SFBC

Commuter convoys of students, parents, teachers, administrators and bicycle educators are expected to take part in tomorrow's first annual Bike to School Day in San Francisco, an effort to educate communities about the dangers of driving to school, and the healthy benefits of bicycling.

Caltrain has dropped an idea to make bicyclists pay a $1 surcharge to help solve its budget deficit. In an email this afternoon, Mark Simon, the special assistant to the Caltrain CEO, wrote "a bicycle surcharge will not be part of the budget proposals for the coming fiscal year." He also updated efforts to create more bicycle capacity on the system:

SFBC Program Manager Andy Thornley had the sinking feeling, following an MTA Traffic Engineering meeting last Friday, that the agency was not serious about its commitment to moving as many of the priority 56 bicycle projects forward as it should. According to Thornley, at least three projects were moved off the green light list pending further review by traffic engineers, for little more than minor and tired complaints about losing curbside parking spaces.

We’ve been waiting for years now to see some physical changes to accommodate the huge increase in daily bicycling. We did get an odd set of painted bike lanes and green bike route signs, and a significant number of bike racks for parking, before it all came to a halt due to the injunction three years ago. After perusing the much-anticipated Draft Bicycle Plan and its dense bureaucratese, full of overlapping redundant promises, I’m afraid we’ll be waiting a good while longer to see the kinds of changes that we ought to be getting.

San Francisco's annual Bike to Work Day drew a record 200,000 bicyclists this morning, according to early estimates, making it the most successful bike to work day since it began 15 years ago. Crowds of cyclists took advantage of the SFBC Energizer Stations to get food and coffee and make new friends in what has become the most exciting and politically important year for bicycle improvements in the city.

With excitement building over the anticipated lifting of the Bicycle Injunction this summer, and hope that crews will soon begin work on priority street improvements throughout the bicycle network, advocates in San Francisco are expecting record numbers for the 15th annual Bike to Work Day tomorrow.

The second of six Sunday Streets was a great success as thousands of people got out on a glorious sunny day to pedal, blade, run, skate, and stroll along the waterfront from AT&T park down to India Basin and the Bayview Opera House.  By coincidence, my father was in town and I got to take him on his first bicycle ride in a city.  Not a bad way to show him the type of streets we might hope to enjoy every Sunday all year long.

It's bad enough Caltrain already has an image of being unfriendly to bicyclists, despite its efforts to prevent bumps on the system by boosting bicycle capacity on its trains, now comes this word: Staff is toying with the idea of making bicyclists pay a $1 surcharge that would raise an estimated $800,000.