Today’s Headlines

  • Muni Launches N-Judah Cole Valley Shuttle (SFGate, SFExaminer, Hoodline)
  • Grants Strengthening Neighborhoods (Hoodline)
  • Folsom Street Improvements Coming (SFBay)
  • Swinging on BART (SFGate)
  • More on Efforts to Get Pee Stink out of BART Elevators (Sfist)
  • Spare the Air Day Issued (Almanac)
  • What $5600 Rents in SF (Curbed)
  • Burlingame Residents Wrangle over Rent Control (DailyJournal)
  • Rear-Ended Prius Hit by Amtrak Train (SFBay)
  • Caltrans Highway 1 Widening Halted (SFGate, DailyJournal)
  • Worse than No Bike Lane? (MercNews)
  • Commentary: More Circular Logic on Why It’s Bad to Build Safe Bike Infra (MarinIJ)

Get state headlines at Streetsblog CA
Get national headlines at Streetsblog USA

  • murphstahoe

    I agree with the writer in the Merc about the bike lane on Warm Springs. In the presence of (ugh) straight/turn lanes next to right turn lanes like that, a better treament would be massive green sharrows in the straight/right lane. In addition to being better for that particular intersection, it gives training to the proper way to approach such an intersection.

    Yes, just taking a car lane that isn’t the right lane like that is for a bold/fearless type cyclist – but that is pretty much the only type of cyclist who is going to take on the roadways shown in that article.

  • Prinzrob

    Or they could just drop the double right turn lane and have the middle lane be straight-through only, similar to what has been suggested for Orinda’s “worst bike lane in the world” which also wedged a bike lane between two turn lanes: http://cal.streetsblog.org/2015/06/25/the-worst-bike-lane-in-the-world/

    Even without a poorly placed bike lane double rights are still bad for pedestrian safety, as the rightmost row of cars blocks the view of the crosswalk from the next right turn lane.

    Double rights are simply a bad idea on surface streets that drivers share with people biking and walking, and are a clear prioritization of pushing more car traffic through an intersection faster but at the expense of bike rider and pedestrian safety. Traffic engineers need to look to other solutions that don’t impact as negatively on the safety of vulnerable road users.

  • murphstahoe

    That lane has nothing on the bike lane on Sand Hill Road or Alpine in Palo Alto.

  • thielges

    Someone posted about a similar situation in San Jose eastbound on San Carlos over I-880. That intersection was recently remodeled and even though there are two right turn lanes to 880 south, the lane configuration makes it glaringly obvious that the leftmost right turn lane weaves with the bike lane. Though it could be better, it is not too bad and far better than what was there before. I rode it in the heat of the rush hour today and found traffic flowing calmly.

    For a truly bad situation, just look a little further south where eastbound Hamilton Ave. crosses Hwy 17 (i.e. I-880). There the best place for a bicyclist is to take the center of the center lane of 5 lanes. That’s right, you’re taking the third lane from the curb because the rightmost two lanes become onramps to 17 south and north. To make matters worse you then travel through a couple more intersections with dedicated right turn lanes, meaning you have to take and hold a lane one or two lanes from the curb for nearly a half mile past complex intersections. It isn’t until you get well east of Bascom Ave. that a bicyclist can find the relative comfort of the curb lane again. I’ve never seen another bicyclist pass through that section of Hamilton in over a decade despite it being in a busy commercial area of San Jose and Campbell. It is a de facto no-go zone for bicyclists.

  • murphstahoe

    See: Millbrae Ave overcrossing of US101

  • [Vehicular Cylclist assures you from the safety of his keyboard that this is easy if you would just apply Effective Cycling techniques.]