Update: The morning after publication, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Authority removed the signs illicitly installed on the Wiggle.
It’s been more than a day, and the five newly and illicitly installed “Yield to Peds & Bikes” signs on the Wiggle remain.
No government official or motorist has taken them down. Instead, they seem to be doing their job: The speeding motorists, who often overtake bicyclists along the popular bike route, now slowly and calmly follow behind, just as the signs instruct.
It’s a win for Safe Street Rebel, a San Francisco “anti-car dominance” and pro-cycling, walking and transit advocacy group, which installed the signs on Tuesday morning.
At 6 a.m., around 10 members of the group raided two blocks of Steiner Street near Duboce Avenue, the starting point for San Francisco’s main east-west bike artery known as the Wiggle.
They arrived on bikes, mostly dressed in lime safety vests and carrying electric screwdrivers, a clipboard with their design fixed to it, five flex posts, and five signs modeled to look very nearly identical to those made by the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency.
They want the early morning guerrilla action to pressure SFMTA into prioritizing cyclist and pedestrian safety on the Wiggle.
“We, as citizens, we want to push them along and remind them, like, ‘Hey, every time you waste, another thing like West Portal could happen,’” said a group member. All the participants asked to remain anonymous because the operation was illegal.
The 6 a.m. start coincided with the morning commute so that cyclists could use it for at least a few hours. The group drilled 40 holes for five signs and five flex posts in advance, so that they could expedite the Tuesday-morning action.
“We’re going into this with the assumption that it’s going to get taken out pretty soon,” said the group member. Almost everyone who passed by on a bike said “Good job” to the group.
The action was also embraced on social media. “This is a pretty good example of how you can just do things to make the world better,” wrote one Twitter user.
Safe Street Rebel has a history of launching high-profile campaigns. They first got attention in 2021, when the city wanted to open the Great Highway to cars, by riding slowly on the road to inconvenience drivers. In 2022, the group launched the “Just A Minute” project on Valencia Street, blocking vehicles parked in the bike lanes with signs reading, “So sorry, just a minute.” In 2023, they received national attention by putting traffic cones on the front hoods of autonomous Cruise and Waymo cars.
Their guerrilla operations don’t always go well. In March, Safe Street Rebel had a similar action on Franklin Street between Green and Union streets in front of Sherman Elementary School, where a teacher died after a car crash in 2021.
Their installations of flex posts on Franklin Street got removed in around three hours, according to the group.
They hope SFMTA will “legitimize” their installations on the Wiggle — a hope with some precedent. In 2023, a week after a four-year-old was killed by a driver at 4th and King streets, Safe Street Rebel closed one of the two right-turn lanes with traffic cones and flex posts. After saying earlier that making such an improvement would take them three weeks, SFMTA officially closed one lane in three days.
This time, the group hopes to accelerate the progress of SFMTA’s San Francisco Biking and Rolling Plan to essentially make the Wiggle a slow street, said one group member.
“The community has wanted this for a very long time,” said another member. “This took us, like, a total of an hour to install, and another couple hours to plan. It’s kind of a proof of concept, it’s easy to install, and the city could do it if they wanted to.”
I hope this group puts some thought and time into making peds safe from not only cars but bicyclists too.
Bicyclists are a serious danger to peds. I’ve almost been hit by them speeding through stop signs without any regard at all. Of course, peds have to also take responsibility for themselves and understand who has the right way.
The last time a pedestrian was killed by a cyclist in the city was around the year I moved here (2010). Since then somewhere around 400 pedestrians and cyclists have been killed by cars. The two problems are not vaguely equivalent.
Sorry, it was 2012: https://abcnews.go.com/US/bicyclist-us-guilty-vehicular-homicide/story?id=19759724
Oh my, surely the numbers must bear out this horrible danger. Let’s see, the number of pedestrians killed by cyclists last year was… zero.
This is great. I love it. Kudos to SSR for making simple, common sense safety improvements for everyone that uses The Wiggle. And that includes vehicle drivers, for whom the risk of killing someone outside their vehicle goes up dramatically the faster they drive.
The question ML should ask is, why is the city failing so badly at stuff like this? When will SFMTA get people out with cans of paint to daylight every intersection like they’re supposed to? Why are we having to rely on citizens to take direct action in order to achieve zero road deaths?
Signs like this, right in the middle of the road, are a hazard to bike riders.
Bicyclists are not pedestrians.
Bikes are also not cars, more at 11.
As somebody who lived on the wiggle, cyclists are often aggressive and blast past pedestrians trying to cross the street at intersections. Making Steiner a slow street doesn’t make sense with the traffic patterns (Waller I can see, but just a reminder that the wiggle threads through different streets).
I don’t mind the signs (saw them being taken down this am), but cyclists also need to be aware and cooperative with the people who live in the area. (Also looking for parking at night in the neighborhood is super scary with lots of cyclists not having proper reflectors or lights. I’m constantly in fear of striking somebody unintentionally)
The “All Lives Matter” of traffic safety is such a weird argument.
And if you do accidentally hit a biker without lights or reflectors, wearing dark clothing, and using ear buds to block out noise, you will be sued for negligence and medical expenses, and your insurance costs will skyrocket.
What on earth do you think an accident is?
You’re responsible for your vehicle.
There are streetlights *and* headlights.
One doesn’t deserve your driver’s license.
this may help to put things in perspective:
title of article: Car harm: A global review of automobility’s harm to people and the environment
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0966692324000267
Bravo! I Hope SFMTA keeps this one in so I can use this this weekend!! Wiggle is just a mess. A “bike route” infested with cars. Let’s just close it to cars and make it a beautiful ruelle like in other countries.
An installation/obstruction like this would create an even bigger mess. Only a matter of time until a rider takes a spill after hitting one of the signs.
Good job, they are heroes! Glad they are making the community safer.
Ann,
When Angela Alioto became President of the Board of Supervisors the first thing she did was to drive from park to park with a pair of bolt biters cutting off the locks on closed bathrooms.
Small thing ?
Not if you’re playing nanny to a grandchild who needs to go and the bathroom in the Panhandle (there’s pic of Janis Joplin on its roof) has been closed for years.
Go Niners !!
h.
Aside from the fact that private citizens are allowed to install signs on a public roadway that may or may not make things safer for bikes and peds, most important to their safely would be more traffic enforcement for autos and bikes who run stop signs and red lights.
You can never have a cop on every corner to catch the few who blow through red lights or stop signs. But EVERY CAR DRIVER CAN SLOW DOWN.
Also, why whenever someone tries to make biking safer, so many feel the need to bring up the few jerks on two wheels? If it is a car or a bike, the bike will lose every time.
Just one cop on a corner would be a start. If more tickets were written then cars will slow down and obey the law better then the way it is now. If bikes got tickets then the “few?” jerks might obey the law too.
I understand that there needs to be a safe environment for bikes but when a car driver has to sit in a traffic jam because SFMTA changed the roadway to make it easier/safer for bikes and said bikes do not follow the laws and blow thru stop signs, red lights and then go down the sidewalk, that can be very frustrating for drivers. And yes, there are many bike jerks on the road today, just go anywhere on the wiggle and see how many run stop signs.
Ms. Zhou,
I enjoy your writing very much.
You are always straightforward, clear and fair.
On this matter I’m waiting for my Candidate Question on how to take much of the danger out of my life as an SF Walker.
My answer previewed here is …
Put Safeway Parking Lot heigh Speed Bumps at every single intersection that has a traffic signal in San Francisco.
Soon, Tourists from around the World will echo what San Franciscans will also be saying …
“If you ever drive in San Francisco be prepared to drive slow.”
h.
There’s a dichotomy you illustrate well that SFMTA refuses to grasp: We cannot have both fast moving motor vehicles and pedestrian safety.
I think SFMTA is accurately reflecting their constituents’ priorities. Drivers want to move fast, everyone else wants to live. Those are fundamentally at odds with each other and so our streetscape is fundamentally at odds with itself. Got to change more minds to sort that one out.
Whether you agree with the bicycalists or any other group wih their pet project, the installation of anything “official” by the citizens only is not a good idea. Only the City may install signs like these. If this practice of installing unofficial signs continues, regular citizens might not trust the actual official signs. This could be confusing and actually dangerous to others. These signs should be removed immediately for this reason alone and the installers fined like the persons who stensiled a company logo on Valencia St sidewalk some years ago. They were fined and had to remove their stenciles.
This is a form of protest and if you find yourself on the wrong side of it, it’s worth contemplating how you got there.
I saw these signs today and think they make things worse, here’s why: When I pass bikes with my car, I go as far to the left as I can to give them room and not come too close. These signs are right in the middle of the road and do not allow a car to give the bicyclist space. Instead, a driver will have to stay behind the bike or come very close along side it. Personally, I would drive behind the bike but a lot of drivers will not. The sign placement was not well thought out.
that’s the point – don’t pass the bikes in front of you on the wiggle.
…..That’s the entire point.
The signs constrict and slow the way to allow smaller vehicles safe passage around larger vehicles.
You aren’t meant to pass until smaller traffic safely passes.
The other drivers you cite are just bad drivers.
You’re actually following the intent of the signs as designed.
That’s good design.
you can’t wait one block to pass a bicycle?
So anyone with a screwdriver, a safety vest, and an agenda can dress up as a city employee and post a sign demanding others do what they say.
Like “Tired of Morons, I am weary of zealots privatizing streets that are for everyone’s use. Many of us rode here and survived “traffic violence” before there were bike lanes, bulb outs, daylighting, and other silly “traffic calming” measures. And we did it without the whining, demanding aggression that the so-called bike “activists” and “organizers” display.
Militant bikers need to widen their focus. They are less than 2% of the city’s population. They and their appointed “guerrillas” are not freedom fighters or heroes; they’re just another entitled bunch who want to close the city down because they think that their recreational “rights” supersede others’ need to get around.
So, only Barbara and her car have a right/need to get around the city?
Many of do not own a car and need to get around Barbara.
I am tired of bike riders who feel entitled to close streets to persons not able to ride a bike.This includes disabled, seniors,families,extended families, people who do not get everything delivered to their homes ,tradespeople,service workers and people who have many tasks to perform in a short amount of time. I was a bike rider in the early 1980’s.I had no problem with cars.I did not have bike lanes.I did not inconvenience people in cars or pedestrians.I stopped a stop signs.I cannot wait until the bicycle coalition is defunded and bike riders get tickets for riding on the sidewalk and not obeying traffic laws.I am tired of speed bumps that hurt disabled and seniors.Many people are tired of dealing with an incompetent MTA.
The stealing of parking for rent a crap bikes is theft.The people using them are entertaining themselves and that is Public Parking,not for a private business. The moronic tactics of this group are against the law.Can you imagine getting off work after 10 hours and being delayed for a bunch of moronic entitled jerks that are breaking the law??Someone could have died,had a panic account because of an emergency they needed to deal with,or missed an appointment.
no one closed a street. yell at the clouds, old man.
I am tired of *drivers* who feel entitled to make streets unsafe for persons not able to drive. This includes disabled, seniors,families,extended families, people who do not get everything delivered to their homes ,tradespeople,service workers and people who have many tasks to perform in a short amount of time. Driving is a privilege.
If only bicycling was licensed and was also viewed as a “privilege”…and if only peds knew the law regarding right of way.
What must it be like to cycle in fear all of the time?
Cycling in SF might be scary at times, but it is not particularly dangerous. Cycling on Valencia before the center bike lane was installed was not dangerous, cycling The Wiggle is not dangerous.
I am told by advocates for LGBT that I am in great danger for being gay, by advocates for Jews that I am subject to unrelenting anti-semitism and by cycling advocates that I am at mortal risk every time I ride, yet none of these claims are true.
We have nothing to fear but the fearmongers.
the data would suggest otherwise. https://sfgov.org/scorecards/transportation/traffic-fatalities
Peruse the data set below by the League of American Cyclists to compare SF to other cities. Though it’s not perfectly safe, it is a lot safer to ride in SF than other big cities in the US. I feel very comfortable riding on the vast majority of bike routes in SF and haven’t had a close call – let alone crash – in many years. This includes riding with my child. While SF can certainly be better and safer for cycling, the fearmongering by some activists is very real and unfortunately scares the average person from ever trying a bike in SF. https://data.bikeleague.org/show-your-data/city-data/3-5-cities-biking-walking-road-safety/
Hundreds of thousands of bicycle miles in San Francisco, millions of pedestrian miles and 15-30 deaths per year. That’s quite safe.
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
—Martin Niemöller
Then they asked me to slow down a bit and maybe look up from my phone while I’m driving and I was like “Buh my freedom!”
Devaluing the currency of the holocaust is all the rage these days.