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Entries tagged: San Francisco Bicycle Coalition

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.”

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…

This month the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition (SFBC) will honor Sunday Streets at their annual awards ceremony, the Golden Wheel Awards. Each year, this event honors those individuals or organizations that have dedicated all of their resources to advance biking and other avenues of sustainable transportation in San Francisco. SFBC is proud to have initiated the idea of Sunday Streets, a temporary car-free event that encourages San Franciscans to “get out and get active” on selected Sunday mornings. Sunday Streets was championed by a broad coalition of organizations and has been expanded for 2009.

For more information, click here…

The San Francisco Bike Coalition (SFBC) is revving up the fight for 56 bike improvement projects up for review this spring. Over a year ago, all implementation of the San Francisco Bike Plan was stopped by a court injunction, and since then, bike improvements have been at a standstill. With a completed EIR and the possibility of the injunction being lifted soon, SFBC is organizing neighborhood teams to gather signatures and gain support to make sure that all 56 projects of the Bike Plan get approved.

For more on information, click here…

According to the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, “We cheered at Thursday’s decision by Superior Court Judge Peter J. Busch to reject the SF Municipal Transportation Agency (MTA) proposal to remove a bike lane and protective barrier at the notoriously dangerous Market and Octavia intersection. Thanks to the more than 200 bicyclists, as well as state and local officials, who came out to rally with the SFBC to save the Market and Octavia Bike Lane—the bike voice was heard!”

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According to the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, “Thousands of adults and kids took to the streets to play during the first very successful Sunday Streets event! The route from Chinatown along the Embarcadero all the way down Third Street to the Bayview became a huge playground full of hoola hooping, yoga, dancing, rollerskating and of course bicycling. It was fantastic to see so many people participating, especially so many parents and kids—we lost count of the number of kids out learning to ride their bicycles on the car-free streets.” San Francisco’s first Sunday Streets events, where four miles of downtown streets were closed to cars, took place August 31st and September 14th.

Check out a video of the event or visit Visit SFBC’s Web Site for more information.

San Francisco’s 14th Annual Bike to Work Day was a record-breaking success.  The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition (SFBC) welcomed 704 new members through 25 Energizer Stations, which takes SFBC to over 9,000 members! The city also counted twice as many bicycles as cars on Market Street in downtown San Francisco. Bicyclists made up 64% of the eastbound traffic on Market St. at Van Ness Ave., while motorists comprised 32% between 8am and 9am (a 31% increase in biking over last year).