Last week we did a post about protected bike lanes being a good thing, inspired by this photo of demonstrators demonstrating on Valencia Street:
Reader mushmouth has a different take:
No please no as a cyclist those things suck, I constantly get stuck behind two people riding slowly side by side chatting. They do nothing to stop cars but you will likely be hurt if you hit them on your bike. I highly doubt there were many injuries in the places they have been installed before they were installed. Seriously they are a solution searching for a problem.
SFBC if you want to make the streets safer get the quality of the pavement improved, and fixed right, maybe starting with the pothole that has been growing for the past year 20 feet from your HQ door on Market and Valencia.
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Yes, the city should keep its roads in good repair, prioritizing fixes for bike lanes since bikes are more sensitive to bad road conditions.
But I’m sorry, safe infrastructure is more important than how fast you can ride down Valencia. As to the question of whether physically separated bike lanes are safer, then answer is unequivocally “yes”: https://www.treehugger.com/bikes/new-american-study-confirms-physically-separated-bike-lanes-are-crucial-safety.html
You may be confusing the things SFMTA calls “protected” with actual physically separated lanes. Raised lanes are not physically separated. Lanes guarded by soft hit posts are not physically separated. For examples of actual physically separated bike lanes, look at (parts of) the recent projects on:
13th, 7th, and 8th: https://www.sfmta.com/about-sfmta/blog/happy-bike-work-day-new-protected-bike-lanes-and-bike-count-webpage