While businesses along Valencia Street have blamed the street’s new center bike lane for 30 to 40 percent declines in sales, the first bit of data from the San Francisco Controller’s office indicates that the overall drop-off in the second quarter of 2023, one month into the bike lane’s construction, was only 6 percent.
Bike-lane construction on Valencia between 15th and 23rd streets began on April 24, or nearly one month into the second quarter, and the lane opened to bikes on Aug. 1. The third-quarter sales tax data, which will be available in mid-January 2024, will give a more complete picture of the lane’s economic impact.
Some shopkeepers have claimed that sales have fallen by 40 percent, and many a business window has hung a poster reading, “The bike lane is killing small businesses and our vibrant community.” However, the data released so far does not support the argument that the bike lane has caused such a dramatic drop in sales for most merchants.
Nevertheless, the second-quarter data suggests some reasons why merchants are feeling despondent: Sales in the second quarter were down for the first time in two and a half years, the sales tax data indicates. But that was true across the 94110 zip code, not just among stores along Valencia.
The graph above shows the yearly quarter-to-quarter growth of sales tax revenue for the stretch of Valencia containing the bike lane, alongside the data fom the 94110 zip code. The effects of the pandemic are reflected in the negative growth through the end of 2020, and then positive growth until the second quarter of 2023, when bike-lane construction began.
In that quarter, both Valencia and 94110 businesses suffered their first decline in year-over-year sales since the pandemic. Sales-tax revenue on Valencia declined by 6.6 percent while, for the entire 94110 zip code, sales tax revenue dropped by 6.9 percent. Since the 94110 area declined at the same rate as the Valencia bike lane corridor, it is difficult to attribute the decline to the bike lane alone.
The decline may reflect a general slowing of the economy.
When asked to comment on the timing of the decline, Ted Egan, the chief economist for San Francisco, said, “We’ve seen softening in the job market for the second half, starting basically in the second quarter. So, it’s not particularly surprising.”
Merchants experience the bike lane effects
From the start, the Valencia center bike lane, between 15th and 23rd Streets, ignited a firestorm of controversy. Few cyclists supported it, and more safety issues have been raised following the death of a pedestrian in September. Moreover, the reporting of aggregate accident and foot traffic data, which the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency pledged would be available by the end of the year, has been delayed. Up until now, the information about the bike lane has been largely anecdotal.
Egan pointed out that it is likely the impact of the center lane differs from business to business. That appears to be so: To install the bike lane, 70 parking spaces were removed. Business owners say this has led to problems with delivery vehicles and patrons who arrive in cars.
Najat Echchoukairi, who has worked for years at Muddy Waters Coffee House, at 521 Valencia St. near 16th, said her business is dead. On a recent Saturday morning at 10 a.m., and Tuesday at 8:50 a.m., that proved true. In both instances, the cafe was empty.
Muddy’s, she said, depended on construction workers who would drive by, park, get their coffee and be on their way. Nowadays, the parking immediately outside of Muddy’s is reserved for six-wheel delivery vehicles.
Because most of Muddy’s business is in the morning, Echchoukairi fears the owner will have to close.
The SFMTA took to heart some business complaints and made changes, turning some of the loading zones into regular parking after noon or 6 p.m. However, this does not help Muddy Waters, which gets its business in the morning. It closes at 3 p.m.
The owner of one business on Valencia Street unaffected by any slowdown, said he felt that there was simply an overall slowdown that has impacted many businesses. Already, he pointed out, retail shops have been challenged by online shopping, so even a slight setback can take on exaggerated importance.
He added that some businesses are certainly suffering more than others, and asked to remain anonymous, fearful that going against the narrative might impact his relationships with others on the corridor.
Sales tax as a measuring tool
To be sure, the data from the Controller’s office comes with caveats that include seasonal differences in the way in which sales taxes are paid. Some companies pay multiple quarters at a time, so the data reflects when the taxes were paid, not when the sales were made. Moreover, businesses with multiple locations in the city pay only once, with the tax burden spread evenly across all locations.
But this is not the first time that the city has tried to measure the impact of construction on local businesses by looking at the sales tax data.
A 2017 study by the Controller’s office, using sales tax as a proxy for business revenue, looked at 11 street construction projects. Five projects showed sales declines between 9 percent and 19 percent for nearby businesses. Sales dipped along 3rd Street between 2002 and 2006 in the Mission Bay, Hunters Point, and Candlestick Point areas; in the Castro in 2014; and in West Portal between 2015 and 2016.
Three projects resulted in a continuing loss of sales for nearby businesses following the completion of a project, and four projects resulted in a gain in sales after being completed.
The graph above compares the Valencia corridor sales tax revenue against that of the identical stretch of Mission St. In it the pandemic crash and steady recovery are clearly visible. Sales on Valencia Street and sales on Mission Street track very closely together to the end of the second quarter of this year. In fact, overall sales tax increased on Valencia from the previous quarter, during the construction of the bike lane.
The graph above shows the seasonal differences in tax collection. As expected, the last quarter of the year always gets a holiday bump, the first quarter is generally negative from the post-holiday slump, while the second quarter always shows a positive bounce. The second quarter of 2023, despite construction on the bike lane, was no exception.
Additional reporting on this story provided by Lydia Chavez.
Re-donating to Mission Local because of reporting and analysis like this. Thank you.
My business on Valencia is hurting because of the center bike lane, and I am personally dead set on wanting us to have protected bike lanes on Valencia. I take issue with this particular design. Its not just trouble parking! Now when a car is trying to legally make a right turn off of Valencia, they first wait for pedestrians to legally cross at the crosswalk, backing traffic for blocks with nowhere for cars going straight to get around them. Same for when a driver is trying to parallel park. The garage on 21st and Bartlett has barely any signage to let people know its available. The main freight company that make our pick-ups and deliveries has dropped us a client because they are unable to park in the loading zones which are filled up with gig workers waiting for their next assignment.
I think the precision focus on legal parking spaces may have been misplaced, and that maintaining a center “flex space” (for loading and going around parked cars) may have been more important than the parking spaces themselves, and the amount of crashes I’ve seen of cyclists running into each other, and from illegal U-Turns across the center bike lane, has been terrifying. I’d personally be greatly in favor of side-running bike lanes like what was installed from 15th to Market, in addition to protected bike lanes on Van Ness and Folsom — we really should have protected bike lanes everywhere! But as is, customers tell us its generally more difficult to hang out on Valencia with fewer places to park and walk around for a few hours and the nearby BART stations being extra gnarly. We need a bigger picture solution that looks at public transit, street conditions, and yes parking too.
Regarding the tax revenue, we’ve focused tremendous attention to online sales given the IRL retail slump, which still generates the same sales tax revenue but for a ton more work, with Valencia St rents not being the best place for an online fulfillment operation.
Views are my own as someone who lives and works on Valencia and 21st.
I hear you, but all that loading in “flex space” used to happen in the bike lane and put cyclists in danger. As a cyclist who has used Valencia for over a decade I can’t tell you how much of a relief this center lane has been for me. It makes biking on Valencia so much more convenient and makes me ride more often.
The parking-protected bike lanes were the original plan, but a few local merchants fought hard against those bike lanes (saying they were worried about losing parking spaces). That’s how we ended up with the center-running bike lanes we have now.
It would be nice to see more local businesses voicing support for the Better Valencia plan (BetterValencia.com). If more businesses speak out in support of the center-running bike lanes, maybe we the SFMTA will bring back the original design.
Oops, I meant to say “If more businesses speak out in support of the parking-protected bike lanes, maybe the SFMTA will bring back the original design.”
I’m hoping that local businesses can come together to advocate for the curbside bike lanes that cyclists have been advocating for since 2016.
I wonder how much of the backlash is due to the fact that the constant double-parking on Valencia now inconveniences drivers instead of just putting cyclists’ safety at risk in the old configuration.
The SFMTA should remove the center bike lane and make Valencia one-way with actual physically protected bike lanes instead.
To expand a little more on the one-way idea, here’s one idea for how it could work:
1) Make the street one-way with one travel lane, dedicated right-turn lanes, and keep the ban on left turns.
2) To the right of the travel lane, make a dedicated loading lane.
3) To the left of the travel lane, parking. The loading lane could be used to pass cars that are pulling into or out of parking spots.
4) To the left of the parking, a two-way bike lane.
With that configuration the bike lane would be fully protected by parked cars and there would be no cars turning across the bike lane due to the ban on left turns. And there would still be parking all the way down one side (and more of it on that side since parklets and loading zones wouldn’t need to eat into it).
There would be less parking overall but it would be safer and the problems with double parking would go away for both drivers (unlike the current configuration) and bikers (unlike the old configuration), since the loading lane would go the entire length of each block ensuring there’s never a need to block the travel lane.
Owen, you’re a great American hero. The country – and city – needs more people like you trying to come up with thoughtful solutions rather than just complaining. Thanks for your thoughtful contribution! I don’t know if it’s better or not, but I hope the transit engineers at SFMTA consider it (if they haven’t already! it’d be interesting to see what options they considered and how they downselected)
Two businesses with “the bike lane is killing us!” posters in their windows put the lie to the narrative. One is “The Kick Back” – or is it Petra Mediterranean? Or is it a Filipino breakfast spot? Or is it an ice cream shop? That place bemoans the bike lane, but is completely confusing and opaque to passersby. No identity, no idea what it’s doing, and pivoting every two weeks. That’s not the bike lane’s fault.
The other is one of the auto repair places, I think between 20th and 21st. Really? The bike lane is keeping auto repair customers away? Nah. You just miss the convenience of double-parked delivery vehicles.
And as I’ve written here before, Tacolicious lost my business with $7.50 tacos, not because there’s a bike lane.
Glad to see some objective data about this. Keep it coming!
The center bike lane is an improvement over the previous that was mostly filled with double parked rides hate or door dash cars. The right turning backup in the bike lane was a nightmare. You can’t get doored by a parked car when in the center bike lane. Almost 40 years riding in SF and this center bikelane is an improvement.
I walk 4+ blocks of Valencia every day, and I drive on it about once a month. What I can tell you from observation over time is that it is not safer for bicyclists, the parklets cannot coexist with it, fire trucks have a hell of a time making a corner that has both a parklet and a center bike lane, and vehicular drivers are not respecting the basic rules to help guarantee everyone’s safety. We need to adopt the Netherlands model where the bike lane is protected by a lane of parking and is only exposed to the pedestrian portion of the sidewalk. The middle lane should be used for middle lane things, not bicycles.
Must disagree. Riding in the old Valencia bike lanes was a harrowing experience every time. Mostly Uber and deliverers swooping in to park as you clenched your brakes. Or the people who double-parked there to text. None of this happens any more. I love the center lanes.
—The date scales on the story’s three graphs are inconsistent. The first one gives combined years — 2018-19, for instance — and suggests you’re talking about city fiscal years instead of calendar years. The second and third charts are labeled differently and suggests it’s referring to calendar years and quarters.
—Re: the point above: The first graph shows a huge downturn in sales tax receipts in “2019-2020 Q1.” If that were a city fiscal year, which begins July 1, we’d be talking about the July-September quarter of 2019. But the downturn indicates your 2019-2020 Q1 is actually the first quarter (January-March) 2020 and not 2019. Your second and third graphs are clear the sales tax downturn occurred in that January-March 2020 quarter.
—Re: the first graph, comparing sales tax data for Valencia Street and the 94110 ZIP code: Does the overall 94110 data exclude the Valencia data, which would have a negative effect on all of 94110? Thus it might be more telling to give the 94110 figures with Valencia excluded.
—The story seems to conflate gross sales reflected in tax data with business profits: “The second quarter data suggests some reasons why merchants are feeling despondent: Profits in the second quarter were down for the first time in two and a half years, the sales tax data indicates.” Unless you have separate data on profits — revenue minus like taxes, payroll, utilities and other expenses — the term “profits” should be changed to “sales.”
—All graphs should have notations citing the precise source of the data.
—The story doesn’t say, but it would be useful to know whether the data cited was obtained through a public records request or other source.
I’ve never understood the argument for why the location of the bike lane was responsible for the pedestrian who was killed last September. Another pedestrian was killed at a Valencia intersection last January, before the shift of the bike lane. In both instances, the driver struck the pedestrian while making a left turn. Rather than blame the location of the bike lane, maybe it’s making left turns at a busy Valencia intersection that’s more of an issue. I don’t know, but I’m a little skeptical of people who claim they do.
The fact remains that people are not coming to Valencia street to spend money in shops and restaurants. If it’s not the bike lane, then what is it?
Did you read the article? The answer to this question is covered in the article. It’s down across the zip code.
It’s the absence of parking spaces as a result of the bike lanes; at least, that’s why *I* don’t go there anymore.
“Since the 94110 area declined at the same rate as the Valencia bike lane corridor, it is difficult to attribute the decline to the bike lane alone.”
Or another way to say this, Since the Valencia bike lane corridor declined slightly less that the 94110 area, the changes may have had a overall positive impact on business relative to the neighborhood overall.
Except that as another commenter points out, the sales tax data may not be adjusted for online sales that are attributed to business addresses on Valencia. It’s too confusing, too many different rules for each street and intersection instead of attraction and enjoyment for Valencia and Mission Streets. What is the purpose of the multitude of changes and weird street configurations? MTA says its Vision Zero, but what the article does not present is that traffic fatalities in SF have not declined at all after years of these costly changes. Data, data, data except that the data is not complete.
Good reporting. While we wait for another tax reporting window, can we please consider the second dimension of the Valencia makeover? It’s tiresome to read about “less parking caused by the center bike lane” without acknowledging the new curb parking restrictions (6 axel vehicles only). These highly restricted spaces are the key obstruction for would-be shoppers who wish to park on the corridor. Solve this problem before add’l blame is directed at the bike lane experiment.
I live a half block from the bike lane on 21st. It is much more difficult to walk across the street with the bike lane. Many bikes don’t stop despite the red lights.
Why not make Folsom and Harrison the main bikeways through the Mission. One way on Harrison from Cesar Chavez to the Embarcadero and one way the other way on Folsom from the Embarcadero to Cesar Chavez. Half of the street for bikes; half for cars. There’s more space, fewer businesses would be affected, emergency vehicles could get through easier, there’s less pedestrian risk and traffic will not back up. It makes more sense.
If that happened Valencia businesses would suffer a LOT more due to the loss of the bicyclist customers. Valencia is a destination for cyclists, not Folsom or Harrisson.
Hi Craig, do you have a source for the “To install the bike lane, 70 parking spaces were removed.” line? I can’t find anything in the SFMTA’s site about that number. As far as I can tell, that number first appeared in an ABC7 news article, but that article doesn’t cite a source for the claim either.
I reached out to the SFMTA to fact check this number and was told “a total of 19 parking spaces were removed for this project.” If you’d like to fact-check my fact-check, please do so. The SFMTA was more than happy to set the record straight, and I’m hoping Mission Local will update the article too.
Parking!–the american obsession with trying to find a way to avoid walking to a merchant, cafe, eatery, venue. People: ditch the cars, don’t take Uber/Lyft/Waymo; if you need to take a bus, Mission St. is one block away with frequent buses–use an app to see when the next one is coming. 85% of customers are young, able-bodied and don’t need a car to get to Valencia. And merchants: clean the sidewalks of dog poop, trash and 311-it to get broken sidewalks fixed. Fine the landlords whose empty commercial spaces are graffitied/trashed. Sidewalks should eventually be widened–yes remove the car spaces to do so, so that one can actually walk unimpeded. Oh, and commercial landlords: how about lowering the rents!
Does anybody remember Valencia before bike lanes were striped decades ago? It was a shabby street lined with auto supply and repair shops, gas stations and storefront churches. Once bike lanes were first put in and some streetscape improvements were done is when all the restaurants, book shops and trendy clothing shops started appearing. That transformation occurred in large part because Valencia is the primary cycling street (after Market) in SF. It’s due to all the cyclists not cars and parking spaces that the street has thrived all these years. Surveys of Valencia Street businesses have shown that the vast majority of their customers arrive by foot, transit and yes by bike.
So where were all the whining businesspeople when when cars—Uber and lyft, food delivery services, etc.— took over the bike lanes to double park making cycling on so many blocks of Valencia unsafe and unusable for their cycling customers? They could have posted signs asking their patrons not to block them. They could have joined the chorus of cyclists asking for better parking enforcement. But no they ignored it and even embraced the double parking as part of their business model because, safety be damned, it brought in more business.
Personally I stopped cycling on Valencia years ago after a driver I asked to not park in the bike lane tried to kill me—literally by chasing after me and almost running me over as I sped away riding on the sidewalk.
So now the hens have come home to roost and I’m back riding on Valencia because those center running lanes have actually made biking there safe. There’s space, there’s no dooring, no double parking, oblivious right turning drivers cutting you off, cars pulling out of side streets and driveways into your path nor pedestrians blithely walking into the lanes without looking. And the lanes are smooth without sewer grates, manhole covers, irregular pavement glass and debris that commonly litter curbside bike lanes. Plus I am visible and I have a clear view riding in them too.
BTW, when the center running bike lanes were installed I believe parking spaces weren’t removed to make way for them. If parking was taken out it was for passenger and other loading and unloading to accommodate the businesses that were oblivious to (or even encouraged) parking in the bike lanes previously. Admittedly there’s probably some inconvenience and congestion for drivers now. But there was congestion before the new bike lanes were installed. And the congestion discourages driving on Valencia, which, where again people arrive primarily on foot, by transit and bicycle, is a good thing. For people who want to drive, there are parking garages and lots of spaces on adjacent streets a short walk away. And for those who want to drive through that part of the Mission unimpeded, Guerrero is a block and S. Van Ness two blocks away. It’s not cars but rather the lack of them that draws people to Valencia.
Given the enormous amount of space dedicated to storing and moving cars in SF (and other American cities for that matter), I’m sorry but I have no patience for whiny, entitled drivers who complain about a pittance of space on the premier bike street in San Francisco being dedicated to the safety of the thousands of cyclists who ride on Valencia.
Now for those whiny merchants who trying to remove those bike lanes, should they succeed I ask if they would be willing then to take responsibly for their customers and delivery people who previously perpetually blocked the bike lanes and endangered cyclists? Like fining property owners for graffiti or damaged sidewalks that they didn’t cause, if we go back to the old configuration, how about fining them for vehicles parked in the bike lanes in front of their businesses? Or better yet, as is done in NYC, how about we deputize cyclists and pay them a bounty for every ticket issued to double parked vehicles? Would the merchants support alternative approaches to stop double parking if the center running lanes went away? I bet they would scream too once double parking customers and delivery vehicles realized they no longer have a place to stop. Or maybe then they would support taking away parking spaces to accommodate loading and unloading?
I have gone to Muddy Waters Coffee shop for over 20 years. The owners & employees are wonderful people who have enriched Valencia Street in so many ways for many years. You can blame the bike lanes or not, but ever since they have opened, their business has gone down, now to the real possibility of closing. Graphs & charts mean nothing to the businesses that have & will have to close. It breaks my heart to see this happening. There needs to be real dialog with the city & business owners to resolve this now, not sometime next year, when it may be too late. Thanks for reading this & happy holidays.
Bike lanes are important and safe but the Valencia bike lanes are confusing because of their odd configuration.
Like a lot of people nearby, I both bicycle and drive a car, and I hate this bike lane. It’s unsafe.
However, I don’t think it’s responsible for the business dropoff on Valencia Street. That is more due to the fact that people from outside SF don’t feel as safe coming here as they did pre-pandemic. A lack of parking spaces complicates the problem but it’s not the source. If Valencia Street was still a nightlife mecca, people would find ways to park or take BART.
I hope Mission Local will take local business owners’ concerns seriously. You’re not wrong that the bike lane isn’t the main problem but this reads like one of your many anti-business screeds. The only “business people” you support are illegal street vendors.
I know commerce isn’t sexy to progressives, but Valencia Street is not the same now and the reason isn’t structural racism or transphobia. It’s a drop in business.
Nice article good to see some data rather than accusations.
I love the protected bike lanes! Before everyone used the bike lanes to park. At any given evening the bike lanes alone between 18th and 19th Street would have between 8 to 12 food delivery drivers and ride sharing cars. It was always a question of dodging doors, and cars pulling out. If there were given pick up/drop off stops on the block, would this help businesses? As it stands now, I thank the city every time I use the new lanes. I do not care where the lanes are located, as long as they are protected I am good!
Let’s hear it for data!
I really appreciate this thoughtful, data-driven analysis, even with the caveats that the time period only covers the start of construction. I hope we get similarly thorough comparisons for the post-construction period down the line.
I also would like to know if the tax data is granular enough to look for impacts of the Open Valencia times. The permit lapsed in summer 2022 and again in December through summer 2023, and I can kind of see dips in Valencia taxes in those times (and a bigger bump in Q3-22).
good stuff – thanks Craig!
It has become too difficult to hassle with the distracting bike lanes on Valencia. We drive, of necessity as we are 76.
Since this spring, we have driven over the hill from GGH to enjoy shopping specifically on Valencia. We bought clothes and lunch (Cut Loose, Papillote) and window-shopped. We had to return to pick up clothes we ordered (plus got takeout at that Brazilian shop) but put it off several times until our trip could be scheduled when we hoped bike riders would be minimal. In ’23 we visited 3x, but at least 4 other times we wanted to dine and shop on various parts of Valencia but when we considered the bike lanes hassles we decided f*ck it.
We would go at least once more to help that lady about to lose her store (after an accident broke her leg), but I doubt we will get there.
We moved to SF in 1972 for our second jobs and in this time we have never been seriously endangered by auto drivers, but at least 5 times I’ve been nearly taken out by inattentive bike riders.
I expect it will get worse as city planners invent weirder bike lane placements.
As a pedestrian I have often been seriously endangered by auto drivers.
No one who actually lives in the area want this bike lane. It was and is a stupid idea it’s causing nothing but traffic congestion and accidents. It’s either a bicycle running a red light and almost or hitting a pedestrian or a confused motorist turning left and almost or hitting a bicycle. It needs to be removed and never should have blighted our neighborhood. When I’m on my bike, I take an alternative route to stay safe and off that POS.
If people cannot get to and park easily to patronize small businesses because of one lane traffic because of the bike lanes then the bike lanes are a problem, not everyone rides a bike nor can they shop dine etc on a bike. Adults drive e-cars
“Adults drive e-cars” get out of here with that elitist nonsense. Not everyone can afford a car, nor should cars be prioritized over the safety of everyone else. If driving a car is the only safe way to travel around the neighborhood, then we need to fix that. Our streets should be safe for everyone.
“Only” 6 percent. That’s rather cavalier. Rhetorical question: Does the author understand that this is well above the margin that many storefront businesses can make these days? After years of belt tightening, they’re just hanging in there, and it may not take much right now to take many a small businesses over the edge.
The point made there was that sales were similarly down across the entire 94110 zip code, not just along Valencia, which indicates it’s more about broader market conditions than the bike lane.
I am in part pointing to the misguided attitudes how it’s no problem to keep burdening storefront businesses in an already challenging environment. Not going down the list from Amazon over public safety to Yelp. Instead I’ll take the small comfort reminding myself how the restaurant on Mission I had dinner last week had gone back to plastic straws, good for them. I hope the Valencia bike lane will find the same fate, sooner rather than later.
Well, people who actually use their bikes saw this coming. This center bike lane was a poison pill, and will hurt efforts to do actual decent pedestrian and cyclist infrastructure for years. SFMTA should be ashamed of themselves. And the sf bicycle coalition helped nobody by supporting it.
Campers,
If you’re cleaning the gutter at the corner ahead of the car in the photo, the concrete divider forces cars to make far tighter right turns and thus increase your chance of meeting your maker.
I’ve been cleaning that gutter Sunday’s across from Manny’s for a couple of year’s every Sunday morning from 10-11am be there or be square and trust me, the cars are coming far closer to be and I try to stay more alert but it is same for pedestrians who aren’t so agile.
Even the SFMTA people who voted for the plan did not like it but she appoints all.
The really big problem is that all the parking spaces only allow for 6 wheel trucks, all day and night!Whose idea was that?Change it back to normal parking spaces! It’s sabotage on the part of the MTA,and whoever came up with this should be fired.
I live in Mission Bay and have avoided Valencia Street since they put in the bike lane. A trip there just seems like a big ugly looking mess. I stick with the peninsula for furniture and Marina/Embarcadero for nights out.
The city does not care about the businesses, as a business owner I can tell clearly as long as they can keep keep collecting their taxes it’s all good and this Data does not mean anything, listen to the people not a computer.I like valencia but with this uncontrolled bike mess, it’s not fun at all.
If they would really care about business they would have parking available at the building and planing department, they do have high fees for every transaction though.
Having a business is San Francisco is extremely expensive.
SFMTA’s official ridership data shows a 53 percent drop in cycling on Valencia Street since a center-running bike lane was installed in April of 2023. The center-running lane, which replaced door-zone painted lanes, was sold as a “better than nothing” compromise on Valencia from 15th to 23rd to prioritize easy car access to local shops while still encouraging cycling (and reducing collisions). But this data, compiled by SFMTA staff in September but withheld from the public, shows it’s had the opposite effect.
…The bicycle count data was obtained via a Public Records request made to SFMTA. The agency director, Jeffrey Tumlin, and his staff had promised to present this data publicly by the end of December but then re-negged, precipitating the request.
Looks like the SFMTA PR team has influence over the articles posted by the Missionlocal….
https://sf.streetsblog.org/2024/01/03/sfmta-data-shows-cyclists-stopped-riding-valencia-because-of-center-running-bike-lane
Sir —
“I disagree with the premise of your story and therefore you must be bought and paid for” is the dumbest and most reductive take.
JE
I’ve lived in the Mission for 15 years, and have frequently visited the business es on Valencia for food, haircuts, music, motorcycle parts, and countless other items. I used to also enjoy strolling down Valencia on my way to Dolores Park for a “neighborhood walk-about”.
Now, I refuse to not only drive down Valencia now, I don’t even want to walk down it, because the bike lane is such an eye-sore.
The SFMTA get’s an “F” for poor execution on the Valencia street bike lane. City leadership is turning a blind eye to supporting local Mission businesses that are scraping to get by. The bike land has cost over three times the original amount approved by a ballot measure. Makes one wonder who’s on the grift. Seems like another $20,000 garbage can or $1M public toilet. No wonder the city is the way it is. Nobody in City Gov cares about anything other than their fat paychecks and it’s ruining our beloved city.
Excerpt from SFStandard article: “An April 2023 planning document appears to put the cost at $590,000, funded by several previous ballot measures, but SFMTA confirmed to The Standard that $1.5 million had been spent so far, with the total amount yet to be determined.”
https://sfstandard.com/2023/12/08/san-francisco-small-business-protests-valencia-street-bike-lane/#
‘Joe’,
I’ve been here in the Mission 9 years sleeping and SF for 43 and watching corrupt city governments nationwide for 70 (started young with Hoffa) and the corruption seems to be ineradicable if that’s a word.
Back a hundred years or so SF’s best writer (born in Mission and his pop built Governor’s Mansion in Sacramento for their family …
Didn’t guess ?
Lincoln Steffens.
Best friends with Teddy Roosevelt.
He asked the President to help him clean up SF.
Teddy brought in judges and marshals and lawyers and lots of Pinkerton cause they had more guns legal than U.S. Army at the time.
They got rid of the Mayor and the Board of Supes and installed Progressives and ten years later it was all back to being the way it was cause the Progs got crooked.
Maybe it’s something in the water.
Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.
I have a business on Valencia Street. We’ve been hit really hard by this bike lane. lots of customers telling us they can’t find parking and they’re not coming back. Some of my customers got tickets while eating in the restaurant. Lots of people got injured and one or two died on Valencia Street. How much do you value life. It’s not OK to die for another person to put a bike lane in the middle of the street. Eight restaurants have closed down in the past few months on Valencia Street. What do you base your study on. Most people haven’t done their quarterly tax.
Two pedestrians were killed by drivers on Valencia St this year. Both died as a result of reckless drivers while they were only a few blocks away from your place of business. The first one, a 64-year-old woman who was crossing at 16th Street, was killed months before the bike lane had even begun.
To try to blame their deaths on a bike lane is truly low. Valencia has been a dangerous corridor for years; that’s exactly why improvements like this bike lane are needed.
I’ve lost sales due to the bike lane. I’ve lost a parklet due to the bike lane. I really hope the family of the 80 year old man that passed was killed due to the confusion of the bike lane, will sue the city!