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This week, more than 11,000 researchers, engineers, advocates and government officials are gathered here in Washington, DC, for the annual Transportation Research Board meeting. Glancing through the 328-page program this weekend, I had to admit that much of the content looked like a foreign language: I can’t say I’m familiar with the Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide or well-versed on Inland Waterway Infrastructure. But being at the conference, I’ve discovered there’s a lot of buzz around biking and walking — even in the sessions that don’t have active transportation in the title.

Yesterday, for instance, I elbowed my way into a packed session on “Mobility Strategies for the 21st Century.” The panel included transportation commissioners from Chicago, San Francisco and New York City and, despite their diverse cities and populations, each of their presentations focused largely on their efforts to boost biking and walking.

“We’ve made lots of significant changes to the streetscape in the past four years,” Janette Sadik-Khan, New York City’s visionary transportation commissioner said. “Prior to 2007, we looked at everything with the planning ethos of 1950. We looked at streets through the eyes of a car. But simply adapting cities to pick up more and more vehicles, more and more traffic, is not a great strategy… So we’re rethinking how we use our streets and realized they weren’t really designed to meet the demands of the population.”

So, since Sadik-Khan took the reins, NYC has started thinking about streets as places, where limited space needs to be allocated to the safety and benefit of all users. Perhaps the first and most visible evidence of this paradigm shift, Sadik-Khan said, was turning Times Square into a pedestrian plaza. In very short order, the city realized massive economic benefits. “Since we closed Broadway [to cars], major flagship stores have moved in,” she said. “Retail rents have doubled in two years and Times Square has turned into one of the top 10 retail locations on the planet.”

Sadik-Khan also highlighted the city’s success in building out its bicycle network and the imminent debut of the Big Apple’s bike share, which will be the largest in the United States. And she wasn’t alone in showcasing bike-ped improvements as the top mobility strategies in her nation-leading city. Edward Reiskin, director of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, also touted the Bay City’s upcoming bike share system. He shared that, at any given time, s staggering 30 percent of the congestion in downtown San Francisco is motorists simply looking for parking, and the city’s effort to boost other modes of travel, including biking and walking. He highlighted his agency’s successful and growing use of parklets — re-appropriating parking spots and turning them into pedestrian parks and cafe patios — and raved about the power of people “taking back the streets” during the city’s recurring Sunday Streets ciclovia initiative.

And Gabe Klein, the new commissioner of the Chicago Department of Transportation, added to the chorus of bike-ped enthusiasm. Known for his role in bringing bike share to Washington, DC, when he served as the transportation director in the nation’s capital, Klein shared a funny story that summed up the Windy City’s trajectory. Yes, Chicago is getting bike share, too, but that’s just the beginning of an ambitious plan to make the city more bicycle-friendly. On the day that Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced his new DOT director, Klein was reading through the Mayor’s remarks. When he saw that Emanuel’s speech promised 100 miles of protected bike lanes, Klein got a bit anxious. Was there really the political will and public support to add such significant lengths of cycletracks? Trying to hedge his bets, Klein crossed out the word “protected.” But when the Mayor read his speech he barely stumbled before reinstating that significant distinction. And guess what? The first protected bike lane on Kinzie Street has been phenomenally successful, boosting bicycle mode share on that stretch from 22 to more than 50 percent.

Listening to those inspired transportation officials, all fired up about biking and walking as critical and integral transportation solutions for the 21st Century, I couldn’t help but think of the incredible advocates in those cities who have made that shift possible. From the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition to the Active Transportation Alliance in Chicago to Transportation Alternatives in NYC, advocates have laid the foundation for this groundswell by doing the tough, long-term work of elevating the voices and need of people who walk and bike in their communities.

Stay tuned for more from TRB…

PHOTO: Transportation officials in major U.S. cities are excited about bike share as a mobility solution.

Like many advocacy organizations, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition is working to create a city where all residents — from ages 8 to 80 — feel safe and comfortable walking and biking for transportation and recreation. But, to make that inspiring concept a reality, SFBC knows they need more than crosswalks and bikeways. They need to expand their resources and redefine who they serve, too.

If you survey the streets, it’s not just individual riders pedaling to work. It’s moms with newborns and dads with toddlers two-wheeling to daycare and swinging by the grocery store. So SFBC is making sure the needs of the modern family fit seamlessly with the bicycling lifestyle.

With a large and growing membership, the SFBC recognized that: “Family biking is often a very different experience than biking on your own. Whether you biked a lot before becoming a parent, are just getting back to biking after years away, or want to teach your kids to bike, you very likely have questions about how to approach each stage of family biking.”

So Kit Hodge, along with some SFBC board members and advocates, have endeavored to answer those very questions. The first resource is a new online Family Biking Guide that tackles important topics like:

• Biking pregnant, including advice for each trimester and general tips like what type of bike to ride to accommodate your baby bump
• Biking with your baby or young toddler, including tips for before and after your baby can sit up and suggestions for overcoming legitimate fears for your baby’s safety
• Teaching your child to bike, including an outline of skills to teach to get your kid street ready

But the guide is just the first step. This week, SFBC is kicking off of a three-part family biking class. The free, 90-minute sessions include Biking Pregnant, Biking With Your Baby & Toddler, and Biking Your Child to School.

Kit says she hopes the guide and classes will be an inspiration to current cyclists who don’t want to give up riding because they have a family.

“I suspect that we’ve been losing some people to that transition, at least for a few years,” she says. “The initiative is also part of our overall messaging about 8-to-80 biking in San Francisco, and goes hand in hand with our communications focus on safe and respectful riding this Winter and Spring as we head to crucial votes on new, next generation bikeway projects and implementation.”

Interested in learning more about innovative bicycle safety and education courses like this? Click here for the Family Biking Guide — and stay tuned to our upcoming list of 2012 Mutual Aid Calls!

By Brighid O’Keane

Pedestrian advocacy efforts led by Walk San Francisco resulted in a win this last week, when San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee announced a reduction in the city’s school zone speed limit to 15 miles per hour.

The previous school limit of 25 miles per hour was reduced by 10 mph this past week, leading to safer streets for children and pedestrians. Starting with Peabody Elementary in San Francisco’s western Richmond District, the change will be in affect at all – more than 200 – city schools this fall.

“These safe speed zones have been a major goal for Walk SF and its members,” Elizabeth Stampe, Walk San Francisco’s Executive Director, said in the group’s press release. “They will help create a more safe and sustainable city, helping kids get to school safely and calming traffic in neighborhoods throughout the City. This is a big step forward for everyone who walks in San Francisco.”

As the first city to adopt the 15 mph zones, San Francisco residents can thank the members of Walk SF for their effective campaigning toward calming traffic throughout the city for all pedestrians.

Read the full press release here.

Photo: Elizabeth Stampe speaks at the press event announcing the speed limit reduction. (Streetsblog San Francisco)

Sadly, those nights of riding home from work or happy hour in the golden evening glow are behind us. For the next several months, the sun will set before quitting time and bicycle commuters will be cruising home on darkened streets.

From Alaska to New York City, many bike-ped advocates are making sure their area cyclists stay safe — and visible.

This week, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition kicked off its ongoing “Light up the Night” program. Teaming up with the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency and the local police department, the Bay Area organization is giving away 2,400 front white and rear red blinky lights.

“The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition is proud to be a partner in helping promote safe night riding by distributing free bike lights to those who can’t afford or don’t have access to them,” Renée Rivera, Acting Executive Director of the SFBC, said in a press release this week. “Bicycle lights are a key item for safe night riding and we want everyone to use them, especially during the winter months when it gets dark earlier.”

Just the first night of the effort resulted in the distribution of hundreds of lights and bike safety brochures. But the SFBC isn’t advertising where and when its blinky ambassadors will take to the streets. According to the SFBC: “The locations are being kept under wraps in an effort to light up riders who truly need lights.”

Read more here.

With more than 160 member organizations, the Alliance is propelled by creative and visionary leaders in communities across North America. In the past few weeks, a handful of new faces have joined our ranks and we know you’d like to learn a little more about them. This week, meet Elizabeth Stampe, the first executive director of Walk San Francisco. 

Where are you from and how did you end up in San Francisco?

I’m originally from Hawai’i, but I moved to San Francisco after college in Santa Cruz. I’ve lived here, on and off, for almost 15 years.

Previous to WalkSF you worked for the Greenbelt Alliance. What inspired your interest in environmental conservation and how does walkability tie into that ethic?

I’ve worked on environmental conservation for my entire career. I actually have a master’s degree in plant ecology. Before getting that degree, I did environmental and political advocacy, and afterwards, I just had to plunge back into advocacy because I was impatient to make change. At Greenbelt Alliance, which advocates for smart growth, I found that cities and environmentalism can go together. City living offers a very green way to live, consuming less and sharing more. And walking, of course, is the most sustainable form of transportation!

An article in the Bay Guardian cited your having traveled the world; where did you go and did that give you any inspiration for ways to improve walkability in SF?

I didn’t go to the usual places! (Copenhagen, Amsterdam…) I was in India, Southeast Asia, and South America. And I noticed that, even though the streets in many big cities in Asia and South America might seem a lot more frenetic, people are paying much closer attention there. As a driver, you’re dealing with ditches, rickshaws, scooters, bikes, dogs, maybe cows, and, of course, lots of pedestrians. It can seem scary for a visitor, but you realize it works — it works because people are paying attention, and often driving more slowly than they are here. There aren’t many places we visited where drivers can assume that they can just floor it and go for miles like on our freeways, and unfortunately, like on many of our local roads. Another thing I noticed was the feeling of life. In places like Bangkok and La Paz, there’s so much living going on in the streets — buying and selling and eating and talking. I think the street food movement here in San Francisco is bringing some of that life to our streets, and at every Park(ing) Day and Sunday Streets we also get a sense of what could be.

What’s your biggest priority or campaign right now at Walk SF? What goals do you have for the remainder of 2010 and 2011?

Right now, I’m still in the listening and planning stages of Walk SF’s work for the coming year, but we’re looking at a combination of tackling citywide policies (reducing speeds, creating school zones, and lowering the cost of street improvements) and working with neighborhood groups on improvements in specific spots around the city. For example, on Walk to School Day (October 6), we got together with parents and kids in the Sunnyside neighborhood, where a big arterial road slices through a residential area, and drew attention to the need for change. We released a report on current conditions, with recommendations including a reduced speed limit, so that more kids can walk to school safely. This is a big issue as obesity is on the rise — and kids want to do it! Walking is fun, and they know it! They had a great time out there on the 6th. We want them to be able to do that every day.

One of the things a lot of pedestrian organizations struggle with is, while everyone walks, very few people consider themselves pedestrians or walkability advocates. How do you change that mindset and boost your membership?

We remind folks that everyone walks, whether you’re walking to the parking garage, going for a run with your dog, or getting a pint of milk at the corner store. There is a movement nationally now around reclaiming streets as shared public space, and that is exciting, especially with the various experiments with parklets and what here is called Sunday Streets, where streets are opened up for pedestrians and bikes every month. Those have been a huge success, and are changing people’s perceptions of what streets are for and who pedestrians are. We have a huge and impressive bike coalition here that’s helped to transform our streets; but not everyone who wants better streets rides a bike. Walk SF offers even more people a place and a space to speak up.

With the lifting of the Bicycle Plan injunction, your colleagues over at the SFBC have been touting their goal of making SF the most bike-friendly city in the nation. Do you see SF becoming the most pedestrian-friendly city in the nation, as well? If so, how do you get there?

That’s our goal, to make SF the most walkable city in the US! Some magazines and polls have already given SF that title, but there are a lot of exciting things going on in New York and Portland and Seattle that are definitely beyond what we’ve got here. And unfortunately, San Francisco has very high rates of pedestrian collisions and injuries, which the city has got to address. San Francisco has good land use and lots of destinations within walking distance of many people, but we’ve still got a lot of work to do on basic safety and on improving the experience of walking.

Where’s your favorite place to walk in San Fran?

I love connecting urban neighborhoods and parks, so I like to walk from my neighborhood, the Mission, to Bernal Hill. I go along Valencia with its cute shops and newly redone street with wide sidewalks and street trees and bike parking, through the vibrant Latino heart of the neighborhood where I can practice my South American Spanish, to the peak of Bernal, from which I can see the Bay, the Golden Gate Bridge, the East Bay hills, hawks flying overhead — and a lot of other happy walkers.

Being that you’re an Alliance leader now, you’re part of a little tradition. At our Leadership Retreat every two years, we have a Talent Show. So what’s one of your hidden talents?

Ha!  Hmmmm… Well, I taught yoga in Buenos Aires and am looking to start that up again in SF. Don’t know if that’s a show-worthy thing, but perhaps it would do people good to stretch and breathe in between being overwhelmed by everyone’s talents! Actually, another talent is conning my friends and family into taking much longer walks with me than they ever planned… of course, they might debate whether that’s a talent!

Keep track of Elizabeth’s efforts and progress in the Bay City on the Walk SF website.

Back in 2006, a Superior Court put the brakes on San Francisco’s new Bike Plan. With the stroke of a judge’s gavel, officials were restrained from adding any new bicycle facilities in the Bay City. For more than four years, the legal wrangling over the environmental review handcuffed concrete plans for more bike-friendly streets.

As of this week, the brakes are off.

On Friday, the injunction was finally — and fully — lifted, making way for the near-immediate striping of 35 bike lanes.

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, an organization with more than 11,000 members, applauded the ruling.

“We are celebrating San Francisco’s freedom to once again make streets safer for everyone and look forward to real improvements on streets in a matter of days,” Renée Rivera, Acting Executive Director of the SFBC said in a statement. “This is the first time in San Francisco’s history that this many bike lane projects are approved and ready to be striped. These long-awaited improvements will help growing numbers of people feel more confident, comfortable and safe when they bike to shop, to work and to play.”

That growth has been dramatic. Even with the injunction in place, bicycle ridership has surged by more than 53 percent over the past four years. And the new facilities could drastically increase that number: Surveys have shown that more than one-third of San Franciscans would ride if their routes included bike lanes.

With the lifting of the injunction, the city is now poised to nearly double its miles of bike lanes and position itself as one of the nation’s top cycling towns. According to SFBC: “Today’s ruling coupled with the City’s commitment to safer, friendlier streets will propel San Francisco into becoming one of America’s most bicycle-friendly cities.”

Read more from SFBC here.

At the 2008 National Bike Summit advocacy leaders from across the country came up with a campaign that could raise the visibility of cycling in cities from coast to coast: Gas-Free Fridays.

Jumping on the concept, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition quickly launched the program, setting up Energizer Stations on major thoroughfares on consecutive Fridays to give residents an incentive to abandon the gas pump and pedal to work.

“We do it in July to play off of Independence Day — being patriotic by riding bicycles and lessening our country’s dependency on oil,” says Kate McCarthy, SFBC’s membership and volunteer director.

With the oil spill in the Gulf and President Barack Obama’s call for a “national mission” to wean Americans off of gasoline, SFBC hopes Gas-Free Fridays will spread to other cities this summer. So they’re making it easy for advocacy leaders to start a campaign in their community by sharing SFBC resources, like Energize Station checklists and model fliers.

According to McCarthy, the visible initiative is worth the effort.

“There are no hard numbers for participation with Gas-Free Fridays, but a couple hundred pass each Energizer Station each of the four Fridays, so on varying routes, that’s about 800 to 1,000 people, which is great,” she says. “We know that in San Francisco over the past three years, while there has been no on-ground bicycle improvements, bicycling increased by a whopping 53 percent, indicating that our encouragement campaigns are hugely successful.”

It’s been a boon for membership, too. The SFBC hooks as many as 10 new memberships at each Energizer Station. “Also the anecdotal evidence is great; riders stopping by and telling us they decided to ride because they heard about it on the news or because they heard about our stations from a friend,” McCarthy says.

To get more information and fire up this campaign in your community, check out SFBC’s campaign site, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or download the resources from the Alliance library.

According to a press release issued by the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, ” Hundreds of thousands of people, including members of the Board of Supervisors, community leaders, and other first- and long-time bike commuters, will pedal to work as part of the 16th Annual Bike to Work Day on Thursday, May 13. This year’s event is a celebration of the city’s first fully-separated,  green bike lane on Market Street and other innovations and additions that are improving streets all across the city.

“Scores of people will be experiencing the comfort of bicycling in the newly separated and now green Market Street bike lane for the first time on Bike to Work Day,” says Renee Rivera, acting Executive Director of the SF Bicycle Coalition, a non-profit which promotes bicycling for everyday transportation and organizes Bike to Work Day in San Francisco. “We are thrilled to have Mayor Newsom leading these exciting biking innovations on Market Street, the city’s busiest biking street. This is a great first step towards a separated bikeway the full length of lower Market Street.”

San Francisco has seen a whopping 53% increase in the number of people bicycling in the city since 2006, according to counts by the SF Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA). This number is expected to surge in the coming year with dozens of bicycling improvements planned for streets all across San Francisco.

“We are taking hold of an incredible opportunity to transform Market Street into one of the greatest streets in the world,” said Mayor Gavin Newsom. “San Francisco is an innovator and this newly separated, green bike lane is one example of how we can make Market Street safer and more bike friendly for the tens of thousands of people who use it everyday.”

The SF Bicycle Coalition is organizing “Commuter Convoys” which will escort VIPs on tours of Market Street to show them firsthand the positive changes transforming the city’s most important biking, walking and transit street. These tours will converge on the steps of City Hall at 8:30am for a press conference celebrate and build support for the fully separated and continuous bikeway on Market Street from Van Ness all the way to the Embarcadero.

San Francisco-based companies also understand that a Market Street bikeway will be good for business, good for employee health and safety, and key to a vibrant future for our city’s main street.

“We support a fully separated, continuous bikeway on Market Street as a way to improve the safety of our employees that bicycle regularly to our office as well as to meetings at other companies in the area,” says Christopher Sacca, Managing Partner of Lowercase Capital. “I also anticipate that this improvement will be just the encouragement needed to get more of our employees and the founders of our portfolio companies choosing this healthy form of transportation.”

Market Street is just one of many streets that has improved in the last few months. California’s first colored bike box (an advance stop line for cyclists) was added to Scott Street at Oak on the busy ‘wiggle’ bike route, new bike lanes have been striped on numerous streets and hundreds of new bike parking racks installed all over the city. These additions are making it easier and more inviting for people to choose to bicycle every day.

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition will host 27 morning and afternoon Energizer Stations in neighborhoods across the city to fuel up commuters with free snacks, fair trade certified coffee and distribute bicycling information. The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition will end the day in style with the Bike Away from Work Party and Fashion Show (6-10pm, Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell Street) where dozens of models will pedal the runway in functional finery.

Bike to Work Day 2010 is presented by Kaiser Permanente, the Bay Area Bicycle Coalition, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition and hundreds of local volunteers. For more information on San Francisco’s Bike to Work Day, visit http://www.sfbike.org/btwd.”

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition recently announced that they have joined forced with Streetsblog San Francisco and the SF Chronicle to create Bay Area Transit, a new blog that will appear on sfgate.com. According to the Coalition, “This blog is an opportunity for us to write about our work and highlight all of the exciting new bicycling improvements (hello Market Street separated bike lane) that are making San Francisco a better place to ride a bike. We’ll certainly be sharing the faces and stories of some of the 120,000 San Franciscans who bicycle frequently and showcasing great biking events and rides that are bound to get even more people riding. You can check it out here: Bay Area Transit.”

According to a press release issued today by the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, “Responding to the growing interest in bicycle transportation, the city began installing its first physically separated bike lane on Market Street today, the busiest corridor in San Francisco for two-wheeled transportation.

White, soft-hit posts are being added to the existing bike lane on Market Street between Octavia Boulevard and Eighth Street, creating an exclusive path of travel for bicycle commuters and deterring cars from illegally parking in the busy bike lane.

This first-of-its kind improvement in San Francisco comes as a welcome addition for the more than 120,000 people who bicycle regularly in San Francisco. Biking increased 53% on the streets of San Francisco between 2006 and 2009, according to counts from the SF Municipal Transportation Agency.

“Physically separated bike lanes are a proven way to encourage more people to ride bicycles for transportation, and what better street to add this safety innovation to than Market Street, the city’s most important bicycling corridor,” says Neal Patel, Community Planner for the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, an 11,000-member nonprofit group that promotes bicycling for everyday transportation. “We expect to see the numbers of people choosing to bike on Market Street grow dramatically as the city continues to invest in more welcoming conditions for riding.”

Businesses along Market Street are also seeing the positive impacts of more people bicycling. “A lot of our customers arrive by bicycle” says Josefine Gylleback, Manager of Cafe Trieste on Market St. and Gough. “I think these improvements will attract more bicycling customers, which is good for business, and the addition of the posts means bicyclists don’t have to worry about cars parked in the bike lane.”

In a February survey, 90% of bicyclists said the one-block separated bike lane on Market St., which was piloted initially, made them feel safer, and 80% of respondents said they would bike on Market Street more often if the separated bike lane was extended farther.

“The separated bike lane has transformed my commute and vastly improved this stretch of Market Street, making it safer and more pleasant for me and other people riding bikes,” says Steve Hall, a Marketing Director for an investment firm who has been bicycle commuting from his home in the Mission to his office at the Ferry Building for more than a decade. “I would love to see this separated bike lane extended to the full length of Market Street, so I would feel more comfortable bicycling regularly with my 7-year-old son to the Embarcadero.”

The SF Municipal Transportation Agency reported that Market St. often has more bike commuters than automobiles during the peak morning commute, according to counts taken at Van Ness. “We are eager to see the city continue this fully separated bikeway on Market Street from Octavia Blvd. to the Embarcadero, which will encourage more first-time bicyclists to ride comfortably,” says Neal Patel, of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. “This will attract people of all ages and skills to travel our city’s main corridor in a healthy, non-polluting way—whether for work, for shopping, or just for fun.”

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition is working with city officials to plan an event to officially unveil the completion of the new physically separated bike lane on Market Street in the coming week.  Please stay tuned for an announcement.”

For more information, visit the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition.

According to the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, tens of thousands of adults and kids flooded the car-free Embarcadero on this year’s first San Francisco Sunday Streets event. The second 2010 Sunday Streets event is planned for Sunday April 11th from Golden Gate Park to the Great Highway. According to the SF Bicycle Coalition, “the Sunday Streets route will be hopping with activity from bicycling to dancing and rollerskating, yoga to hula-hooping.”

The SF Bicycle Coalition is coordinating the volunteer corps that make all Sunday Streets events possible. For each of the nine 2010 Sunday Streets events, more than 150 volunteers will make the event happen. If you’re in San Francisco and want to get involved, sign up at sundaystreetssf.com/volunteer.

For more information on SF’s Sunday Streets see http://www.sundaystreetssf.com.
Read press coverage of the 1st 2010 Sunday Streets event at the SF Chronicle.

The SF Bicycle Coalition recently celebrated the official opening of the “Showplace Triangle” street plaza (at 8th and 16th streets) where San Francisco’s mayor Gavin Newsom, announced that the City’s Pavement to Parks program will be completing 12 more trial street plazas and “parklets” by the end of 2010. This program takes car parking spots and other street spaces and transforms them into various gathering spots for the community.

Since the very first plaza opening in May 2009, the trial street reclamations have proven to be very successful and popular among the public. The new public spaces are built after the idea of PARK(ing) Day, where automobile parking spots are turned into mini public spaces for a day. These temporary spaces include mini-gardens, bike parking, plazas, etc.

The SF Bike Coalition will continue to work closely with the Pavement to Parks program through their own Great Streets Project in order to scout good locations and connect community groups and businesses with the city’s program.

For more information:
Great Streets Project: http://sfgreatstreets.org/
Pavement to Parks Program: http://sfpavementtoparks.sfplanning.org/
PARK(ing) Day: http://www.parkingday.org/
SF Bicycle Coalition: http://www.sfbike.org/

According to the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition (SFBC), “SFBC is celebrating another new bike lane on Otis Street which has created an important one block link between South Van Ness and Gough Street.

Otis Street is the ninth new bike lane to be striped since December. These bike lanes are the direct result of years of hard work by SFBC staff and countless hours of grassroots organizing by committed Bicycle Coalition members. The Coalition is pleased to see these new improvements for bicycling being added all across San Francisco and creating important links in the bike network.”

To find out more about the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition and its efforts, visit sfbike.org.

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition is continuing to see its re-paving project efforts pay off with a now smooth ride from Golden Gate Park to the Pacific Ocean.

The newly paved road means a safe, smooth, and enjoyable ride for commuters and other bicyclists and a win for the Coalition. SFBC and its team of volunteers have been working hard to identify San Francisco streets and neighborhoods in need of both re-paving and adequate bike lanes through their “Good Roads” campaign. Volunteers ride the city streets and tag/spray paint the most dangerous spots. These markings are an immediate help to many cyclists, but more importantly a designated legend for the Department of Public Works (DPW) who has committed to patching and smoothing the indicated spots. To view other resurfacing updates and projects visit www.sfbike.org/?goodroads. 

For more information on SFBC and the Good Roads campaign, visit www.sfbike.org

According to the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, “We’re pleased that (Mayor) Gavin Newsom announced the 2010 Sunday Streets schedule—with even more routes, dates and neighborhoods than last year!

More than 20,000 San Franciscans enjoyed car-free streets at each of last year’s Sunday Streets by participating in healthy activities ranging from bicycling to dancing, rollerskating to hula hooping. We expect even more people to enjoy the event this year, which will happen on nine Sundays starting in March and ending in October. Check out www.sundaystreetssf.com for the schedule and route details. The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition was proud to initiate the idea of Sunday Streets in 2008 and have it championed by a broad coalition including the Mayor’s Office, Shape Up SF Coalition, Livable City, Walk SF and many others. The Bicycle Coalition has worked for years with the Mayor, city leaders and community groups to create more car-free recreational spaces for healthy activities like biking. Car-free recreational areas open minds and show how streets can be used differently—come out and play!” Learn more at www.sundaystreetssf.com.

After the San Francisco Superior Court was exposed to a city report stating that bicycle ridership has increased 53% since 2006, the court ruled to partially lift the Bike Plan injunction set three years ago. 

Since the ruling, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition (SFBC) has been working hard to make sure changes are happening and that the City is taking full advantage of the court’s partial lift. Just days following the lift, SFBC welcomed the City’s first bike lane in three years along with its first green-colored “Bike Box” (an advanced stop line that gives bicyclists priority waiting room in front of cars at stop lights). Various neighborhoods have also received additional improvements such as “sharrows” (shared lane arrows), new sidewalk bike racks, a temporary on-street bike parking corral as well as improved bicycle way-finding signage.

These improvements are a step in the right direction but more than 35 bicycle related projects still remain on hold until the injunction is fully lifted. In the mean time, SVBC will continue their efforts and push for a full lift of the injunction with a hearing set for June 2010. To view current improvements, follow the injunction’s process, and more information on SFBC’s involvement, visit www.sfbike.org

(SAN FRANCISCO, CA) — According to a press release issued today by the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, “Parents and students will be taking to the sidewalks and forming ‘walking school buses’ all across the city when SF schools celebrate Walk to School Day, Oct. 7th. Walk to School Day is also the kick off for a new program that will help raise a new generation of walkers and bikers. The new two-year Safe Routes to Schools program, funded by a $500,000 grant from the federal government, aims to make biking and walking to school easier for parents and kids through education, safer streets and incentives.

The Safe Routes to School Program is led by the SF Department of Public Health and supported by the SF Bicycle Coalition, SF Unified School District, SF Police Department, and the SF Municipal Transportation Agency. It will be launched at five elementary schools this school year including: Bryant (Mission District), George Washington Carver (Bayview), Longfellow (Excelsior), Sunnyside (Sunnyside), Sunset (Outer Sunset). 68% of the students at these schools live within one mile of their school, so there’s an amazing opportunity to increase the number of kids who get to school by bike and foot. Next year 10 additional schools will be added to the program for a total of 15 schools.

“The Safe Routes to Schools program teaches students and parents about how easy it can be to save our earth by reducing pollution,” says Phyllis Matsuno, Principal of Longfellow Elementary School (SFUSD) Principal Phyllis. “We’re thrilled that Longfellow was selected to participate in this program, it’ll help us promote healthy, active and attentive students.”

Getting more children to walk and bicycle to school is a much-needed solution. In San Francisco, one quarter of children are overweight and studies show that 75% of these overweight children will become overweight as adults, translating into more cases of diabetes, asthma and other chronic diseases. During the past four decades the obesity rate for children ages 6 to 11 has more than quadrupled (from 4.2 to 17 percent), and the obesity rate for adolescents ages 12 to 19 has more than tripled (from 4.6 to 17.6 percent). In addition, communities throughout the U.S. report that as much as 21 percent of morning traffic can be parents driving their children to schools.

The Safe Routes to School is a popular nationwide program that has a proven track record at over 5,440 schools for helping more children and communities become healthy, safe, and green. Schools in Oakland, California reported an amazing 10% increase in students walking and biking to school after just one year of launching their Safe Routes to School.

“Safe Routes to Schools is one of the best ways to improve conditions for walking and biking,” says Leah Shahum, Executive Director of the 10,000-member SF Bicycle Coalition, which promotes bicycling for everyday transportation. “We know that fewer and fewer kids are walking and biking to school today and that this is having a direct, negative effect on kids’ long-term health and habits. Fortunately, we know we can turn this alarming trend around.”

Studies show that 78% of school age children are not getting enough exercise and that this generation will likely be the first to have a lowered life expectancy than their parents. “Bicycling and walking are wise public health investments because they encourage active lifestyles that will help prevent disease,” says Mitch Katz, MD, Director of the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH).

“Walking is an important part of our day and a great time for us to talk about what she did at school, go over her spelling words and take in the view from the top of Morse and Allyson streets,” says Jacquie Chavez, ‘Walk to Win Wednesday’ co-founder and mother of a first grader at Longfellow Elementary. “My daughter is learning to be safe, smart and independent and we are making the streets safer by not adding another car to the road.”

For more on International Walk to School Day in San Francisco, see: http://www.sfwalktoschool.com. For more information on the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition and the SF Safe Routes to Schools Program see http://www.sfbike.org.”

Starting on September 29, San Francisco drivers will start seeing changes in traffic flow on Market Street downtown. Working in coordination with the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, Mayor Gavin Newsom announced the commencement of the Better Market Street Project, a package of several pedestrian and public transit improvements.

According to Mayor Newsom’s press release, “private motorists traveling eastbound on Market Street will be encouraged to turn right on 10th Street before being diverted south at 8th Street… Public transit, bicycle, emergency vehicles and delivery vehicles will continue to fully access Market Street.”

Over the course of the next year, many more innovative traffic diversion efforts will be created. These will include open-air concerts, numerous public art displays, and miniplazas featuring outdoor seating. Because the Better Market Street Project is trial-based, these new features will be refined as needed. This effort is just one outcome of SFBC’s Great Streets Project, a campaign to return San Francisco streets to their rightful place as the center of civic life. According to Kit Hodge, Director the Great Streets Project, “The Better Market Street Project will be a great civic experiment drawing on the wisdom of everyone who uses the street, or would like to. We look forward to learning what works from the trials, and building on success.”

As part of their efforts, the City will use new media technologies like Twitter, 311, email, and Facebook for public feedback, which will prove essential in determining the project’s future.

Carolyn Diamond, Executive Director of the Market Street Association, explains that Market Street “deserves to be a grand boulevard.”

According to the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, “After years of SFBC advocacy, on Friday June 26, the SFMTA Board unanimously voted yes on an ambitious Bike Plan and gave the green light to 45 new bike lanes.This is a momentous time for better bicycling in San Francisco, as these changes will dramatically improve bicycling and increase the number of people riding in San Francisco.
 SFMTA Board members heard over 3 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. This victory is the result of this testimony and more than three years of strong SFBC advocacy, including more than 150 letters of support from businesses, thousands of support letters, and countless hours of grassroots organizing by committed SFBC volunteers and staff. Together, we did it! See photos, watch a video and read what the media had to say about our victorious day.”

According to the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition (SFBC), a record number of people came out for the ciclovia-style Sunday Streets in San Francisco’s Mission district in early June. The party stretched nearly a dozen blocks and the festivities included walking, biking and dancing. Sunday Streets was initiated in 2008 by SFBC, Livable City, and other local partners. See photos of the event here. The overwhelming turnout illustrates a yearning for more car-free recreational areas.

For more information, click here…

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