these shots were taken by prawnpie while he was in golden gate park. he took some video too that i have to get my hands on to share. let's just say a lot of near doorings and tons of confusion occurs.
as you can see, cars parked in the new bike lane during a busy nice weekend day in golden gate park. a door is open behind the biker showing a danger zone that shouldn't be there in the first place. the car is parked illegally. the striped lines indicate the separation of parking and the bike lane...NOT a parking spot.
but, it does look confusing doesn't it? there were MTA people passing out notes reminding people where to park.
how long do you, dear readers, think these floating parking spaces will take to catch on?
Cars are bad, bikes are good, it's a war always.
ReplyDeletebikes are better than cars. cars aren't the worst thing ever, i do have a carshare, but i think we could have better cities with substantially fewer cars. we had cities for thousands of years before cars, cars show up 100 yrs ago and things have gone apeshit ever since.
ReplyDeleteAs soon as they start handing out more than fliers and give some tickets instead. I encountered someone parked in exactly the spot as the last photo. He was going to his car and seemed shocked when I had passed around him out in traffic. Well, don't park in the bike lane, right on top of a painted bike! All users of the road (bikes, cars, peds) need to be more aware and responsible.
ReplyDeleteDammit, I'm sorry but as soon as I get the chance, I'm gonna paint "PARKING LANE" in the parking lane. If the very first cars arriving park in the right place, it all flows from there. Why isn't this obvious to the city? Taking action myself asap, unless you get to it first.
ReplyDeleteMTA needs to paint the bike lane green, paint the curb red, paint the buffer lane red, and put in signs every 100 ft or so (the same frequency as parking signs) that say "No parking in green bike lane or red buffer zone. Motorists park in designated spaces to the inside of buffer lane" (or something to that effect). But really, the best way is to have DPT out there giving tickets. I'm sorry, but if you're a motorist in a park (where, ideally, we shouldn't even have cars) and you can't get out if your auto- and self-centric world for even once to notice what is going around you, you deserve the ticket.
ReplyDeletehow about putting up some orange skinny bollards the way they separate a regular lane from the carpool lane?
ReplyDeleteWow. How do people not get this? There are bicycles painted on the ground and the buffers are painted the same way as buffers aroud the world.
ReplyDeleteAre they planning on putting poles or anything of the sort in the buffer area?
Has the SFMTA done a good enough job of posting signage or educating the public in the area?
Like some posters mentioned, you have to make it clear like in big words "parking" or "bike lane" or colors. Handing out flyers will never get all the cars and a waste of time and money, there will always be first time visitors and the problem will forever exist.
ReplyDeleteAs it stands, it's a mass confusion. You'd think the people in charge of this would have the smarts to catch on.
Does SFMTA really expect people to follow the rules when they invent new markings, signs and signals for every single intersection? Four years ago bike boxes on Market were painted peach without any signs, then they started marking bike lanes in green, then they stopped marking bike lanes in green, now only the bike boxes are green and instructions for drivers are posted in 18 point type on sides at the side of the road and sharrows are sometimes green and sometimes white.
ReplyDeleteWho can be expected to remember blue and orange polka-dot curbs mean parking only between 7:56am and 9:21am? Especially a tourist who might not be that familiar with standard US and California markings to begin with?
NYC started doing this type of design in 2007. When they first did it, it took a few weeks for people to understand, and it looked a lot like these photos. The next time it was done, it took a bit less time. Now, when the city installs them, people start to get it almost immediately. The green colored bike lane makes it pretty crystal clear. Patience and enforcement will lead to compliance.
ReplyDeleteRemember: a lot of the people driving in the park are from out of town. Also, I think people are having a hard time adjusting because it's not intuitive; when you're actually there, parking an inch away from the very narrow road without space to even open your door doesn't make any sense
ReplyDelete.
Biggest problem with the new bike lane design is it only take ONE car parked at the curb to make the entire bike lane unusable and dangerous.
ReplyDeleteGiven that most people who park there on Saturdays are from out of town I don't think they are ever going to figure out where they are supposed to park. So extend the Sunday road closure to Saturdays! Let people actually enjoy the park as opposed to the parking lot. Sunday Streets has shown that people want more such road closures.
ReplyDeleteYou're being nice by assuming that no one's doing it on purpose.
ReplyDeleteI’m afraid I don’t understand it either. We don’t have such lines/markings in Germany. In your last post you wrote “The floating white paint means a parking spot” and now you write “The striped lines don’t indicate a parking spot”. As far as I can see there’s only one lane of traffic in each direction, so there isn’t any room for parking. What did I miss?
ReplyDeleteNico
Nico, look at the curb, its red, all those cars are parked illegally, those arent spots.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure that some of these drivers/parkers are just clueless.
ReplyDeleteHowever, there's also an accepted pattern among San Francisco drivers of knowingly parking anywhere they like when parking is harder to find.
No parking in the Mission? Pretend you're going to church.
No parking on your block? Park in the crosswalk.
Enforcement is the key.
Don't we have a budget shortfall? Parking/driving violation enforcement is an easy way to address that while bettering our city.
I'm sure that some of these drivers/parkers are just clueless.
ReplyDeleteHowever, there's also an accepted pattern among San Francisco drivers of knowingly parking anywhere they like when parking is harder to find.
No parking in the Mission? Pretend you're going to church.
No parking on your block? Park in the crosswalk.
Enforcement is the key.
Don't we have a budget shortfall? Parking/driving violation enforcement is an easy way to address that while bettering our city.
@nico: i apologize for being unclear. it's hard to explain in words, since paint both indicates parking space and no parking space.
ReplyDeletethe white paint in diagonal, closer together stripes (in which a car cannot fit) indicate where it is not a parking spot. please see our reader's, el tejano, flickr where he posts some pics that might be more clear: here and here
Thanks for the clarification. The space between the diagonal lines should probably be a bit smaller.
ReplyDeleteNico
Stupid question, but why would you take a car to Golden Gate Park?
ReplyDelete@she rides a bike: i have no idea. i wonder that myself. sometimes my cousins who live in sonoma drive down to ggp, but then they park in the nearby neighborhood.
ReplyDeletewhoever thought this plan up is not thinking clearly. now the once beautiful park is a enormous parking lot. no one can parallel park and doors open straight in the path of a bike or a car.
ReplyDeleteThis craziness will fade with the fading of the paint. Typical of SF politics to create a solution to a problem that never existed. For any of you who cannot handle riding a bike in GGP without these new silly bike lanes please do us all a favor and go back to the suburbs from which you came.
ReplyDeleteThe new situation on JFK is an unmitigated disaster... more dangerous for everyone. Half of the bicyclists aren't even using the bike lanes, perhaps because they don't allow for passing. Parking is a nightmare, and getting out of your car is dangerous. How many people are going to be injured, or worse, before this crazy plan is reversed and things are put back the way they were?
ReplyDeleteWhat the!?!
ReplyDeleteHopefully there will no be accidents there right? I dont want to park my car there, I might just get my car have some scratch there.
Tsk..tsk...
Wonder who is paying for all this unbelievably dangerous and confusing and ignored change? By the way, not a single bicyclist stops at the stop signs painted in those bike lanes. Can you imagine that?
ReplyDelete