SFMTA moves forward with Valencia Street center bike lane despite 13% approval rating
Nearly 60% of agency survey respondents prefer alternative design
EDITOR’S NOTE: There will be a public hearing on the SFMTA’s Valencia Street bike lane proposal this Tuesday, April 4, 2023, 1 p.m. at City Hall. Details follow this article.
The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) has promised protected bike lanes on Valencia Street for years and had planned to install them in 2021. The pandemic put that plan on hold, but now they’re ready to keep their promise, despite the fact that 87% of respondents to their own survey don’t support the proposed design.
A November 2022 SFMTA survey, Level of Support for Design Proposal: All Sources (Comment Card, Email, Office Hours), showed just 13% of respondents supported the center lane design, while 59% preferred an alternative design, and 28% were neutral.
The Level of Support for Design Proposal from comment cards alone showed 71% support for an alternative design, 17% support for the SFMTA’s plan, and 12% neutrality.
The top three concerns from respondents were as follows:
Delineators/ Safe-hit posts being inadequate to protect cyclists and prevent vehicles from illegally parking, turning, and loading in the center lane
Enforcement of illegal turns, double-parking, and loading needs to be strengthened with the adoption of center-running design
Concerns about exiting the center-running protected bikeway mid-block to access businesses along the corridor
The 18-month pilot program included a ban on left turns, the addition of loading zones to blocks between 15th and 24th Streets, and bike lanes running down the center of Valencia Street. Neighbors and merchants were unhappy with it, but so were most bicycle and pedestrian advocates (Streetsblog SF titled one post “SFMTA Re-Proposes Ridiculous Center-Running Valencia Bike Lanes”).
Critics of the center bikeway, including those who answered the survey, said it doesn’t protect cyclists on a street that Vision Zero data shows as part of the city’s “high injury network.” Respondents also pointed out that, with only plastic posts enclosing cyclists, frustrated drivers could easily make illegal left turns through the center bike lane.
Other concerns included the accessibility for less confident or less experienced riders, such as “children and those with disabilities,” who may not be comfortable in a center lane where in order to exit they must make their way through automobile traffic.
The negative feedback caused the SFMTA to push back the project and make some changes, but those hoping for an alternate design were disappointed when only a few minor tweaks were made: bikeway buffers (white posts that separate the bus lane curb from the bike lane), and stopping the lanes one block earlier at 23rd Street.
Luke Bornheimer, a community organizer and bicyclist, came up with his own design that he says makes more sense: protected bike lanes along the curb, similar to those installed in 2019 on Valencia between Market and 15th Streets. (Those interested in viewing Bornheimer’s plan can visit the website BetterValencia.com or send a letter of support here.) The campaign website garnered roughly 700 supporters in less than two weeks, but Bornheimer said the SFMTA isn’t interested in alternatives. “SFMTA is stuck on the center cycle track. It’s been in the works for five years — in 2018 they proposed the same design and it was strongly rejected then. It was paused during the pandemic, and the mayor supported parklets. SFMTA said they didn’t want to mess with that, which prevents curbside protected bike lanes. The irony is thinking that’s pro business but it’s actually going to hurt businesses.”
Area merchants Bornheimer canvassed saw how the SFMTA’s current design would be bad for business. “They got it right away. ‘People will be locked in the bike lane; they can’t stop to go shopping!’ It’s disappointing and frustrating — I’m just organizing a movement of everyday people who say yes, it’s better for everyone. The SFMTA plan is bad for safety, bad for business, and bad for the climate.”
One resident (who requested anonymity) agreed that many Valencia Street merchants are up in arms, as are residents of nearby Liberty Hill. “We got over 1,000 signatures on our petition, a joint effort between Liberty Hill neighbors and an alliance of merchants,” the resident said. “Many merchants I have spoken with won’t get involved out of fear of retribution from bicyclists. How crazy is that?”
And where does the politically powerful San Francisco Bicycle Coalition stand on the SFMTA’s reviled center bike lane? They are active proponents. “The Bike Coalition is supporting this plan under ‘something is better than nothing,’” Bornheimer said. “There’s no data to prove it’s safer — in Washington D.C. there is seven years of data showing the opposite. But also they get SFMTA funding, so there’s possibly a bias not to ruffle any feathers.”
In 2020, the last tax year publicly available, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition was awarded $846,649 in noncompetitive, "sole-source" contracts from the SFMTA. That means there was a non-competitive bidding process and only one supplier (source) was determined to be capable of delivering the required product or service. A database maintained by the San Francisco Controller’s Office (located here) shows the Bike Coalition also received nearly $500,000 from the SFMTA in 2019.
According to their 2019 tax filings with the IRS, their entire budget that year was $968,354, which means in 2019 the Bicycle Coalition received over 50% of its funding from the SFMTA.
Further complicating their role as advocates for the public, in 2020 Mayor London Breed nominated Jane Natoli, a member of the Bike Coalition’s Board of Directors, to the SFMTA Board of Directors. Since the SFMTA Board oversees the creation of bike lanes, street signs and curbside changes, there appears to be a clear conflict of interest in the the Bike Coalition lobbying for the SFMTA’s center bike lane model.
Despite the Bike Coalition’s political clout, it hasn’t swayed the public or bicyclists like Bornheimer. “The update to the SFMTA’s original plan is four plastic posts that buses can drive over,” he said. “It’s essentially an unprotected center lane. Almost everyone acknowledges cars will do U-turns through it. The SFMTA says ‘We’ll collect data’ — do we want to collect data on people dying? There is a better solution — and we can move things around, we can have more parklets, and it works with existing parklets. They don’t have to move or be deconstructed — the bike lane would wrap around them. The only argument I’ve heard is there won’t be enough room for DoorDash to drive their single cars to deliver a single burrito. With the current design, when someone double parks they will double park in the driving lane and people will get frustrated and double park in the bike way. That seems so counter to Vision Zero and transit first policy.”
Others are concerned about congestion increasing on nearby side streets. On a recent visit to the Mission, I watched two people park their cars on the narrow stretch of 21st Street at Valencia Street and leave them idling in the middle of the road to fetch orders from Jay’s Cheesteak and Serrano's Pizza. As traffic backed up, only the sight of a meter maid brought them running back to their vehicles.
A group of neighbors, many who live on those side streets, recently met with Bornheimer and agreed that his plan was preferable, though not perfect. “It was a grassroots effort to try to stop this rubber-stamped vote to pass the SFMTA’s ill conceived bikeway plan that over 80% of those surveyed don’t want,” one attendee said.
Longtime resident Jan Sluizer spoke to SFMTA Board Director Manny Yekutiel at his eponymous civic gathering and events space on the corner of 16th and Valencia Streets to express her concerns. Yekutiel told her that he was “in a rush” but said they could meet another time. That didn’t happen. Sluizer followed up with a text message. “Although, Manny, we didn’t get into how much traffic will be impacting side streets with no left turns off Valencia, there is no need to meet again. It’s pretty obvious this is a done deal, despite it only having 18 percent support,” Sluizer wrote. “If SFMTA really cared, even about bike rider safety, Folsom and Harrison — each made one way from The Embarcadero to Cesar Chavez — would be much better bike boulevards. But, as you said, bike riders want to be on Valencia where all the action is, no matter how ill-conceived, unpopular and risky the Valencia bikeway plan is.” Sluizer said she has yet to receive a response from Yekutiel.
For Bornheimer, who has collected volumes of data on bike lane designs, the choice is clear. “Data from around the world shows curbside bike lanes are safer for bicyclists and drivers. In Washington D.C. the center lane is for bike through traffic — it’s on Pennsylvania Ave. all past capital buildings. No shopping. They went from nothing to something. It’s not applicable. Valencia is a vibrant corridor.” Bornheimer pointed out. “The SFMTA’s design is 14 feet wide — someone could just drive down that lane. You would never put people walking in the center of the street. There is a better alternative; we can design it and we can build it this year with paint and posts, and it might even be more affordable. This is classic San Francisco, constrained by ‘don’t put anything in the curb lane.’ We need someone — the mayor, SFMTA — to be a visionary. It’s not a priority for our city. It’s short-sighted.”
Meeting regarding the SFMTA’s Valencia Street center bike lane plan:
Tuesday, April 4, 2023 at 1 p.m.
1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, San Francisco, CA
Room 400, Floor 4
Members of the SFMTA Board of Directors will attend this meeting in-person. Members of the public are invited to observe the meeting in-person or remotely online.
Remote Meeting Access
Public Comment Call-In: 415.655.0001
Access Code: 2495 036 2708#
Password: 6822#
Nobody listens to their constituents Susan. They just dictate and implement from the loudest voices, Bad Governance! Bad Democracy!
I will be up all night, tossing and turning, fretting about this Valencia street bike lane.