SFMTA dumps unpopular Valencia center bike lane

San Francisco transit officials earlier this month voted to shift course on the controversial center-running bikeway pilot project on Valencia Street that merchants have complained about since its installation last August and move to a different configuration.

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency is now unsurprisingly moving towards a side-running bike lane and remove the center bike lane. Merchants have grumbled that the center bike lane caused a loss in business along the merchant corridor between 15th and 23rd streets despite several changes being made.

In a statement from the Valencia Corridor Merchants Associations, they said that were pleased the SFMTA board voted to endorse a plan to move towards a side-running bike lane, adding:

“This decision comes after months of meetings and requests from the VCMA to find an alternative solution.”

The statement from the merchants association went to say that they would like to see a final design that accommodates bicyclists while bringing back parking for its customers. Additionally, merchants are asking that construction for the project not occur during the summer as several events are taking place along the Valencia corridor.

Paul Stanis, the project manager for the Valencia bikeway project, said staff are working merchants to coordinate with the construction and implementation of the side-running bike lane but a date for implementation is known not yet.

More outreach will be conducted with merchants, especially those with parklets that want to keep them, to configure the side-running bike lanes either with curbside or floating parklets.

A curbside parklet would be against the curb of a sidewalk while the bike lane would go around the parklet. A floating parklet would have the bike lane between the parklet and the curb, which some directors on the SFMTA board and the public had concerns about mixing people crossing the bike lane to enter and exit the parklet.

Christopher White, executive director for the San Francsico Bicycle Coalition, said the orgniazation supported the move to a side-running bike lane, but had concerns of the floating parklets.

White said:

“Having the lane sometimes run between the curb and a parklet introduces potentially dangerous conflicts between people biking and staff and customers who use the parklets.”

He added that it the design can be confusing if there is a mix of curbside and floating parklets and that the agency should make all parklets curbside.

Stanis said other cities, such as New York and in Oakland, have floating parklets and have not seen any crashes between people crossing the bike lane and bicyclists. He shared some designs of floating parklets in Oakland, adding that the SFMTA may potentially include changes in how a floating parklet may look like, including have specific access point to cross the bike lane and enter the parklet.

Transit officials said the agency will meet with merchants who want to keep their parklets and to discuss the two types of parklets.

Other work that staff still need figure out before a final design heads to the board for approval, includes looking closely at the issues brought up at the meeting with the parklets, the mix of parking and loading spaces, the design of intersections and taking a close look at turn restrictions that are currently in place for the center bike plan configuration.

Director Janet Tarlov said it will be important for agency staff to remain contact with merchants in the coming months and through the construction phase as it could impact many along the corridor:

“I want to urge staff to do everything they can to strengthen the already productive relationships they have with with Valencia merchant leaders and with individual merchants.”