The above title is my favorite line from the film.
It is a shame people have to create controversy where there is none. It makes it so much more difficult to get these projects out to the many places who need them. Like, all of San Francisco!!
Do you dream of lanes like these? What are the ones like in your neck of the woods?
Streetfilms comes through again with this short film about greenways and bicycle boulevards in Portland. I got to ride this stretch of road back in September and it was a really nice experience of what simple changes, like changing the direction of stop signs, can do to make things easy. I would love to send copies of this to every street planner in SF (or anywhere, really) and have it burned in their memory- it can be done, we can have bicycle infrastructure that works and brings people out on their bicycles. It is being done now.
After way too long, with too much wasted money and time, the bicycle injunction that has been the albatross around the neck of two wheeled San Franciscans is done! Bring on the lanes, bring on the traffic calming, bring on the bicycle parking!!
The Wicked Ol' Witch at last is dead! (and she took that crappy Prop 8 BS with her, too!)
"San Francisco Superior Court Judge Peter J. Busch issued an order late this afternoon finding San Francisco in compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, in seeking to implement its Bicycle Plan citywide. The ruling effectively dissolves an injunction that continued to prohibit City engineers from moving forward on some planned bicycle route improvements intended to enhance the safety and usability of streets for bicyclists. A previous order from Nov. 2009 lifted significant portions of the original 2006 injunction, but left limited restrictions intact while the adequacy of environmental review for certain projects was adjudicated.
"I am very gratified by the ruling from Judge Busch, who carefully considered an enormous amount of evidence in this case, and found that the City met its environmental review requirements," said City Attorney Dennis Herrera. "Today's decision clears an important hurdle toward making San Francisco safer for bicyclists, and healthier for all of us. I am very thankful to the many dedicated public servants involved in this policy initiative and meeting the stringent legal requirements to fulfill it, including Mayor Gavin Newsom and the Board of Supervisors, the Municipal Transportation Agency, and the Planning Department."
The case is: Coalition for Adequate Review et al. v. City and County of San Francisco, San Francisco Superior Court No. 505-509, filed July 28, 2005. A copy of the order is available on the City Attorney's Web site at http://www.sficityattorney.org/." (press release from City Attorney Dennis Herrera's office- Via Streetsblog)
San Francisco is a strange place- a liberal city that tries reeeeeeeaaaaalllly hard to not show its conservative underbelly. However, this is a city that was founded by two institutions, the Catholic church and the military. While time has brought us so many of the things by which our City by the Bay is now known, our underpinnings are still quite authoritarian. One of the areas where this dichotomy can be easily seen is in the relationship between the San Francisco Police Department and the bicycle riders of the City.
SFPD has a long history of difficulty with "fringe" groups, be they hippies or gays or protesters against the 1980's war in Nicaragua or, currently, bicyclists. I frequently think it must be difficult to be an authority figure in a city that is not known for its respect of authority, but I have also thought that these are issues that both sides have contributed to equally. With the newish Chief of Police, Chief Gascón, talking about "cracking down" on Critical Mass (I wonder if he knows the history of the protest and how ineffective it has been to try and stop it), many cyclists here have had further cause to feel that the SFPD has no desire to understand our needs and challenges.
Now we have a film of the Chief out on a ride with the Editor of SF Streetsblog, Bryan Goebel and Andy Thornley, Assistant Director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. I am hoping this means that Chief Gascón is starting to understand that the issue in SF is not that cyclists are outlaws, but that the situation that stands in SF, and has for over 20 years, is one where cyclists feel little allegiance to the law because we have been shown repeatedly that the law of SF has shown little allegiance to us. Hopefully, this ride is a beginning of a discussion that does not rely on the assumption that there is no way to make cycling, and protection of cyclists, a normal and safe reality in San Francisco.
