A report from the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency to be released next month is expected to show a small increase in bicycle traffic following implementation of the controversial center bike lane along Valencia Street, according to a statement by the agency on Thursday.
An anonymous public records request of agency data released this week had shown plummeting bicycle ridership — between 40 and 53 percent fewer bikes — compared to last year, but the transportation agency today quickly attempted to put the kibosh on the disappointing numbers. It has now promised to release its belated three-month evaluation of the pilot program by February.
The coming data, the agency claims, will show the desired increase in bike ridership along the corridor — although it says ridership has only increased by 3 percent.
The marginal increase SFMTA plans to report next month stands in sharp contrast to a report one year after the 2019 implementation of parking-protected bike lanes between Market and 15th streets, however. That report demonstrated the new lanes increased bicycle commuter traffic by nearly 50 percent.
Since its implementation as a one-year pilot program last summer, the bikeway has faced criticism from drivers, cyclists, and business owners on the commercial corridor. Cyclists and urban design experts contend that the new lane, placed in the middle of a busy street, is unsafe, and the lane has seen several collisions between cars and cyclists.
Business owners, too, have taken issue: They blame the bike lane and removal of parking spaces for flagging revenues. But early data from the second quarter showed that sales tax revenue had only dropped slightly, and was generally down across the 94110 zip code area as a whole.
The public records request of the SFMTA report, dated September 2023, showed that daily bicycle volume had dropped 40 percent between 18th and 19th streets, and 53 percent between 21st and 22nd streets, immediately after the bike lane was installed. It compared September 2023 to a previous month, prior to implementation of the bike lane; the bike lane was mostly functional on Aug. 1.
That same report also showed car volume dropped 42 percent between 18th and 19th streets, and 15 percent between 21st and 22nd streets. Foot traffic also decreased, to a lesser extent, but was down between 30 and 42 percent during the evenings on some blocks of Valencia Street.
The MTA was expected to provide its initial findings from the first quarter of the Valencia pilot program last fall, but delayed that update in November. Last month, MTA head Jeff Tumlin and MTA board member Amanda Eaken said they were beginning to reconsider a curbside, parking-protected bike lane.
Sustainable transportation advocate Luke Bornheimer, who first reported on the MTA’s September evaluation, called for “immediate action to replace the unintuitive, dangerous center bikeway with curbside protected bike lanes,” which he called the “industry best practice.”
It is unclear why the initial one-month report from September was never released publicly. MTA spokesperson Stephen Chun said that the report was “presented out of context, and only accounts for a small portion of our evaluation period.”
“This is a typical pattern that can be seen with any road or large construction project upon immediate completion,” read a statement from the department this week.
SFMTA is just acting silly. Their own data shows a huge drop in ridership, but once they “massage” the data into a new report, their data will miraculously show an entirely different result.
An anonymous public records request of agency data released this week had shown plummeting bicycle ridership on the center lane on Valencia — between 40 and 53 percent fewer bikes — but the transportation agency today quickly attempted to put the kibosh on the disappointing numbers. It has now promised to release its belated three-month evaluation of the pilot program by February.
While I don’t claim to know the best option for Valencia, the center bike lane is efficient and safer than previously. Drivers can’t easily either right-hook or left-hook cyclists. I was in Bogota last week, which has the largest bike network in the Americas and, in some circumstances, they successfully use center bike lanes. I’m currently skeptical of claims that curbside lanes are the best solutions on that section of Valencia since it would again become possible for drivers to right-hook cyclists. Especially since drivers turning right at an intersection and cyclists going straight won’t be able to easily see each other because of vehicles parked between them. I look forward to seeing more data on the current configuration.
your concerns about right turning cars and bicyclists going straight are definitely a worry whenever you have bike lanes next to cars, it does take away some parking spots but having the right turning lane cross the bike lane ahead of the intersection might be one solution. it separates the need to look right for bicycles before looking left to watch for oncoming traffic before making a right turn. An example of this can be found on northbound lane on valencia at 14th street.
If there was enough space, probably some other solutions would be safer to try.
They might have a little habit doing this kind of thing – some ten years ago, somebody pointed out how Muni’s on time performance report was stretching a minute to 90 seconds so they can make themselves look a little better for Prop E.
As a cyclist I will be disappointed if the MTA reverts to curbside bike lanes. One under-appreciated benefit of the center lane is how much less broken glass, refuse, leaves, garbage bins, etc cyclists now have to navigate.
And people, who routinely wandered into the bike lane when it was close to the sidewalk.
now they just use the center lane as an island to wait for car traffic to pass sometimes not even paying attention to bicyclist since they expect us to dodge them.
Being a daily Valencia cyclist, and talking to many other riders, I can attest to the slow and poorly done rollout of the center lane. It took over 3 months and caused a lot of confusion and several accidents.
For example, I witnessed two cyclists hitting the signs or poorly marked bumpers that were bolted down in the (under construction) bike lane.
What’s more, many motorists were driving through the bike lane or making illegal lefts, which thankfully has decreased over time IM observation.
Understandably, cyclists have been slow to return.
@Eleni, can you compare these numbers to cycling numbers elsewhere in the city during the same period?
@SFMTA, What is a reasonable amount of time for users to adapt so we get a fair evaluation?
I didn’t want the center bike lane for oh so many reasons. the real problem has been the insanity of uber/lyft/doordash drivers, stopping in the bike lane, doing illegal u-turns, often starting in the bike lane (without ever looking) as well as all the others parked in the bike lane and drivers not understanding how to make right turns and needing to be in the right lane (bike lane) before turning. valencia was hell. and with zero enforcement. while the rollout of the center lane was terrible by any standard, with signs saying for months not to use it (for liability reasons?), and the terribly confusing onramp/offramp intersections at 15th and 23rd (I’ve seen cars at 15th drive straight into the bike lane), I still feel the current system is safer than it has been for years. far from perfect. I look for sfmta to continue planning a real future, but for now, there is a respite. I know some critics insist on riding (with kids) in the narrowed car lane, but I’m not in that camp of just complaining. there are lots of interests at play. I would double down on a very unpopular idea to some—building a new garage on 17th, half a block from valencia, to satisfy the businesses and people (like seniors) who drive—and then letting valencia be more of a walking/biking street.
I really like the center bike lanes. Excellent visibility, straight as the street is, no meandering pedestrians, no cars entering and exiting garages. Fewer worries of death from a right turning car or truck. Filling the divots and bumps would be helpful. The alternative to center lanes is less parking for cars. That is why we have the center lanes when the painted bike lanes were really just double parking advisories. Considering the awful protestations of imminent death by resident and non resident pundits, it is understandable that people have shied away from Valencia. That will change. Center lanes are better than the alternative. The block between 14th St and 15th St northbound in front of Four Barrel Coffee is awful. The worst of parking protected bike lanes I use in SF. A commercial garage, a right turn lane, a large food truck with an awning the reaches out just so, meandering pedestrians and bumps.
SFMTA presented this at the beginning as an “experiment” that would be conducted and evaluated quickly, and got SF Bike and Kid Safe SF on board to support that approach.
Kid Safe SF published their criteria on how they’d evaluate the experiment. (I’m not sure what their motivation was, but in general it is good practice – that way you can’t change the criteria later.) But as far as I can tell, SF Bike and SFMTA never published theirs. It’d be great if ML asked SF Bike what their criteria is, and FOIAd SFMTA to see if they ever set internal criteria.
I know that I’m not the only one confused by the headline… I get that you’re attempting to bait and peddle controversy (per usual) but I’d imagine you’d try to acknowledge the counterpoint within this very article. At a minimum, I’d hope to see you try to balance it with other reporting on the site let alone abroad.
considering the original plan was was to extend the parking protected bike lanes next to the sidewalk that was started north of 15th street, it’s good to see they might go back to that. Not sure who suggested the center lane in the first place but it did make bicycling safer from dooring as well as delivery drivers double parking and being forced into traffic but I’m not sure bicyclists requested a freeway for bikes making north south travel easy but difficult when trying to turn off the center lane. Perhaps we all just need to understand that with so many different people with different needs, there is no one perfect solution but that hopefully we can continue to improve and change with the situation.
I commute the Valencia corridor daily on my bike and I absolutely hate the new center lane. The intersections where it crosses from edge to center are extremely dangerous, the light-timing has gotten much worse, so that you no longer have a synchronized run down Valencia in either direction at bicycle speed, the delivery trucks STILL occasionally block the bike lanes, and you are farther from the Valencia businesses you want to stop at, with a lane of traffic separating you.
On top of which it is absolutely a hideous aesthetic nightmare, and has wiped out evening restaurant traffic.
SFMTA should have implemented a relatively narrow protected lane next to the sidewalk, and stepped up enforcement of Uber drivers and deliveries stopping in traffic. The logic is graduated speed and scale – Pedestrians -> Bikes -> Cars. It’s bizarre to me that Tumlin et. al are still hanging on to this failed experiment.
eg. “Despite previously avail data, SFMTA claims tiny increase in cycling…” etc. Seems a bit more honest IMHO.
Who in their right mind would believe anything coming from one of the most corrupt city governments in the country ?
The city gave them the lane now get them off the sidewalks and out of the crosswalks- neither of which has the letters “ride” in it. The “walks” are for pedestrians only. Same holds true for all the scooters, skateboards, e-bikes, etc. that wreak havoc in pedestrian designated areas. They should be less rude and also obey the stop signs, traffic lights, etc. No one driving a car wants to run into them and hurt someone. As to the center lanes they create a lot of confusion and havoc. They create visual confusion and oftentimes obscure who is doing what especially since the cyclists run lights and stop signs and will cut across traffic.
Hello?
Once again, absolutely no one is thinking about the people that live on Valencia Street with their families.
The center bike lane has been six months of added stress to our lives — added time to get to all the places we need to every day: kids to schools all over the city, workers to their “essential jobs” and seniors to their doctor appointments.
SFMTA has once again show us that our community doesn’t matter.
Highly concerned about how SFMTA and City government is fixated on bike lanes not just on Valenica but other streets. Harder and harder to drive around what was an already congested city. As more retail stores close (Safeway on Webster to close) seniors and those who do not bike and rely on public transportation or cars, it will make quality of life more difficult. We live in a peninsula and rely on cars/trucks to deliver everything we need. Most workers commute in. As a kid growing up in the city, rode my bike everyone and did not need special lanes…we were taught to be careful in traffic.