Little is more missed along Valencia Street than a parking space. Less parking means fewer customers, businesses argue — an argument at the forefront of merchant frustration with the center bike lane, which runs along an eight-block stretch of Valencia Street.
“We hate them,” said Servio Gómez, the owner of Back to the Picture framing shop at 934 Valencia St., which went from three spaces in front of the store to one. The entire block lost five spaces.
It’s not only the missing spaces. To get to the closest parking lot, on 21st Street, Gómez’s customers have to make a right and circle around a block to cross Valencia Street, because left turns have been outlawed in an effort to protect cyclists in the center bike lane.
As the unhappiness has mounted, various numbers have been thrown out about exactly how many spaces have been lost because of the center bike lane.
San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency spokesperson Erica Kato said in a Dec. 22 email that “only 19 parking spaces” were removed for “daylighting,” the term used for making pedestrians more visible by eliminating parking at corners.
But others wrote here and there of 70 lost spaces. Mission Local used that number in its Dec. 20 article about sales tax revenue, but we received pushback from the community as to which number was correct.
When pressed about the 70 spaces number, Kato responded by email, “That number represents the change in the supply/count of general metered parking spaces before and after installation of the pilot.” In other words, there were 70 fewer spaces after the center bike lane pilot began on Aug. 1, according to the SFMTA.
We decided to do our own count. Using documents posted to the SFMTA website, Mission Local created a tool (see below) to compare Valencia Street parking before and after the center bike lane was installed.
We found that 48 metered parking spaces are gone, either reduced to loading zones or eliminated entirely.
None of those spots account for daylighting, so when the 19 daylighting spots are included, we come up with a net loss of 67 metered spaces, which is very close to the number provided by SFMTA. The slight discrepancy between the two numbers may be accounted for by parklets that have come and gone since the SFMTA estimated a loss of 70 spaces.
Using the tool
Dragging the handle in the tool downwards transitions from the graphic of Valencia before the center bike lane (labeled “before”) to the graphic with the center bike lane (labeled “after”).
Tapping the image positions the handle at the tap. The after image is annotated to reflect the total parking spaces lost, and the differences between the images from SFMTA and what was actually found by Mission Local during a survey of the street.
If you see any errors, please let us know.
Graphics support provided by Mission Local data reporter Will Jarrett.
How many double parkers did we lose?
It looks like parklets and commercial loading zones took a majority of parking space. That’s advantageous for the businesses.
Having more visibility at street corners for pedestrians will save lives.
I think it’s important to note that the daylighted spaces would have happened regardless of the bike lane change. California State law changed as of January 1st 2024 such that ALL corners throughout the state must be daylighted.
Allegra,
I volunteer to pick up trash daily and you risk your life to lean down and scrape leafs from corner gutters cause new configuration forces traffic to hug right on turns.
Understand ?
Try tying a shoelace at one of these corners while completely on sidewalk at edge.
Your head ends up just slightly over curb …
I’d rather get hit by a bike there than a wide truck.
h.
h. brown
Why do you insist on making argumentative comments towards folks who are taking the same stance as you? It’s like arguing with a mirror. I’ve just read three articles on this site and your comments were littering the comment sections of all three. Please think before typing.
Of all the places to tie your shoelace, you choose a corner curb? Yes drivers need to be aware, but pedestrians should be aware (and have common sense) as well.
So according to Mission Local’s research, the highest number of parking spaces that were removed due to the bike lane is 18.
19 more parking spaces were removed due to California’s new daylighting laws and the remaining 30 parking spaces were converted into commercial loading zones (which only effect parking during certain hours).
64 total spots changed on Valencia in 2023, but only 18 were removed due to the bikelane itself. That’s so low, and the street feels so much safer now.
It may be worth noting that “daylighting” losses are mandated by state law (Assembly Bill 413), and are not attributable to the bike lane.
They already removed the 19 spaces for daylighting and now the city is slated to lose around 14-15,000 spaces according to our friends at SFMTA. More stupidity and there won’t be any business left in the city when they get done. Scott Wiener is an idiot.
Scott Wiener didn’t draft or introduce this bill https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billCompareClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB413&showamends=false
I’d like to know how many potential customers during a day this represents- what’s the actual turnover of these spots, as opposed to the theoretical number implied by parking time limits?
This all seems unrelated to the bike lane. Daylighting for pedestrian safety and commercial loading zones or accessible parking changes are about signs not fitting in a bike lane. What am I missing?
You are for sure counting ‘daylighting’ spots. Just north of 17th, the two new red zones before the corner are definitely a ‘daylighting.’ You counted the East side as a spot lost and then added in the ‘daylighting’ spots again to your total count.
Also it seems disingenuous to call a new ‘temporary loading zone’ a fully lost spot but not count a formerly permanent loading zone now made temporary as a spot gained. (full yellow to dotted yellow in your tool).
The parklets created the problem by forcing the bikes into traffic. Before parakeets there was less problem. Valencia is too narrow for the current design. We need to look at more successful bike lanes that have not removed business from commercial streets and perhaps try those configurations if any exist. I would start by looking at Polk Street. We haven’t heard many complaints from that neighborhood lately. How did businesses fair on Polk Street?
Polk is dead but you dont hear about it because you can’t blame it on bikes or woke politicians.
good points made that only the daylighting spots are attributable to the bike lane, but even those were bound to happen independently due to this bill.
My comment is to challenge the entire premise of parking spots being for customers. I would never in a millions years drive to any business on valencia. Driving there and parking is always so difficult that it is always easier to walk or bike. Living in the mission, there is also no need to drive there. Removing 70 spaces is a drop in the bucket in terms of making parking there easy that it just doesn’t matter (not that i think it should be easy to park there per se)
don’t forget they added meters on the side streets, taking away a few residential parking spots.
get rid of the middle lane, implement the Burrito Plan!
> our disinterest in addressing the crimes that are happening is widely broadcast every day.
Bingo. I used to live in SF, bought a house in Oakland, and am an avid cyclist. Not wanting to leave my car there, I took Bart and my bike to a concert in SF, and left early. No, not even bikes are safe, someone stole my little tool bag attached to the seat. Someone smoking outside said a homeless person just took stuff off my bike. But otherwise did nothing, nada, zippo. Crime is out of control but let’s divide the community with the old saw, cyclists vs business, hate sells. But crime, and the lack of effort to do diddly squat, is what keeps me on the sunny side of the bay. Fix your bed, SF, it reeks.
The bike lanes wouldn’t be a problem if the “parklets” hadn’t also taken up a huge quantity of spaces. The lack of accessible parking for disabled folks and abysmal state of paratransit means a lot of us who aren’t able-bodied enough for biking or walking haven’t been able to patronize most of the city in years for lack of access. SF don’t give a damn about the people.
The center bike lane is bad because the traffic flow is not instantly comprehensible. Good designs are intuitive. You do the obvious thing. Bad designs make you pause, think and go back and re-read the instructions. This might be ok if you are putting together an Ikea bookshelf but it is dangerous if you are a cyclist whose right turn now involves crossing in front of a lane of car traffic. It took me a few passes on my bike before I fully understood how it was supposed to work. I have no confidence that the car that I am crossing in front of is going to understand, let alone like, or abide by that tiny green bike shaped light that means I have the legal right of way.
I can add that I no longer walk much on Valencia because waiting for car plus bike stop lights takes too long. It’s much faster to walk on Bartlett or Lexington, or Mission. That said, I am also not stopping in stores and buying things.
Campers,
If this link of photo I took will show here, it’s visual of my comments …
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/KtbxLzGStWMVhvJBGZfSJdTDdXqRgnpwvq
Either way, it’s a crap job physically with half of the white baton thingees already smashed at corners.
I asked the same question when Mission Local reported it’s deep dive on tax receipts:
“Why are the bike lanes being blamed for the conversion of meter spaces to loading only spaces?”
And why are the merchants not crying foul about these 6-wheel loading zones? Is it because they requested them??
The 2023 move of the bike lane also took away the ability of business patrons to quickly stop in the old bike lane to set down or pick up without blocking traffic. It also removed the ability at night to park in the old central turning lane.
So the actual impact of the new bike lane is a lot more than just the removal of formal on-street parking spaces.
“to quickly stop in the old bike lane to set down or pick up without blocking traffic”
Somebody who stopped in the bike lane was already blocking traffic.
My point was that it kept the (vehicular) traffic lane open, which is no longer possible. It made a difference. It is much easier for a bike to go around a stopped car than for another car to do that.
“It is much easier for a bike to go around a stopped car than for another car to do that.” Merging into the car lane to pass a double parked car, 2 or 3 times in a block is rather dangerous, for the cyclist. Motorists are very unlikely to be injured though.
For me, neither Valencia or Mission are worth driving on anymore because of slow traffic, lack of parking, and too many driving restrictions. So as a result, the only way I can see everything that’s happening on either street (new businesses, street advertising, which places have the most customers, etc. is to walk. In my car, I could see everything happening in the entire commercial stretch. Now since I’m on foot, I pretty much only see the block where I’m going.
time to get out of your car. single occupancy vehicles have no space in the middle of our community.
What is the number for loading zones? Loading zones are still vehicle parking for the benefit of businesses.
I really don’t think it’s the parking spaces, because I see open spaces on Valencia at night.
It’s the perception of crime. There’s a basis of truth, in that car break-ins happen here at rates that are staggering to people outside SF. In this case it’s more perception than reality: violent crime in and around Valencia Street is rare. But our disinterest in addressing the crimes that are happening is widely broadcast every day.
I have friends who live in Oakland who are afraid to drive and park over here. And they live in Oakland!
I live on the other side of town and enjoy stopping in for lunch when I’m in the area. But I’ll only circle a block once before I move on. Between the parklettes and the loading zones, there’s nowhere to park anymore. The lot of Hoff is just too sketch for me.
https://www.sfmta.com/garages-lots/mission-bartlett-garage
I think the negative perception is because this change has also failed to increase business by bicycle. Unlike a best-practice side-running protected bike lane, or, better yet, a car-free section of street, the center bike lanes just haven’t made hesitant cyclists feel safe enough to ride more. And they make it harder, when you’re biking on Valencia, to stop and check out a business.
SFMTA revealed recently that the center bike lane has only increased bicycling on the corridor by 3% (and they still haven’t given full context on that statistic, so we don’t know if it might be cherry-picked, and the reality worse). This is consistent with the widespread negative reaction from cyclists to putting the bike lane in the center of the street.
The difficulties associated with street changes are supposed to be balanced out with more people biking and wanting to spend time in the neighborhood, and that hasn’t happened as much as it should have because of the choice of a subpar design.
Who doesn’t like the reconfiguration of Valencia Street with the center bike lanes and loss of parking:
bicyclers
business owners
residents
would-be visitors to businesses.
Who likes it? Nobody. Except maybe SFMTA and they shouldn’t really get a vote.
What’s wrong with it? It’s hideous, it doesn’t help anybody, it doesn’t increase biking, it means fewer people patronize the businesses, it ugly ugly ugly, it has destroyed a vibrant neighborhood.
Elizabeth, I ride Valencia street several times per week. I like the center lanes a lot. Great visibility, no vehicles entering or exiting garages, very few wandering pedestrians, no cars parked in the bike lane. It actually feels like a bike lane should feel, significantly improved bike infrastructure. The section in front of Four Barrel coffee, between 15h and 14th Streets, is my least favorite parking protected bike lane in the city. It is dangerous. “It has destroyed a vibrant neighborhood”. Wow! Are you sure it isn’t the end of western civilization?