The Wiggle

Plans to create calmer, greener streets on the Wiggle came into clearer focus Tuesday after the SFMTA presented more refined proposals for raised crosswalks and intersections, bulb-outs with greenery, traffic circles, traffic diverters, and other safety improvements.

The SFMTA held a public meeting last week about how to calm traffic on three blocks of Scott Street along the Wiggle. On the table are design features that would signal drivers to slow down and possibly prevent them from using the street as a cut-through route. Even though planners say the project may remove few, if any, parking spaces, a familiar handful of pro-car activists showed up to fume about the agency's livable streets projects in general.

The Wiggle could be transformed into a greener, more bicycle- and pedestrian-friendly route in the coming years thanks to a new planning effort launched by the SFMTA and the SF Public Utilities Commission.

The Oak Street protected bike lane was opened to bicycle traffic today -- the SFMTA finished striping and bike traffic signals just in time to welcome commuters on Bike to Work Day tomorrow, according to the agency's Livable Streets Facebook page. Crews got the job done at an impressive pace once it became a top priority, completing nearly all of the work since the first signs of construction appeared last Thursday.

The protected bike lane on Oak Street may not be constructed until some time after May 19, when the permit for renovation work on the Kelly-Moore paint shop on the corner of Oak and Divisadero Street ends, according to planners from the SF Muncipal Transportation Agency. Because the permit allows the paint shop to occupy the parking lane where the bike lane will go, the bike lane can't be completed until after it's done, agency staff said.

The SFMTA installed some green-backed bike stencils and upgraded ladder-style crosswalks at Market Street and Octavia Boulevard, the intersection that sees the most pedestrian and bicycle injuries in San Francisco.

The SF Municipal Transportation Agency brought the Market Street treatment to Fell Street yesterday, installing some plastic "safe-hit" posts along its three-block bike lane as a temporary safety measure, after the agency announced last week that concrete planters may not arrive until the end of the year.

After the SFMTA last week announced another delay for safety improvements on three blocks of Fell and Oak Streets, work began today on another aspect of the project: a reconfiguration of Baker Street between Oak and Fell, which is used by eastbound bicycle riders to connect from the Panhandle to Oak and the Wiggle. As of this afternoon, the previous striping had been removed and temporary markings put in place.

The partially completed project to add safety measures like protected bike lanes and pedestrian bulb-outs on three blocks Fell and Oak Streets has once again been delayed by the SF Municipal Transportation Agency. Though the project was originally scheduled to be completed by spring or summer, the agency now says components like the protected bike lane on Oak, bicycle traffic signals, slower signal timing, and concrete planters separating the bike lanes from motor traffic may not go in until the end of the year.