Christopher White, the current head of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition (SFBike), got his start in advocacy 20 years ago when an inattentive driver turned left in front of him on Arguello, sending him careening into the windshield. Since then, Arguello has remained on San Francisco's high-injury network. A teenager was badly injured there in 2022. Cyclist Ethan Boyes was killed on Arguello by a drunk driver in 2023. And just this month, the SF Standard's Griffin Gaffney told the harrowing story of a reckless driver who swerved into the bike lane on Arguello in front of Temple Emanu-El just as he was completing a long bike ride, striking him and sending him to the hospital with serious injuries.
Meanwhile, an SFMTA project to build protected bike lanes was supposed to be finished in 2023. "Their stalling is not a funding problem," explained the Bicycle Advisory Committee's (BAC) Kristin Tieche, whose district includes Arguello.
Indeed, back in 2023, in response to pressure from advocates, Assemblymember Phil Ting secured $1.2 million in state funds to build protected bike lanes on Arguello. District 1 Supervisor Connie Chan and then-District 2 Supervisor Catherine Stefani pledged $50,000 each from their district community funds towards the project. SFMTA itself pledged to match that with another $100,000 from its budget.
So if the money and the political will were there, what happened?
Streetsblog reached out to SFMTA, Mayor Lurie's office, Supervisor Chan's office, and the new District 2 Supervisor, Stephen Sherrill. The supervisors did not respond. The Mayor's office deferred to SFMTA, which sent the following statement:
We’re working through technical analysis for the Arguello Safety Project and, in the near term, are looking at where we can apply various spot improvements to keep people safe. We’ll continue to engage with city and community partners to ensure safe travel for everyone who uses Arguello Boulevard.
SFMTA's Michael Roccaforte, who sent the reply, added that they may have more information "in a few weeks."
Unfortunately, that's the same answer Tieche has received for years. "Why has nothing happened? This is a question I ask at every BAC meeting," she said. "I'm consistently told that they're working on it, but there are roadblocks."
Streetsblog has sent out additional requests about what those roadblocks might be, and has yet to receive a response.
Advocates, including Tieche, pointed out that not only is the project funded, but in 2023, Jamie Parks, then Livable Streets Director at SFMTA, and Tom McGuire, then Director of SFMTA's Streets Division, provided preliminary designs and promised it would start construction in the summer of 2023. Both left SFMTA later that year.
"We've been waiting since 2023 for necessary, life-saving improvements to Arguello," said Rachel Clyde, senior community organizer for SFBike.
It remains unclear why this project continues to linger. Documentation shows that SFMTA considered shifting the design to a center-running bike lane, but after the debacle with Valencia's center-running lane, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition gave that a hard "no." Tieche told Streetsblog that, in their conversations, Supervisor Chan was very supportive of adding protected bike lanes. Word has it that the new supervisor, Sherrill, is also supportive.
However, in a 2024 email obtained by Streetsblog, Chan wrote of the plan that it "is problematic when our government simply announces any policy solutions without outreach and conversations with stakeholders, and, in this case, to include those who live and work on Arguello between Fulton and Lake. I ask, as always, that SFMTA conduct a process where people can come together and provide feedback and ideas so we can have vetted design solutions."
That email from Chan is a telling and familiar response when constituents start complaining about parking reductions, which would be required for protected bike lanes on Arguello. And Chan is notorious for talking out of both sides of her mouth when it comes to bicycle safety, most egregiously during the run-up to the JFK Promenade vote.
Advocate Luke Bornheimer, who helped organize much of the grassroots pressure to get the project going, argued that this one falls most squarely on SFMTA itself, since the funds are there and the project was designed. But he added that if Mayor Lurie wants to break with former Mayor Breed and the usual, performative way of addressing public safety in San Francisco, he needs to step up and push this project through. Streetsblog made a second request to the mayor's office for comment and received no further response.
SFBike is demanding that SFMTA at least move forward with spot improvements. As to the portion of Arguello that's in the Presidio and under the control of the federal government, it received some paltry improvements in September of 2023.
That said, the list of cyclists injured or killed on Arguello continues to grow. Gaffney's account includes a video that shows the driver swerving into the bike lane and slamming into him, perfectly illustrating why paint-only bike lanes do not prevent devastating crashes. Without truly protected bike lanes, more tragedies are inevitable.
"Whether it's funding or political will that's stalling the project, it's the responsibility of the SFMTA and the supervisors' offices to see through the promises they made over two years ago, precipitated by Ethan's tragic and avoidable death," said Clyde.
Tieche continues to press SFMTA to just get the damn project done. Otherwise, "They'll keep pushing it into the future until the community forgets."
