Streetsblog San Francisco

A bicycle left-turn queue will be created in part of the sidewalk on westbound Market Street to the right of the bike lane (where the curb cut is), along with a left-turn bicycle traffic signal. Photo: Aaron Bialick

Construction will begin in October on a fix for the dangerous turn for bicyclists from Market onto Valencia Streets, according to city planners.

As Streetsblog reported last June, a plan [PDF] to install a left-turn bicycle queue lane and traffic signal at the intersection was approved in the SF Bike Plan, but it was unknown when it could be implemented. Ben Stupka, a planner at the SF County Transportation Authority, told the agency’s board of directors yesterday that the SF Municipal Transportation Agency and Department of Public Works are expected to install it next month.

The SFMTA's plan for Market and Valencia. The turn pocket is at the top center of this illustration. "Bicycle signal heads" would be installed at points "C" and "E".

The intersection of Market and Valencia Streets, two of the most heavily-used bicycling streets in the city, saw the second-highest number of car-bike crashes from 2009 to 2011, with a total of 13, according to the SFMTA’s most recent collision report [PDF]. At the top of the list was Market and Octavia Boulevard, one short block to the west, with 21 crashes.

Currently, there are few safe and convenient ways for bicycle commuters to turn from westbound Market onto southbound Valencia. Many bolder riders merge into the vehicular left-turn lane across two traffic lanes, one of which has trolley tracks on it. Otherwise, the only other practical way to cross Market is to walk or ride in the crosswalk.

To provide a smoother link, the project would create a pocket in a piece of the sidewalk (currently an unused curb cut) to the right of Market’s westbound bicycle lane, for left-turners to queue up. Then, on a dedicated left-turn signal phase, bicyclists would cross through an opening that will be created in the existing median island. Similar solutions have been used for decades in cycling cities in countries including Denmark and the Netherlands.

A police cruiser parked in the bike lane in May. Photo: Aaron Bialick

Just as one problem improves for bike commuters on Market Street, another arises. Some San Francisco police officers have apparently grown fond of parking their cruisers in the westbound protected bike lane on Market at Polk/Tenth Street, next to Fox Plaza.

Back in May I snapped the above photo of a cruiser forcing a platoon of bike commuters to stop and squeeze by. I peered into the adjacent Starbucks for any officers, but seeing none, I gave them the benefit of the doubt, presuming it may have been a fluke. I don’t regularly commute on Market, so it was hard for me to tell if this was a recurring problem.

But this morning, bike commuter Stephanie May sent in photos of a cruiser parked in the same spot, and she said she sees it all the time. In fact, she returned this afternoon and snapped more photos, saying the same police car seems to have been parked there all day.

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Photos: Aaron Bialick

We recently wrote about the benefits to bicycle riders that come from temporarily removing car parking at construction sites. But there are other times when construction can do just the opposite, throwing them into harm’s way.

At the very same construction site at 1844 Market Street, where we pointed out that parking removal had improved conditions for bicycle commuters climbing the hill to the Wiggle, crews last Friday set up a dangerous and perplexing labyrinth for evening rush hour bicycle traffic. To make room for what appeared to be a concrete pouring machine, the parking, bicycle, and right-most traffic lanes were closed, leaving no choice but to merge into a lane with car traffic and trolley tracks, or, as most bike commuters chose, to delicately negotiate the extremely narrow space between the trolley tracks and reflective road bumps.

Residents of any major city are used to putting up with inconveniences for construction. But in this all-too-common situation, people were thrown into dangerous conditions with virtually no guidance about how to pass safely aside from a sign reading, “Bikes allowed use of full lane” (even if the lane has tracks, that’s apparently all that’s required by law [PDF]). The sidewalk was also closed, with vague signage asking pedestrians to detour to the other side of the street, leading some to walk in the road.

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A rendering of a possible future for Market Street. Image: Better Market Street

Note: The Better Market Street Project will hold two public workshops on July 17 and 21, where you can provide feedback on the proposed concepts.

The future of lower Market Street seems more likely than ever to be unencumbered by cars, freeing up space for effective transit and raised, protected bicycle lanes.

The latest update [PDF] on the Better Market Street Project includes three possible scenarios to lessen the impact of private automobiles on Market, Department of Public Works Project Manager Kris Opbroek told the SF Municipal Transportation Agency Board of Directors this week. The proposals range from banning cars east of Franklin Street to using more forced turns to reduce through traffic. The scenarios that do allow cars could include car-free zones on pedestrian heavy blocks like the one between Fourth and Fifth Streets, Opbroek said.

The plan is being developed by a team of city agencies and design consultants who are drawing inspiration from the world’s most celebrated streets. Among the design features under consideration, Opbroek said, are bike lanes separated from motor vehicles by a raised curb, which have been employed to great effect in the world’s most successful cycling cities. (SF’s first raised bike lanes are included in the plan for Masonic Avenue.)

The raised bike lanes were praised by board members, including Joél Ramos, who recently visited Copenhagen with SFMTA staff on a trip funded by the Bikes Belong Foundation. On Nørrebrogade, which Copenhagen claims as the busiest bicycling street in the Western world, Ramos said he saw how the lanes “work as a phenomenal placemaking opportunity” to help make the street “a thriving corridor.”

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Photo: Aaron Bialick

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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This piece by noted amateur filmmaker Tullio Pellgrini features a windshield-bound tour of some of the city’s most famous sights in 1955, but it also offers a peek into the changes some of our major streets have undergone since the earlier days of the motor age.

Some differences are striking, like the additional vehicle lanes on streets like Market and the Great Highway and the lack of parked cars on others. One eye-catcher for me was seeing cars driven through the Powell Street cable car turnaround on what is now Hallidie Plaza. A friend also pointed out the since-removed mid-block crosswalk on Van Ness between City Hall and the War Memorial Opera House.

A reminder of the flexible nature of our streets, for better or worse, is always refreshing. San Francisco streets have changed before and they can change again.

H/T BoingBoing.