Bicycle Infrastructure

Berkeley bike advocates are pushing back against the use of "Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacons (RRFBs or flashers)" in the city's bicycle visioning plan. The idea is to use them where 'bike boulevards' cross heavily trafficked streets. In an op-ed this week in Berkeleyside, bike advocate Charles Siegel makes a compelling plea for the city to instead install four-way stop signs, specifically at the intersection of California and Dwight.

"Every year, 360 people are killed in the Bay Area as a result of traffic crashes," said Jenn Fox, with the Vision Zero Network. "Each of these tragedies is a person--a family member, a community member ... we must get over our complacency."

Thanks to I-880 and its complex of on and offramps, walking or bike riding through Oakland's Chinatown, downtown, or on routes to Jack London Square and the estuary, can be pretty awful.

Tuesday morning at around 11, a cyclist collided with a motor vehicle that was heading north on Guerrero at the intersection with 24th.

Will protected bike lane policy directives ever get absorbed by street-level crews?

Urban planners, at least when it comes to bikeway design, are still trying to undo the damage caused by vehicular cyclists in the 1970s and 80s, explained Bill Schultheiss, a traffic engineer who specializes in bike design and a member of the Bicycle Technical Committee and the Pedestrian Task Force of the National Committee on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (NCUTCD), with the Toole Design Group. "There was a fear that cyclists would no longer be able to ride in the streets and would be relegated to sidewalks," he added. "To this day, that has discouraged protected bike lanes in the [road engineering] guidance."

Yesterday evening, some thirty bicycle advocates in yellow t-shirts again cordoned off a section of Valencia Street's Uber drop-off zone (also known as the bike lane) in the Mission, between 18th and 19th.

Patricia Martel, City Manager of Daly City, has this to say about garbage cans blocking bike lanes: "cyclists have to share the road with vehicles and waste cans [emphasis added] weekly."

The SFMTA held an openhouse last night to get feedback on initial designs for bike and pedestrian safety improvements on 11th Street, which runs from Market to Division. Some 20 members of the public, most of them cyclists who commute through the area, showed up to see design boards and talk to SFMTA officials at the SoMa StrEat Food Park on 11th, across from the Costco warehouse.