Bicycling

The deaths of Heather Miller and Kate Slattery, two more people killed riding on San Francisco's dangerous streets, has left the entire safe-streets community rattled and heart broken. Cycling advocates took San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and SFMTA head Ed Reiskin to task for a tone-deaf press conference held Thursday about the carnage. The mayor said he was "outraged" at the deaths. Reiskin said to the Examiner that “the best bike infrastructure in the world would not have prevented these collisions.”

Editor's note: it's positively numbing that I can't finish writing a piece about two cycling deaths in 24 hours, when a third cyclist is killed, this morning, this time in Pleasanton. 

Menlo Park's plans to fix El Camino Real's safety hazards were postponed yet again by a city council that is now split on whether to go ahead with the installation of even a bike lane pilot project. Proponents continue to demand that the city take action to prevent injuries suffered by residents in traffic collisions.

Earlier this week, the SF Bike Coalition announced it is tapping its development director, Brian Wiedenmeier, as its new executive director. Wiedenmeier takes the reigns from Margaret McCarthy, who had served as the organization's interim director during a search to replace Noah Budnick, who resigned last year.

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition's Board of Directors has selected Brian Wiedenmeier as the organization's next executive director. Wiedenmeier is not a newcomer to the SFBC. He spent the last two years as the organization's development director. "Brian's professional accomplishments and experience really stood out throughout this hiring process," said Brianne O'Leary Gagnon, president of the SF Bicycle Coalition's Board, in a prepared statement. "He's committed to people biking and the city of San Francisco."

The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA)’s half-cent "Envision Silicon Valley" transportation sales tax is now headed to the November 8 general election ballot in the county, after receiving the unanimous approval of the transit agency’s Board of Directors on June 2.

A wise man once said there are few if any urban planning problems that haven't been solved somewhere on earth--the challenge is just finding the best stuff to copy. That's the approach of Low Car(Bon) Communities: Inspiring Car-Free and Car-Lite Urban Futures, a new book by Nicole Foletta and Jason Henderson, published by Routledge. Foletta is Principal Planner with BART, with experience working in Europe. Henderson is a geography professor at San Francisco State University and Streetsblog contributor.

This morning from 7 to 10 am BART officials, consultants, and even a legislative aide for Supervisor John Avalos's office answered questions and heard comments from the public about plans to modernize Balboa Park Station, one of the busiest in both BART and Muni's networks.

Streetsblog reader Karen Lynn Allen sent this satirical musing on the physics of road murder about a week ago. Given the recent crash in Michigan that killed five cyclists on a group ride, it seems like an appropriate time to run it. Sometimes we need some dark, quirky slapstick in this asphalt asylum known as the USA.