Bike Lanes

Thanks to Lisa Ratner for shooting this video on Polk last Friday.

On Friday at about 5 p.m., I came across a crash scene on Polk Street at Pine. A bicycle rider had been struck by a driver and thrown into another car, and he was being hauled away in a stretcher. As it happened, I was pedaling up Polk to meet with Lisa Ratner, a videographer, to get some shots of the dangerous traffic conditions on the street (stay tuned for that video later this week).

Updated 5:16 p.m. with corrections on the number of blocks.

Last month, we asked for photos of public servants parking obnoxiously, and our readers delivered. Here are some select snapshots of city vehicles parked egregiously without an emergency in sight.

A chunk of roadway at Valencia and Mission Streets would be reclaimed to create a plaza designed to make the corner more pedestrian-friendly and absorb stormwater under a project led by the SF Public Utilities Commission.

The SFMTA painted the Embarcadero bike lanes green yesterday, which will hopefully help signal to drivers that it's not a parking lane. The SFMTA Livable Streets team wrote on its Facebook page that the Port of SF helped get the paint on the ground in time for the Fourth of July and America's Cup later this month.

The Central Subway is coming, like it or not, and that means Fourth Street will get Muni Metro service starting in 2019. With that in mind, the SF Planning Department recently released the draft Central SoMa Plan (formerly known as the Central SoMa Plan), which sets the stage for upzoned transit-oriented development near new stations and street improvements to accommodate a growing population in a rapidly changing section of SoMa.

It's remarkable how much more dignified bicycling on mid-Market Street feels with the fresh coat of smooth asphalt and green paint that crews put in over the weekend. The bike lane's transformation from something like an abandoned trench to a green carpet is almost as refreshing as when it was first painted green (in fact, it's brighter now than ever).

The plan for raised, parking-protected bike lanes and pedestrian safety improvements on Second Street is shaping up after the Department of Public Works presented new details [PDF] last week.