Bike Lanes

As the vote on the Polk Street redesign approaches in the coming months, the SFMTA Board of Directors last week requested that planners present the board with a pilot project option for bolder bike safety improvements along the length of the project area. Currently, the SFMTA's preferred option calls only for sharrows and rush-hour parking bans on the northbound segment of the street where merchant opposition is strongest. The southbound side of that stretch would get a conventional, unprotected bike lane.

SFMTA crews are currently installing a widened, buffered bike lane on Folsom Street between 11th and Fourth Streets.

The bike lane we spotted at Fort Mason last week, which replaced a lane of car parking on the northern end of Van Ness Avenue, could be removed any day now, according to city staffers. The bike lane was installed temporarily as part of the People Plan, intended to encourage visitors to bicycle during the America's Cup yacht races -- but only on a trial basis.

A new contra-flow bike lane separated by paint and plastic posts has appeared at the northern end of Van Ness Avenue, providing a safer link between the ped/bike paths that run through Fort Mason and Fisherman's Wharf.

If you listen to the public discourse about re-allocating street space to make bicycling safer in San Francisco, a pattern in the naysayers' message quickly emerges. "Only a small margin of people ride bicycles, and those people don't deserve space for safer travel," goes the refrain. "Traffic lanes and parking for cars are too important to give up -- trading them for bike lanes won't get San Franciscans to ride bikes more, it'll only result in carmageddon."

A buffered, post-separated bike lane on John Muir Drive along Lake Merced was commandeered for car parking this weekend for attendees of a golf tournament.

The SFMTA has released some preliminary survey results showing that the three-block bike lanes on Fell and Oak Streets, along with other safety measures, have resulted in calmer motor traffic, an increased sense of safety among bicycle commuters, and a decrease in illegal bicycling behaviors.

The SFMTA's proposal to widen the Folsom Street bike lane with a buffer zone and remove a general traffic lane drew significant turnout at a community meeting in SoMa yesterday evening. The project, set to be installed by the end of the year, seems to have strong support from residents and livable streets advocates as a short-term measure to make Folsom safer.

The Mission's stretch of Folsom Street, between 19th and 24th Streets, just got safer with bike lanes and a road diet striped along with a road-repaving.