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On a early May morning in San Francisco, Calif. (15.1% Latino), people gathered on a dangerous street to stand arm to arm as a buffer between moving cars and the bike lane.
The current bike lane is located between street parking and moving traffic. This is known as a door zone lane because people continuously fling open their car doors in this space and drive into and out of this space to park their cars. As we all know, paint does little to stop a person from driving their vehicle over or parking in the “protected” space.
The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s (SFMTA) saw the bike lanes fill up with auto traffic and double parking and proposed protected bike lanes for an upcoming project on the neighboring one-way street, according to Streets Blog San Francisco. However, at an engineering hearing at City Hall, SFMTA made the announcement that the new project would only include painted bike lanes rather than the originally discussed protected bike lanes.
This announcement is why a group organized by San Francisco Municipal Transformation Agency (SFMTrA) gathered to protest in the form of a human shield and why the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition (SFBC) is opposing the paint-only bike lane, which will be the first time they have opposed a bike lane in their 46-year history.
Safe places to bike are critical to reduce fatalities and serious injuries, and to improve health, connectivity, mobility, and air quality. Bike and pedestrian projects also create 46% more jobs than road-only projects.
Do you know if future construction projects near you are developing safe bike lanes or not?
Find out. Get involved. Don’t leave the planning of your neighborhood streets up to planners who don’t bike, walk or drive on those streets.
By The Numbers
33
percent
of Latinos live within walking distance (<1 mile) of a park
