Bike Lanes

The SFMTA plans make upgrades to the Howard and Folsom Street bike lanes, a couplet of one-way bike routes that run through SoMa. A section of Howard will get a three-foot buffer zone added to its bike lane, as well as painted sidewalk bulb-outs. On Folsom, an intersection with the Bay Bridge on-ramp at Essex Street will be re-configured with a new bike traffic signal.

A key hearing will be held in Sacramento tomorrow on legislation that would pave the way for more California cities to build protected bike lanes, also known as "cycle tracks."

When a driver rear-ended Bert Hill, he was using all of the safe bicycling techniques in the book -- after all, he's one of the most heavily-consulted bike safety instructors in San Francisco. Hill even had a major role in the SFMTA's new video for Muni drivers on how to share the streets with people on bikes.

The northbound side of speed-plagued San Jose Avenue north of 280, a.k.a. the Bernal Cut, is getting a road diet and buffered bike lane that matches the geometry of the street's southbound side. SFMTA crews were out today, re-striping the road and installing plastic posts in the buffer zone.

The more than 1,800 people who use the buffered, curbside bike lane on Fell Street every weekday continue to be faced with a familiar hazard: parked trucks.

On the two southernmost blocks of Polk Street, between Market Street and City Hall, the new contra-flow protected bike lane creates a unique street layout for San Francisco. For the first time on a downtown street, people on bikes are accommodated in a way that people in cars are not. Bike traffic goes both ways, while cars only go one.

Yesterday, on the Bay Area's 20th Bike to Work Day, Bike East Bay and Walk Oakland Bike Oakland demonstrated what a block of Telegraph Avenue would look and feel like with a parking-protected bike lane. Without help from the city's Public Works Department (but with city approval), the two advocacy groups created temporary bike infrastructure by painting green lanes and bike stencils, putting down planters, and turning the adjacent traffic lane into a parking lane.

Another year, another Bike to Work Day press conference at City Hall. As city officials ride to the podium, the event serves as a bellwether of the city's political commitment to making city streets safe enough for everyone to bicycle, regardless of age or experience.

A block of Telegraph Avenue in Oakland will get a protected bike lane and parklet for one day -- Bike to Work Day, this Thursday. Bike East Bay and Walk Oakland Bike Oakland will set up the demo on the southbound side of Telegraph between 27th and Sycamore Streets, providing a taste of the transformation possible with the city's plans to redesign the street.