parking confusion in golden gate park, as predicted

as we predicted last week, there was some confusion going on in golden gate park this past weekend with the new bike lane project.

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?

The Face of Evil

Ever wonder what bicycle thieves look like? In SF, a couple of them look like the two below.



Please call 911 if you see them. If you have any more info you can contact Police report # 120/171/670 Officer J Lopez #373 Officer J Felix #2027 Mission Station 415-558-5400 415-601-4145 cell

Thanks to MissionMission for the heads up!

bicycle safety in sf

on friday i alluded to an incident that happened recently here in sf. it's horriblehorrible thing, something is wrong when people get hit by cars, bikes, etc. or seeing pedestrians scurrying across the street because they are scared to be hit. that is a failure in urban planning.

here's a local npr radio show which discusses the aftermath of this incident which, for worse, gets a disproportional amount of coverage versus when a car his a pedestrian or a cyclist. i am not excusing what happened, especially based on what we know so far but here's some discussion...



San Francisco prosecutors are deciding whether to file charges against a cyclist who recently struck a pedestrian in a fatal collision. While bike accidents leading to pedestrian fatalities are rare, this is the second such incident in the past year. With more and more cyclists taking to Bay Area streets, we take up the issue of bicycle safety.

Host: Michael Krasny

Guests:

• Leah Shahum, executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition
• Elizabeth Stampe, executive director of Walk San Francisco, a pedestrian advocacy organization
• Al Casciato, captain in San Francisco Police Department
• Bert Hill, chair of the Bicycle Advisory Committee, which considers bicycle transportation projects and policies and makes recommendations to the Board of Supervisors and other SF city and county agencies
• Herbert Weiner, San Francisco resident who has gone before the SFMTA board to discuss his concerns about Muni, transportation issues and cyclists

friday fun times: alien bike rider

lots of serious stuff going on in SF's bikey community this week. i'll save that post for monday.

in the meantime, it's time to bike party and to ride with all sorts of people...or aliens?

hehe, have a great weekend everyone!

the price of gas

as much as we don't really espouse "we told you so" attitudes around here for biking for transportation, i couldn't help but notice the price of gas the other day.

wow. and, i don't know if you can see, but this station is very close to a freeway entrance in SF's soma neighborhood. look at how many cars there are! to be fair, there was a giants game, and that always increases the traffic in the neighborhood, but...what if it didn't. there is free bike parking for giants fans. maybe the skyrocketing price would convince some people to CYLRAB.

bike lane project...

this one is pretty exciting. it's in golden gate park along jfk drive. JFK has seen a few improvements in recent years, including a surface repaving which makes it feel like butter to ride to the beach. wheeee.

but now they are moving parking from curbside to create a curbside bike lane. protected bike lane!



but...we have seen some people confused. to be honest, if i was a tourist and didn't know that the floating white paint meant a parking spot, i'd be confused too. but some people seem to be getting it. perhaps it's growing pains. i've seen this sort of parking in nyc, so i know it can catch on.

will post more pics of confusing white paint soon!

Family Riding

In San Francisco there are three things you can find in magnitudes of hugeness- taco trucks, bicycles that are poorly locked and have unlubed chains, and dogs. They are usually in some combination.

Here is a bicycle/dog combo completed by my friend Deep and his little sweetie, Baozi. It was their first bicycle outing (Deep was in severe cookie withdrawal so the dog needed to learn how to be a passenger. Now.)

I am accustomed to seeing Deep like this, with rickshaw and fiancee in full swing.

Now, we will all have to get used to this view. Personally, I am waiting for the fiancee/dog/music system combo to be truly impressed.

Deep rides with many other SF dog families.

This guy wins!!