San Francisco’s center bikeway running through Valencia Street was never going to work. But in its failure, the need for installing protected curbside bike lanes along the roadway is now obvious.
Since debuting on August 1st, San Francisco’s Valencia Street center-lane bikeway has become a topic of friction. While its existence is commendable — any means to support and bolster SF’s micromobility is welcomed — how the pathway was designed and, eventually, implemented, has left much to be desired.
SFMTA is officially “exploring” a curbside protected bike lane design for Valencia Street, which is great news!
Curbside protected bike lanes — which are better for business and safer for people — can be installed immediately.
Support this improvement at https://t.co/d8C2LqqBsz pic.twitter.com/J9BPXuhmsL
— Luke Bornheimer (LukeBornheimer@sfba.social) (@LukeBornheimer) December 18, 2023
The two-mile, north-south bike route is largely unprotected… and there’s no dedicated passage to enter the bikeway; cyclists have been hit by cars; the lanes’ “speed bumps,” which are meant to mitigate cars from making illegal three-point turns and crossing into the bike lanes, have injured cyclists; drivers continue to enter the bikeways, confused by the reflective stripes over now-sun-aged green paint. And though Street Rebel — the social media handle on X and Instagram of a safe-street enthusiast keen on shoring up the city’s pedestrian agreeability — installed flex posts on Valencia’s biking corridor in October, their efforts merely placed a Hello Kitty bandage over a gangrenous knife wound.
The center-lane bikeway isn’t working. We know this.
(The center design of the lane is empirically flawed; for example, there’s no car-free avenue to access it safely. Once inside the narrow green lanes, it’s too common for cars to… drive right through them.)
People have been injured — severely, in multiple cases. Yet, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) has largely sat quiet, taking a listless approach to improving safety. However, in a recent update from the transit organization on the project’s status, SFMTA acknowledges the growing community reaction to the bikeway — “[your] feedback is a critical part of the evaluation process, and we have been making changes in response to what we’ve heard” — and explains the origins of the contentious design.
“We are now analyzing this data to determine the safety and effectiveness of the center-running bikeway and plan to present this information to our Board of Directors in early 2024,” continues the update. “ At the same time, we are exploring an alternative design that would relocate the bikeway to the side of the street, between the sidewalk and parked cars.”
Initially, the latter-mentioned, far safer setup wasn’t included in the pilot program — “[SFMTA] didn’t go with [curbside protected bikeways] for the pilot because it would have required the removal of the Shared Spaces parklets and more than half of the curbside parking and loading on Valencia Street, and merchants on the corridor asked us to find an alternative.”
But things have changed; the glaring problems with having a center-lane bikeway along one of SF’s busiest street corridors are now unignorable. As such, SFMTA has conceded that people’s opinions “may have changed four months into the pilot,” so the agency is now actively “exploring this alternative as quickly as possible” with the hopes of bringing viable options to the public sooner, rather than later.
It’s a welcomed change of opinion for many cycling enthusiasts and pedestrian safety advocates, like community organizer and sustainable transportation advocate Luke Bornheimer.
“I’m glad to hear that SFMTA is finally working on curbside protected bike lanes, and hope they will release an official design before the end of the year,” Bornheimer tells Underscore.
Per SFMTA’s own data, curbside-protected bike lanes have been shown to not only increase foot traffic for local businesses but also gross revenues — all while staving off commercial vacancies.
It’s also disappointing to see SFMTA focus on on-street car storage (aka parking) rather than what merchants ultimately want — more revenue.
Curbside protected bike lanes are proven to increase revenue and decrease commercial vacancies — curbside lanes are better for business! pic.twitter.com/Oq7cw1Z2iC
— Luke Bornheimer (LukeBornheimer@sfba.social) (@LukeBornheimer) December 18, 2023
“People who bike spend more money at local businesses than people who use cars,” Bornheimer adds. “At a time when local businesses need help and support, curbside protected bike lanes will give them exactly what they need — more revenue — while simultaneously making Valencia Street safer for all people and more enjoyable for people dining and shopping on Valencia.”
By their sheer design layout, curbside protected bike lanes make it easier for people to engage with local small businesses, which, aside from the cyclists themselves, stand to benefit most from such bikeway arrangements; Bornheimer, too, notes that curbside protected bikeways make “loading, parking, and driving safer and more intuitive, and will help more people shift trips away from cars”; as a direct result, Valencia Street would see less car traffic — and, by association, fewer car-on-car crashes and pedestrian injuries caused by vehicular collisions.
The yet-adopted methodology also fits nicely into San Francisco’s aggressive climate action plan that aims to have a net-zero carbon emission footprint by 2050.
SFMTA and Mayor Breed have a clear, concise, data-backed, and community-supported prospect to both brace local businesses and create a safer passageway for climate-friendly transport. It’s a rare, multi-pronged possibility that will be met with little, if any pushback — an opportunity that should be heeded with “immediate action.”
If you already signed the @BetterValencia petition, here are two easy ways you can help make Valencia better for business and people’s safety:
1️⃣ Send an email in two taps using https://t.co/TPOl8xpcEZ
2️⃣ Share the petition in a tap or two at https://t.co/vzBWOYrzNp
Thank you!
— Luke Bornheimer (LukeBornheimer@sfba.social) (@LukeBornheimer) December 19, 2023
“I hope the mayor and SFMTA take immediate action to make Valencia better for business, safety, people, and the planet by installing curbside-protected bike lanes immediately,” Bohemier writes in closing. “Curbside protected bike lanes have worked incredibly well on Valencia between Market and 15th Streets, and installing them between 15th and 23rd Streets will build on that success and improve the street for everyone, especially local merchants.”
// Those interested in learning more about the benefits of bringing curbside protected bikeways along Valencia Street, as well as how to petition for the passageway type, visit the Action Network page organized by Bornheimer, Better Valencia, which is dedicated to seeing this opportunity to fruition.
Feature Image: Courtesy of X via [at]urbanlifesigns; edits conducted by author, Matt Charnock
