Bicycle Plan

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, three members of the Board of Supervisors, MTA officials, SFBC staff and bicyclists -- standing in the glaring fall sun amidst the roar of cars on Oak Street -- celebrated the city's first new bike lane in three years today, and then grabbed the paint rolls and applied buckets of shiny green paint to the Scott Street bike box.

Though it might sound incredible to San Franciscans who have followed bicycle issues for the past three years, not only are more bicycle infrastructure improvements coming, they might be better than anyone imagined. Streetsblog has learned that in addition to the lanes striped today on Mississippi and Howard and seven more bike lanes expected in the next few weeks, the MTA will install a separated bike lane on Market Street.

San Francisco bicycle riders this morning let out a loud cheer, popped open a bottle of champagne and toasted the city's first bike lane in three years: a freshly painted sliver of Scott Street on the Wiggle between Oak and Fell that now serves as a left-turn lane for the thousands of daily commuters traveling by bicycle onto Fell Street.

San Francisco is about to get its first new bike lane in more than three years along with a colored bike box!  Progress has been long stalled by the injunction but the fact that the MTA is about to whip out the paint is cause for celebration, and the SFBC is planning two events to mark the occasion.

A San Francisco judge issued an order [PDF] modifying the three-year-old bike injunction late Wednesday afternoon, refusing to dissolve it completely, but allowing the "most easily reversible" projects to go forward. It means 10 of the 21 first-year Bike Plan projects -- or about 3.7 miles of new bike lanes -- outlined by the MTA can begin, and when completed, will mark the most significant improvements bicyclists have seen on the streets of San Francisco since the injunction was first issued in June 2006.

The moment San Francisco bicyclists and advocates have been waiting for for more than three years is expected any day now: a ruling on whether to lift the bike injunction. Despite indications the ordeal could drag on through spring, there is some optimism Judge Peter J. Busch will unlock the legal handcuffs and allow the MTA to go ahead and implement some of the 45 projects before a hearing to determine the adequacy of the EIR.

The San Francisco County Transportation Authority (TA), the city's congestion management agency responsible for modeling transportation and development patterns, has released its new bicycle route data application, Cycle Tracks, for iPhones and GPS-enabled iTunes players at the iTunes store. Like similar applications that give information such as speed and distance traveled, users of the TA app can map their bicycle ride, but the data they collect will be aggregated anonymously in the TA's server so that it can be applied to their SF-CHAMP modeling and travel forecasting tool.

The city plans to paint bike lanes in 22 locations within the first year after the Bike Plan injunction is lifted, all of which would be reversible upon a court order, according to a filing [PDF] by the City's Attorney's office today.

The injunction that has hung like a pall over San Francisco's efforts to improve bicycle infrastructure for the city's growing number of bicyclists will remain for at least another ten days, and could continue in partial or full form until March 2010 or beyond. A judge today delayed decision on lifting the three-year-old bike injunction, instead ordering both the city and Mary Miles, attorney for Rob Anderson, who first sought the injunction, to submit additional materials by November 12. The judge could then lift the injunction completely, lift it partially for sharrows and bike racks but not bike lanes, or uphold it until a 2010 hearing on the city's environmental review of the bike plan.