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.
