It’s been 973 days since San Francisco got a new bike lane, but with the lifting of a court-ordered injunction imminent, 2009 is poised to be the year of lots of new bike lanes and other improvements, as indicated in the above graphic.
The thing is, in order for all of these changes to be realized, the effort needs boots on the ground. To that end, SFBC tonight at 6:30pm hosts an all-member meeting at First Baptist Church of San Francisco (near Market and Octavia) at which we’ll learn what kind of concrete tasks members and concerned citizens can undertake in order to push these initiatives through. Link.
Oh god last thing we need is more bike lanes- they’ll just bring in more hipsters.
cool kids
we need a bike lane on MASONIC please
great. more cars. more bikes. more pedestrians being run over. what we need is more pedestrian lanes.
or more cool dads towing cool kids
How about making Valencia bus and bike only? (Along with UPS trucks so hipster stores can get their stock and the hipsters themselves get their Amazon fix.)
Word @ natomahead
Put the bikes in the car lanes (remove the cars, of course) and widen the sidewalks!
@ johnny0, Remember that in a matter of months there will be no buses running down Valencia. I say make Mission bike/bus only. It’s flatter anyway and hauls more folks on buses than any other street in the city.
“make Mission bike/bus only”
THAT is a truly progressive idea.
cabs too? and cop cars?
What’s the opposite of a hipster?
Non-cycling sanctimonious anti-fashionista that uses a pejorative to mark a group of young people that enjoy an aesthetic the same way anyone else who buys clothing does??
I’m not sure when or why the define-a-hipster phenomenon has become as much of an issue as it has, but it’s pretty obnoxious at this point. Who fucking cares? I see cycling trends, fashion trends, and music trends as pretty harmless so why are there so many haters?
i’d say the opposite of a hipster (cool kid) is a preppie, sticking to, you know, hollow-but-strangely-accurate stereotypes.
@ Hipster – that said, you should note, many folks that frequent this particular blog – not all, but many – have at least a secret admiration for hipsters (cool kids), if not a clear allegiance. and some, i would say some have an outright, unreasonable love for hipsters (cool kids).
so for the most part you’re among friends.
i can say that i personally love you & all your hipster (cool kid) friends, Hipster. so dont get your plaid pants all in a bunch. there’ll always be haters. fuck em, along with their blue button-downs.
(assuming it’s not a Tom Brown blue button-down).
Our grandparents built the Bay Bridge in 3 years — it now takes us 3 years to decide whether and where to paint lines on the street. (Actually we are deciding whether or not to decide, the 3 year warm-up to the line painting.) I am concerned that there are not riots over this. People act like it is a fact of nature that one person (Rob Anderson in this utterly typical case) can sue over his bullshit theory and shut things down for years — one of which years were necessary to produce a 1300 page environmental review that no one except Anderson and his lawyer will ever read. It is not a fact of nature, it is not a Republican conspiracy, it is a straightforward racket that anyone who cares about the environment has to stop being complacent about, or anyone who is a little ashamed of continuing to mooch off our grandparents’ labor indefinitely. Here is a real environmental impact report for new residential construction in SOMA or mid market, for example: “Fewer houses in Stockton and Modesto, less commuting, lower heating and energy costs, less carbon emissions.” FIN, that’s it.
I consider bicycling to be “formula transportation” so all these new bike lanes make me nervous. Real nervous.
Chicken John, let’s mobilize!
God, I wish y’all could turn off the snark valve now and again.
Nobody would want to ride a bike up Mission it’s got too many bumps and grinds in it.
Bumps and grinds are the spice of life!
[...] from Mission Mission, the possibility of new bike lanes in the city, and potato towers from the free farm [...]
Most of the bike lanes in San Francisco are dangerous and unnecessary. I don’t understand why people want to put more of them in. Study after study shows that bike lanes (as implemented here) are not safe, but only provide a false sense of security. There are exceptions are really crazy intersections, but beyond that I think we should be getting rid of bike lanes.
If “as implemented here,” they’re unsafe, it might be because they’re implemented in a sparse and disconnected fashion. Don’t you think having a more complete network will improve safety? Drivers will become more accustomed them, right?
Until you start coloring the bike lanes, drivers won’t respect them. I think it has to be a subconscious thing so even stupid drivers on cell phones will avoid driving into it.
http://sf.streetsblog.org/2009/02/10/presidio-trust-experiments-with-green-bike-lanes/
http://bikeportland.org/2008/03/15/first-look-at-portlands-new-bike-friendly-green-space/
http://sf.streetsblog.org/2009/02/13/loving-the-blue-bike-lane-in-brisbane/
when i drive my lazy ass down Folsom every morning, many, MANY of the kind, responsible souls on their bikes refuse to ride in the bike lane, instead riding in the right hand car lane.
sometimes 3 abreast.
why do they do that if there’s a bike lane? isn’t that dangerous?
Sometimes bike lanes are unkempt. Glass, cracks, gravel, potholes.
JN3msE comment2 ,
Very good article. Looking forward to seeing you write more articles about this topic.
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