Eyes on the Street: Cargo Way Bike Lane Finally Gets Paved

Six years after San Francisco's first protected bike infrastructure opened, it finally gets fresh asphalt

Finally, SF's first protected bike infrastructure gets some smooth pavement. All photos Streetsblog/Rudick
Finally, SF's first protected bike infrastructure gets some smooth pavement. All photos Streetsblog/Rudick

It opened in 2012. This week, it finally got paved.

The Cargo Way bike lane, San Francisco’s first concrete (and chain-link fence in this case) protected bike infrastructure, was described as having “dangerously uneven pavement” the day it opened.

The pavement continued to deteriorate to the point of making the two-way path almost unusable. Then, to add insult to injury, San Francisco Public Works (DPW) came by in August and paved the truck and car lanes–but left the bike lane as it was.

But this week all that changed. A crew came through and, as first reported by Stanley Roberts at KRON4, finally put down some fresh asphalt in the bike space.

A crew was there today cleaning debris off the path. The workers on the scene weren’t sure when the striping would get done.

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This crew was cleaning the end of the Cargo Way protected bike lane today

So why did it take so long to repave it? One crew member said “money.” The other said “We didn’t have small paving machines. We had to rent them.”

Isn’t that kind of the same thing?

They looked at each other, shrugged, and nodded.

So far, it doesn’t look as if the missing segments of the much-maligned chain-link fence are getting replaced. Streetsblog has a request in with DPW to find out if what’s left will be torn out, repaired, or left to rust.

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Another look at the smooth pavement and the remains of the chain-link fence

ALSO ON STREETSBLOG

Public works paved the roadway to the left, but left the bike lanes full of cracks, dangerous furrows, potholes, and other defects. All photos Streetsblog/Rudick unless noted.

City Lets Cargo Way Protected Bike Lane Fall Apart

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As cyclists who use Cargo Way in the Hunters Point/Bayview neighborhood know all too well, the bike lane, once celebrated as San Francisco's first on-street protected bike lane, is in a state of disrepair, with broken pavement, a dangerous, tire-grabbing groove, and a busted fence. And in a stark display of how some city officials regard bicycle safety, the city repaved the adjacent car/truck lanes in August, but skipped the bike lane.

South Bay Cities Build Region’s First Separated Bike Lanes

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