instructing drivers to yield.

“These changes are a good start,” said Stampe. “To reduce speeds further, it would help to see pedestrian islands, wider sidewalks, and some vertical additions like trees or soft-hit posts to visually narrow the street and signal to drivers that they are not, in fact, on a freeway.”

Historically, Caltrans has acted slowly to improve Sloat, particularly at the intersection of 19th Avenue – another Caltrans highway — which is commonly ranked among the most dangerous in the city. Last year, the intersection saw three vehicle crashes in which four people were injured, according to police data. Along Sloat, two pedestrians were hit by drivers last year, and in January of 2010, 54-year-old Feng Lian Zhu was killed by a driver near Forest View Drive.

The project was initiated by Caltrans after District 4 Supervisor Carmen Chu requested safety improvements on Sloat, which divides the Parkside neighborhood from Stern Grove and the Sunset District to the north.

“Congratulations to both Supervisor Chu and Caltrans for proactively reimagining a dangerous street in to one that makes walking and biking much safer and attractive, helping many more families from the neighborhood and far beyond enjoy the many wonderful destinations in this part of town,” said Kit Hodge, deputy director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition (SFBC).

While bike lanes were also striped recently on nearby Portola Drive by the SFMTA as part of the SF Bike Plan, the newest ones on Sloat fall just short of connecting with those and others planned between the Great Highway and Skyline Boulevard [PDF].

No plans to connect the gaps are known as of yet, but the SFBC is encouraging supporters to let Caltrans staff and city leaders know they appreciate complete streets improvements and that more are needed.

Photo: Mark Dreger

New "continental", ladder-style crosswalks were installed along with yield signs and arrows (out of shot). Photo: Mark Dreger

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Click to enlarge. Image: SFMTA

Click to enlarge. Image: SFMTA

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

San Francisco will soon see its first parking-protected bikeway like this one on Chicago's Kinzie Street, which was installed less than 30 days after Mayor Rahm Emanuel entered office. Photo: Josh Koonce/Flickr

Update: An explanation for the delay of the JFK bikeway project was provided by SFMTA staff below.

Protected bikeways on John F. Kennedy Drive and eastern Cesar Chavez Street will arrive in January and March respectively, San Francisco transportation planners said this week.

The parking-protected bikeway on JFK in Golden Gate Park, previously slated to be installed this month, has been pushed back to January, according to an email update from SFMTA Livable Streets Division Planner Miriam Sorell. The reason for the delay, which is not the project’s first, was to mitigate construction impacts on the neighboring de Young Museum and California Academy of Sciences during a peak season, she said.

Delaying construction has also allowed the SFMTA to perform more outreach and “refine design details through additional meetings with stakeholders regarding concerns raised by members of the disability community and pedestrian safety advocates,” said Sorell.

On eastern Cesar Chavez Street, a bikeway separated from motor vehicles by soft-hit posts is also due to be installed in March, SFCTA Deputy Director for Policy and Planning Anna Laforte told the SFCTA Plans and Programs Committee yesterday. It will arrive the same month as a two-way bikeway on Cargo Way in Hunter’s Point.

Laforte also said the Cesar Chavez project, which was re-drawn after a previous iteration was dropped, will include colored pavement treatment at “conflict zones,” mainly at intersections.

Last weekend, the SFMTA also held a public workshop for the protected bikeway project on Fell and Oak Streets, drawing input from hundreds of attendees. That project is expected to be implemented by summer.

Photo: Mark Dreger/Flickr

SFMTA crews were out striping bike lanes on Portola Drive today from O’Shaughnessy Boulevard to St. Francis Circle. The new lanes complement those striped on the rest of the street in recent months.

Streetsblog reader and Portola resident Mark Dreger reported spotting the crews this morning, noting that the project will provide a bicycling connection “on a street with no good parallel alternative for bicycling.”

Portola, which runs alongside Twin Peaks, is a road fraught with harrowing high-speed car traffic. It’s also the only direct road connecting the west end of Market Street to the intersection of Sloat Boulevard and West Portal Avenue, also known as St. Francis Circle, in the Parkside neighborhood.

The new bike lanes should provide some room for a more comfortable ride. The reduced width of the other traffic lanes, noted Dreger, “should also serve to traffic calm the street a bit.”

The project is part [PDF] of the San Francisco Bike Plan currently being rolled out by the SFMTA. The lanes connect with a buffered bikeway striped on Laguna Honda Boulevard in February, which connects to the Inner Sunset and areas north.

More photos after the break.

Photo: Mark Dreger/Flickr

Photo: Mark Dreger/Flickr

Photo: Mark Dreger/Flickr

Crews perform sewer work on Cesar Chavez, a prelude to streetscape changes scheduled for completion in 2013. Photos: Aaron Bialick

Construction on the Cesar Chavez Sewer and Streetscape Improvement Project will be completed a few months behind schedule in summer 2013, according to the SF Department of Public Works.

DPW’s Kris Opbroek said the streetscape portion will begin in the spring as completion of the sewer work moves west. When finished, the project will transform Cesar Chavez Street, from Hampshire to Guerrero Streets, with a wide planted median, bicycle lanes, and pedestrian safety improvements.

City staff and construction crews showcased the site last Friday as Mayor Ed Lee, who formerly headed the DPW, paid a visit to the project. It’s the largest yet under the city’s Great Streets Program, which has completed six streetscape projects since it began in 2005 and has another nine in the pipeline or under construction, according to a press release from the mayor’s office. Cesar Chavez, budgeted at $35.2 million, is the biggest project funded by the Great Streets Program to date.

The SFMTA is also developing plans for bike lanes on the eastern side of Cesar Chavez, just across “The Hairball”, after the mayor’s office pressured the agency into dropping a previous iteration of the plan in June.

Crew members on break.

Staff tour the construction site.

Construction will continue moving west.

The construction's occupation of vehicle lanes has put Cesar Chavez on a de facto road diet.

Image: SFMTA

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

See the rest of the items on the agenda here.

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.”

Image: SFMTA

When traffic engineers from the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) invited the public to weigh in on the design of Golden Gate Park’s first separated bikeway on John F. Kennedy (JFK) Drive last night, the discussion wasn’t dominated by complaints about losing car parking. Instead, the room was filled with citizens eager to see JFK Drive finally transformed into a road safe enough for their even children to cycle on, whether they felt the proposals would achieve that or not.

Attendees mulled over the multiple questions presented by SFMTA staff around how the physically-protected bikeway should best be designed: A two-way cycle-track, or two separate one-way bikeways on either side of the road? Should the bikeway be protected by parked cars, or does a striped buffer provide enough separation?

In his presentation [PDF], SFMTA Project Manager Antonio Piccagli explained that a two-way cycle track, which would require less buffer space than the alternative, would leave more room for a protective parking lane along the bikeway. However, he said, it also holds more potential for conflicts with drivers and could be difficult for riders to enter it at the intersections where it begins.

Image: SFMTA

Image: SFMTA

By a show of hands, community members favored separated one-way cycle tracks by a slim margin, but the written feedback still needs to be counted and many design details still have to be worked out.

For some long-time bike advocates, the project raises long-standing issues around the fundamental flaws in JFK Drive’s design. San Francisco historian and SF Bicycle Coalition co-founder Joel Pomerantz argued that if JFK is to be substantially improved, the car traffic speeding through at peak commute hours can not go unaddressed.

“We should be leaping at opportunities, not apologizing for taking out a few parking spaces,” said Pomerantz. “It would help more and cost less to make JFK not a through street. We shouldn’t be considering such few options.”

Another man, supporting Pomerantz’s view, explained that Fell Street being “aimed right at Golden Gate Park” made the road a commuter route for drivers. “About twenty years ago during [the development of] the Golden Gate Park Master Plan, there were a number of motorists who said that they deliberately wanted to drive through Golden Gate Park on JFK because they enjoyed driving through a nice park area,” he said.

“But the fact that they’re doing so damages the park experience, and the Master Plan utterly failed to deal with that.”

Others, excited about what would potentially be the city’s first parking-protected cycle track, argued the project should be supported as the first of many more to come. SFMTA Transportation Planner Dustin White explained that by narrowing the roadway, the cycle track itself could have a traffic-calming effect and said further measures could only be included in a future project.

“We hear you,” said White. “I’m just letting you know that the scope of this project is gonna look at a bikeway facility on JFK Drive, and that’s it.”

The SF Bicycle Coalition hasn’t taken an official stance on any particular design option but strongly supports the project.

“There’s great support for creating separated bikeways on JFK Drive,” said Executive Director Leah Shahum, ”because this stretch of Golden Gate Park is such an important part of the Bay-to-the-Beach bicycle route, which carries tens of thousands of people biking every day.”

“This is one big step toward making the park more inviting and safe for people bicycling and walking, and we look forward to even more steps down the road.”

The SFMTA plans to refine the design and present it at a meeting August 16. The project is expected to be on the ground in December, something the Mayor promised during a Bike to Work Day press conference.

An example of the various options for the proposed designs. Image: SFMTA

A two-way cycle track would present a peculiar problem for riders entering it at the end points, or "boundary intersections". Image: SFMTA

Neighbors celebrate traffic calming measures on Lake Street on May 23, 1971. Photo courtesy of Ann Diaz via sfbike

On May 23, 1971, while 2,000 runners were racing to the finish in the 60th annual Bay to Breakers (the first year women were allowed), a diverse group of neighbors, most of them on bicycles, gathered on Lake Street to celebrate a first for San Francisco: freshly striped bike lanes. Neighbors had been demanding traffic calming measures on their street, and requested that the San Francisco Department of Public Works put in stop signs and bike lanes.

“What the citizens were most aroused about were the vehicular speeds,” according to a 1971 DPW document [pdf] obtained from the archive of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. The writer of that document noted that “75-100″ neighbors had turned out at a community meeting on January 28, 1971, to voice their concerns.

In a process that took nearly six months (lightning speed by current-day standards), what was then known as the Fire, Safety and Police Committee of the Board of Supervisors approved the traffic calming measures and the stop signs in March of that year. San Francisco’s first on-street bike lanes were installed on Sunday, May 23, 1971.

Photo courtesy of Ann Diaz via sfbike

Old photos of the celebration recently turned over to the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition show groups of happy bicyclists in their everyday attire. Men, women and children on foot and in strollers can be seen playing in the street, along with a marching band.  As one bike advocate noted, “sousaphones outnumbered helmets.” That’s because bicycle helmets didn’t exist. The weather forecast for that day was typical: fair skies except low clouds along the coast.

At the time, the bicycle was surging in popularity. Across the country, sales of bicycles doubled. A DPW document from December 7, 1971 [pdf] acknowledged San Francisco’s “great upsurge in bicycle popularity,” but concluded that “it is too soon to determine whether or not it will signal a new era in transportation.”

As Zack Furness pointed out in his book, “One Less Car,” utilitarian cycling in the U.S. “became a more attractive option for many city dwellers and bike advocacy became an effective way to articulate those needs and desires.” It’s no surprise, then, that later that year a group of people formed what would become one of the nation’s oldest bicycle advocacy organizations: The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. (Check out this piece in the SFBC’s Tube Times [pdf] that chronicles the organization’s history).

One other noteworthy tidbit from the time was that the day after the Lake Street celebration, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved “the city’s first bicycle parking space in the huge, underground Civic Center garage,” according to a May 25, 1971 article in the San Francisco Examiner [pdf]. The board voted to charge bicyclists 25 cents, something then-Board President Dianne Feinstein “expressed reservations about,” because “we’re trying to encourage people to use bicycles.”

Special thanks to Mike Sallabery of the SFMTA for digging up the old documents for our readers. Enjoy the photos and the pdfs!

Photo courtesy of Ann Diaz via sfbike

Photo courtesy of Ann Diaz via sfbike

Photo courtesy of Ann Diaz via sfbike

A bike map from December, 1971. At the time, there were 7.5 miles of "commuter routes," and 14.5 miles of "recreational routes." The Lake Street bike lanes were considered a recreational route. Click to enlarge.

Freshly installed "green-backed" sharrows on Market across Van Ness Avenue. Photos: Bryan Goebel

SFMTA crews are continuing the “green branding” of Market Street, installing “green-backed” sharrows for people who ride bikes across several different intersections headed eastbound between Octavia Boulevard and 10th Street.

Fifteen green shared lane markings have appeared on eastbound Market at Van Ness Avenue and 10th Street, with another 5 expected to go in soon between Octavia and Gough. In addition to helping guide bicyclists across intersections to connect with green bike lanes, the color is meant to raise the visibility of the sharrows for drivers.

“The new green sharrows are another notable improvement to the bicycling environment on Market Street, which more people are riding and appreciating than ever,” said Leah Shahum, the executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. “We hope to see the bigger, bolder green sharrows continued down the rest of Market Street now to help ensure the entire riding experience on our most well-used bicycling street is improved.”

What do you think of the new green-backed sharrows? More photos below the break.

The new green-backed sharrows approaching 10th Street.

Photo: Aaron Bialick

In post-bike injunction San Francisco, the SF Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) is gearing up to install some of the final bicycle projects held up in the Bike Plan for several years.

The agency’s efforts will likely get another shot in the arm after a grant was approved today by the SF Board of Supervisors City Operations and Neighborhood Services Committee. Although the SFMTA’s Bicycle Program would ultimately be better served by a system of dedicated revenue streams, it’s one more step towards catching up with improvements that should have begun rolling out five years ago.

“The landscape for bicycle projects is changing quite rapidly since the injunction’s been lifted,” said Oliver Gajda of the SFMTA’s Sustainable Streets Division, who pointed to downtown bike lanes on 2nd, 5th, Fremont, and Howard Streets as well as a cycle track on Innes Avenue near Hunter’s Point as some of the priority projects that could benefit from the grant.

Bosworth Street in Glen Park, where bike lanes were installed as part of the Bike Plan. Photo: Aaron Bialick

The funds come from the state’s Transportation Development Act, which allocates some money to pedestrian and bicycle projects. Once cleared by the full Board of Supervisors, $355,000 would go to the SFMTA for “various pedestrian and bicycle projects” along with $341,000 for the Department of Public Works to fix sidewalks and build wheelchair-accessible curb ramps.

The SFMTA Bicycle Program has compiled a schedule of completed and upcoming projects on their website. Work has begun on Portola Drive and the Alemany Boulevard cycle track, while streets next in line for improvements include Potrero Avenue from 25th to Cesar Chavez Streets, Sagamore Street and Sickles Avenue by the Daly City Border, and the notoriously harrowing Bayshore Boulevard.

By the end of the year, Golden Gate Park is set to receive the city’s first parking-protected cycle track. By summer’s end, the SFMTA expects to stripe bicycle lanes in nearly every part of the city from Phelan Avenue by the City College main campus to John Muir Drive by Lake Merced to Illinois Street along the eastern waterfront.

That should be welcome news to D11 Supervisor John Avalos, who said the city’s outer neighborhoods seem to be neglected when it comes to bike improvements.

“I often see that a great deal of the resources go in the center part of the city and fewer go out towards the Excelsior, Sunset, and [Visitacion] Valley,” said Avalos. “To the extent that we’re able to re-prioritize and make things happen out that way, I think we’d be hitting our goals of being a transit-first city.”

Crews striped the first stretch today eastbound from Rousseau Street to Justin Drive. Photo: Aaron Bialick

Alemany Boulevard will soon be dramatically safer for cycling as SFMTA crews began striping the city’s newest stretch of buffered bike lanes today.

Despite acting as a vital connection between the Glen Park and Bayview neighborhoods, this stretch of Alemany between Rousseau Street and Bayshore Boulevard [pdf] has long been uninviting for people who bike without any protection from drivers traveling at dangerously high speeds.

“Alemany Boulevard is such an important connector in the city, and with these new bikeways we will see even more people riding comfortably to work or school or the farmers market or simply for fun,” said San Francisco Bicycle Coalition Executive Director Leah Shahum.

The section has long reinforced the 280 freeway as a gouge through the city’s southeastern neighborhoods with a vast, parallel six-lane roadway. The new bike lanes, which will be separated from motor vehicles by safe-hit posts and a striped buffer as wide as nine feet, will provide residents a more accessible route to destinations like the thriving Alemany Farmer’s Market and bike routes toward downtown San Francisco.

“The bike lanes have eight-foot lanes here. This is good, cause these cars are flyin’ down here,” said the project foreman as crews striped the first stretch from Rousseau Street to Justin Drive.

The bike lanes will connect with existing lanes on Alemany to the west and link to the Glen Park BART station. However, to the east of Putnam Street as Alemany passes underneath the 101 freeway, the bike lanes will disappear, and turn into sharrows.

Crew members said they expect to finish the project this week. See more photos after the break.

Photo: Aaron Bialick

The west end at Rousseau Street where the existing bike lanes end. Photo: Aaron Bialick

A rider navigates around the construction zone. Photo: Aaron Bialick

Just east of today's addition. Notice the dark preliminary lines marking the stripe placement. Photo: Aaron Bialick

Passing underneath the 101 freeway where only sharrows will be added. Photo: Aaron Bialick

The approach towards Bayshore Boulevard on the east end of the route. Photo: Aaron Bialick

Preliminary markings westbound on the north side of the 280 freeway. Photo: Aaron Bialick

The improvements will make it easier to get to the Alemany Farmer's Market without a car. Photo: Aaron Bialick

This stretch of road between the 101 freeway and the farmer's market is apparently so dangerous the sidewalk needed to be barricaded. Unfortunately, it will only receive sharrows. Photo: Aaron Bialick

Bayshore Boulevard, the natural shoreline of San Francisco. Photo: Aaron Bialick

These bike lanes on Bosworth Street connect bike commuters from Alemany to the Glen Park BART station. Photo: Aaron Bialick

A Bike-and-Roll rental station in front of the Hyatt Regency at Market and Spear.

I’ve been bicycling in San Francisco since the late 1970s so I vividly remember when almost all bicyclists could recognize each other on the streets of the city. There really weren’t that many of us even as recently as the beginning of the 1990s, just two decades ago. We’ve come a long way, and one of the less recognized aspects of this bicycling boom has been the incredible expansion of bike rentals and bicycling tourism.

I wrote a flyer back in 1986 calling for a “City of Panhandles” and one of the arguments I made in that largely unnoticed document was that a systematic effort to provide safe, separate bikeways crisscrossing the City would itself lead to a tourism boom. As it turns out, we’re experiencing a dramatic increase in tourists cycling even before we provide adequate infrastructure. San Francisco is just an incredibly beautiful place, and people come from all over the world to experience its beauty. Growing numbers of those visitors aren’t much interested in seeing it through windshields and are opting instead (or in addition) to rent bicycles.

There are three “big” companies doing bike rentals in SF: Bike and Roll, Blazing Saddles, and Bay City Bikes (a number of smaller places, like the BikeHut at Pier 40, also rent bikes). I recently spoke with Darryll White, owner of Bike and Roll, and he gave me some impressive aggregate numbers. Since 1995 the local bicycle rental business has grown from about $500,000 a year to over $10 million! The remarkable thing about this huge increase in tourist cycling is that about 90 percent of the rentals are heading to the Golden Gate Bridge and to Sausalito, where the City Council has erupted into battles over bike parking vs. car parking, even pondering charging fees to touring bicyclists. The Golden Gate Ferry service keeps at least four of its ferry runs going to accommodate the cycling tourists, which have hit peaks of 2,500 per day during recent summer months.

Blazing Saddles rents bikes and go-carts from its Hyde Street facility near Fisherman's Wharf.

This past Wednesday I was buying food at the Heart of the City Farmers’ Market in UN Plaza and lo and behold, a mini-mass of 9 cyclists went rolling by on Market, heading westward. All of them were on Bike and Roll bikes, and I stopped to marvel at the sight. Imagine if there was a dedicated bikeway up Market that connected cyclists all the way to the Pacific Ocean? Talk about a tourist attraction! And since it would go right by the Haight-Ashbury, the museums in the park, as well as the Civic Center, imagine how heavily trafficked by cyclists from out of town this will be.

As it happens the SF Bike Coalition is now promoting a plan to Connect The City, a version of crosstown bikeways, including a dedicated bikeway that runs from the Embarcadero to the Pacific Ocean by way of Market Street, the Wiggle, and Golden Gate Park. It’s a wonder that the politically powerful tourism industry hasn’t thrown their weight behind it yet. The bicycle renaissance going on across the world has an important connection to San Francisco (Critical Mass was born here in 1992) and thousands of cyclists come here for the beauty, the food, and the politics. If San Francisco were creating dedicated bikeways, and presenting itself as a bicycling capital, tourism from near and far would only increase that much more.

The big three maintain a fleet of approximately 3500-4000 bikes and employ on average one mechanic per 100 bikes to keep those bikes rolling. New bike shops continue to open around town, showcasing the bicycle as one of the few growing business sectors that doesn’t require its workers to sit in front of computers all day, mining pixels. Commuters, messengers, and recreational riders have already radically expanded the use of our common public space by bicycles during the last twenty years. The challenge now is to really redesign the city’s streets to make safe, horticulturally and artistically designed bikeways as common as thoroughfares for cars. I’m not a big fan of capitalism or business, but it’s pretty obvious that if we build a beautiful system of bike boulevards, bicyclists will come to ride them by the tens of thousands. When they do, they spend a lot of money and keep a lot of our local economy going.

What could be simpler? Transform a citywide network of streets to promote daily bicycling, promote it to the global tourism industry, and get ready for the boom, doubling and tripling the huge expansion we’ve already seen. It would create good, local jobs to remake the streets (design, reconstruction, gardening, maintenance), more to accommodate the increase in local cycling (retail stores, rentals, bikesharing facilities, workshops), and then a further increase as the tourists pour in to cycle across San Francisco’s beautiful landscape (tour guides, rentals, mechanics, restaurants, hotels, cafes)… Whatever diminishing of car and gasoline sales might occur would be more than made up for by an ecologically healthy, economically relocalized, bicycle-centric boom that increases San Francisco’s global profile as a trendsetter and a tourist destination.

The standard bike lanes on Valencia Street place riders in a dangerous spot right alongside moving cars. Photo: Bryan Goebel

An unidentified man in his late twenties was rushed to San Francisco General Hospital after falling off his bike and being run over by a minivan in the Mission District Wednesday evening.

San Francisco police confirmed the 7:30 pm crash on Valencia Street between 17th and 18th Streets. According to eyewitness Brooke DuBose, the rider was traveling in the bike lane when he appeared to lose control of his bicycle and fall in front of the passing vehicle, which apparently ran over his torso and head. The driver stopped and he and his family were visibly distraught. The victim was wearing a helmet.

“This was one of those situations where nobody was at fault, and even on one of our best bike corridors in the city, the design is still not safe enough,” said DuBose, who works as a bicycle transportation planner.

“When I saw what happened, and how close this person came to dying just bicycling home,” she thought, “we just need to build our streets so much better than they are now.”

The rider appeared to be reaching into his rear pocket when he lost control, said DuBose. Police and ambulances arrived within minutes, and police said a citation was issued to the driver for not having a license. A police spokesperson would only say the man’s condition was “non-life threatening.”

As Streetsblog has written before, dangerous street conditions can often play the biggest role in the root cause of vehicle crashes that cause injuries and fatalities.

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition is calling for a physically separated bikeway on Valencia Street in its Connecting the City campaign that could reduce the risk presented to bicyclists by automobiles.

The victim likely wouldn't be in the hospital had he fallen on a bikeway like this one in Aarhus, Denmark. Photo: Aaron Bialick

]]> http://sf.streetsblog.org/2011/04/15/a-bicycle-riders-crash-on-valencia-street-and-a-failure-of-design/feed/ 69 http://sf.streetsblog.org/2011/03/31/17th-street-flourishes-with-bicycle-traffic-as-sfmta-extends-bike-lanes/ http://sf.streetsblog.org/2011/03/31/17th-street-flourishes-with-bicycle-traffic-as-sfmta-extends-bike-lanes/#comments Thu, 31 Mar 2011 19:43:45 +0000 Aaron Bialick http://sf.streetsblog.org/?p=265347 [...]]]>

17th Street west, between Valencia and Treat. Photo: Aaron Bialick

Seventeenth Street seems like it is quickly on its way to becoming one of the city’s busiest bicycle routes, and with SFMTA crews extending the bike lanes east of Valencia this week, it’ll be even more cycle-friendly.

New lanes were partially striped from Valencia to Treat Streets yesterday, and the section from Potrero to Kansas is planned this week as well, the SFMTA Bicycle Program said on its Facebook page. The overall project includes bike lanes along the entire stretch of 17th Street from Corbett to Kansas as part of the Bike Plan.

The remaining section from Treat to Potrero “will come at a later date, assuming approval of a number of parking changes to make room for bike lanes in this narrow stretch,” the SFMTA said.

The project [pdf] calls for replacing 199 parking spaces between Valencia and Kansas Streets with safer curbside bike lanes. However, the configuration that’s being put on the ground from Valencia to Treat Street was a compromise from the original plan to retain on-street parking on that section, said SFMTA spokesperson Paul Rose. Those lanes were striped between parked and moving motor traffic instead, but between Potrero and Kansas Streets, a parking lane was replaced with a bike lane as planned.

Nonetheless, at least a dozen riders per minute could be seen around 7:00 pm yesterday on 17th Street heading westbound at Folsom. It’s a noticeable increase since last month when the first section of bike lanes were striped from Church to Valencia. Considering the importance of this vital east-west connection between the Mission and the Castro, the jump isn’t a huge surprise.

The SFMTA’s latest bicycle counts in 2010 [pdf] show 771 bikes passing though 17th Street at Valencia between 5:00 – 6:30 pm, a 27 percent increase over the previous year. Since 2006, traffic has jumped 75 percent, all without any added infrastructure.

Bike lane additions have consistently caused a jump in bike traffic as high as 300 percent.

17th Street, east between Valencia and Treat. Photo: Aaron Bialick

The same section of street as laid out in the plan. Instead of replacing the parking lane with a bike lane, the SFMTA squeezed it into the door zone. Image: SFMTA

]]> http://sf.streetsblog.org/2011/03/31/17th-street-flourishes-with-bicycle-traffic-as-sfmta-extends-bike-lanes/feed/ 11 http://sf.streetsblog.org/2011/03/30/in-ideal-weather-sfmta-crews-install-bike-boxes-on-market-and-van-ness/ http://sf.streetsblog.org/2011/03/30/in-ideal-weather-sfmta-crews-install-bike-boxes-on-market-and-van-ness/#comments Wed, 30 Mar 2011 23:56:04 +0000 Bryan Goebel http://sf.streetsblog.org/?p=265298 [...]]]>

Photos: Bryan Goebel

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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