Bicycling

Back in October, the Schmidt Family Foundation announced its “Just Transit SF Challenge,” a contest to come up with good transit improvement ideas that can be implemented quickly. The three winners were announced this month.

The Bike Yield ordinance was heard by the full San Francisco Board of Supervisors yesterday. It passed, with six “ayes” and five against -- two “ayes” short of what's needed to override Mayor Edwin Lee's veto pen.

While out with friends last night in West Portal, I mentioned that a cyclist was killed in San Francisco that morning. One of my friends corrected me and said "no, it was San Jose."

Yesterday the Land Use & Transportation Committee of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted to instruct SFPD to, in effect, allow cyclists in San Francisco to treat stop signs as yields. The proposal will now go before the full San Francisco Board of Supervisors on Dec. 15.

Yesterday, Governor Jerry Brown signed A.B. 40, legislation that bans tolling bicycle and pedestrians on bridges that have tolls for cars throughout the state.

At a heated community meeting last month, a bike commuter asked SFPD Park Station Captain John Sanford whether he could expect to continue safely treating stop signs as yield signs. Sanford had instituted a crackdown on that behavior, and some ticket recipients said they were told they had to put their foot down at stop signs. Sanford confirmed to the crowd that that requirement does not exist, and insisted that his officers didn't enforce it.

Mayor Ed Lee says he'll veto the Bike Yield Law because he's "not willing to trade away safety for convenience."

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.

Updated at 6:46 p.m. with image of Mayor's veto letter at the bottom.