589 thumbs down

We're in San Francisco. 

The picture above is Valencia Street, where the city has moved the bike lanes to the middle of the street. 

When I first moved to the city, I lived around the corner from here. In the past thirty years, I've watched this street evolve. 

First, it was four lanes of traffic, two in either direction, with a curbed median and fairly skinny sidewalks. There was a bus line, the 26. The street was already gentrifying, but it was pretty well dominated by cars.

Then they put Valencia on a "road diet." They got rid of a lane in either direction, axed the bus service, put in a center turn lane and bike lanes on either side. So it went sidewalk-parking-bike lane-traffic-turning lane-traffic-bike lane-parking-sidewalk. It was this was for many years, and the street grew very popular with bicyclists, diners and shoppers.

In the pandemic, entire sections of the street closed to traffic. The parking was taken over by parklets offering outdoor seating for restaurants. The traffic lanes became strolling lanes. It felt like a party.

Now this. They moved the bike lanes to the middle of the street. A simple walk down Valencia told me it's a failure. Not only are bikes forced to deal with traffic and no shade, but the sidewalk feels different to walk down. Less hip. Instead of being cocooned by bikes and parklets, walkers are up against traffic. 

It feels car dominated. And for what reason?

The SFMTA says it's an experiment. To me it looks like a bad idea. There have already been accidents.

My question is, does anyone working in street design actually walk or ride a bicycle? It's kind of painful watching pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure projects suck so badly, again and again.

Every cyclist knows this: The bike lane that ends just before the big complicated intersection. Just ends, as if to say, "good luck!"

Every pedestrian knows this: the path that zig zags thru the park, when you just want to walk the quickest route. The intersection with no crosswalk, where you have to cross three streets to cross one. Or that ducking button you have to press to get permission to cross the street.

Car-ism is a disease many of us don't know we have. But for ducks sake, if you work in goddamn highway design, get a pair of sneakers and check out life on two feet for a bit, ok?