ThinkBike - the Wiggle

concepts for a great biking street

What happens when you mix Dutch bicycle planners with San Francisco streets? You get ThinkBike, an intense two-day planning and design encounter sparking innovative solutions for better bikeways!

Why the Wiggle?

The Wiggle, which is the multi-block, flattest route between Duboce Park and the Panhandle, is a lovely journey through a largely residential part of the city and some neighborhood retail streets. Featuring everything from greenery to Victorians and corner stores, it's a wonderful snapshot of San Francisco that thousands and thousands of people enjoy every day, including people on bicycles. It's also a relatively friendly place — with notable exceptions — for family bicycling. But the Wiggle is still a patchwork, somewhat confusing route (it's common to see tourists on bicycles looking at their maps with confusion, not sure if they missed a turn) that features too much speeding from cut-through traffic, including both people driving and bicycling. ThinkBike workshop participants are charged with imagining ways to further enhance the quiet residential character of much of the route, and the vibrancy of the retail streets.

For nearly two decades, neighbors, senior citizens and people that walk and bike through this area to get to and from work and other destinations have requested the city do more to make Fell and Oak Streets safer for them and their families, though little has been accomplished. Five years ago, residents in the Alamo Square area put in a formal request for traffic calming in their area around Scott Street and other streets, though only a few pieces have been implemented. Duboce Triangle neighbors worked with the city to add safety improvements to Duboce Avenue and Church Street tied in with the rail replacement project, and are awaiting implementation of some of those improvements. The city's recent efforts to add a separated bikeway on Fell and Oak Streets between Scott and Baker Street are being discussed at well-attended community meetings, with wide support for the concept. It's clear that neighbors in this part of town are committed to making biking and walking safer, and the concepts from ThinkBike reinforce these long-requested wishes.

Full PDF ThinkBike presentation for The Wiggle

[back to main ThinkBike SF page]