Bicyclists, community leaders and city policy makers cheered the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) Board of Directors historic decision on June 26th to nearly double the number of dedicated bike lanes on city streets.
Published: July, 2009
Bicyclists, community leaders and city policy makers cheered the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) Board of Directors historic decision on June 26th to nearly double the number of dedicated bike lanes on city streets. The unanimous vote adopts an ambitious new citywide bicycle plan and gives a green light to 45 bike network improvement projects including bike lanes on Fifth, 17th and Townsend Streets, Kirkham Ave., Alemany Blvd., and Portola Drive. This decision is widely expected to create a sea change on San Francisco streets, dramatically improving and increasing bicycling.
“This is a momentous day for better bicycling and a better San Francisco,” said Leah Shahum, Executive Director of the 10,000-member San Francisco Bicycle Coalition (SFBC), which promotes bicycling for everyday transportation. “The SFMTA Board of Director’s approval of this ambitious bike plan sends a clear message that the City is serious about encouraging bicycling as a healthy, affordable, and environmentally-friendly form of transportation.”
SFMTA board members heard over three hours of testimony from more than 200 supporters, including mothers with children in tow, business owners, health workers, city department heads and students who packed the hearing room and an overflow room in City Hall. The SFMTA Board also received more than 150 letters of support from local businesses and thousands of support letters from individuals who are eager to see the streets improved for the growing bicycle population.
The unprecedented turnout at City Hall underscored the demand for these new bike lanes, in light of the three-year delay in bike improvements and a 43 percent increase in bike ridership since 2006.
The approved bike plan will improve city streets by adding 34 miles of bike lanes to the existing 45 miles, including new bike space on dozens of streets, as well as marking an additional 75 miles of on-street bike routes with “sharrows.” The plan also calls for adding innovative improvements such as colored bike lanes, on-street bike parking corrals, thousands of new bike racks, programs for boosting bike access to transit, bicycle-related law enforcement, and bicyclist and motorist education.
New bike lanes will increase safety and create continuous biking routes for the 128,000 people who already bike regularly, and will attract tens of thousands of new bicyclists. More than one-third of San Franciscans say they would ride if streets had bike lanes and were more inviting for bicycling. Official City counts show bicycling activity increases, on average, by 50 percent after a bike lane is added, including the following noteworthy increases where bike lanes have been added in the past: Howard St. (300 percent increase); Valencia St. (144 percent); Arguello (67 percent).
“Today, San Francisco can celebrate a decision by the SFMTA board to adopt the Bicycle Plan and 45 projects that will move San Francisco in a dramatic way to the next level of urban bicycling,” said Mayor Newsom. “Increasing the number of bicyclists in our city will bring a range of environmental, health and economic benefits that we can be proud of.”
With the certification of the required Environmental Impact Report (EIR) and the Bike Plan adoption now in place, San Francisco’s city attorney can now return to the Superior Court and request that the three-year-old bike plan injunction be lifted. Once the injunction is removed, the City can immediately begin to implement these bike network improvement projects.
The new bike lanes are anticipated to be striped, with other improvements implemented, by this fall. Only one of the projects on the list, Second Street, was held back for additional staff work.
“Today’s historic decision is a smart and long overdue investment in healthy, affordable, and sustainable transportation,” said Shahum. “San Francisco has taken a significant step forward in proving its comment to smart, sustainable transportation choices, and we expect to see the numbers of people choosing to bicycle to increase dramatically.” For more information on this ground-breaking San Francisco Bicycle Plan, visit www.sfbike.org/bikeplan.
