As the city votes today on a proposed center bike lane on Valencia Street, few of the businesses along the popular commercial corridor expressed enthusiasm for the plan. That’s according to interviews with employees or owners of businesses between 15th and 23rd streets, where the proposed pilot will unfold.
In Mission Local’s door-to-door survey of 82 businesses, the vast majority of those interviewed — 60 percent — were unaware of the project.
Of the 32 businesses where either an employee or owner was familiar with the pilot project, which will add center bike lanes and also ban left turns and replace around 70 parking spots with additional loading zones, 10 were supportive, 14 were against it and eight offered no view.
Of the 50 respondents who learned of the plan during our interviews on Monday, 10 were supportive, 15 were against it and 25 shared no opinion.
Similar to cyclists interviewed earlier this month, people in favor of the plan might be called tepidly optimistic and hopeful about remedying the street’s current congestion, in which bikers are frequently doored by drivers getting out of their cars, and delivery trucks make navigating the street difficult.
Getting Doored in SF
“Clearly, the bike lanes aren’t working right now,” said Noah Ben-Eishai, a box-office manager at the Chapel. “Anything’s better than what it is now.”
Some 8,500 vehicles and 3,100 bicycles travel on Valencia per day, according to the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. The pilot is aimed at remedying the chaos that such traffic brings to the street, but few are happy with it. In an SFMTA poll from late 2022, 70 percent of 441 respondents did not sign onto the plan to shunt bikes into the middle of the road, with only 13 percent preferring it.
Many of the merchants interviewed on Monday, including those who just learned of the plan that day, expressed concerns about the safety of biking in a middle lane, and also took issue with the loss of already limited parking spots for their customers. They feared the negative impact on their businesses, and skeptics did not believe that delivery drivers and commercial trucks would respect the new loading areas and centered bike lanes.
“I can’t even imagine how much more dangerous that’s going to be for bikers,” said Laura Ash, the owner of The Scarlet Sage Herb Co. who was visibly surprised by the news of the planned changes. But, she said, there likely is no perfect solution.
“You wouldn’t put pedestrians in the center, would you?” Bret Carmody, assistant store manager of the bike shop Vanmoof asked, likening the situation of bikers to people on foot.
Some merchants worried that the reconstruction would hurt their businesses, which are still recovering from the pandemic.
“If they really wanted to do it, they should’ve done it during the pandemic,” said Angelina Greep, a staff member at Blondie’s Bar.
For Carmody and his colleague Jeremy Schaffer at Vanmoof, it is important for cyclists to spot their store and easily “hop in.” But with bike lanes at the center of the road, cyclists will have to pass and make a turn back. “People don’t come back,” said Schaffer. “They go.”
The new loading zones
The plan, proposed by SFMTA staff and slated for a Tuesday vote by the agency’s board of directors at 1 p.m. at City Hall, attempts to address double-parking by food delivery drivers and commercial vehicles along the corridor by giving them additional loading areas and moving the bike lane away from where these vehicles typically pull over.
However, that does not seem to have addressed merchants’ needs for heavy delivery and loading trucks. Several business owners worried how the large trucks that deliver supplies to their shops would fare.
“Look out front right now and tell me, where all the cars gonna go?” asked Kimberly Sawyers, the owner of SF Auto Works. Outside, vehicles zoomed by in both directions, and a massive truck sat in the median.
When Sawyers’ delivery trucks bring her shipments of motor oil, or when tow trucks arrive, their size means they need to be able to pull all the way to the center of the road, where the new bike lane will be.
“I’m just going to have to ignore the law and drive into the bike lane,” Sawyers said. “If you want to make a safer bike lane, you gotta give the cars a place to go.”
Though she originally called the center-lane proposal “the worst idea I’ve ever heard of,” Sawyers said Valencia Street was not an easy fix. The plan, she concluded, is simply attempting to serve too many interests at once.
“People disrespect loading zones,” said Connie Wong, whose father owns Santora Apartment & Building Supply. She couldn’t imagine how the 70-foot truck that comes each week to their business would fit into a curbside loading zone.
Lost parking
The new plan will eliminate about 70 parking spaces in the eight blocks of the pilot project, and many businesses were upset about what losing those spots would mean for their customers and employees. They seemed less interested in the changes that may make the lives of delivery drivers easier.
Servio Gómez, the owner of Back To The Picture, called the plan “awful.” Gómez has run his art and framing business since 1995, and said he likes the way it is right now. With the proposed changes, he feared there would be insufficient loading space for his frequent deliveries from big trucks. He was also infuriated about less parking space for his customers, who already find it difficult to park their cars.
As we spoke, a long-time customer who drove to the store overheard and interrupted the interview to express her anger toward the project, “I don’t give a shit. I just want to get in the shop,” she said, referring to the need for parking.
An employee at Therapy said she spends a half hour looking for parking when she drives to a weekend shift. Sometimes, she said, the nearby parking lots are full.
Laurel Haslam, a manager at Love Story Yoga, said she was accustomed to customers calling her frantically just before class because they couldn’t find parking. The bus, she said, is unreliable. As for herself, Haslam said she would have to “rethink my whole strategy” for getting to work if left turns while searching for parking are banned.
Other merchants, however, said that limited parking was just part of being on Valencia Street, and their focus was walk-up business. The manager of the T-Mobile store, who went by D, said customers could walk to the store; if they want to drive, they could go to Stonestown Galleria or to the 16th and Bryant street location, which has a parking lot.
Lawlessness on Valencia Street
Part of the problem, many merchants said, was the seeming lawlessness of Valencia Street when it came to the rules of the road. No one will obey the new rules, they said.
Donnelle Malnik, who stations her hairdressing trailer Hair and Heavy Metal at 18th and Valencia streets three days a week, agreed that cyclists need a separate bike lane, but she feared the disregard for rules on Valencia would make things even more dangerous for them in the middle of the street.
“One thousand percent,” Malnik said. “Bear in mind, nobody obeys any traffic rules here.”
Akhenaten Amen, the clerk at the 16th and Valencia convenience store, called the plan “sketchy,” because bad driving is a chronic issue at that intersection. He noted the pedestrian who was killed there in January. “Even if it’s a double line, people are still gonna to try to cross it.”
Support for the plan
Supporters of the project were often fed up with the current situation and thought the new plan would make it safer for bike riders.
“Bikers are always pissed,” said Allen Bounsouk, Assistant Manager for HUF SF, when talking about the current situation of double parking.
“I see how bikers interact with cars here,” said Nadia Chu, an employee of Topdrawer, who is new to San Francisco. She wants to see changes that encourage more people to bike and the center bikeways might help. “Drivers can and should adjust for bikers,” said Chu.
The SFMTA, too, maintains that the plans can work on Valencia, even though center-running bike lanes are rare and not well studied.
“We believe that a center-running bikeway can work safely on Valencia, or we wouldn’t propose it,” said SFMTA spokesperson Stephen Chun, who called the plan a unique design for a unique street. “We are also fully committed to the pilot evaluation and reporting process, including making any changes necessary in the future up to and including replacing the center-running facility.”
Merchants who were on the fence about the pilot had more questions than answers.
“Are there going to be 90 percent fewer accidents in the next three years?” said James Choi, owner of Rhea’’s Deli & Market. He had not yet formed a view on the proposal, but wanted more data from the city to support the project.
For some who biked to work, the new plan simply did not sound right.
“It’s not intuitive,” said Silvi Alcivar, an artist at City Art Cooperative Gallery near 19th. As a cyclist, she felt that having bikes in the middle is “not how streets work.” She thought about the future of driverless cars, too. “How are Waymo going to figure out?”
The SFMTA board of directors meeting will be held at 1 p.m. at City Hall on Tuesday, April 4. For details, click here.
“That’s according to interviews with employees or owners of businesses ”
Well that’s a pretty flawed way to survey. Random employees of a business shouldn’t be speaking for the owner pro or con who has a better idea about hassles or increase/decrease profitability related to the plan.
Just came from D.C. where center bike lanes are working well. SF has a major problem with increasing traffic density. If we continue to add cars onto our already crowded streets, traffic congestion will soon become a crisis of our own making. We need solutions for alternative transportation like this.
agreed with you on all points except for the first half of your first sentence – we should always be arguing from a position of facts/reality.
https://sf.streetsblog.org/2023/03/22/a-deep-dive-into-center-running-bike-lanes-a-known-infrastructure-failure/
Interesting blog post, and yet mostly opinion and lacking data. From my perspective as a cyclist, center lanes seem feasible and relatively safe if they are protected from cars. At the very least, let’s see how they function on Valencia before we castigate them.
Businesses said they are unaware. Many of the businesses are not involved in their community. They have a lot of selfish opinions but when it comes to community involvement they are maybe not doing their best. This has been in multiple articles, Mannys hosted a really good forum where this topic was discussed where only a few local businesses got involved. You can’t expect for someone else to do your job. Business owners need to be proactive in their community: get involved, get informed that’s like the least you can do, now if you can help improve the community you are part of then do it too. Again only a few of them actually care to show up, some might not care so ….. I would not blame the city, or anyone saying “I didn’t know” it honestly truly shows how we are still living in a place that is car centric. This is my experience: I rent in the area and rely on public transportation and it has never let me down. I have come across situations where the bus breaks, Bart is late etc etc but I am usually are able to find alternate routes.
No matter what you do bike riders will never be happy until all businesses cannot get deliveries,seniors anddisabled and extended families cannot find parking. I do not give a crap about food delivery and Amazon delivery vehicles. I am tired of parking being stolen for private enterprise. That includes rides hare vehicles, tent a crap bikes and resturantes.Public taxes pay for the matenince and the parking belongs to the public.I am tired of the blue scooters wasting a parking meter when they can easily be parked elsewhere.
the city of sf could actually enforce double parking laws, they have the technology. they could sweep valencia and mission streets
ticketing every offender. they used to camp out near caltrain at 4th and king and quickly gave offenders tickets who stopped in marked zones. why can’t the city do this to every idiot who stops and double parks? seems the way to go rather than this
First, there is a reason no one has ever done a center bike lane on such a busy merchant corridor. It’s a TERRIBLE idea and will fail.
Second, did someone really refer to the Mission st bus corridor as “unreliable”?! There’s a bus ever 90 seconds wtf are you talking about?!
Actually, center bike lanes already exist in other cities, and they work well. It’s an EXCELLENT idea that has already been proven effective.
this is the second comment i’ve seen from you pushing this lie – kindly reassess!
https://sf.streetsblog.org/2023/03/22/a-deep-dive-into-center-running-bike-lanes-a-known-infrastructure-failure/
Tell you what, James. Kindly supply something other than an opinionated screed, and I may reconsider.
While I don’t love the current solution, I think it’s one that’s better than the status quo for cyclists (and not, and one that we can get without waiting another 3 years or paying a ton (since it falls under the quick-build guidelines). I think the pitfall of these polls conducted by Mission Local (especially ones where the pollster has to explain the proposal to the respondents) is that Mission Local has been consistently against the proposal, so I think that makes me suspect that the results of a survey may be slightly biased.
The existing bike infrastructure would work well enough with consistent parking enforcement. What difference will new bike infrastructure make if we already know that SF Auto Works (and Uber, and Lyft, and every other entitled jerk) is “just going to have to ignore the law and drive into the bike lane,” as Sawyers said. As a bike rider and a car owner, I can assure you that I will never again use SF Auto Works because of this unhelpful and selfish stance . But ultimately, that SF can ticket all over the place for street sweeping violations, but can’t dedicate even one traffic enforcement officer to cruise up and down Valencia street is the root of the problem that begets snide attitudes, such as Sawyers’.
#MTAshame
#SFPDshame
Valencia is a terrible place for bike lanes. Cyclists need to learn the art of compromise and look at other streets that do not have businesses that depend on customer access and delivery.
LOL I bet you would say the same if they made biking provisions on another street
the more than 3,100 bikes that use Valencia per day beg to differ. That’s over 25% of total users.
We’re here, we’re on bikes. Get used to it.
Go ahead and push your pro car agenda, but remember what happened to Prop I and J last election. You lost by over 20 points. And it’ll happen again.
This is a misleading article. Why not say only 1/3 are against it? So many are neutral or refused to answer your question.
Only long term safe & fluid solutions for Valencia street is without cars. Then you will have a room for the rest of humans and their bikes, delivery trucks and feet.
The folks who actually know how to cycle the city don’t EVER use Valencia. You can tell a real cyclist because they’d be on Folsom or Harrison rather than Valencia or Mission. Same is true of the amateur crowd that bikes on Market St like a bunch of lemmings.
I agree.Market Street has gone downhill since the morons closed it to cars.Why work so hard to go shopping.I am sure every closure to cars only increases the tax benifit to South San Francisco and Daly City.I do not know anyone who goes downtown.Why bother!
Get a grip man, this comment is baseless. It entirely depends on where you are traveling to/from to determine what bike routes are used or make sense. Does it make me a lemming that I travel and from work every day on Market because it is damn near a straight line for me to get there door to door? Or should I be a “true cyclist” and instead add another 5 minutes and half mile to my commute by traversing down through to the mission to hit folsom and then go back up a few blocks once I get to FiDi to get to work? Market aint perfect but its not like Folsom is either.
And for the record I use Folsom plenty, along with Valencia, Market, Page, The Wiggle, 17th, JFK Promenade, The Panhandle, The Embarcadero, and so on. What I use just depends on what my destination is.
On the topic of this article though, the center bike lane is bad. I predict an average of one person getting smoked by a car per day and the crossover locations for the first week of this opening up. Personally – I think I’d prefer leaving as is before using this method.
It’s thinking like yours that’s exactly the problem. Even if you’re a cyclist you add fuel to the nonsense arguments that fellow cyclists should only use their bikes for exercise and commute, not running errands/shopping/picking up kids. There is a school on this street—do you think a single kid attending Buena Vista Horace Mann would/could figure out how to negotiate a center-running bike lane??
The Mission is flat. Why aren’t kids biking to school on their own like they do in other cities and countries? Could it be because painted bike lanes on the wrong side of cars are not safe, nor are intersections without corner buffers? Come on. This just isn’t hard.
Maybe kids are not biking to school because their parents have figured out that velocity and gravity are a dangerous combination.
Drew is correct. Valencia is too crowded and narrow to be a good choice for cyclists. Van Ness, Folsom and Harrison make more sense, then cut across as needed.
Cars will be in that middle lane all day long to swerve around double-parked food-delivery gig workers. Also, as a bike rider, ‘Bicycle Lanes’ now consist of at least 50% electrified devices going twice as fast as bikes and that is creating another safety issue. Since SFPD apparently has zero interest in traffic enforcement, people will continue to do exactly what they want, which for the most part means thinking only of themselves or providing service the lazy techie waiting for their bahn mi and bubble tea. Gig delivery cars double-parking and battery-powered chaos devices have killed the flow of Valencia Street and all intersecting streets. The cost of this is human life. Curbside restaurants posing as Parklets and removing parking hasn’t helped, either.
Julian, ‘as a bike rider’ I can tell you that you are not at any risk whatsoever. You would be, were those mobility-device riders to all pile into cars and pass you right now.
What are you saying? Please clarify.
@Eleni – I’m guessing you didn’t mention to the businesses that even more parking would be eliminated under alternate designs (as in entire block faces), and that a major impetus of the center-running lane is to preserve more parking?
Laurel Haslam, a manager at Love Story Yoga, said she was accustomed to customers calling her frantically just before class because they couldn’t find parking. The bus, she said, is unreliable.
“While they’ve never even tried to take the bus and/or walk to an *exercise class,* they find it undesirable.”
Fixed that for you
I agree, there are many who think they are too good to ride the bus, but refuse to pay for a Lyft as well.
I also hear too many strong, unfounded opinions on MUNI – it works 95% of the time for me and when it doesn’t there’s usually a different line I can take