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12 New Street Plazas and Parklets Coming Soon
March 1, 2010: We're thrilled to tell you that Mayor Newsom has announced that the City's Pavement to Parks program will be completing 12 more trial street plazas and "parklets" by the end of 2010. These projects take street space, including car parking spots, and transform them to create gathering spots for the community. The first such plaza opened in May 2009 at 17th Street and Castro streets and has become a popular gathering place for the community. The new parklets build on the idea of PARK(ing) Day, the one-day event that transforms street parking spots into people spaces. Read more at SF Streetsblog
Otis Street Bike Lane Striped
February 10: The SF Bicycle Coalition is celebrating the new bike lane on Otis Street, creating an important one block link between South Van Ness and Gough Street. This is the ninth new bike lane to be striped since December -- other bike lanes have been striped on Beale, Clipper, Howard, Mississippi, Otis and Scott, part of 7th Ave and Claremont Blvd. These bike lanes are the result of years of hard work by SF Bicycle Coalition staff and countless hours of grassroots organizing by committed Bicycle Coalition members. We are pleased to see these new bicycling improvements being added all across the city and creating important links in the bike network.
Be a Sunday Streets Volunteer
The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition is proud to be coordinating the volunteer corps that will make nine car-free Sunday Streets events possible this year. Starting on Sunday, March 14 more than 150 volunteers will make each event possible. Sign up to be part of the fun. All volunteers get a Sunday Streets t-shirt, a lunch, and the great feeling that you helped make a fun car-free event possible. Help make it happen by signing up to volunteer now at sundaystreetssf.com/volunteer!
Mayor Newsom Highlights 175 New Bike Racks
Mayor Newsom took his weekly YouTube show to the Mission and met up with the SF Bicycle Coalition's Leah Shahum to highlight all the biking improvements hitting SF streets, specifically 175 new bike racks since December. They met outside Flour+Water restaurant where a new rack had just been installed. Bike racks are being requested at record pace -- upscale restaurants, banks, and hair salons are not unusual on a list of 1,000 sidewalk parking rack requests that the SF Municipal Transportation Agency has received. The city plans to install 600 more bike parking racks by the end of the year. Well-located and convenient sidewalk bicycle racks are an important link when riding a bicycle to work, to the store, or to a restaurant. Request a free bike parking rack for your favorite location today. Watch the YouTube show here.
Free Urban Cycling Workshops
The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition hosts two part workshops for new cyclists who want to ride in traffic safely, and for experienced cyclists who want to brush up on their skills. Register today and save your place in one of these free urban cycling workshops!
Classes cover loads of information including how to choose the right bike and properly fit a helmet, tips for the safest ways to ride in traffic, techniques to avoid or deal with road hazards, the best way to lock up your bike, how to use a bike in combination with public transit, cyclists' legal rights and responsibilities, and much more.
Read more about these classes in the SF Chronicle Safe streets: Workshops help cyclists trim risk
More Soft Hit Posts + Paint on Market St.
If you've ridden down Market Street in the last week, you probably noticed that your commute improved. As a part of the Better Market Street
Trials, the forced right turn for private cars heading east on Market has been moved to 10th Street, where there is more room for everyone to negotiate.
The SF Municipal Transportation Agency also added paint and soft-hit posts
to reconfigure this intersection and to facilitate the turn onto 10th Street. Is it working for you? So far, the SF Bicycle Coalition has heard positive
feedback about this change. People on bikes, walking and riding the bus are saying it's creating an easier, faster commute and a safer walking
experience. How about you? Send your comments on the change to marketstreet@sfgov.org or
twitter to "d sf311".
The SF Bike Coalition's Great Streets Project is working hard to keep these historic trials, launched in September 2009, moving forward. They represent a huge opportunity to test and keep good ideas in anticipation of a full repaving of Market Street in 2013. Read all about the full project details here.
Green Bike Box Gets Stenciled
January 5: California's first green Bike Box (at Scott and Oak streets) became a little more real this morning when DPT crews stenciled a bicycle on it. See photos here. The stencil and the green colored pavement help demarcate this Bike Box, an advance stop line that allows cyclists to safely and visibly position themselves in front of cars while waiting for the traffic light to turn green. Read more at SF Streetsblog.
New! Clipper St. Bike Lanes
DPT crews were out laying the lines to stripe the latest bike lane on Clipper St. See photos here.
New! Claremont Blvd. Bike Lanes
DPT crews were out striping another new bike lane, this time on Claremont Blvd. just one block over from West Portal Station. See photos here.
New! Separated Bike Lane on Market Street
San Francisco now has a separated bike lane on Market Street between Ninth and Tenth streets. The soft-hit posts add a physical barrier between faster moving vehicles and bicycles and also help prevent cars from parking in the bike lane. More photos and read the SF Streetsblog story
New! Howard St. Bike Lane Striped!
New! Mississippi St. Bike Lane Striped!
As reported by the SF Bay Guardian.
See photos here.
Court OKs Some Bike Improvements,
Scott St. Bike Lane is painted
November 2009 The SF Superior Court partially lifted the three-year-old Bike Plan injunction that has prevented all physical improvements for bicycles in SF, and the first bike lane is already on the ground at Scott St! While not a full lifting of the injunction, this decision allows the City to stripe ten bike lanes and paint 75 miles of shared-lane bike stencils ("sharrows"), install hundreds of bike parking racks and biking innovations (like "Bike Boxes") all across San Francisco. This ruling came on the heels of a city report that bicycle ridership has increased 53% since 2006.
The SF Bicycle Coalition is working hard to make sure that the City gets more projects on the ground quickly. The City expects that the SF Superior Court will hear the lawsuit which brought about this Bike Plan injunction in June 2010, at which point the lawsuit could be dissolved and bring about a full lifting of the injunction.
Read coverage at: SF Streetsblog, SF Chronicle, and the New York Times and the SF Bay Guardian.
Biggest Winterfest Party Yet
More than 1,300 SF Bicycle Coalition members, bike supporters, generous sponsors, talented artists, and local politicians gathered at our 14th Annual Winterfest Auction, Art Show, Party and Fundraiser on Sunday and raised a glass to a momentous year for biking in San Francisco. SF Bicycle Coalition members had a lot to celebrate including 45 bike lane projects getting the green light, the launch of the historic Market Street trials and (most exciting!) the city's first new bike lanes and bikeway improvements in more than three years.
It was by far the biggest and best Winterfest party yet, featuring amazing silent and live auctions including 20 new bikes, bike gear, 60 pieces of local art and a raffle for the 2009 bicycle quilt composed by dozens of local artists and crafters. See images from the Winterfest photo booth and recap of the event on our website at sfbike.org/winterfest.
A Day of Family Bike Fun
The SF Bicycle Coalition's third annual Family Day was Sun., Oct. 11. Join other families like yours as we enjoy a car-free Sunday in Golden Gate Park. We hosted special bike-y activities like a bike scavenger hunt, a family biking showcase and a family bike parade, as well as our popular Freedom From Training Wheels effort to get the little ones on two wheels and the mini-city Bike Road-eo to teach safe riding and rules of the road.
Check out the photos!
Walk to School Day at schools all over SF
The SF Bicycle Coalition held a special rally and celebration in honor of Walk to School Day and the official launch of SF's new Safe Routes to School Program on Wed., Oct. 7th at Longfellow Elementary (755 Morse St.).
The SF Bicycle Coalition is thrilled to be partnering with the SF Dept. of Public Health, SF Unified School District, SF Police Department, and SF Municipal Transportation Agency to launch the Safe Routes to School Program at five elementary schools: Bryant (Mission District), George Washington Carver (Bayview), Longfellow (Excelsior), Sunnyside (Sunnyside), Sunset (Outer Sunset). 68% of the students at these schools live within one mile, so there's an amazing opportunity to increase the number of kids who get to school by bike and foot.
Walk to School Day was Wed., Oct. 7th at various San Francisco Schools. More at: sfwalktoschool.com. Read coverage on Streetsblog and SFGate.
Tour de Fat Raises $38,000
Tour de Fat rolled through town and was the ballyhoo of bikes and beer it promised to be. Thousands of
people came out enjoyed the day celebrating bikes, listening to an amazing line-up of entertainment and enjoying New Belgium Brewery's
tasty portfolio of beer. A big FAT thank you to our dear friends at New Belgium Brewery for making the whole kit and caboodle possible -- together we raised over $38,000 for the SF Bicycle Coalition
and the Bay Area Ridge Trail Council! See photos of the day
at sfgate.com and on flickr.com.
Innovative Ideas Showcased on PARK(ing) Day
The SFBC and our Great Streets Project hit the streets on PARK(ing) Day to showcase two cool innovations, on-street bike parking and flexible parking spots. On-street bike parking, a component of the recently approved 2009 SF Bike Plan, transforms a single car parking space into 12 bicycle parking spaces. It's a benefit for bicyclists and pedestrians alike as it opens up the sidewalk space where bicycles would normally be locked to sign posts and parking meters. See photos here. And flexible parking spots are equally exciting as they literally widen the sidewalk and offers up more room for outdoor dining. See photos here.
Improvements Coming To Valencia Street
Exciting street changes are coming to popular Valencia Street. Construction has begun on four blocks of Valencia Street (between 15th and 19th Streets) to create wider bike lanes and sidewalks, and other enhancements like cafe style seating and new tree plantings. The Valencia Street we all know today is the product of years of SFBC advocacy. In the 1990's we pushed city leaders to do a "road diet", which transformed four travel lanes into two travel lanes with bike lanes and a center turn lane. And it is SFBC advocacy that is creating the Valencia Street of tomorrow.
The SFBC is partnering with the City and the project's contractors to make sure that cyclists and pedestrians retain a safe path of travel. With the encouragement of the SFBC, the city has temporarily re-striped Valencia Street to its future configuration to make sure there are fewer closures of the bicycles lanes during construction and to show what the street will look like with the increased space for bikes and pedestrians already marked on the street. The bike lane will be maintained whenever possible, and signage will be in place to direct traffic. The City is committed to keeping bike travel safe on Valencia. If you experience any unsafe conditions, call or email 311 with a report of the incident, and email Neal to keep the SFBC aware of the situation.
We did it! City Approves 45 Bike Lane Projects
The SFMTA Board voted yes on an ambitious Bike Plan and gave the green light to 45 new bike lanes on streets such as 5th, 17th, Townsend, Kirkham, Alemany, San Jose, and Portola (see the full list of victories here).
This victory is the result of years of SFBC advocacy and means that the City is on track to overturn the 3-year-old bike plan injunction and nearly double the number of bike lanes on our streets. These improvements will also push San Francisco towards being one of North America’s most bicycle-friendly cities and encourage hundreds of thousands of people to bicycle more often.
