Update: The prankster has struck again, covering up more of the Valencia center bike lane signs in the predawn hours of Saturday morning. They were still up as of noon.
Three months into construction on Valencia Street’s center bikeway, one daily commuter who could no longer stand the controversial bike path and its convoluted signs swapped them out with ones of her own making.
At noon Thursday, nine signs appeared on different sections of the bikeway, all covering the construction signs already in place. Each sign contained a phrase expressing displeasure: “LOL IDK how you will merge,” one sign reads.
“Uh, good luck turning right,” reads another one.
And the prankster’s favorite: “We regret this bike lane.”
The prankster said in a telephone interview that she made the signs because she finds the original signposts along the bike lane “pretty ridiculous.”
“They’re an obstruction to cyclists, and also extremely confusing,” she said. She asked to remain anonymous, for fear of any consequences.
The Valencia center bikeway pushes cyclists from curb-adjacent bike lanes onto a separated bikeway running down the center of Valencia Street, from 15th to 23rd streets, with cars on either side. Cyclists are protected by the occasional plastic bollard and rubber curbs, and currently have to navigate large construction signs in place until the lane is finished.
Plans for the center bike lane were approved earlier this year, despite tepid support, to avoid the removal of delivery spaces along the commercial corridor. Construction has been ongoing, cyclists have crashed, and traffic experts have derided the experiment.
The prankster said she commutes to work on Valencia’s center bikeway every day, sometimes four times a day. On one of her rides, she saw one of the construction signs in the middle of the lane cracked in half by a bicyclist. That inspired her to make one telling people to be careful with signage. “The signs are dangerous,” she said.
New inspiration kept popping up. She’s encountered some tricky right turns during rush hour, so she made another sign to tell people that it’s hard to make a right turn.
“If you have a green light and the cars have a green light, there’s this little square you have to wait in, but you don’t have much time,” she said. “You have to make eye contact with drivers and let them let you make a right turn.”
Most crazy to her is that the fire lane will be the same as the bike lane on Valencia Street. “Imagine you’re on your bike and there’re cars on both sides, and then the fire truck comes down. Where do you go?” she said. Hence the sign, “If fire truck comes, IDK.”
She fabricated the signs, called up a friend, and the two-person crew spent an hour Thursday biking from one end to the other to complete the posting.
People interacted with her in the process, both encouraging and discouraging.
Two San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency workers ran into the tricksters and told them to stop. She continued her work, and told them she felt the signs left in the middle of the bike lane were dangerous.
“And they told me that they’ve heard complaints, and they’re working on it, and that their reason why the signs are there is because all of the bollards aren’t in yet, so they need to have construction signs, in case the truck shows up,” she said. “It seems so vague, like, don’t they know when that’ll happen? It seems crazy to keep construction signs up for weeks.”
When Mission Local visited Valencia Street around 5 p.m. Thursday, the signs had been taken down, and only remnants of tape were visible. Two employees at small businesses on Valencia confirmed that they had seen the signs earlier in the day.
The instigator wasn’t entirely sure who took them down, but speculated that it might have been the SFMTA.
She plans to do it again, though she’s still unsure of the practice’s legality.
“Ultimately, I don’t think it’s the best vision for Valencia Street,” she said. “They did all this just to save 20 parking spots. It’s frustrating because Valencia would be such a nice street, if the focus was on bikes and pedestrians.”
“LOL IDK how you will merge” sign put up by a prankster on Valencia Street. July 20, 2023. 
“Uh, Good luck turning right” sign on Valencia Street, installed to protest the center bike path. July 20, 2023. 
“LMAO we didn’t think this through,” installed in protest of the experimental road design. July 20, 2023. 
“Trucks love to ride bike lane” sign, protesting illegal parking by cars in the center bike lane. July 20, 2023. 
“Oops bike lane was a big mistake” sign. The center bike lane is experimental—and was described by one traffic expert as “an abomination…the worst infrastructure I have ever seen anywhere in the world.” July 20, 2023. 
“Watch out for signs” on Valencia Street. July 20, 2023.
Haha I love this! I bike on Valencia frequently and agree that the new bike lanes are awkward and more dangerous than the previous configuration. Plus traffic on Valencia is often like a parking lot now, backed up at the red light on 23rd. Luckily this is just a “pilot” so it should return to normal after the pilot phase
These signs warm my cockles
In the past, if a car were turning right or waiting to park, you could just go around it in the center lane. Now traffic backs up for blocks with the slightest impediment. Valencia is becoming a parking lot of idling cars.
how do you ‘sign in’ to vote?
… except that the pilot phase of one year only starts once MTA says it’s “complete”…
Informing the City Attorney that the City is maintaining dangerous engineered conditions that could lead to injury is a legal formality that exposes the City to damages if anyone is injured or killed on that facility. Be sure to CC the bike lawyers.
I love these signs, much better than the stupid captain obvious ones that the city put in the way, dangerously I may add. They speak the truth.
I love these signs, much better than the stupid captain obvious ones that the city put in the way, dangerously I may add. They speak the truth that not evr
It has never made sense to have a center bike lane for 4 blocks.
If a center bike lane in a street enables a cyclist to get through the entire length of that street, it makes some sense. But now, cyclists have to enter and exit traffic twice in a short period of time. It’s not safer.
I don’t know how the city came up with this but I hope it won’t take them too long to admit their mistake.
Center lanes only work for people who are racing from one end of the street to the other. Not good for the merchants in the middle of the block that is all of a sudden cut off from the center lane. Not good for emergency vehicles. Makes no sense and everyone knows it, but, that does not mean SFMTA will not pour millions of dollars they don’t have into upgrades to try to make somebody’s bad idea work.
Exactly. In the same way that SFMTA eliminated 1/2 of stops on Mission Street to speed commuters (to where again now?) through Mission’s commercial core faster (because BART does not exist), the Valencia death chute speeds bicycle and e-mobility commuters (to where again now?) through the Valencia commercial core in the Mission.
I wonder if there are any data that show whether Mission Street ground floor commercial near eliminated stops suffered economically or violence increased due to the loss of foot traffic or eyes on the street where bus stops were removed?
I cycle on Valencia regularly for errands, medical appointments, eating, specialty shopping. The death chute offers me nothing but downsides in that regard.
There’s a bike phase on the new signals at the transition at each end of the new lanes.
This has worked fine in the past on other streets. Why are you thinking it doesn’t work here?
Cars continue to think they can turn right on red, ignoring the fact that bicyclists have a green and will be crossing in front of them from right to left. Have you even observed what’s going on there? Please refrain from commenting if not.
I ride Valencia st regularly.
I have been observing these intersections with the bike phase since they installed them on Polk. After people get used to them, they work about as fine as any other traffic light.
If you want to complain about drivers generally ignoring traffic signals, that’s a different conversation.
Because people leave / enter Valencia on bikes on every block between those two ends, and none of the lights in between 15 and 23 has a protected phase for bikes to turn. Given the car traffic volume and cyclist volume during peak hours, any turning of either cyclists or drivers led to lane congestion and confusing choreography at every one of these intersections.
The other intersections don’t need a bike phase for right turns.
Step one. If approaching a green light, pull into the green turn lane, wait for light to change.
Step two. when light changes to green for cross traffic, turn right and merge.
This is not hard. Go try it.
which other streets did it work fine on? do they involve the cyclists crossing the auto lane? Regardless, it is more complicated and time consuming, and ultimately, unnecessary if they just designed the bike lanes correctly
Define “correctly”. Make sure to include any special signals that those correctly designed bike lanes require.
Or, you could just go out and ride Valencia with an open mind and see how much better it’s going to be once it’s finished.
Maybe it’ll be so good that it will get extended all the way from Market to Cesar Chaves. That would be nice.
Been cycling on Valencia since before Loma Prieta. There was nothing wrong with the previous design.
Zealous advocates high on their own supply of magnified threats conflate high actual injury numbers with injury rates, and perform entitlement by demanding magnified threats be mitigated at all costs, while insulting and presuming motive from anyone who who disagrees which just fuels their sense of entitled victimhood.
It is totally confusing.
Yes, there is a bike phase, but I saw one cyclist go right through the red light forcing the vehicle traffic to stop (the cyclist did signal, but WTF?).
Also, it is unclear how one is supposed to get off in the middle. The cyclist quoted said that she thinks you are supposed to sit in the box and catch the eye of a driver. I thought you were supposed to move to the box and wait until you had a green for the new direction you were going. Who knows?
I have been riding on Valencia Street for over 30 years. I supported the original plans for bike lanes that the community called for and worked in public open sessions to develop. Those plans were passed by the SFMTA board and should have been implemented.
The Covid emergency has ended and the parklets are almost entirely gone. The work done and the process that has been agreed to should be honored, not replaced by some backroom deal.
That said, the trend for years on Valencia Street has been to convert it into one more San Francisco surface highway. Cars coming off The Central Freeway onto Duboce St go one (1) block West where the turn signal makes it really easy for the whole convoy to proceed straight onto Valencia Street headed North.
Someone spent close to a million dollars on that stoplight system (Calling it “pedestrian infrastructure,” no doubt!) so it’s impossible to say the SFMTA traffic engineers aren’t intentionally steering large numbers of cars onto Valencia St. (They could have put the same light system at Guerrero St., while not facilitating turning left onto Valencia Street for argument’s sake.)
The center running bike lane design is dangerous for both pedestrians and for bicyclists due to the extreme number of conflict points at every intersection and the high volume of vehicle traffic. I do not feel safe using this path at all and will no longer ride on Valencia Street.
It also hurts me to see parents and children attempting to use this lane in good faith. We use the honors system to prevent left turns and u-turns in a town where the pressure to get places on time in a congested traffic grid can push even the most law abiding folks over the edge! What could possibly go wrong?
This dangerous experiment with non consenting humans should be ended immediately. Likewise the community bike path plan that was shelved should be implemented super fast and that light at Valencia & Duboce should be moved to Guerrero St which is a better fit for cars coming off the freeway.
Good point on the left turn green signal at Duboce and Valencia. Cars should be encouraged to use SVN or Guerrero and not Valencia.
And consider the cost – not only the construction, striping, bollards and curbs, but add in the NEW no left turn signs, plus the illuminated no right turn signs +++for what benefit? As a biker first and driver – what makes biking safe is non pissed off drivers. Guess what – now everyone is angry.
I LOVE YOU, ANONYMOUS SIGN-MAKER! DON’T LET THE MAN OPPRESS YOU!!!! GODSPEED!!!!
-former avid cyclist
She’s my freakin hero! These signs are gold! LOL
This entire design seems terrible, but using the fire truck example is absurd and weakens the argument. When you see or hear emergency vehicles, you pull over and get out of their way, even if it takes a bit of coordination.
The problem with “pull over and get out of the way” is that the “ridges” they installed around the bike lane make it difficult to get *out* of that lane if you’re on a bike, unless you happen to be at an intersection. It’s probably easy to pick up a road bike and step over it, but when I’m carrying my two kids on my large cargo bike what the heck am I supposed to do to get out of the lane? Or do I just go to the edge of the lane and make the fire truck squeeze by me?
The intersections where bicyclists shift from side lanes to the center lane are incredibly dangerous. I’ve already seen two very near misses, one because a car turned right on red while the bike-specific green light was on, and the other because a bicyclist ignored the bike-specific signals and obeyed the general signal. It’s a fustercluck. Someone’s going to die.
Fire Tumlin before every business except for bike shops are shut down in SF
Tumlin was quoting as disapproving. Maybe get him to go back to normal instead of pouring more money into it.
I’ve been using the lanes to commute to work downtown from Bernal and I friggin love them! Can’t wait until they are fully open, but totally understand wanting to let people know they are not totally done yet. They are actually much less stressful and dangerous than the side lanes closer to market because I don’t feel like pedestrians are going to hop into the lane. My coworker just got knocked off her bike by a driver who was walking to their car and looking at their phone. Broke her finger and got pretty battered. The center lane is protected from distracted pedestrians.
I ride to and from work every day and the problem I’m seeing is the huge potential for head-on collisions between bikes and all the other electrified high-speed device chaos sharing the streets – scooters, one-wheelers, all classes of Ebikes. etc. I almost got taken out by a GASOLINE-POWERED Whizzer Bike this AM. I will be ready clothesline the next fool who crosses the line. An unintended byproduct of this experiment will be greatly increased injury and violence.
Ugh… went to Therapy on Valencia yesterday to get a birthday card. Drove because I was combining errands. Frustrated to find all the commercial parking signs but found a spot I could park in for 5 minutes. Saw a car in front of me take a U turn over the bike lane barricades to get a spot on the other side. Got to the store to find it was closed temporarily until 5:30 pm. Didn’t have 30 minutes to wait or shop other stores. Went back today, saw a police car also turn around over the bike lane. All commercial parking on Valencia made it difficult to find a spot. The street is a colossal mess. Traffic is much worse on both Valencia and Guerrero. And this is a year long pilot? How many bicyclists are going to be killed before they pull the plug on this nightmare? I won’t ride my bike on Valencia at this point. I always felt safe in the green lanes next to the curb but this configuration doesn’t make me feel comfortable. Please, please, please, revert back to the way it was sooner than later.
I ride Valencia daily and I’ve been riding the new bike lane for several weeks now. Even before the traffic lights and all the bumper barriers went up. At first I thought it was ridiculously stupid and dangerous. However, as soon as they turned on the bike traffic lights at 23rd my opinion flipped. Now I love the center bike lanes. It’s a smooth ride now from 26th to 15th. I haven’t had any issues with pedestrians, cars or other bikes. Not something I could say about the old bike lanes with cars parked in them or car doors and pedestrians encroaching into the protected parts.
My only concern is that the timing for cars at 23rd is too short causing there to be a perpetual back up. The timing needs to be lengthened for the cars at the expense of the cross traffic. Don’t mess with the frequency of the light or we will lose the Green Wave effect
I’ve been biking along Valencia for years and these feel like both an improvement and kind of ridiculous.
The obvious solution is a separated bike lane with actual dividers, but drivers in SF consider parking to begin at conception, so not gonna happen.
You can now get down the length of this area… until you have to dive across a lane to get out of it. But at least delivery drivers don’t park on it. Mostly.
I mean, sure, drivers are going to park on it. But they’re so obviously in the wrong you’ll be able to get a small group of cyclists to yell at them. It’s gonna be fun.
Does it slow down Valencia? Yes. Good. You live in a city people. Traffic sucks. Deal.
Here’s my experience trying the new bike lane on a Saturday morning to go from 15th to 19th (to get to Mission Playground) with my 7 and 4 year old riding on their own bikes. I typically ride on the sidewalks with them but thought the center lane might be safe since traffic should only be cutting across at the intersections. The entire time I worried that one of us would accidentally run over the plastic bump and fall into traffic. There is only 1-foot buffer between the bike lanes and car traffic, which is the width of the plastic bump. I think cyclists got more of a buffer with the old design because cars could edge into the oncoming lane to give cyclists some space. Now cars and bicycles are essentially in “chutes” with little wiggle room. The plastic bumper ends in some places and then all that’s there is paint, and I did turn around to see my 4 yo riding in the car lane.
It would be cool to have a completely separated bike lane with real barriers so that kids could use, but this one’s not going to cut it. I think Capp is actually the safest street for kids to bike on now with the prostitution suppressing traffic blockers, so I hope those are made permanent.
My current vote is for car-free Valencia since car drivers need to have their privileges revoked for bad behavior.
I don’t have a side on the bike vs. car wars. I’m here to point out that the 400 block of Valencia is home to well over 1000 people. The majority are in two large apartment Buildings managed by mission properties, and houses families with many kids and seniors. No where in the media or MTA statements have I seen their needs represented.
Valencia has been made a 1-way street for them, forcing a right turn for the majority of residents that sends them to heavily congested 16th Street. No accommodation has been made for building pickups & drop offs, delivery vehicle — it makes living in their neighborhood just that much harder.
How about telling the anarchists on two wheels to stay off of Valencia? Tell them to use Guerrero or some other street. Somebody or somebodies with considerably below-average intelligence came up with this center lane nonsense.
I bike almost daily on Valencia or Valencia adjacent streets north/south. My mind is not made up yet, but some observations:
1.) Transitions are definitely dangerous and scary, though with the lights maybe a bit better than before. Turns as well, as many have noted, though I think the system with the turn lanes make some sense and could work?
2.) Overall I think the chute is an improvement for throughfare north/south bike travel through the mission. If your destination is on Valencia I’d say it’s neutral to worse.
3.) things are an absolute MESS right now due to drivers getting jammed up waiting for pedestrians, getting frustrated and flouting traffic laws (especially the new turn restrictions). Maybe this will improve in time, or better yet convince folks not to drive on Valencia as a thru street? Anyways, makes for really good people watching (car watching?) as people are really on their worst behavior having to deal with the new restrictions.
4.) cops love to abuse the emergency lane outside the station because of the above traffic. I’m not convinced there are any emergencies they are responding to just turning on lights and gunning it through the chute to make an “illegal” left turn because they are the law.
Anyways my hope is they get the courage to buck up and make Valencia the car-free street it should be. There seems to be an incredible amount of biking already despite the confusion, as well as heavy ped traffic. Seems absolutely miserable to drive on. Good. Guerrero and S Van Ness should be the ones to handle (thru) car traffic, not Valencia.
This is fake news! There’s no way the city would be stupid enough to put a bike lane in the center of the road that also double as an emergency fire lane 🔥🚴🚵♂️🚒.
Hate to stick my neck but I really like the new center running lane. Time will decide the safety debate, but I didn’t think dodging car doors, delivery trucks, and Ubers picking up food was super relaxing. My experience so far is less stress with a much faster ride. And the occasional ambulance or fire truck being able to avoid the car traffic Sedna like a plus, and pretty easy to avoid if I ever have to. I want to thank the SFMTA for sticking with the pilot design,: if it really doesn’t work out when competed (note we are not supposed to be using it until final signal work is done) than it’s easy to remove.
Valencia has never been that dangerous a street on which to bicycle. A decade of Vision Zero induced magnification of threats has advocates high on their own supply, believing their own bullshit.
Meanwhile, at 17th and Valencia sits SFPD’s garrison, Mission Station. One might think that the blocks adjacent to the cop shop would be free from scofflaws, but one would think wrong.
Had SFPD done its damn job and enforced traffic law on Valencia, we’d not be seeing money laundered to erect this death chute that nobody asked for which will inevitably be removed, laundering more tax dollars.
yes yes yes!!! exactly. specifically the last paragraph.
I rode the Valencia bike lines for the first time last weekend and thought they were great, though I admit the orange signs were weird. There’s no pleasing some people.
It is regrettable that such single minded and blind advocacy predicated on devout activism of a completely extreme ideal devoid of any responsibility and true commitment to San Francisco and it’s long-term community is heartbreaking and devastating. This thing is a massive waste of money, a gigantic destruction of carbon footprint, and completely anti-ethical of the purported well-being of San Francisco. The ideologues of this city who generally are young immature and not established in the San Francisco community are really wreaking havoc. And I hope that the writer of this article has the courage to publish my comment and represent the entire San Francisco community. Not just that small bicycle advocacy that apparently has all day every day to hang out down at City Hall and push their agenda over working families that have to actually provide the money for such stupidity.
Man, ChatGPT is really coming along.
BIKERS
YOU
WANTED
GOT IT
REGRET IT
What?
I bike on Valencia daily, and I think the new bike lanes are a huge improvement over the curbside lanes.
Complaints about awkward right turns only make sense if the bike never turns left off a curbside lane. Curbside lanes are susceptible to door-ing, and the curbside ‘protected’ lanes are susceptible to pedestrians hanging out in them or crossing them to get to and from their cars. The middle lane is a calm oasis from these problems.
I think critics of it are afraid it’ll be great because their ultimate goal is to shut Valencia from car traffic all together – and having this be successful will make it harder for them to get this ultimate goal sold.
Now both right and left turns are awkward. Previously left turns didn’t require the use of the turn box, it was just an option. It was easy to turn into the car lane if needed before turning left. Now that isn’t possible
The lanes were never curbside from 15th onward. The only curbside lanes on Valencia are Market to 15th, which are significantly better than the new center lanes. I don’t dislike the center bikeway because I have an agenda, I just don’t like them because I think they’re dangerous, especially for people who casually ride, and all in the name of not inconveniencing drivers. MTA could and have done better.
Increasingly, the businesses on Valencia are hostile to cyclists. Arizmendi told me I couldn’t bring my bike while I bought a pastry. The cashier refused to take my money. I haven’t been back since.
I recently tried the same thing with my SUV at Lucca. Only to find out it had been closed for years, how embarrassing.
There’s not enough room in there, maybe that’s why? And even if it wasn’t busy, I could see why they don’t want people getting the idea they can bring their bike in. It’s small, and often busy. Lock your bike up outside maybe? I’ve never tried to bring my bike into any place of business, this is so odd.
Boy, the folks who hate on these new lanes are going to lose credibility once everything is finished and their dire warnings fail to come to pass.
Still under construction-
Yeah, the signs make navigation a little difficult, but they are gone when construction is finished. Why is this hard to understand?
Right turns-
Please don’t be deliberately obtuse. They’re just turn lanes.
Step one. When you have the green light, pull over into the green turnout.
Step two. When the light changes, turn right and go with the cross traffic.
Emergency services-
Seriously? Bike lanes are the perfect emergency lane. Unlike cars, when an ambulance or fire truck needs to get through, bicyclists can just move over and clear the way. Unlike cars, they’re physically unable to move sideways and let emergency vehicles through. We should be doing more of this, not bitching about it.
The angry, increasingly strident and out of touch true believers who cannot let go of their obsession with separated lanes have had their day. It’s over.
And anyone who doesn’t realize that Jeffrey Tumlin is using this as an intermediate step towards turning Valencia into a pedestrian mall with bike access should step back, sit down, and listen for a little while.
Right turns are much less convenient than a normal bike lane. Step 1.5 is wait for the light to change, which is a very strange thing to do when trying to turn right and isn’t required on most streets. Also, what if more than one cyclist wants to turn right? there is not that much room for them to wait without blocking either the car or bike lanes.
The emergency lane thing is interesting. So you suggest the cyclist should stand in the car lanes while waiting for the truck to pass? doesn’t sound very safe!
Traffic is supposed to pull to the right and stop when hearing a siren. This is just an extension of that concept.
Except that it actually works.
So if I pull my cargo bike (which is a bit wider than a regular bike) to the right edge of the bike lane, is there enough space for a firetruck to get by me? What if there are cyclists pulled over on the other side–is there enough space between us for the fire truck to squeeze through? I’ll admit I haven’t tried it, but I have my doubts as to its workability.
Also, the center lane would still work for a pedestrian mall, so win-win 🙂
Now I have to wait a phase like a second class road user to make a right turn that I could do on a green, yellow or a red?
What happens if the bike lane backs up with turners?
What happens when unwieldy heavy faster sports utility bikes collide head on trying to avoid backed up turners?
Is the left turn legally executable in fewer than three phases?
I’ll take Capp or the car lane for safety.
So your problem with the new lanes is that they’re going to be too full of bikes?
Great, then when that happens, it will be easier to turn Valencia into a pedestrian mall and widen the bike lanes by taking out the remaining automobile lanes.
Thanks for your input and duly noted.
So it will take four phases to legally make a left.
1. wait in bike death chute for Valencia signal to turn red.
2. cross traffic lane to opposite sidewalk of desired turn. wait for Valencia signal to turn green.
3. cross one numbered street lane and get into lane going your direction. wait for Valencia signal to turn red.
4. cross Valencia as if you’d turned left.
The problem is not that there are too many bicycles. The problem is that there are too many bicycles confined into a narrow space with a wide range of motorized vehicles contending for space. On a regular ole class III bike lane, I can merge into traffic to get around any obstructions. On Parking separated bike lanes, I can anticipate obstructions and merge into traffic where ever there are breaks in the cars. But when trapped in a death chute with curbs obstructing easy safe merging into traffic, with heavier motorized vehicles allowed to use the bicycle lane, I’m taking Capp or the traffic lane.
No left turns on Valencia, EVER.
Whenever the anti-car zealots screech about removing parking on Valencia, they get deflated whenever Valencia Cyclery comes out and insists that they need parking for their customers to be able to pick up bikes that they can’t ride home.
Valencia is still a working street. Gentrify with vibrant amenities elsewhere.
ah it turns out there’s a right-turn death chute and a separate left-turn death cute. So to turn left, you proceed across the numbered street, then wait in the left-turn death chute.
sfistist: that would mean dismounting and walking your bike. The less intuitive common bicycle traffic movements are made to be, the greater the chance that someone or many people will misread and conflict.
turning left, couldn’t you…
1. wait in death chute
2. cross to the left corner
3. cross numbered street and go