San Francisco Bike Blog

The heavily-trafficked intersection of the Panhandle at Fell and Masonic has long been a problem - accidents, injuries, and plenty of near misses. Finally, after years of effort, the SFBC, working with a host of other organizations, including Fix Masonic and Walk San Francisco, announced that a new bicycle traffic signal was installed at the notorious intersection:

SF Gets First Bicycle Traffic Signal

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition celebrated the installation of San Francisco’s first ever bicycle traffic signal at the notoriously dangerous intersection of Fell and Masonic on the Panhandle Path. (Press Release PDF, 72kb)

The SFBC has spent years advocating for safety improvements at this intersection, and we are relieved that this safety fix is finally in place. This special traffic light separates the crossing light into two phases–pedestrians and bicyclists will receive a white walk and green bicycle signal respectively when it is their turn to cross, and then a separate green arrow will indicate when motor vehicles can turn left. These separate light phases ensure that bicycles and pedestrians do not cross paths with left-turning cars. Read more here

News reports from the SF Chronicle and KCBS.

The press release gets an opinion from one recent victim of that intersection:

Elizabeth Gjelten, a 56-year-old writer who bikes as her main mode of transportation, was injured while bicycling through the intersection just three weeks ago. She swerved to avoid being hit by a car driver who turned in front of her. “It is so important that the City protects all users of our streets,” says Gjelten, who broke one rib in this crash. “Bicycling is a wonderful way to get around town, but safety is the biggest hindrance for most people. I hope that San Francisco will continue to address other problem areas like the Fell and Masonic intersection, so that more people will feel comfortable enough to get out of their cars and move on their own power.”

The press release has a small typo that seems to suggest that the bicycle injunction has been lifted, but it was only lifted to allow the City to fix this particular intersection. The rest of the injunction, unfortunately, remains in full force.

Here’s a Google Map of Fell at Masonic:

View Larger Map

Here’s what they look like when all red - the left red arrow signal (for cars) got a bit cut off - I was dodging the setting sun:

Some might say the new lights don’t as closely resemble bicycles as they might have expected:

This bike light from Europe looks a bit more bicycle-like:

Nonetheless, we’ll take them. They should make things safer for us.

Here are the colors we really like:

The yellow light actually looks kind of nice:

Here’s some video, looking down/west on Fell, at Masonic, away from downtown:

This is at the other side of the Panhandle Park - still at Masonic, but now at Oak, and facing east, towards downtown - notice there is no striped crosswalk, nor a bicycle light:

Here is what things look like in the easterly direction (looking towards downtown), at Fell and Masonic:

As soon as I got there, I asked a gentleman in a low-to-the-ground recumbent what he thought of the new lights. He said, “At first, it’s confusing to people, but I really like them.” Personally, I couldn’t imagine being that low to the ground with cars swarming in every direction. At least being higher up on a bike, one gets better visibility.

The bike/walk path on the Fell side of the park was packed at certain points, and all sorts of people were moving at all sorts of speeds - it actually seemed to be dangerous. Not dangerous in the ‘car is going to maim and/or kill you’ sense, but I could definitely see people running and bumping into each other. There were bikers, walkers, joggers, skaters, strollers, doggies - you name it - and everyone was moving at different speeds, in different directions, swerving around each other, and some people even stopped right on the path - not a good situation because it’s only about one person wide in each direction. It could potentially be widened, but I’d like to see about using the other side of the park, first.

On that note, since the Panhandle park actually has paths on both sides of it, why do people only stay on the Fell side? I guess, technically, only the Fell side is a full bike path, but what’s wrong with the other side (Oak)? Is it just because the Oak side does not have a crosswalk, nor a new bike light, like the Fell side? Or maybe because bikers are not supposed to ride on the other side, nor are joggers and walkers supposed to walk there? Here is a pic of the ginormous Oak intersection, where I hung out for just a few minutes and saw pedestrians dodging outlaw cars like crazy:

And here is a snapshot of the Panhandle section of the SFBC bike map - indeed, there is only one official bike path through the park:

All of this was going on during rush hour, but still, it seems to me like this park and this intersection still need a lot of work.

Congrats to all involved in making this happen. It should not have taken such a herculean effort, but you got it done.

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