Construction on the curbside bike lanes that will replace the Valencia Street center bike lane is expected to be nearly complete early this month.
Immediately after the Valencia Street’s maligned centerbike lane began deconstruction earlier this year, chaos ensued for bikers along the once car-free corridor. Overnight, the center bikelane — a maligned, poorly executed pilot project by SFMTA to see if Parisian- and Dutch-styled center bike lanes could mingle with America’s car-centric roads; spoiler alert: it didn’t go well, ending in dozens of injuries and dangerous traffic conditions — was closed.
None of the shoulder curbside bike lanes had opened. Cyclists were left riding into traffic, stripped clean of any protection from designated passageways. What ensued was a Mad Max-esque scene of cyclists competing with motorists for road space.
Finally, the curbside iteration of Valencia Street’s bike lane network is nearing completion.
“We are looking to early May for substantial completion [of Valencia Street’s curbside bike lanes,” wrote Michael Roccaforte, an SFMTA spokesperson, in an email to Streetsblog, about the construction of curbside-protected bike lanes extending from 15th to 23rd Street on Valencia.
As of publishing, a smattering of traffic cones and temporary construction signage lines much of the busy street … with notable work done to repaint and update curbside spaces to accommodate cyclists. Finished sections boast considerable space between cyclists and same-direction traffic; in lieu of cement barriers, plastic bollards line the completed sections to thwart drivers from entering or, as is common around San Francisco, allowing them to park idly.
Alas, the finished and pending curbside bike lanes along SF’s Valencia Street aren’t perfect; a de facto ideal iteration would be bike lanes completely separated from road traffic or those protected by cement barriers, the latter having been the new norm for all of Chicago’s bike lanes since 2022. But these new pathways are far better than the center bike lane they replace. And, thus, should exist as a blueprint for future bike lane projects in the city that hope to best blend cyclists’ safety and traffic conditions with access to shoulder-friendly small businesses.
“The curbside bikeways installed on Valencia between 19th and 23rd Streets [are] the type of bike infrastructure that SFMTA should be installing on every street,” said Streets Forward’s Luke Bornheimer to Streetsblog. And with SFMTA’s Biking and Rolling Plan current plan to connect 10% of San Francisco’s streets to a bike lane network by 2045 — a project that would see around 385 sections of San Francisco roads fitted to better support cyclists — its a future that will hopefully be able to trace its learnings from one of the agencies biggest disappoints.
Feature image: Courtesy of Streetsblog/Roger Rudick
