Bike Plan still dead
A few weeks ago we wrote about the unmitigated disaster that is the San Francisco Bike Plan.
Today, the Wall Street Journal sums up the case against San Francisco:
SAN FRANCISCO — New York is wooing cyclists with chartreuse bike lanes. Chicago is spending nearly $1 million for double-decker bicycle parking.
San Francisco can’t even install new bike racks.
Rob Anderson seems like a wacky, interesting character - and he’s proven very dangerous for bicycle riders all over the city. By helping to put a stop to the bike plan, Anderson has helped keep bicyclists getting injured and killed, and has generally helped stall bicycle development in San Francisco.
But Rob Anderson is just one person - whether he’s just evil or crazy is not all that important — what is important is that a judge in the U.S. legal system has recklessly ordered San Francisco to stop all bicycle-related development. He did that over a year and a half ago.
And even a judge - however he may have been influenced - only has so much power at his disposal. There are plenty of folks who have the power to work around any corrupt court decision. Mayor Gavin Newsom is one of them. Where has the environmental impact review been for the last 18 months? Do these things really take that long to complete?
It may take another few months just to put a draft together, and then it will be challenged, we’ll have to wait a few more months, etc. In other words, it may be years before any new bike plan is implemented. Years.
So, what to do?
It’s pretty simple - we have to organize and start applying pressure. San Francisco bike riders need to get our act together if we want to see action on this. We have to come up with the plan to ratchet up the pressure on Gavin Newsom and the Board of Supervisors. They will act on this when they’re forced to act on this - when public outrage grows to a certain level that it becomes politically untenable. Pedestrians and bikers are already squeezed by cars and trucks all over the city. Just today I was almost run down by a UPS truck. When bicyclists on the street start acting indignant - really start believing that they’re getting worked by the system - then we’ll be able to move forward quickly. But we have to organize. We have to work together. The specific tactics we need to employ will work themselves out — we just have to be committed to making things change.
And if we don’t get our bike plan approved yesterday, then we need to use this outrage to fuel every other initiative that might save our lives out there - closing down roads to private auto traffic permanently, starting with Sunday Streets.
I’d like to get a counter widget for the sidebar to show how many days the bike plan has been stalled.
Anderson has a website for his run for Supervisor here, and this may be his blog.
The Thin Green Line Blog is thinking the same thing we are - Newsom and crew are dragging their feet, and us bikers are letting him get away with it:
Leave comment (4)Or is it? Shouldn’t the city be able to crank out an EIR proving that bikes are better for the environment than cars, and that in the vast majority of cases bike lanes (and certainly bike racks) would not slow car traffic? The city claims it’s moving slowly to avoid another suit from Anderson, but, really, how hard is it?
[p.s. The Forums are open for participation.]
August 27th, 2008 at 8:46 am
I think the WSJ’s coverage of this was very poor. And now even NPR got into the act by putting Anderson on Talk of the Nation yesterday.
All of this nonsense speaks to a larger problem. Bikes and biking as a brand (in a PR/marketing sense) are in trouble.
Politicians don’t feel they have enough cover to act boldly on bikes’ behalf; bureaucrats are mired in red tape; advocacy groups are not able to show a strong, united front; the media is just plan reading the whole situation incorrectly (due in part because politicians and advocates are not doing their jobs) and focusing too much on conflict and antagonism (what else is new).
It’s very frustrating because now is the time to shine for the bike movement.
hopefully things will get better.
the bike movement needs a new brand strategy.
August 27th, 2008 at 10:37 am
If the “environmental review” that is taking place is part of comlianc with CEQA - then it will take a long, long, time.
San Francisco is famous for local advocates using the environmental review guidelines as a tool to bleed developers dry while they hold onto a property waiting for the onerous and extensive environmental review process to happen.
You’d be lucky to have a draft EIR in a year. It costs millions to have government prepare a filing like this, and for changes to their entire city nonetheless.
Banging pots and pans is all well and good - I would instead focus on quick legal changes that will allow bicycle projects to degrade automobile throughput without triggering this phoney baloney “review”.
For instance, redefine “transportation” in your local code to include bicycle riding. Redefine streets to include travel by means other than private cars, and name bicycling in that definition. Request standards in your General Plan that allow an engineer to reduce speeds, and volumes, of automobiles in exchange for more transit, bicycle, and pedestrian traffic.
August 27th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
you can trace most of the roots of contemporary bicycle activism to san francisco. i still remember when critical mass shut down the san francisco in 97. regardless if you are a c.m. lover or hater, that was instrumental in showing bicyclists that they have the power to demand that cities pay attention.
it is bizarre that the city that gave birth to such a movement has languished, while a city as backassward as new york has made headway.
if one person dies because of unbuffered bike lanes or something similar, the blood is on this tard’s hands. instead of waiting for a corrupt government to start working for it’s constituents, maybe it’s constituents should work around it. after all, what is san francisco without a sense of protest?
August 27th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
There is a time and place for allowing our progress to be handled by politicians and bureaucrats, and there is a time and place for the DIY philosophy–and it seems clear to me this time we must do it ourselves.
How might San Francisco cyclists implement a DIY bike plan? Would we simply take a lane on Market Street at rush hour and hold it, from now on? Might we paint lines or caution signs or whatever right onto the street surface on our own? Might we agree among ourselves how best to organize certain routes, and then simply show up en masse on those routes and use them as if they were already ours, already striped, already sharrowed, already officially the way we need them to be?
If city government will not or cannot advance cycling in San Francisco, then it is up to us to do whatever is necessary to protect our safety, our city, and our environment.