Bicycle Infrastructure

Yesterday, I took a ride on a Jump electric bike on Market Street. Ryan Rzepecki, the CEO of Jump, was riding alongside. When we stopped, we talked about how nerve racking it is to ride on Market. We also discussed how comfortable it is to ride in Berlin, where, in many places, rather than stripe a bike lane on the street (American-style, in the gutter, as on Market Street) they stripe it on the outer edge of the sidewalk.

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) has published a permit application for so-called "dockless" bike-share companies. These are companies that offer rental bikes based on smart-phone and GPS technology--unlike the official, Bay Area Bike Share/Ford GoBike system, they don't require fixed docking locations where users have to pick them up and drop them off. The nine-page permit document is online, but here is the breakdown of permitting fees:

This is a week of milestones (or maybe 'near milestones' is more accurate) for Bay Area transportation.

On Tuesday evening the Menlo Park City Council approved the construction of a new streetscape for Haven Avenue that will bring wide sidewalks to the block nearest Marsh Road where there are none today -- but also leave a gap in bike lanes at a key location along the popular San Francisco Bay Trail route. The formerly industrial-only area is expected to see heavier pedestrian and bicycle traffic after a total of 540 apartment units are completed at two new housing developments further west on Haven Avenue, where the city installed wide buffered bike lanes earlier this year.

Hoodline is reporting that a cyclist was killed yesterday at around 5:30 p.m. in a collision with a car at the intersection of Silver and Alemany Boulevard. The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition says the victim's name was Moises Chavez, a 51-year-old man. "Our hearts are heavy this morning and our thoughts are with family and friends of the victim," they wrote on their Twitter feed.

Streetsblog caught up with Russo on Friday near his office in downtown Oakland to talk about how he's settling in, what he thinks of the strides Oakland has made so far, and how he will shepherd the department towards a safer, more equitable and more sustainable future.

The San Francisco County Transportation Authority (CTA) released the results yesterday of what it calls "the first comprehensive estimate of the volume, frequency and coverage of ride-hailing trips by Uber and Lyft in San Francisco."

Like taking your bike on BART and Caltrain? Thank Shirley Johnson, the BIKES ONBoard group she helped form, and the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, which helped support her work.

As Streetsblog readers are surely aware, when it comes to public transit, pedestrian safety, and above all good bicycle infrastructure, the Dutch are the global champions.