Bicycle Commuting

San Francisco's first on-street, two-way protected bikeway is nearly complete, featuring bicycle traffic signals and green intersection bike markings. The bikeway, which is separated from motor vehicles by a fence and concrete median, provides a safer connection from Bayview and Hunter's Point to Third Street and the north-south bike lanes on Illinois Street.

Last week, we wrote about a construction site on Market Street where bicycle commuters were forced into a traffic lane with trolley tracks and cars. The situation exemplified a lack of consideration for the safety of people walking and biking sometimes found at construction sites when enforcement of safety requirements is lacking.

We recently wrote about the benefits to bicycle riders that come from temporarily removing car parking at construction sites. But there are other times when construction can do just the opposite, throwing them into harm's way.

With bikes let loose on this morning's rush hour BART commute, all signs indicate that things went as smoothly -- if not better -- than usual. Our most recent search on the Twittersphere turns up not a single complaint, and reps from the East Bay and San Francisco Bicycle Coalitions, as well as BART, are reporting generally positive comments.

A long-awaited bicycle connection linking Market Street to northbound Polk Street is on the horizon. The two southernmost blocks of Polk, which currently only allow southbound traffic, could get a protected contra-flow bike lane by this time next year.

If you follow just about any major media coverage of street etiquette and safety, by now you've probably seen a piece vilifying people on bikes for "running" stop signs. But hop on a bike yourself, and you'll start to see why safely rolling and yielding at stop signs makes sense.

Contrary to what the name implies, bike lanes in San Francisco have cars in them all the time. Presumably, a car left with blinking hazard lights on means the driver is just "running in for a minute," as if to minimize the impact of endangering people on bicycles.

A new buffered bike lane was striped on 8th Street last week, re-purposing a traffic lane for bicycles on one of SoMa's fast, one-way motorways. The new configuration, which removes bicyclists from the door zone and provides a much wider lane, is an improvement over the four speed-inducing traffic lanes and skinny bike lane that previously existed. Still, many say it's just a small step toward a truly safer street.

[Update: BART released a video explaining the bikes-on-board rush hour pilot.]