Fell Street protected bikeway is here to stay

A temporary, parking-protected bikeway installed on a portion of Fell Street early on in the Covid-19 pandemic that provided crowding relief on the Panhandle path will now stay permanently.

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency Board of Directors earlier this month approved making permanent the parking-protected bikeway on Fell Street between Baker and Shrader streets. Elizabeth Chen, a transportation engineer with the SFMTA’s Streets Division, said since the installation of the new bikeway, the annual crash rate decreased by 42 percent.

A staff report said the SFMTA installed the temporary parking protected bikeway in July 2020 as part of the Panhandle Social Distancing and Safety Project, which included removing one of the four travel lanes in the project area and installed the parking protected bikeway on the south side of Fell Street in the westbound direction. The staff report added that the bikeway is adjacent to the Panhandle and avoids conflicts with driveways.

Staff conducted evaluations five times between August 2020 to January 2023 of the temporary project to collect data in several categories, including a crash analysis vehicle travel times, vehicles volumes and speed. Staff also collected data before the SFMTA installed the project and compared data before and after the project was installed.

At the one-year mark of the evaluation post implementation, Chen said vehicle travel times increased up to 17 seconds on weekdays and up to eight seconds on weekends. Vehicle volumes increased an average of 9 percent on Fell Street.

There was also a jump in bicyclists using the parking protected bikeway, Chen said. The staff report said 170 bicyclists were using the new protected bikeway each day after one month during the weekday evening peak commute time. After one year, the number of daily bicyclist users jumped to 304.

Chen said the next step is for staff to work on the Oak Street Quick-Build Project, which seeks to to design a bikeway that will connect to John F. Kennedy Drive, Kezar Drive and Oak Street.

The project is currently in its conceptual design phase with public outreach anticipated in the fall and approval for the project early next year.