Bicycling

Cars are a very inefficient transportation technology for too many reasons to count. They take up huge amounts of space but get driven around mostly empty -- the average private car in the U.S. carries only 1.6 people. A lot of the time, people drive distances that are short enough to easily walk or bike -- 28 percent of car trips are a mile or less, according to the Governors Highway Safety Association.

Late last week, the San Francisco Planning Commission unanimously adopted a resolution to replace "Level of Service" (LOS) with "Vehicle Miles Traveled" (VMT). That's bureaucratese for measuring a project's overall effect on moving people, instead of just counting automobiles. As explained in a previous post, environmental law has long forced transportation planners to grade projects by how they impact traffic flow. "This will streamline California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) review for projects that are designed to encourage public transit, promote pedestrian safety and help reduce the need for traveling long distances by car," said John Rahaim, Director of San Francisco Planning, in an official release. "We are pleased to be the first city in California to adopt these new guidelines."

The Alliance for Biking and Walking just published its 2016 Benchmarking Report, which ranks states and cities on key statistics including the percentage of people commuting by bike. Every biannual report is a little bit different, as states develop their data collection and the Alliance is better able to compare statistics across fields.

The California Bicycle Coalition, aka CalBike, continues to push for increasing funding for the Active Transportation Program, which currently receives $120 million per year. The bike coalition wants the state to add $100 million to the program, which sounds like a lot but is roughly one percent of the total transportation budget—even though bike and walking trips make up nearly 19 percent of all trips made in California. The state budget planning process, in which the two legislative houses and the governor negotiate a final budget by June, is one avenue for getting more funding.

Michael Andersen blogs for The Green Lane Project, a PeopleForBikes program that helps U.S. cities build better bike lanes to create low-stress streets.

Today, advocates for livable streets attended the memorial service for Thu Phan, a woman killed in a crosswalk on Market Street on February 5. Yesterday Streetsblog urged SFMTA to stop compromising on safety improvements, a theme echoed at the event.

Streetsblog was given a tour of the southernmost segment of the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART) project, which is currently doing finishing work and testing on the initial 43 miles of line, running from near Sonoma County Airport to downtown San Rafael. SMART is re-purposing the historic Northwestern Pacific Railroad corridor, an old 70-mile rail line that hasn't had passenger service for half a century. SMART has replaced all tracks and put in modern signal and safety systems. Service on this first phase will start late this year.

As cyclists who use Page Street know all too well, there's a tendency for motorists to jam up at the intersection with Octavia as they head to 101. And despite improvements and some traffic calming measures, it still turns into a bit of a mash up around the intersection, with cyclists trying to thread through the traffic jam. This weekend SFMTA rolled out a center-running green bike lane that helps formalize what most cyclists already do--pass to the left of the queue of cars waiting to turn right on Octavia.

What vehicle produces no emissions, uses no fossil fuels, is easily maintained, costs little, gets you where you want to go quickly, and improves your health?