Skip to Content
Streetsblog San Francisco home
Streetsblog San Francisco home
Log In
Bicycling

SFBC: Tell the Mayor to Finish the Bikeway on Lower Market Street

This bike lane on Market Street between 8th and 9th still hasn't been protected or painted green. Photo: Bryan Goebel.
This bike lane on Market Street between 8th and 9th still hasn't been protected or painted green. Photo: Bryan Goebel.

Without prodding from the Mayor's Office, our sources tell us, it's very possible the SFMTA wouldn't have acted as quick to give bicyclists green, protected bike lanes on Market Street. It is the Mayor, after all, who has the ultimate authority over the SFMTA, appointing its board members, overseeing the agency's budget behind the scenes and influencing major decisions.

Despite the "we'll be ready to go!" rhetoric that we heard so often from the Mayor and city officials before the bike injunction was lifted, the SFMTA has been slow to finish the job on Lower Market Street, as we pointed out in a post last week. Now, the SFBC has launched a campaign urging bicyclists to write the Mayor and tell him to act now:

Please send an email to Mayor Newsom today asking him to complete the separated, green bikeway on Market Street -- now. Thanks to letters from over sixty businesses in support of the idea, sent to Mayor Newsom last May before Bike to Work Day, the Mayor signed our petition calling for a fully separated, green bikeway for the length of Lower Market Street. City staff has implemented one intermittent section of the bikeway, between 8th and Valencia Street, but the bikeway is missing pieces in that section, and is almost completely missing east of 8th St.

For its part, the SFMTA claims it is suffering from a lack of resources and a shortage of thermoplastic, which are slowing its progress.

You can email the Mayor and give him your thoughts at gavin.newsom@sfgov.org (and the SFBC asks that you please cc neal@sfbike.org) or call his office at 554-6141.

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from Streetsblog San Francisco

Study: People Protected Bike Lanes Made a Difference

A new study by an NYU researcher shows that a type of protest invented in San Francisco has helped get protected bike lanes constructed in North America and beyond

January 24, 2025

Alameda’s Central Ave Project Depends on Paint and Prayers for Bike Safety

After a decade of advocacy, a bike lane will start construction on Central Avenue on Monday. But most of it will be unprotected

January 24, 2025

Commentary: It Shouldn’t be Possible to Go 100 MPH in a Car

Tesla, other car makers, Newsom, the staff at SFMTA, former mayors and other politicians, collectively owe Luu an answer as to why her boyfriend's death was necessary

January 23, 2025
See all posts