Among other things. Connecting the City explains:
[The North-South Bikeway] will be a continuous, safe and comfortable bikeway from San Francisco State University all the way to Aquatic Park linking important civic institutions like City College and City Hall along the way. On this route, you experience the unique flavor of San Francisco neighborhoods such as Glen Park, the Mission and Polk Street and the diverse local shops and restaurants that will benefit from this bikeway. Calmer streets, an improved pedestrian experience and bringing more people to local businesses will make these streets and neighborhoods better for everyone.
Watch the whole video:
Can’t wait!
(Thanks, Mai!)
Great…now where am I going to park?
i know you are being facetious, but i wouldn’t be surprised if there is motorist outrage that they will no longer be able to double-park in the divider.
Indeed…I’m only kinda being facetious. That’s the best way to drop off a Lost Weekend video rental.
But riding a bike would be even better.
remember… there is no divider on valencia between like 20th and 16th or whatever. they widened the sidewalks
Actually, the sidewalks have never been narrower….
If only we could get more bike riders to obey the laws.
if only we could get more drivers to obey the laws.
If only we could get more pedestrians to obey the laws.
If only we had more laws.
IF ONLY
It’s a great idea, but i just don’t know if there’s room. They just eliminated the middle merge-lane on Valencia to widen the sidewalks. If you’re still going to allow cars to park on that street, you’re gonna need some room between parked cars and traffic (that room also serves as the current bike lane), so how are you gonna squeeze two extra bike lanes in the middle and still allow cars to park?
Also, you’d have to make it illegal for cars to make a left turn on Valencia, it would really snarl the bike traffic.
It might be hard to eliminate parking on Valencia for those blocks, and to remove left-turns for all of Valencia, but I think you’d need to do both to make this work.
I don’t know that it’s a matter of “two extra” bike lanes so much as it is shifting the current bike lanes to the center of the street instead of between the moving automotive traffic and parked automotive traffic. I do agree that left turns are a big concern, though.
right, common sense says that you would eliminate the current bike lanes and move them into the center, the space is already there. i know it’s sacriledge, but if SF really wanted to be bike and pedestrian friendly they could make Valencia and a couple of other key pedestrian streets like Polk and Market and make them car-free (busses would still run). i know when i drive i never take those streets anyways, they are mostly jammed up with taxis, drunk drivers and tourists.
I think this would be a great idea for Market St. Nobody in their right mind drives on Market St anyway. Not so sure about Valencia, though.
Make Polk street (parts thereof) car free? Spoken like a truly entitled biker.
Make like 5 out of 1,000 streets car-free? Explain how that would constitute ‘entitled.’ The very definition of ‘entitled’ is a typical car driver’s attitude that he should be able to drive right up to his destination and store his car alongside the curb for free (or nearly so).
I do not want to have to weave in and out of traffic to get to the sidewalk. I’d rather stick to the sides, thanks.
I can easily see this turning into a passing lane for cars when there is light bike traffic.
And also when the police decides to use Valencia as a drag strip responding to calls, they can just drive down the middle!!
this is gonna be like a bad game of frogger
All this because Martha Stewart parked in the bike lane? Sheesh, talk about an overreaction!
They’ve gotta figure out a way to keep cars out of the bike lane. Cars in Valencia’s bike lanes — double parked, taxi pickups, deliveries and more — and drunk pedestrian groups already make them unusable and unsafe during the busy nights.
Exactly.
Jaywalkers will never allow it. Prepare for injuries otherwise.
Just like the Brooklyn bridge! Works for New Yorkers.
From Market Street to César Chávez, place bike lanes running in both directions below ground, with ramp exits/entrances at key streets; 14th, 16th, 18th, 22nd, 24th, and so on. Erect skylights on above-ground columns. Or cover the lanes with overhead grates so that drunk hipsters can pee and puke.
Hey, it’s no goofier than the Central “subway”. Well….
Better idea: put the cars underground…
I’m pretty much against this. Green paint is visible and one one hand makes us safer. But it’s also slippery when wet and on the other hand is dangerous. I know they’ve started mixing sand in the paint they’ve been using but I wonder if the sand is gonna wear away after a year and leave the same slick green paint. I wonder whether we’re trading one risk for another with the paint.
Sorry about all your worries. Safety already comes first way too aften and as a result we all soften.
On the other hand, maybe you get an A+ in Trollism.
Gotta agree with Broseph about the green paint, it’s a dumb idea. Might as well pave all the bike lanes with banana peels. Gotta disagree with Broseph about the green paint, that shit is not safer.
Seems this scheme would eliminate the winning of door-prizes, anyway.
dang it!
The overall plan seems great, but moving the bike lanes between the parking spaces and the sidewalk would make a lot more sense.
Agreed. Although you would still have to deal with drunken peds in the bike lanes, and it wouldn’t solve issues with left turns.
Gotta take issue with this video’s claim that SFSU is an “important place.”
I think this is a silly idea. If they’re going to make such a major shake-up to Valencia, they should just go whole-hog and build proper, physically separated, bike lanes.
Which works like shit around Crissy Field.
hmm, really? What sort of problems do they run into? Physically separated bike lanes are pretty standard in .nl and a lot of .uk, and they seemed to work pretty well there, for the most part.
The lanes are too narrow and force everyone to go lame-biker speed because you can’t pass.
Why not make it free of cars?
i commute via bicyle every day and drive a car in san francisco. the bike lanes they’re proposing here in the middle of the street look really poorly designed. it’s bad enough having to deal w/ other bicyclists passing you in the bike lane on the right (the whine i often hear about that when calling a fellow cyclist out on that unsafe maneuver is, “there was a car on the left, i wasn’t going to pass on that side!” – uh, then wait for the car to pass YOU before you endanger me by squeezing your impatient self past me on the right within the narrow bike lane, OK?” – so i can foresee lots of head-on bike-on-bike collisions w/ this 2-way bike lane design. also, imagine little kids riding in those lanes, too…again, the potential for bike-on-bike collisions and pile-ups with that 2-way design starts looking really scary, when you factor in that there will be two lanes of cars zooming by on both sides. if a bunch of bicyclists are on the ground in a pileup, suddenly it goes from scraped knees to being splattered in the street by oncoming traffic. in theory, the 2-way bike lane design in the middle looks good, but in reality, it’s mayhem and death waiting to happen.
actually, this will encourage more people to pass on the left, since the cars will be on the right. bike lanes in the middle would also make the cyclists much more visible to the cars, and there would be no more dooring. there is no perfect system, but i’ll take a few bike-on-bike accidents over a whole lot of car-on-bike collisions any day.
How does a bicyclist passing you while you are stopped in a car ‘endanger you’ in any way, shape, or form?
uh, i was referring to when i’m riding my bicycle in the bike lane, not when i’m driving my car. hence the terms, “other bicyclists” & “within” (the narrow bike lane).
reading is FUNdaMENTAL!
I think there should be a 5 mph speed limit for bikes and no passing allowed. Then more people would drive like normal people do and there would be less danger to pedestrians!
You want more drivers? Doesn’t the commute suck already? I’d rather see a $15 gas tax.. then I could drive to work past all the bikers in the morning with no real traffic.
i think satan himself is responsible for this proposal. beware.
Only NoObs take Valencia. Harrison 4eva.
What does that make the fucking retards I see biking up SVan Ness every morning?
taxpaying citizens with a right to use public roads?
I think you’ve mistaken me for some sort of anti-bike person. On the contrary, i just think you have to be the aforementioned retard to ride on SVan Ness instead of Folsom or one of the other roads where you’re less likely to get creamed.
do you regularly ride a bike in this neighborhood or is this more ‘common sense’?
All of the above.
aside from the fact that it’s foolish and insensitive to call people ‘retards’, you are calling most of the regular cyclists in this area ‘retards’ because you don’t understand how to get around on a bicycle. not every route has bike-friendly streets. people take S Van Ness for the same reasons cars do: it’s faster. most of those people you see are probably regular commuters trying to get to work or school on time. all that aside, one could make a very strong argument that taking a lane on South Van Ness is safer than riding in a bike lane on Folsom or Harrison.
Additional crazytalk.
What is a No Obs?
So as a bike messenger i see this middle of valencia idea completely failing.. I dont know if any of these city representatives have actually ever road on valencia on a busy morning or night but cars could give two s%$ts about if theres a bike lane or not. Especially if its in the middle of the street! Im against this green bike lane junk. On market it just gives idiots behind the wheel and angry taxi drivers a even bigger target for cyclist or even a place to park for fair or just to be a ignorant jerk.
Thats just my two cents. Harden the eff up and take alternative routes! We have the right to ride ANY where in the city. IF there isnt a bike lane we are allowed a full effin lane!
Sure you’re ALLOWED a full lane, but the rality is that using the whole lane ends with more car/bike collisions. Not saying it should, just pointing out the fact that it does.
what’s your source?
You mean besides common sense? I guess mostly just my own lyin’ eyes.
well then your common sense is severely lacking. when there is no bike lane, riding in the center of the right lane is almost always the safest way to ride.
http://www.commutebybike.com/2008/03/18/top-5-reasons-to-claim-the-lane-and-why-its-safer/
http://cyclingsavvy.org/hows-my-driving/
http://www.bikexprt.com/streetsmarts/usa/chapter2a.htm
Crazytalk.
maybe everyone could have their cake and eat it too? what if the bike lanes were all the way to the right, touching the sidewalk, and physically separated from the car lanes with a barrier? they could move the parking spaces to the left side of the bike lane. drivers would have to watch out for the occasional biker when walking from the parking spots to the sidewalk, but it seems like a good way to make biking on a street like Valencia safe without too much confusion.
or they could do what they do on many streets in Amsterdam; widen the sidewalks further and put the bike lane next to the pedestrian walkway on the sidewalks.
Yup, that is exactly what I was suggesting.
You know the single intersection at Fell and Masonic that was considered so dangerous that they have a special light just to make the left? Well you will have that every single block (except needed for the right turn instead of the left), as well as collision points at driveways, you know because people live on Valencia street and have driveways already.
Everybody knows Valencia will eventually turn into a pedestrian strip mall with Gucci and Burberry stores anyway.