Bicycling

This video just came in via the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition and the San Francisco Bike Ride Crew. It's truly nuts. An SFPD cruiser apparently parked in the right-turn pocket suddenly pulls out, swerves left and hits a cyclist.

San Francisco has come a long way. That was the theme of a rousing speech delivered by Margaret McCarthy, Interim Executive Director of the SF Bicycle Coalition, at a ceremony this morning in front of San Francisco City Hall. "We've seen a 184 percent increase in cycling in the past decade," she said with her trademark ebullience. "San Francisco is a biking city!"

Behold, in the photo above, San Francisco bicycle infrastructure, at the end of St. Charles way, where it deadends at Brotherhood Way in Oceanview. There's a walking path at the end that leads to Brotherhood Way. There's a large curb.

Some 30 residents of the Western Addition, Lower Haight and Hayes Valley neighborhoods (plus some interested folks from outside the area) showed up Monday night to the auditorium at John Muir Elementary School to learn about SFMTA's plans on three different, but related, projects: the Western Addition Community-Based Transportation Plan, the Lower Haight Public Realm Plan, and the Page Street Green Connections Project. From SFMTA's release about the meeting:

It's generally acknowledged that Bike to Work Day was started by the League of American Bicyclists—then called the League of American Wheelmen—in 1956. Rumor has it (can anyone confirm this?) that in California the first Bike to Work Day event took place in San Diego circa 1993.

Last year, Streetsblog brought you the story of Anthony Ryan, a middle-aged art instructor who teaches at several San Francisco colleges. He was on his way home one evening from a job at San Francisco State, around 9 p.m. this time last year, when he suddenly found himself in mortal danger at the hands of a motorist who was determined to harm him. You can review the details here.

Monday evening, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition held the second of its first three scheduled "Bike Talks," a series it plans to continue to foster discussion and help shape its advocacy.

San Francisco native Ramon Solis was working out with his class at Quantum Martial Arts on 20th Street and Mission on Wednesday night when he heard a loud grinding sound coming from the street. "I am deaf in one ear but I still heard an angle grinder. It was 7 pm so it was too late to be a public works project," he recounted. He ran to the window and saw a guy hunched over his expensive racing bike, which was locked to a rack outside. Sparks were flying.

Marco Salsiccia is a blind resident of the Sunset District. Last month, while stepping off an L-Taraval train at a stop without a boarding island, he got his cane stuck in the wheel well of a car as it illegally passed the train. His cane snapped in two. The motorist stopped briefly and then took off. Salsiccia emailed his San Francisco Supervisor Katy Tang about the incident: