San Francisco Bike Blog

It’s an argument I used to make while still living in Austin. The patchwork of bike lanes was always so complicated - I just thought, you know, if cars could have so much land dedicated to their sole use, why not some for bikes?

Well, Supervisor Sophie Maxwell of District 10 (my old hood! <sniffle>) just proposed some car-free lanes for San Francisco:

Imagine a bike-only street running west to east, from the Pacific to the Embarcadero. Now imagine another one running north-south in San Francisco. Supervisor Sophie Maxwell can.

She quietly raised the notion Monday at the end of a City Hall committee meeting and elaborated a bit more in a subsequent interview. “I think it would really open up our city to biking,” she said.

Maxwell said that if she had a magic wand she would want to see a couple of streets be turned over to cyclists, free of vehicles, all day every day. But short of that, she’d be happy if a lane or two were set aside during the peak commute hours.

Maxwell, impressed with what she saw when the city temporarily shut down the waterfront to cars and trucks for two Sundays this summer, said making it easier to commute on two wheels would be good for individuals’ health and for the environment.

That’s no joke. For all the people who helped organize Sunday Streets - it had at least some of its intended effects.

Over the past couple of months I’ve called Maxwell’s office and sent at least a couple of emails - once before and once after the event. I’m convinced that the small, personal statements of support combine with the larger effort to make concrete these initiatives - the phone calls and emails are necessary. I hope she gets some supportive calls and emails over the next few days.

The Car-free Market Street initiative is rolling along, so this is good timing.

If you live in D10, think about calling Sophie’s office and saying, “Good job!,”, and then send an email so she’s got something on paper (in email). Then call the Mayor and say, “Hey - I heard about more car-free stuff from Sophie Maxwell in District 10. Yes - let’s do that.”

As an aside — I’m currently sitting at King’s Coffee on Ocean Ave. It’s just before 6 PM on Monday and Ocean is now absolutely swamped with car traffic. It looks very dangerous. If I was a bettin’ man, I’d guess that someone was injured or killed at this intersection by a speeding outlaw car driver, and now there are stop signs installed. Some cars actually bother to stop. Pedestrians are dodging cars left and right - many are trying to get across the street to the 24-hour fitness. Some driver just frantically yelled at a pedestrian to hurry up and get out of the way. A car honks his horn. Bicycle rider jumps on the sidewalk, afraid of an early death. More pedestrians running (to dodge cars). Bikers slice through the intersection quickly. Just two hours ago the street was buzzing, but peaceful — people were window shopping, the train was rolling through, everything was cool - and now we’re in the swamps of traffic madness. It’s a brutal existence. A pedestrian just dodged another outlaw driver who was making an illegal U-turn in his (should be illegal) oversized pickem-up truck.

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