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...
A dramatically expanding bike share company that is set to place some 31 proposed bicycle-dock stations on the streets of the Mission District this year and next year will be steering clear of one: 24th Street. There, the neighborhood group representing the Calle 24 Cultural District – a stretch of 24th Street that is recognized by the city and state...
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...
A significant cluster of Bay Area Bike Share’s new planned stations are in the Mission District, and installation is expected to begin later this month. The expansion will grow the bike sharing program from 700 to 7,000 bicycles around the region. Around 35 bike sharing stations are in the works in the Mission, according to an image released by the bike share group. Participants...
Advocates for infrastructure that better separates cyclists from drivers took to Valencia Street Thursday evening, forming a human barrier between bike and auto lanes from 16th and 17th streets. Dozens of cyclists offered high-fives and smiles as they passed through the corridor of roughly 20 yellow-shirted bike lane activists. Most drivers kept silent as they drove by, but a few voiced their dismay. “Find...
Listen Local is Mission Local’s biweekly radio program. We broadcast live online at BFF.fm every other Thursday morning from 9:30 to 10:00. If you were too busy pedaling to tune in to our broadcast this week, here’s your chance to revisit. We talked with Chris Cassidy of the Bicycle Coalition about cycling resources for newbies and cycling reminders for old...
The intersection of 16th Street and South Van Ness Avenue has stories to tell. Just call the number on one of the signs affixed to the utility poles there and listen. One of the voices you will hear belongs to Julie Mitchell, whose son Dylan was killed at the intersection while riding his bike. Another is that of Paula Tejeda,...
We talked to Paul Olszewski, 64, owner and general manger of Valencia Cyclery in the Mission since June 1, 1985, about his business and it didn’t take long for the topic of the internet’s impact to come up. ML: Why the bicycle business? PO: I’ve always enjoyed bikes – ever since I got one when I was a teenager and...
Athletes, messengers, and even some professional cyclists will come pouring into the Mission District this Saturday for the fourth annual Mission Crit, a 40-minute fixed-gear bike race. The crit (short for “criterion”) sends riders around and around a triangular course from 16th to 17th streets along Treat Avenue and Harrison Street, no small feat at the speeds these cyclists reach....
