Green Wave

Two bicycling upgrades were spotted in the eastern neighborhoods this past week: Preliminary striping for bike lanes on western Cesar Chavez Street and a "green wave" on 11th Street in west SoMa.

For a few weeks now, bicycle riders accustomed to Valencia Street's "green wave" signal timing have noticed that the system seems out of whack. Many say they've been hitting red lights where they've normally been able to breeze through the synchronized signals at 13 MPH without stopping.

The SFMTA recently implemented its second green wave on 14th Street, re-timing traffic signals for more bicycle-friendly speeds from Dolores to Folsom.

Valencia Street's nearly two-year-old Green Wave signal re-timing aimed at prioritizing bicycle traffic speeds continues to please street users, city leaders, and advocates alike. What started as a temporary pilot will become a permanent institution this week with the installation of four new Green Wave signs along the corridor.

I ride my bike along Valencia Street nearly every day from my home to City Hall or some other assignment and I love the relatively slower pace of traffic that resulted from the bicycle green wave signal retiming last year (way to go Janel!). Without fail, however, my heart rate rises when I come upon someone riding in the door zone of Valencia's lanes, which happens every single day I ride. I have visions of a door opening and the person getting maimed, or worse. Maybe it reflects my own obsessive mental state, but I've literally had dreams where the cyclist in front of me gets into serious trouble when a door swings open, leaving them no time to safely maneuver around.

Editor's note: This is the first in a series of dispatches from Copenhagen and Amsterdam from Leah Shahum, the executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition who is on sabbatical in Europe. 

As Streetsblog San Francisco reported last month, cities around the world have timed their traffic signals to favor slower moving modes, and now San Francisco has started a trial on one of the busiest bicycle routes in the city, Valencia Street.

Though Superior Court Judge Peter J. Busch ruled the MTA will not get an immediate exemption to the bike injunction to remove the eastbound segment of the bike lane at Market and Octavia because he didn’t think an “adequate case has been made that there's a public safety crisis,” when the hold on the bike plan is lifted as early as this spring, the agency will likely try to remove the lane anyway.