Bicycling

Want people to walk, bike and use transit? Then it's got to feel safe.

Last week, Assemblymember David Chiu, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo, representatives from the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), traffic injury victims, surviving family members, and others met at Zuckerberg San Francisco Hospital trauma center to announce the introduction of Assembly Bill 342, also known as the Safe Streets Act of 2017. If passed, it will allow for an "Automated Speed Enforcement (ASE) Pilot Program to Reduce Speeding and Save Lives." More from Chiu's official announcement:

Last night ten people attended a Bay Area Bike Share meeting at the Excelsior Branch Library on Mission. The meeting was designed to solicit input from the public about preferred locations to place bike stations. It's part of a ten-fold expansion of  the program, which will eventually end up with 7,000 bikes across the Bay Area. From the Bike Share website:

On the evening of January 10, during the last round of storms, tour guide and active San Francisco Bicycle Coalition (SFBC) member Lauren Sailor was bicycling down the 800 block of Market Street on her way to get a tune up for her trusty steed, Morgan. It was dark and rainy. That portion of Market Street has no real bike protection or lane--just some sharrow markings. Sailor heard a car coming up on her left. Then she saw a rectangular shaped--and innocent looking--puddle. She had to make a choice: take her chances with the puddle, or swerve and risk a conflict with the car. She made the same instant calculation all cyclists have to make on our streets, almost every day--she decided the puddle was the safer bet.

On Saturday, twenty volunteers helped a San Francisco Bicycle Coalition effort to clean and renew the mural behind the Duboce Triangle Safeway, along the bike path between Market and Church Streets.

A quick note about a twitter kerfuffle from last night over a closure to the Panhandle bike path. This involved San Francisco Bicycle Coalition member Elisabeth Snider, who lives in the Sunset and uses the path regularly. Upon seeing the closure of this essential transportation link for cyclists, Snider tweeted 311 with the above photo for more information:

More evidence for the need for an estuary bridge connecting Jack London to western Alameda.

Streetsblog just learned that Timothy Doyle, who was hit by an SFPD cruiser last May, has filed suit against the city for pain, lost work, and other damages. Readers will recall that Doyle was riding his bike in the bike lane near the intersection of 2nd and Mission when an SFPD cruiser illegally jinked into the bike lane, sending Doyle to the hospital. "It will take years to work its way through the courts," he wrote in an email to Streetsblog. Meanwhile, "I have healed about as much as possible. I certainly don't feel as good as I did before May 12th, 2016, but things are passable."

San Francisco is almost ready to open its newest protected bike lane.