Bike Theft

Last night at about 11:30 p.m., Jessica Kuo came across "a man handcuffed with his face planted against the bike lane" at Market and Valencia Streets in the left-turn bike junction. She reported:

The bike station that was supposed to be installed at Civic Center Station in June won't come for at least another year, according to BART Bike Program Manager Steve Beroldo. No word yet on what's caused the delay, but Beroldo said the station hasn't even been fully designed yet (it's at "95 percent"). BART does have full funding to build the station, however.

BART police had some welcome news for Bay Area cyclists this week: An undercover sting led to the arrest of an alleged thief in possession of ten bikes and more than 100 bike parts. It's a nice follow-up to the SFPD's arrest last July of a thief who had 114 stolen bicycles.

BART and Muni Metro riders who bike to Civic Center Station would have less reason to worry about getting their wheels stolen if a planned bike station is installed next June, potentially adding a sectioned-off parking area and a fix-it-yourself repair station.

My work routinely requires me to travel to San Francisco City Hall to cover hearings and I would estimate I'm there on average between one and two times a week. I almost always ride my bicycle and in the course of nearly two years writing for Streetsblog, I've never had a problem locking up on the bike racks in front of the building. Unfortunately, that changed last Thursday during a hearing for the CPMC draft environmental impact report.

I don't have particularly strong feelings about notions of Karma or Hell, but if there is something to them, I know a particular bike thief is going to have it rough come judgment time.

Last week I did something wholly in opposition to the tenets of common sense cycling in a city: I left my quality bicycle locked up for four days in a high bicycle theft location, in this case on 24th Street right next to the BART station.

When Oakland installed its first pay-and-display parking kiosks in early 2007, parking managers ordered employees to remove the heads of the approximately 5,000 single-space meters they were replacing. Just like other cities transitioning from using single-space parking meters to newer multi-space pay stations, the parking managers failed to realize the utility of those old meter poles for cyclists, who used them for locking up their bicycles. 

It’s Bike Month – which means there are scads of neophytes out there nationwide giving cycling a try.  Oh goody! But, oh baddy – it also means more improper locking – and we all know there are predators just licking their chops at the thought of stealing all or part of your bike. So we … Continued