[Carfreeliving] Complete streets in SF?

[Emily Drennen]

Hi guys,
 
I understand your concerns about picking our battles, and wanting to keep up the fight for the "core" network. I am certainly not suggesting that that change. The network concept has proved to be a very good for getting changes on the street- why give up what has worked? 
 
What I am offering is that there be an new policy that makes the city either provide bike and ped accommodations on every street, or provide a damn good reason why they can't. Obviously, bike lanes aren't needed on every city street- I wan't suggesting that they were- but having a policy that the city wants to provide the best ped and bike access it can on all of its streets. This could mean a range of "accommodation" from dedicated bike paths on one end of the spectrum to wide curb lanes on the other.
 
Were this to become city policy, all we're asking for is that the MTA (and other agencies) strive to accommodate bikes and peds in their projects. Of course, there will be exemptions that the city can use to get out of providing appropriate accommodations. But, if we really want the city to live up to its transit-first policy, it would be helpful to be able to point to adopted city policy that bikes and peds belong on every street. 
 
I am having a hard time seeing the drawbacks of going for this kind of legislation. It would be doubtful that pro-car forces would come out in droves to oppose it because it can be framed to be very reasonable and non-threatening. "I think the city *shouldn't* care about how their projects impact walkers and bikers." is a pretty drastic statement, which I'd be suprised to hear at City Hall. There will be people who take it to mean that we want to turn all of our streets into ped and bike-only zones, but we could re-frame the issue back pretty easily.
 
INHO, supporting this legislation is a very good use of our collective political capital. 
 
Thanks,
Emily
 
Dave Snyder <dave at livablecity.org> wrote:

I agree with Josh and Mike. We need a bike network -- facilities 
including exclusive and high quality bike lanes, high quality bike 
paths, and shared lanes where side-by-side slow speed bike riding is 
the social norm -- that is utterly contiguous and reaches to within a 
quarter-mile of every reasonable destination, and wherever possible 
provides the most direct and desirable connection between two points. 
We don't need a bike lane on every street, but the sooner we know 
what a complete bike network will look like, the sooner we can start 
implementing it and put the transit vs. bike fights behind us. As 
noted, the network improvement document will spell out a network, and 
either in the iteration that's before the MTA shortly or in future 
iterations, it needs to express what a complete network will look 
like. That requires a little more conceptual planning and the 
development of minimum quality standards for a "network street." I'm 
looking forward to seeing those projects implemented, now that the 
bike plan process is behind us.

Dave


At 2:59 PM -0700 5/25/05, Joshua Switzky wrote:
>I actually don't agree that bike lanes should be accommodated on ALL
>streets, particularly Van Ness and Geary. These major transit streets need
>major transit infrastructure. It will be hard enough to devote existing
>shared lanes to transit only, and to suggest that we ought to either reduce
>autos to only one lane in each direction or get rid of the curb parking
>(these are really the only options), I think we would be both butting our
>heads against a brick wall and suggesting somewhat extreme solutions to
>problems that don't necessarily exist. I personally don't think that Van
>Ness or Geary need bike lanes if there are immediately parallel streets
>that are bike-friendly and serve the same corridor. I think there are far
>more important and worthwhile battles to fight than these. Let's focus on
>just completing the bike network and throw our full weight behind these key
>transit projects. These streets needs a lot of work just to make them good
>transit streets.
>my two cents.

-j




Emily Drennen 

415/863-2248 
bicyclesf at yahoo.com
www.emilydrennen.org

Acting Executive Director, Walk San Francisco
Advisory Council Member, Bay Area Air Quality Management District
Citizen's Advisory Committee Member, Metropolitian Transportation Agency
Past Chair, SF Bicycle Advisory Committee 




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