San Francisco city officials said Thursday that they are revisiting the option to replace Valencia’s center bike lane with side-running bike lanes, similar to what already exists north of 15th Street, where cyclists travel in a lane sandwiched between the sidewalk and parked cars.
This option now seems possible, despite the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s conclusion that the center lane is working, but needs improvement.
The transit agency released a long-awaited report on Thursday, detailing an evaluation of the Valencia Street center bike lane between August and October 2023. There were 11 collisions between cyclists and vehicles, the report said, including six that involved a vehicle making an illegal left or U-turn.
The number of collisions remains an issue, but the report also found marked improvements: Fewer cars made left turns from Valencia, now that it’s illegal to do so; far fewer cars double-parked, and about a quarter fewer cars used the street in general.
“People on bikes can ride through the corridor without the constant need to mix with vehicle traffic. … Potential conflicts now in the pilot design are far less frequent, more predictable, and some can be mitigated with further design revisions and increased enforcement,” the report read.
Making changes to Valencia Street is like “a musician with a soundboard, where you have got a lot of dials and levers, and you have got to adjust them all in order to make the whole street sing,” said Jeffrey Tumlin, the Director of Transportation at the agency, about the pilot. “That was our challenge.”
That appears to remain a challenge: The pilot project, which began last August and was planned for 12 months, has caused controversy among both cyclists and merchants who work along the corridor.
The bike lane was “remarkably effective at achieving our goals,” said Tumlin, citing the agency’s initial evaluation, which found increased safety for cyclists along the corridor during the first three months of implementation. There were fewer conflicts between bikes and cars, and fewer cars blocking the bike lane. Plus, Tumlin said, the center bike lane has created a more comfortable experience for cyclists.
But that doesn’t mean it didn’t bring about new problems. “The data is also clear that we’ve also created some new concerns while solving for the old concerns,” he added.
Namely, the 11 accidents.
The new configuration also brought about a lot of “confusion” and discontent among merchants along the street, Tumlin acknowledged.
One major concern among merchants is the lack of parking along the street; a Mission Local report found that 48 metered parking spaces were removed due to the new design.
The agency’s report does not include information on how revenue was affected for neighboring businesses. However, a review of sales-tax data by Mission Local found that businesses along the Valencia Street corridor sold more goods during the period in which the bike lane was installed, compared to the same period the year before.
That total does include online sales, and is an inexact measurement of the effect on storefronts themselves. But it casts doubt on some merchants’ claims that they suffered up to 40 percent losses as a result of the bike lane.
The agency said it is currently working with the police department to enforce rules around left turns, and working with merchants to get more input on a potential redesign. The results of the agency’s evaluation will be presented to the SFMTA board next week, but it is unclear when the final design of the street will be decided.
Once that decision is made, installing a permanent lane will take a minimum of six to seven months, according to Tumlin.
I agree with the above commenter that one needs to go, and it’s pretty obvious which that is. The only way to vision zero here is to ban cars from Valencia and turn it fully into a space for pedestrians, cyclists, skaters and everyone else who can put their feet on the ground to stop.
Remove one lane of traffic and make it one-way only. There. Problem solved. Plenty of space for parking, deliveries, and bikes.
I love that new center lane – I don’t understand all the hate towards it. It makes my daily commute safer. If somebody is advocating for the alternive side bike lanes, I encourage you to bike from Market to 23rd and then write back honestly what was more dangerous. seriously it is no contest – center lane for life!
I find the businesses’ signs in protest of the “dangerous” center lane to be disingenuous. Wish they cared about bicycle safety before the redesign, when their customers and delivery drivers constantly blocked the bike lane.
Right, and it’s an insult to lock up our bikes in front of Puerto Allegra for lunch and be met with that insulting sign.
In their minds no bike lane is still an option. Or that joke of a bike lane they were always parking in. If business owners still think they can get that back, they’ll push for it.
Honestly, the businesses complaining the loudest about it seem to be ones who were using the bike lane to double park, or who counted on delivery drivers parking in it to pick things up. They know that they can’t easily defend the illegal parking they depended upon, so they invent other objections to the current setup.
Finally!
The issue is the SFMTA design team is trying to please too many people put too much on one street. As designers part of the job is not to cram so much program into the available space that it breaks. Since you can’t widen the street, you need to eliminate program.
The sidewalks were widened in 2010, then bike lanes were added, then parklets. One of them has to go. Single lane traffic does not work, you can’t pass a stalled car (waiting for pick up etc) and there are no left turns for 4 blocks, the side streets are not meant for high traffic.
Banning a left turn just means making three right turns on quiet residential streets. Do these accident stats include those streets now seeing far more traffic?
This cyclist hopes to continue riding the center lane, away from the deadly, swooping double-parkers along the curbs.
if most are like me, those lanes are too confusing and trucks delivering to the stores block lanes. so Valencia, one my favorite street to walk and drive, is just another San Francisco street I avoid like the plague.
the idea of a bicycle highway is an interesting one that the center lane hinted at but on valencia street, it was not something anyone requested or wanted. being able to safely bike around the city does not need to prioritize bicycle traffic at the cost of making intersections that are not intuitive and does not fit into the overall city pattern of bike lanes. hopefully the original plan can be carried out well enough to accommodate most people and understand that there are a lot of people with different needs in this city. instead of trying things that haven’t been tested in other places, perhaps we should study other cities with more robust bike infrastructure and see what we can use in san franciso. as the bike lanes become safer, we will have more riders and can improve the bike infrastructure so it becomes something useful for more people.
Why does everybody need a car? Why do we need so many cars taking up so much space, everywhere and all the time? Didn’t we all move to SF to get away from the car culture that has wrecked so many American cities?
We should tighten Valencia traffic and encourage food delivery services to rely more on electric bikes. This is good for Valencia, good for the businesses who depend on DoorDash, and great for pedestrians.
“The agency said it is currently working with the police department to enforce rules around left turns”
We’ve all seen the data on how SFPD has completely stopped enforcing traffic laws, right? Go to https://sfgov.org/scorecards/transportation/percentage-citations-top-five-causes-collisions and click on the tab for “total number of traffic citations”.
You’ll see that before the pandemic SFPD went from issuing ~12K traffic citations per year to about ~4K in 2019, and then stopped altogether in 2020 and hasn’t started again, four years later. This despite the total number of traffic officers remaining the same. (They’re of course blaming this on new restrictions on traffic stops post-2020, even though they’d already nearly given up in 2019.)
I would like to live in a city where it’s possible to say “ah, yes, traffic agency is working with the police”, but since the police are on a decade-long paid sick leave that’s hard to take at face value.
“Collision” not “accident”. It’s not an accident when a driver purposely breaks the law and makes an illegal turn.
I am glad that SFMTA is trying to make it safer for bikes BUT they must obey the rules of the road too. The other day I was going north on Valencia and I was waiting to turn right at Duboce, you know that intersection with all the no left turn lights for cars and that dedicated bike signal. When the light changed I started my legal right turn and as I was turning a bike ran the dedicated bike signal and almost hit me. If I was moving a little faster there would have been another “collision” .
The point here is no matter how “safe” you make all these bike lanes, if people do not follow the law, there will be problems. Solution: more enforcement!
Hi. Using the term ‘accident’ is 1980’s journalism. Current practice is to use ‘Collision’ or ‘Crash’.
“Collision” implies more than one vehicle.
“Accident” implies not deliberate or intended.
All such incidents are crashes: most are accidental, some are not.
So all three words have their correct use, and journalists should pick the most accurate one. I think “accident” in the context of this article works.
The center bike lane is a huge improvement from what we had. There are too many cars in the mission as it is.
I’m for anything that reduces car traffic through the area.
We are resigned to the fact that the SFMTA, cyclists and Valencia Street business community refuse to acknowledge the people that actually live on Valencia Street.
But it’s really depressing that Mission Local seems to agree that with them. Apparently we simply don’t exist in the discourse, planning and mandates on how we must access our homes.
Campers,
I clean the gutters and storm drains along there and putting cars on the inside lane for anyone on foot is more dangerous cause it squeezes cars closer to curb especially when they turn at corners.
I’d rather be hit by a bike making a right turn instead of a car.
And, am I alone or does anyone else crossing at corners feel like they’re looking down an empty Indianapolis 500 Race Course running down the middle of the street ?
Walking across at the light it takes 5 steps to get across each car lane and ten to cross the wide center bike lane.
Maybe we can get Gary Kamaye to tell us how they handle bike traffic when they shared the roads with horses.
lol
h.
What is more problematic is the fact that the parking is all done with the new digital pay stations and there are no coin meters. This is very confusing as the parking rules are not stated on the street. After some research I have learned that it is basically the concept that between 9am – 6pm you must pay for parking. To me this is discrimination to those not tied into using their phones for everything. Very confusing. I think many people do not understand this new system. The other thing in the article is that it says cars no longer block the bike lane. Well of course. There are pilings and curb like dividers for the center bike lane. Cars ain’t going to chance that.
Why do we have to use Valencia for bikes and cars? Considering that Valencia is a business corridor, why not having bikes use a parallel street, allowing for cars to transit and park on Valencia.
Why do we have to use Valencia for cars and bikes? Considering that Valencia is a business corridor, why not having cars use a parallel street, allowing for bikes to transit and park on Valencia.
“a musician with a soundboard …” said Jeffrey Tumlin
There are way too many types at SFMTA who experiment on peoples’ backs so they can put progressive “achievements” on their resumes and move on.
The street is now visually intimidating for users of all stripes, and ugly. Something has to give.
Geez–move the bike lane one block one block over to Guerrero. Still flat, without all the commercial congestion.
Stan, you should try riding a bike on Guerrero from Market to Cesar Chavez and then write how flat that ride was. No mind altering substances. Good luck finding the “still flat…” Guerrero.
Yes! Or South Van Ness.
I think that the urbanists want to cycle leisurely through the neighborhood commercial district the likes of which attracted them to SF because it makes them feel vibranter. South Van Ness and Guerrero are bad city streets. There’s a hill on Guerrero around 21st and Hill too that Valencia and SVN don’t have so Guerrero would not work for a bike lane.
Had to go to Walgreens at 23d/Mission to get a quick script and then hit Sunflower for some veggie noodle soup, so I biked Capp south, snagged the meds, and instead of Valencia, cycled north on Mission to 16th. Did not have to stop at one light, they were all timed, and threaded vehicles just fine to 16th and then onto my meal.
Warning: Sunflower does a Hawaiian BBQ for lunch now, not Vietnamese, which is only in the evening.
I think that the Valencia center bike lane should be preserved permanently for posterity as an object lesson to be careful what you ask for.
The red-carpet lane of Mission is too dangerous for me on bike with MUNI buses whizzing by and speeding cars trying to get the edge illegally.