The Valencia Bikeway may have become a smidgen safer Thursday afternoon after SFMTA installed 27 flex posts between 15th and 19th Streets, creating a semi-protected bike lane. The white bike lane markers were also repainted with a double-stripe earlier this week. Most of the new posts were installed in groups of three next to sidewalk curb extensions that jut into...
It’s broad daylight and I’m standing with a teenager in front of a Ford GoBike Station in the Mission District. Despite being only 14-years-old, he seems completely unafraid of what he’s doing. “I steal these bikes and I wreck them,” he says. A tree with long roots grows into the word “Mission” on the back of his slick black windbreaker....
Ford GoBikes will be free for riders tomorrow in San Francisco, the East Bay, and San Jose. Free day passes cover an unlimited number of 30-minute rides for a 24-hour period ending a minute before midnight tomorrow. A ride that goes longer than 30 minutes costs $3 for every additional 15 minutes. Getting a pass requires an app download and credit...
San Francisco District 9 supervisor Hillary Ronen sent a letter to ride-hailing giants Uber and Lyft Tuesday, asking them to use geofencing technology to find safe places for pick-ups and drop-offs — and to test such a system on Valencia Street, notorious for ride-share cars blocking the bike lanes. “At this point, Valencia is completely out of control with bikes,...
Correction: An earlier version of this story stated that police seized the bicycles. In fact, they were hauled away by their owner, and police only ran the serial numbers on the bicycles to determine if any had been reported stolen, which they had not. Neighbors of a building on Folsom Street near 24th Street were baffled by the sheer number...
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved an ordinance that prohibits so-called “chop shops” of bicycles and bicycle parts from operating on the city’s sidewalks. After a heated debate, the board voted 9-2 to approve the legislation. “This legislation is about clearing sidewalks and not having illegal businesses on sidewalks,” said Supervisor Jeff Sheehy, who sponsored the proposal....
A law that would make bike “chop shops” illegal will move to the Board of Supervisors for a vote after winning over two former opponents, who changed their minds now that police won’t be enforcing the law. District 3 Supervisor Aaron Peskin and representatives of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, who previously opposed the proposal, voiced their support at a...
The yellow-shirted bicycle-safety activists were back on Valencia Street between 18th and 19th streets Thursday afternoon, carrying signs that read: “Protected lane.” Their aim is to get something built on Valencia that physically separates cyclists and drivers on the road to avoid collisions. As it stands, the street has painted bike lanes, but nothing stops drivers from rolling into them...
Bike-sharing needs neighborhoods like the Mission if it’s going to work. Does the Mission need bike-sharing? To paraphrase something Sigmund Freud may or may not have said, sometimes a bicycle is just a bicycle. In this city, that’s a good thing to keep in mind. Bicycles have become all things to all people, and two-wheeled proxies for anything and everything. San...
For the second time in as many weeks, all of the rear tires of bicycles at the Ford GoBike station at 17th and Dolores streets are flat. Ford GoBike stations and cycles have been vandalized repeatedly in recent weeks after a dramatic expansion of the program, formerly known as Bay Area Bike Share. Photos circulated of one bike stripped and...
A coalition of Mission District organizations, called United to Save the Mission, is calling for a study of how the expansion of a bike sharing program impacts residents, especially low-income ones. Details of how the study would be done are not clear yet. Calle 24 Latino Cultural Corridor co-chair Jon Jacobo, speaking on behalf of the group United to Save...
Public Works crews, not police officers, would be the public servants issuing tickets to bike chop shop operators and clearing them off public right-of-ways under a completely revised proposal to combat the informal repair operations. After an overhaul that de-emphasizes the role of police, Supervisor Jeff Sheehy’s legislation to address bike chop shops will return to committee for further review. The...
The Mission’s 24th Street corridor, a Latino cultural enclave and special use district, is not keen on bike sharing. It recently blocked Ford GoBike roll-out and before that was the electronic bike-share company JUMP. The Calle 24 group opposes the bike-share companies arguing that they fuel gentrification by catering to newcomers. Moreover, they argue, 24th Street has no bike lanes. “Our...
Police will be able to seize any bikes or bicycle parts from individuals who have five or more bikes displayed on public property, according to legislation that will be considered Tuesday by the Board of Supervisors. Supervisor Jeff Sheehy proposed the chop shop ban to target San Francisco’s ongoing bicycle theft problem. The bicycle theft problem is concentrated in the...
Bikeshare is getting big. And the newest player – Social Bicycles – is bringing their electric JUMP bikes to the mix. They have already started appearing around the city. Already Bay Area Bike Share (now Ford GoBike) has announced it will soon be expanding dramatically, and you might also remember the slight stir caused by the Chinese bike sharing company...
