Community, Advocacy and Labor

A week after a 21-year-old German tourist on a bicycle was killed by a hit-and-run drunk driver on Masonic Avenue, the first death of a bicyclist in the city this year, advocates who have been working for years to calm the major arterial are calling on the SFMTA to make immediate safety improvements.

The Federal Transit Administration has increased the likelihood the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), the Bay Area's regional transportation planning and funding body, will undergo a full civil rights investigation after it sent a letter last week [PDF] insisting the MTC turn over documents detailing its protocols for monitoring civil rights practices of the government agencies and private groups it gives federal money. Civil rights and transportation advocates are confident the MTC doesn't have those protocols in place and argue the FTA investigation will show a pattern of discriminatory funding of transportation projects in the Bay Area that dates back decades.

A 37-year-old Oakland man has been identified as the driver of a 1989 Mercedes-Benz who allegedly killed 22-year-old Nils Linke of Germany while he was riding his bicycle Friday night on Masonic Avenue near Turk Street, a tragic reminder that the SFMTA needs to act quickly to fix one of San Francisco's most notorious traffic sewers.

It's no secret that many bicyclists pedaling through one of San Francisco's most popular bicycling corridors, The Wiggle, often run the red light turning onto Fell Street from Scott. Whether you agree it's a dangerous move to do so, considering the speeding traffic that thunders down Fell, the intersection has not been designed to give left-turn bicyclists signal priority, even though the SFMTA earlier this year installed a left-turn bike lane and green bike box on Scott. As it stands, bicyclists have 30 seconds to turn left on the green, but only if there's no southbound automobile traffic.

After nearly four years of legal wrangling, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Peter Busch lifted the city's bike injunction this afternoon, freeing the SFMTA to begin working on implementing the remaining projects in the Bike Plan, and soundly rejecting the objections made by plaintiff Rob Anderson and his attorney Mary Miles.

Bond Yee, a veteran traffic engineer who has spent thirty years designing and managing San Francisco's streets, will be named to fill the recently created Sustainable Streets Director position permanently, Streetsblog has learned. Yee was appointed interim director of the Sustainable Streets division eight months ago while the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) conducted a nationwide search for a permanent director.

Marin County's ribbon cutting and celebratory ride Monday in the Alameda del Prado bike lanes - a long-missing link in the county's North-South bikeway - was followed by the revelation that landscapers used a weedkiller banned under the county's strict pesticide law.

In its best attempt yet to prevent drivers from obstructing the bike lane on a troubled section of Fell Street, alongside the Arco station, the SFMTA painted the lane green today, along with the dashed lane from mid-block to Divisadero Street, as part of its new configuration. Michael Helquist of BIKE NOPA had the story up first this morning, and said the Fell entrance to the Arco station was closed for the morning and early afternoon.

With Caltrain facing a $2.3 million deficit, and its governing board considering service cuts and fare hikes, bicycle advocates from three Bay Area counties who have been leading the call for more bicycle capacity have calculated that the commuter rail line could stave off reductions if it would just accommodate the increasing demand for bike space.