San Francisco's stalled bike plan

There was a provocative story published by the Wall Street Journal today about efforts about a local gadfly, Rob Anderson, who has held up the city's effort to implement a new bike plan. The Critical Mass rides in the city have shown the popularity of biking (see above photo) there and the WSJ story is in that vein:

"At a time when most other cities are encouraging biking as green transport, the 65-year-old local gadfly has stymied cycling-support efforts here by arguing that urban bicycle boosting could actually be bad for the environment. That's put the brakes on everything from new bike lanes to bike racks while the city works on an environmental-impact report.

"Cyclists say the irony is killing them -- literally. At least four bikers have died and hundreds more have been injured in San Francisco since mid-2006, when Mr. Anderson helped convince a judge to halt implementation of a massive pro-bike plan.(It's unclear whether the plan's execution could have prevented the accidents.) In the past year, bike advocates have demonstrated outside City Hall, pushed the city to challenge the plan's freeze in court and proposed putting the whole mess to local voters. Nothing worked."

Anderson maintains a blog in San Francisco and has reader reaction to the WSJ story. He has written in the past that the bike plan is an effort to "screw up" traffic on behalf of cyclists who will always be in the minority.

In a related post, Andrew Leonard, over at Salon, responds to the story. He wrote about the issue two years ago and is despondent that the dispute is still dragging on:

"A few weeks ago, while riding in the Marin Century, I had the pleasure of pedaling a few miles in the company of Kim Baenisch, the executive director of the Marin Bicycle Coalition. I asked her what kind of things the MBC was working on. For the next 20 minutes, she gave me chapter and verse on an astonishing list of bicycling-related projects. But across the bay, San Francisco remains hamstrung, primarily due to the efforts of one man intent on defying the will of his community and the tide of history."

Here is a link to the city of San Francisco's bike plan that is in the works. Read the section on Bicycle priority streets -- a lot of the tactics discussed are the same ones discussed in my recent post about Portland.

Also, my colleague John Glionna wrote about San Francisco's Critical Mass ride and some of the controversy it spawned last summer. It's a good read and quotes Anderson. Finally, here's a link to the city of Los Angeles' website for its new bike master plan, which has been in the works for some time.

--Steve Hymon

Comments

[yours truly, Johnny Dollar]

Rob Anderson knows Dr. Thompson of
Mandeville Canyon.

[Alex Mac Donald]

If we riders decided to ride-to-rule, and then did it, that is, were we to obey all traffic laws scrupulously -- single file, pass only on the left, stop at stop signs, wait when the light changes from red to green until it is actually safe to cross the intersection, and other such impediments to joyous urban adventuring -- the stinking polluters' traffic would be seriously impeded and there would be fewer dead bicylists. A rational plan of car and bike lanes would soon follow. I favor it. I even do it. And I never break the speed laws.