Bike Lanes

Today and tomorrow, Oakland will host the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) Cities for Cycling Road Show, which brings experts on NACTO's "Urban Street Design Guide" to Oakland to meet with city planners, engineers, and elected officials.

The SFMTA and the Planning Department presented detailed plans for Polk Street at the project's final open house meeting yesterday. The new aspects include specific locations of bulb-outs, dedicated bicycle signals, left turn prohibitions, loading zones, and new trees and landscaping. Plans to improve bicycle infrastructure are still composed of a mix of protected, buffered, conventional, and part-time bike lanes, depending on the stretch and side of the street.

Tonight is the SFMTA and Planning Department's final open house on the Polk Street redesign, the last chance to weigh in on the agency's preferred design before it goes to the SFMTA Board of Directors for approval. As you can see from the above flyer, the parking-obsessed "Save Polk Street" group is still fighting against safety measures in order to hang on to the small amount of car storage the SFMTA proposes to remove.

The SFMTA extended the buffered bike lanes on Bayshore Boulevard earlier this month from Silver Avenue south to Paul Avenue, reducing four traffic lanes to two. The street now provides a calmer, safer bicycling link for Bayview residents all the way up to where Bayshore ends, at Cesar Chavez Street and the "Hairball" freeway interchange.

The Belmont City Council is gearing up to decide on a list of infrastructure investments intended to improve safety and reduce traffic congestion on Ralston Avenue. At a community meeting last month, representatives from consulting firms W-Trans and Alta Planning presented their Ralston Avenue Corridor Study, intended "to improve the multi-modal function" of the busy arterial street.

City officials held a press conference yesterday to tout the widening of Arguello Boulevard in the Presidio to add sidewalks and bike lanes. Previously, the short stretch of road had only shoulders for people to walk and bike on, squeezing between guard rails and motor traffic. It's one of the first projects to be funded by a local $10 vehicle registration fee increase which city voters passed under Prop AA in 2010.

Exciting news on the protected bike lane front. The contra-flow protected bike lane on the south end of Polk Street is taking shape. By Bike to Work Day on May 8, the project is expected to provide a direct bike connection from Market Street to City Hall.

Despite growing demand for better walking and biking infrastructure in San Mateo County, active transportation grants from the City/County Association of Governments of San Mateo County (C/CAG) cover only a fraction of the projects that cities want to build, leaving many residents without the sidewalks, bike lanes, and other basic ingredients they need to safely navigate their streets.

The SFMTA has installed bike lanes and speed bumps on Holloway Avenue between Beverly Street and Ashton Avenue, a stretch that serves as the main bicycling route connecting SF State University to City College's Ocean Campus and Balboa Park Station.