A driver making an illegal U-turn hit a woman riding a scooter in the Valencia Street center bikeway last week, sending her to the hospital, Mission Local has learned.
The woman was riding an electric scooter on Friday afternoon just before 3 p.m., when the driver of a Toyota drove into the painted green lane in the middle of Valencia Street near Sycamore Street, through a large gap between the bollards surrounding the bike lanes.
“She screamed, and then you could hear a collision,” said a cyclist not far behind the woman at the time, who identified himself as Josh. He said the woman was conscious but “unresponsive.”
Photos obtained by Mission Local show that the driver and passenger exited the vehicle, while the scooter rider lay prone on the ground beside her scooter.
Witnesses called for help, and the woman, who Josh described as “moaning in agony,” was taken to a local hospital in an ambulance.
The woman’s injuries were not life-threatening, according to Fire Department Capt. Jonathan Baxter. But the incident confirmed the fears of safe street advocates who have criticized the new bikeway design, which forces cyclists and scooter riders to the center of the busy roadway, in between two-way car traffic.
San Francisco police spokesperson Officer Gonee Sepulveda said that the driver, Kamani Edwards, 32, was cited for making an illegal U-turn in a business district. It is unclear whether he will face further consequences for injuring the woman on the scooter.
Urban designers and cycling infrastructure experts have criticized the center bikeway as unsafe, and residents overwhelmingly rejected the plan last year, but the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency moved forward with a 12-month pilot program in April.
Last week, the transit agency’s Citizens’ Advisory Committee called on the MTA’s Board of Directors to abandon the pilot program, calling it “unintuitive and dangerous.”
Mission Local has reported on two other bicycle crashes during the bikeway’s rollout this summer, and a pedestrian was killed in a crosswalk on Valencia last month.
“I fear that there’s many other instances, and we’re just not even aware of them,” said Luke Bornheimer, a street-safety advocate who has long been calling for the MTA to abandon the notion of a center bike lane and provide more substantial protection to residents using the cycling infrastructure.
The MTA, for its part, said it is “still confirming” all the details of the crash.
“We are fully committed to the pilot and its evaluation and reporting process,” said MTA spokesperson Stephen Chun. “We will know more about changes in collision patterns once we’ve completed our initial rounds of pilot evaluation.”
The city’s public traffic crash data is updated months after incidents occur — currently, its dataset only shows collisions through March of this year, before the Valencia Street pilot broke ground.
“It’s harrowing,” said Josh, who rides his bicycle on Valencia, along with his six-year-old daughter, every day.
Josh called Valencia’s old bike lanes, which kept cyclists to the right of car traffic, “scary” — referring to cyclists weaving around double-parked cars and drivers opening doors into the unprotected bike lanes.
But “at least you were ready for it,” he said. “Now, there’s, like, this mirage of having safety, when there really isn’t any.”
Traffic enforcement would improve the safety of all users of the public spaces. Unfortunately the SFPD is not interested.
We can’t rely on SFPD to protect us from dangerous drivers. As you’ve pointed out, they simply aren’t interested. We should instead focus on sustainable alternatives like parking protected bike lanes (which Valencia has from 15th through Market). Better yet, we should completely open Valencia Street to pedestrians, cyclists, and personal electric vehicles. Cars have no place on the Valencia corridor.
I am a cyclist, but even I want to know, in your plan, where all the motorists are supposed to go? Onto other already crowded streets? Be realistic.
More than thirty years ago I saw in Germany what still strikes me as the most sensible arrangement. Instead of bike lanes between the parked cars and the car lanes, the bike lanes were between the parked cars and the sidewalk. Maybe you had to go a bit slower on your bike because sometimes pedestrians would stray into the bike lane, but it was worth it. Much safer, much less anxiety.
” Instead of bike lanes between the parked cars and the car lanes, the bike lanes were between the parked cars and the sidewalk.”
This was basically one of the solutions proposed by bike advocates; it is not dissimilar to what we see further north up Valencia. But the business owners along Valencia fought it tooth and nail, as they predictably do with absolutely anything involving any bike infrastructure whatsoever. Many of them just have zero respect for any customers who don’t drive, apparently.
Car drivers can take Muni, just like the rest of us. When they tore down the Central Freeway the car supporters told us there would be grid lock. “Where will all the cars go???”
Turns out fewer people drive when there isn’t enough space for them.
The plethora of parklets makes a protected bike lane between 15th and 24th unworkable. But agree, if we can’t get more traffic enforcement then it’s time for a private car ban on Valencia!
The Police Commission told SFPD it can’t chase cars anymore. That’s what progressives asked for, and they got it.
If you have been supporting police in San Francisco, then I appreciate your comment. But it does smack of “I hate police! Police are evil! They’re all incredibly racist villains.” (Hey, your car got broken into.) “Where are the police? Where are they when I personally need them?”
Don’t need to chase them, just pull them over and give them tickets. And the reason people criticize the police is because they don’t do their job. Anyone else would be fired for making up excuses and doing jack at work.
The Police are not protecting the citizens. Period.
Just ban cars on Valencia already.
Exactly, like Market St. is now. Valencia is more for people or bicycles, whereas Guererro is friendlier for cars.
And now Market St is a zombie ghost town. My senior mother and her friend couldn’t get a cab from the theater, didn’t feel safe walking to a street where they could get a rideshare, and at that hour the busses were 30 minutes apart.
Uh-huh. And where are all the people driving cars on Valencia supposed to go? Onto other, already crowded streets? And what about trucks making deliveries to stores and other businesses? I’m a cyclist myself, but that is an unworkable idea.
That sure did a lot for downtown businesses
It is obvious that the MTA is against seniors, disabled and extended families that cannot bike.The rent a crap bikes steal public parking spaces,parklets steal public parking spaces.And the morons do not know why it is difficult to run a business.
Why stop there? Why not ban commerce in San Francisco? Progressives hate business. Everyone can just sit in lotus position on the quiet streets and enjoy the vibe.
Protected bike lanes have been proven to increase foot traffic at local businesses over and over again. https://www.peopleforbikes.org/statistics/economic-benefits If you really want to support our local businesses, the easiest place to start is making our streets safer for pedestrians, cyclists, and personal electric vehicles.
I agree. I am 70 and cannot ride a bike.I do not go into the mission ever because of parking. I do not have the stamina to spend an hour on muni to go there .I have not shopped downtown since the entitled bike riders got Market Street.
New unintuitive system + 97% decline in enforcement of traffic laws yields predictable outcome. (See 97% decline in SF traffic enforcement per Mandelman study, 350 a day in 2014, 117 in 2019, 10 a day in 2022). We can have all the systems we want. With poorly maintained physical barriers and effectively no / next to zero enforcement, this outcome is sadly predictable unless all drivers were suddenly saints and all cyclists are too. My hope is this cyclist is okay and this leads to some beefed up enforcement of the existing laws.
Who put a kids bicycle path in the middle of the road ?? Seems dangerous for everyone.
No one should be allowed to be safe except car drivers, I agree. We should ban sidewalks as well. If you don’t own a car, you should buy one.
the point is that the bike lane *ought* to be safe for a child to bike. How else can the child bike anywhere??
Bike lanes are not meant to be areas for children to play. That’s what parks are for. Bike lanes are for transportation—integrated with the other transportation throughout a city, and shares the road with cars and busses and taxis and ambulances. If that where you bring your child to play, then you are completely responsible for anythng that happens to him or her—IF you were the rare kind of San Franciscan who takes responsibility for their own actions.
Adding a +1 to the other bike-riding commenters who have been cut off by illegal left turns across the bike lanes. Me too, more than once. It is super dangerous, and not at all a “driver error”, it is a conscious choice on the part of the drivers (No Left Turn is extremely well-signed). The lack of police enforcement around this is F***ING criminal. The bitter irony of seeing the Mission Police Station in the background of this photo does not escape me. When we vote next year on replacing do-nothing Ronen on the Board of Supervisors, whichever candidate speaks to city-wide SFPD traffic enforcement will get my vote. Best wishes to the recovery of the injured scooter rider. (Those scooters are super dodgey, my bike’s disc brakes have saved me more times than I can count.)
Hoping for the best for the injured woman here. This is terrible to see.
Fewer people would make illegal lefts and illegal U turns if anyone ever got tickets for doing so. Almost daily, I see a car blocking traffic while waiting to make an illegal left off Valencia being yelled at “no left turn” by passing cyclists *and* the drivers stuck behind it. I’ve never seen the yelling make anyone change plans and drive straight instead of left.
If the city doesn’t have the manpower to issue tickets, why not install cameras to ticket left-turners?
I get that the center bike lane is not perfect from a cycling safety standpoint. (What preceded it was pretty bad also.) Without the other conditions designed to accompany the center-lane though, we are hardly giving it a fair trial.
This. ^^^
S.F. has not enforced traffic laws for so many years that many drivers don’t even know what the rules are, nor do they have much incentive to obey them since there is no penalty for flouting the traffic laws.
Regular enforcement would solve most of our pedestrian and bicycle safety issues in S.F., but it’s apparently not something we are willing to do.
I was cycling the Valencia bike lane around 3 pm Tuesday, 10-24, between 20th and 21st southbound MID-BLOCK and some idiot did a U-turn >>right in front of me<<. I locked up my brakes and was missed by a couple of feet and almost went down. They sped off Northbound. I have seen this many, many times since the lane's inception, but never so close to me as this. You can see where many of the lane's bollards are tilted and scuffed from being hit all the way up and down Valencia.
No enforcement………… At all
This driver should have their license suspended for 6 months at least, and also be charged with bodily injury. Wonder why they were not charged with more than: “illegal u-turn in business district”
I’m drive a car and ride a bike and walk a lot. We need cops doing traffic enforcement. The city would make so much money in these time of budget crises.. It’s as if the PD is all doing the Work From Home thing (doing next to nothing). Is the City content to make money from the insanely expensive meters? ($8.00 an hour after 12 noon). I’m a conscientious driver and bad drivers need to pay the price. They are the ones killing people. Crack down on food delivery services that enslave private cars and essentially force them to double park and drive like maniacs to make sub-minimum wage.
Tomlin a few months came out claiming that ticketing double parked cars blocking the bike lane on Valencia wasn’t bringing in enough money. Somehow though they found the money to put this boondoggle in place.
As usual, there’s no discussion here that recognizes that the 400 block of Valencia is home to well over 1000 people. The two large apartment buildings are full of large families with many kids and seniors. No one in the media, city or MTA cares about our needs.
No accommodation for our building pickups & drop offs, package deliveries — or emergency vehicles. Valencia is now a 1-way street for us, forcing a right turn for people getting kids to school or to the job (hello “essential workers”) and pushing us to heavily congested 16th Street.
How about expanding the idea of community to the people that actually live on Valencia Street?
wow if only there was some way that anyone could have foreseen that that center of the road bike line would end in disaster!
My best wishes for the woman’s recovery. The driver *should* be charged with assault with a deadly weapon but won’t.
MTA spokesperson Stephen Chun: “We will know more about changes in collision patterns once we’ve completed our initial rounds of pilot evaluation.”
Not a good look for the SFMTA. Vision Zero means envisioning street infrastructure that would lead to Zero fatal collisions and implementing it.
Counting deaths and life-threatening collisions gets you to N+1, not Zero.
Cities are for people. People deserve car-proof infrastructure NOW.
More people die on our streets than the year vision zero started, even during the economic shut down. It’s a failure and instead of various factions blaming one another, we should be holding the responsible parties accountable.
I also had an accident when a car made an illegal left turn. I did not get hit, but I fell off my bike because I had to stop so fast.
Cameras need to be on every corner of Valencia to keep cyclists safe.
A high speed chase would make it more dangerous for cyclists.
Bicycle lanes on Valencia st must be removed!!!
Double danger for pedestrians since bicycle riders and car drivers don’t care for streets signs .
A poorly designed plan. SFMTA has literally killed numerous pedestrians with their insane bus-lane-right-turn lane combo (see taxi deaths last year on 3rd st). The list is huge. No doubt this will happen more and more on Valencia. Valencia is now a dead street. If a car takes a right, cars back up to the end of the next block. Businesses are dying, so a few elite policy planners could reinterpret planning for the 20th time along Valencia.
I ride the Valencia bike lane nearly every day and almost every time I am on it, I see cars making illegal u-turns and illegal left-hand turns. The most egregious time was when someone made an illegal left and there was an SFPD car directly behind them.. did nothing. Also, recently had someone in a car start driving while they had a red light but the bike signal was green and almost run me over. It’s disturbing how little it feels like drivers care about people on bicycles.. we’re humans too.
Some people can’t ride bicycles, so public transit needs to be making stops every few blocks as buses do. The energy of the restaurants and shops on the street wasn’t originally based solely the result of bicycle traffic. The accessibility that cars afford keeps the businesses alive, and the business enliven the street for pedestrians and cyclists. The City is coping with a welcome change in perspective but within an imperfect structure already in place. A separate point, that maybe the article could have clarified, is that unless there is signage prohibiting a U turn there, that U turn location was legal as far as location. What made the U turn illegal is that any U turn is only legal if executed while oncoming traffic is 200 feet away. That the driver didn’t see the scooter seems to be what made this U turn illegal. It is similar to failure to yield to a motorcycle, that happens frequently. Motorists need to be warned that they need to be extraordinarily careful when crossing the bike lane to make a left turn or U turn, because they are liable if they hit someone, seen or unseen by the motorist.
As somebody who’s been cycling in the city for 10+, all the closest calls I’ve had with cars have been illegal u-turns. Usually during street cleaning on Folsom, but also at random intersections.
The new bike lane on Valencia is terrifying too though. Had a fire truck roll over the soft barriers the other day because they couldn’t fit around a box truck parked to the side.
Many cyclists, including me, are very happy with the new center bike path. The side running lanes, always blocked by cars and trucks, frequently forced cyclists into traffic. While riding a bike in the city it’s always necessary to be on the defensive for the dangerous behavior of drivers such as this one making a U turn in the lane (OMG!) this sort of dangerous irresponsible behavior is common, and not caused by the center design. Where is the balanced perspective from Mission Local? Very disappointed in this one sided journalism, quite unusual from Mission Local.
I don’t know how we could ban cars from Valencia. Not only do many businesses need deliveries made, but every block in the Valencia Green Zone has one or more buildings with off-street parking: private residences, apartment buildings, offices, two auto repair places…
This might be a good place to point out that those stupid scooters don’t really belong anywhere in a city, and a great many riders drive them in highly inconsiderate and irrisponsible ways. I imagine the car driver wasn’t being as thoughtful as they should have been because almost NO drivers in SF are, however I’m willing to bet the scooter driver wasn’t either. But they’re the victim here, so of course they can’t have any responsibility whatsoever for this unfortunate accident.
Ok, so: scooters are ridden in irresponsible ways, so they “don’t belong anywhere in a city” – but by your own admission almost no drivers in SF drive responsibly, and they actually kill large numbers of people on a regular basis, so … why do cars belong here?
Allen, buddy, you realize a green light gives right-of-way to travel forward , yeah? Thanks for sharing how discriminatory you are, further pushing the agenda towards safer 2-wheeled infrastructure.
I love the center bike lanes, but they won’t realize their true potential until cars are removed from Valencia. Biking down the street on Saturdays when cars aren’t there is a dream now; no conflict with all the awesome stuff happening on the street – tables, chairs, dancing, walking, skating, etc. – the bikes are safely out of the way of all of that. And that experience confirms for me that these lanes are just a trojan horse for a car-free-Valencia, which is now inevitable.
The previous bike lane configuration was perfectly adequate. A decade of Vision Zero “magnifying the threats” to build political support for “improvements” like this has newcomer cyclists drunk on their own Kool-Aid, fighting risks that were overhyped to begin with.
The only thing the prior bike lane was perfectly adequate for was a parking lane for uber/lyft/doordash drivers.
Yes, and most people went around, a la vuelta, a la vuelta, and did not spend their time whining about having to share the road. There’s a damn police station right there at 17th and Mission full of highly compensated officers who could easily have enforced the law. The death chute is worse than just yendo a la vuelta, a la vuelta!
Using that logic, why have bicycle lane infrastructure at all? Not everyone is an aggressive, middle aged, white man with decades of biking experience, comfortable enough to merge into traffic when it’s blocked by drivers. Saying Valencia was just fine is fantasy. Let’s recall the facts:
“Despite the importance of Valencia Street as a bicycle route and pedestrian-oriented commercial district, there are significant safety challenges in the project area. Valencia Street is part of San Francisco’s Vision Zero High-Injury Network, which are the 12 percent of City streets that account for 68 percent of severe and fatal traffic collisions. An average of 26 collisions occurs annually along Valencia Street between 15th and 23rd streets. In the last five years from January 2018 to December 2022, there were 132 collisions that resulted in injuries to drivers, bicyclists, and/or pedestrians, including one fatality along this segment. “
No. It wasn’t adequate.
Exactly. For drivers, SFMTA has been turning our streets into an obstacle course, with adverse effects to safety. As said, the original configuration was more than adequate, all the City needed to do was enforcing double parking in the bike lane.
Center bike lane is safer for people crossing because it forces bike people to stop at red lights or stop signs if they don’t this happens
This was mid-block, none of what you said has happened. The driver was 100% at fault. Did you look at the photos or do you just like to run your mouth?
Drivers kill 20-30 pedestrians a year in SF.
How many do cyclists kill?
Must be a lot if you’re so worried.
How about NO bikes on Valencia?!? Problem Solved.
Hey man, just wanted to say this is one of the dumbest ideas I’ve ever heard. Congratulations.
Valencia, a thriving mixed use street, should be engineered solely to maximize the interests of the most fearful of cyclists. There are no other valid interests.