Bicycle Plan

Google's "Bike Vision Plan" [PDF], which calls for a network of bike-friendly streets in and around its Mountain View campus, may not become a reality if the Mountain View City Council rejects the company's plans to expand office space.

How bikeable can Mountain View become? Last Monday, the city welcomed Alta Planning + Design President Mia Birk to help kick off an update to its 2008 Bicycle Transportation Plan. Birk had plenty to share about how Portland transformed itself into one of the best cities for biking in North America.

Last Monday, San Mateo's City Council reviewed a draft report ahead of the last step in the permitting process for the city's ambitious Hillsdale Pedestrian/Bicyclist Bridge over Highway 101. The bridge has been needed ever since the interchange was rebuilt and expanded in 2002, which made crossing the highway more hazardous for people walking and bicycling. The following evening, city staff hosted a community meeting to gather residents' preferred design alternatives for accessing the bridge from the surrounding neighborhoods.

Plans for bike lanes on Fifth Street, which would connect Market Street to the Fourth and King Caltrain Station, are on hold at least until the Central Subway is completed in 2019.

The SFMTA has released a draft list of the 68 street segments it's looking to include in the next wave of improvements to the city's bicycle network [PDF]. The SF Bicycle Coalition mapped out the list and is asking its members to weigh in on a survey about which streets should take top priority.

In a surprising development, the Department of Public Works broke ground today on a contra-flow, protected bike lane on the two southernmost blocks of Polk Street, from Market to Grove Streets (at City Hall), which are currently one-way southbound. By Bike to Work Day, two of the city's busiest bicycling streets are expected to be linked with the first bike lane in San Francisco to be protected with a landscaped median, against the flow of motor traffic.

SF editor's note: This video features plenty of examples of San Francisco's stressful bicycling streets -- the kind that the SFMTA hopes to transform in its Bicycle Strategy. The agency has determined that only 10 percent of the city's bike network is "comfortable for most people."

The SFMTA Board of Directors voiced strong support yesterday for pursuing the most ambitious vision laid out in the agency's draft Bicycle Strategy, which calls for a system of safe, comfortable bikeways that could elevate the level of cycling in San Francisco to levels seen in cities like Copenhagen and Amsterdam. Where the funding to implement that vision will come from, however, remains to be seen.

The SFMTA installed bike lanes this weekend on the Great Highway, north of Fulton Street at Golden Gate Park. The Great Highway continues as Point Lobos Avenue as it runs by the Cliff House.