It's Gone At Last: Lyon Street Eyesore Removed after 3+ Years

The NE corner of Lyon and Golden Gate hasn't been clear like this for a very long time

Just after the morning downpour, the scaffolding was dismantled

New and nearly completed emergency exits on Golden Gate side of building

All this structure for a fire escape the last three years

At the end of the day it was simple: remove the ungainly, ill-suited scaffolding eyesore and replace it with standard regulation fire escapes. For NOPA neighbors it was the blight that wouldn't go away. Until today. Now at last the Lyon and Golden Gate corner is clear of the obstruction. The sidewalk is safer for pedestrians, two spaces are open for street parking, and, most importantly, the apartment building residents have a safer exit from the building should a fire strike.

BIKE NOPA has been covering this story for more than a year, beginning with a post in January of 2010. Three more followed to urge a resolution and mobilize neighbors who had really had enough of what came to represent frustrations with the city's permit approval process and, apparently, reluctance of the owner to foot the bill and do the right thing.

Sometimes a more livable street comes about from what's removed, not what's added. Time for a celebration all around.

BIKE NOPA Takes A Break -- Book Deadline Prompts Shift

Dr. Marie Equi, 1872-1952 Oregon Historical Society #23491

Dear Readers,

The time has come for a break and to shift more time to another passion: completing a biography begun a few years ago.

I started BIKE NOPA more than two years ago to increase awareness in the North Panhandle about the feasibility of bicycling for everyday transportation. Part of my impetus resulted from the initial hesitation of neighborhood leaders to endorse more bike lanes through NOPA in 2009. (In that case it was lanes for McAllister and Masonic -- proposals that were later dropped from the city's bike plan). I thought neighbors were perhaps unaware of how many cyclists live in NOPA and need safe routes for travel or of the diversity of neighborhood riders.

I started a gradual campaign, taking notice of the streets around us and profiling the cyclists who live next door or nearby. I launched the series Women on Wheels and Dads on Bikes. I interviewed older and younger riders, professionals and entrepreneurs, women as well as men, marathon riders and crosstown commuters.

I never expected that NOPA would generate so much content. With just 30 or so square blocks, this is a small neighborhood. But bordered by four vehicle-dominated thoroughfares -- Fell, Oak, Divisadero and Masonic -- and sporting an essential link in the city's cross-town bike travel, NOPA's realities reflected many of the top questions San Franciscans face about how to use our public spaces.

In two years NOPA has seen a slew of developments that led to dozens of stories here:

• a partial re-design of Divisadero that revitalized the corridor
• a successful push-back of city plans for freeway-style signs (SFgo) on Fell and Oak
• a surge of advocacy for a safer approach to Divisadero on the Wiggle bike route
• the launch of the first neighborhood-based block party all about bikes (BIKE THE BLOCK in September 2009)
• start-up of the first neighborhood-based monthly bicycling group, NOPA VELO
• the arrival of Sunday Streets to NOPA in September 2010
• a push for a safer Masonic for all road users, a grass-roots campaign that few expected to succeed until last May when the plan cleared a public hearing
• an effort to reclaim Panhandle Park as a destination for neighbors and visitors, one that deserves capital improvements and better stewardship
• a vision to transform Fell and Oak between Scott and Baker (and then beyond to Stanyan) for safer transportation with new separated bike routes

Everyday journalism requires a huge amount of time. To get the story right, to earn the trust of public officials and advocates, and to help push an agenda of enhanced livability demand a responsibility I take seriously. For this work I think it's essential to develop a voice and a point of view -- one that readers approach with confidence whether they agree or not. I've really enjoyed the challenge.

Now I'm shifting my time to the story of Dr. Marie Equi, a woman of conscience and conviction who never let social or political norms keep her from the pursuit of her passions. She worked in New Bedford textile mills as a teenager in the 1880s, fled to Central Oregon a decade later to homestead with her female companion, managed to scandalize a rural outpost by horse-whipping a local minister in the streets, studied for medical school in San Francisco and became one of Oregon's early woman physicians. She kept her ties to the Bay Area and joined a doctor train from Portland in April 1906 to help earthquake-stricken San Franciscans, earning her a medal from the U.S. Army. (Her homestead companion had married and settled her family in one of NOPA's landmark houses along Fell).

Marie became publicly identified as a lesbian in Portland after her passionate affair with a young heiress led to front-page stories of a family dispute over her new companion's inheritance. From the personal to the political, Marie engaged the times. The public tumult of the early 20th century led Marie on a course from hearty progressivism to staunch anarchism. She championed the rights of the underpaid and the unemployed, of women in need of birth control information. In labor disputes, she often wrestled with cops and refused to follow court orders. She developed a reputation. The birth control advocate Margaret Sanger once wrote that Marie was "a rebellious soul -- generous, kind, brave but so radical in her thinking that she was almost an outcast in Portland."

Marie objected to the capitalistic motives that led the U.S. to enter World War One, and for this she was tried by the government as a subversive and sentenced to three years at San Quentin prison. Through all this, Marie remained so devoted to her profession that friends referred to her simply as "Doc."

How could I not want to tell the full story of Marie's life and times? She died in Portland in 1952, but 60 years later her struggle to be politically active, romantically involved, and fully engaged in her profession is spot-on relevant to many of us today.

My deadline approaches (please don't ask when). I'm fortunate to have a wonderful editor at Oregon State University Press. She is a huge supporter of my bike advocacy. (OSU Press published "Pedaling Revolution: How Cyclists Are Changing American Cities" by Jeff Mapes). But she'd also like to get the story of Marie Equi on the market.

I'm not abandoning BIKE NOPA. There are stories I'm too committed to following, like the implementation of the Masonic Re-design. I'm sticking with it until San Franciscans can stroll and bike and live along a transformed corridor made more livable for all.

I have been blessed with great readers and sources, allies and friends while writing BIKE NOPA. I hope you all know how much your interest and support have meant to me. One request: as I pursue greater dialogue with my keyboard and monitor, please do suggest coffee breaks and lunches. (The isolated nature of writing bugs me).

Curious about Marie Equi, the "stormy petrel of the Pacific Northwest"? Here's some of what I've written about her:

• A Woman of Consequence, Dr. Marie Equi
• Marie Equi in the Oregon Encyclopedia
• Stormy Petrel, An Online OHSU Lecture

For Lesbian To The Rescue: Marie Equi and the Oregon Doctor Train, a slide and lecture first presented in San Francisco for the 2006 earthquake centennial, expect a repeat on April 18th of 2012.

Sunday Streets Set for Western Addition/NOPA September 11th

Adding more pink, Sunday Streets NOPA 2010 Photo: Michael Helquist

Which bands will play outside Matching Half Cafe this year?

Photo: Michael Helquist

Western Addition/NOPA Route for Sunday Streets Sept. 11, 2011

No sooner did the "clear the streets" call come at the close of the Civic Center/ Tenderloin Sunday Streets yesterday than organizers shifted into gear for the September 11 street celebration in the Western Addition, NOPA, Alamo Square, and the Fillmore. (Perhaps it was low-gear with a day or two off).

A few route changes accompany this year's event after the successful, if drizzly, debut in the area in 2010:

• the west-end still begins in the Panhandle and travels north on Central and then east on Grove to Divisadero with a spur up the Baker hill to stop at McAllister. This year the crossover street, the east-west transition, is Fulton. Still a hill to ride and walk but not the steep slalom Golden Gate presented last year
• Alamo Square will be more directly involved -- hello neighbors! -- with Fulton sidling Alamo Square park
• Fillmore defines the east-end from Fulton to Geary but the route doesn't extend further north or further east

The new route is more compact, manageable and focused. Programs and scheduling are largely left to the wishes and initiatives of residents, local businesses and organizations. But Sunday Streets will provide the usual kids activities, dance, exercise sessions, skate time, bike programs and lots of music.

More information to come but Save the Date and plan your events.

Details:

Sunday Streets Western Addition

Includes North Panhandle, Alamo Square and Fillmore neighborhoods

September 11, 2011

11 am to 4 pm

www.SundayStreetsSF.com

Parking Restrictions

Sunday Streets works so well because it opens the streets to walking, biking, people-watching, bands and kids play. But that means no parking from 11pm Saturday September 10th until 4pm Sunday September 11th. Remind yourself, remind your family and friends. Vehicles will be towed and who needs that?

Sunday Streets to Return to NOPA, Western Addition in September

In 2010 NOPA found all sorts of new things to do on car-free streets

Impromptu parklet with the Wigg Party on Central Avenue in 2010

Sunday Streets -- the celebration of open streets for walking, dancing, strolling with the kids, and biking -- will return to the North Panhandle on September 11th this year. Mayor Gavin Newsom’s office announced last Friday that the “safe, fun, car-free” event will begin in April and continue on the second Sunday of every month through October. In a press release Newsom hailed the success of the program begun in 2008. “Sunday Streets has opened up miles of City streets, connected our neighborhoods and brought thousands of families and visitors out to play.”

The Sunday Streets route will once again connect NOPA with neighborhoods to the east, including Alamo Square, Japantown, and the Fillmore. Although the specific route has not been determined, changes to this year's route can be expected. In 2011 the route will more directly engage the Alamo Square neighborhood with an east-west street like Fulton rather than last year’s choice of Golden Gate Avenue. Western Addition residents can also expect the specific route to be announced much earlier this year with more outreach to merchants, churches, and neighbors.

Last year Sunday Streets organizers were surprised (and dismayed) when the normally warm and sunny September weekend turned to a cool and damp drizzle through the day of the street fest. Even still, thousands of people took to the wide-open streets.

The 2011 Sunday Streets schedule (subject to change):

• March 20: kick- off event along the Embarcadero from Fisherman’s Wharf to Mission Bay
• April 10: Great Highway and Golden Gate Park
• May 8: Mission route, including 24^th and Valencia
• June 12: Bayview, Mission Bay, and Dogpatch
• July 10: Great Highway route #2
• Civic Center and Tenderloin route
• September 11: Western Addition with NOPA, Alamo Square, Japantown and Fillmore
• October TBD: Mission route #2

Sunday Streets is managed by the non-profit Livable City. For more information, check the Sunday Streets website here. Volunteers are essential to the success of each Sunday Street, and it’s a great way to help people celebrate San Francisco’s neighborhoods.

Green Consumers To "Carrotmob" Local Cafe; New Bike Trailer in the Balance

Lauren Almeda-Reddell and Jason Wahlberg, proprietors of Matching Half Cafe

Carrotmob, the two-year-old San Francisco-born sensation, plans to swarm NOPA's popular Matching Half Cafe this Saturday afternoon to help the business adopt more sustainable practices. If enough customers purchase sweets and savories, coffee and brew, the cafe's proprietors will use the profits to buy a bike trailer to get food from farmers' markets without a car. They'll also kick in a, yes, matching half, to re-invest 200% of what they make during the event for the new transport.

Hatched by San Franciscan Brent Schulkin, Carrotmob is a straight-forward organization of purchasing power to promote a good cause. The idea, according to the group's website, is to "coordinate purchases to reward environmentally and socially responsible businesses with a mob of new customers." Begun in 2008, more than 100 Carrotmobs have sprouted worldwide.

The Wigg Party will host NOPA's venture into consumer mob potential. "It's a great opportunity to showcase what we are building here in the neighborhood," explained Wigg Party founder Morgan Fitzgibbons. The Wiggs organized a competition among local businesses to be selected as a Carrotmob beneficiary. Fitzgibbons said the Matching Half won the opportunity because of their 200% kick-in offer and their choice of realistic goals for the proceeds. The Wigg Party itself is all about sustainability. Taking it's name from the east-west bicycle route, the Wiggle, members work to make the community a leader in the sustainability movement.

Carrotmob regularly turns out a huge crowd of customers. When the group first selected the K&D Market on 16th street in the Mission, hundreds of shoppers lined up outside the grocery for hours and boosted sales to more than $9,000. The market's owners used the profits to re-do indoor lighting to be more environmentally friendly.

To make Saturday's mob scene even more compelling, PBS will film a segment on site for an upcoming feature on Carrotmob. Help get one more bike trailer and one less car on city streets while you grab some coffee,tea, beer, wine, baked goods and more.

Carrotmob @ Matching Half Cafe

1700 McAllister at Baker

Saturday, October 23, 3-6pm

cash purchases only

For Carrotmob theory and practice, check this:

How Organized Consumer Purchasing Can Change Business from carrotmob on Vimeo.

And for how Carrotmob played in the Mission:

Carrotmob Makes It Rain from carrotmob on Vimeo.

NOPA VELO Does the Monster Mash Halloween Ride

Image: Rick Helf www.helf.com

NOPA VELO riders will wend their way through the candy corn for a Halloween spin like no other on Sunday, October 31st. Riders will spook the early-morning Mojo Bicycle Cafe crowd and power-up on breakfast and coffee before rolling through the streets to the Panhandle. With sleek and smooth or flapping and ominous costumes, cyclists will continue bravely on their scary mission: spot the forlorn Ghost of Stow Lake in Golden Gate Park.

For those unfamiliar with this spooky tale, the version we like best goes like this. In the late 1800s when the park was still in its early period of development, a young woman took her toddler on a boating excursion on Stow Lake. Somehow the little one fell overboard, the mother jumped in to save her child, and both drowned. Ever since, the distraught mother has been sighted by San Franciscans who all describe the same apparition: a young woman of forlorn expression in a wet and muddy white dress walking along the edge of the lake. For more than 100 years the Ghost of Stow Lake has searched for her lost child, often while wailing in despair. Our own NOPA Lore has it that the Ghost usually appears on Halloween mornings . . .

Following the very possible ghost sighting, riders will descend on JFK Drive to make the car-free zone really scary before entering the Panhandle and circling NOPA blocks -- all the while doing the Monster Mash and sporting their Ghostbusters cred. Spooks and ghosts and mashes really work up a Halloween appetite. Riders will repair to the Duboce Park Cafe and raise a toast to the Ninth NOPA VELO ride of 2010.

NOPA VELO Monster Mash Ride Halloween Ride
Sunday, October 31
Meet: 9:30 at Mojo Bicycle Cafe, 639 Divisadero, between Hayes & Grove
Start: 10 am sharp
(If you're running late, join the group in the Panhandle or call Lenore for location)
End: about noon with drinks and lunch at Duboce Park Cafe, corner of Duboce & Sanchez

Easy to moderate 8 mile ride
All level riders welcome; kids on own bike OK if with guardian
Pets too if on leash or in bike basket
Costumes of any sort really encouraged! It's Halloween!
More info: Lenore @415-300-6744, lmcjunker@gmail.com

For previous rides and to see the cool posters, check the NOPA VELO Series.

Sunday Streets Brings Skating Rink, Kids Bike Rodeo, 'Quake Shake Shack, Con Brio Band, Yoga, Dog Massage, Bike Repair & So Much More to NOPA

We hope the funcycle will return to NOPA: seven on board, get pedaling

Bike NOPA with no traffic, take on the Baker hill and the Golden Gate slalom

Sunday Streets in the Mission; now it's our turn

Sunday Streets is coming to the North Panhandle in a very big way. Neighbors will have one problem: how to indulge in all the fun and good times on the street in just five hours. From the Panhandle to Central, Grove, Baker, and Golden Gate, the route through NOPA will delight and dazzle with activities you won't want to miss, including these:

In the Panhandle between Baker and Central

• Free bike maintenance by REI
• Free chair massage by CPMC
• Kiss FM Radio broadcast
• A furry round-up of dog treats from Happy Hounds Massage, PAWS, SF Chihuahua Meetup, SPCA, No. California Dog Rescue and more

In NOPA along Central, Grove, and Baker

• Live Music with Con Brio band at Baker and McAllister
• Free test rides on PUBLIC bikes at Baker and McAllister
• Freedom From Training Wheels course by SF Bike Coalition
• Kids' Bike Safety Rodeo by Presidio YMCA Bike Program (the very popular kids bike course from last year's BIKE THE BLOCK party in NOPA)
• How to load a bike on the bus demo
• Music and dancing and DIY art presented by the Wigg Party at Central near Hayes
• Kids' face painting & bike decorating by St. Cyprian's Episcopal Church
• Mobile "Command Van One" from Dept. of Emergency Preparedness on Grove
• Shake shack earthquake simulator (then you'll know why to get ready)
• Magic and cooking shows at Divisadero Farmers Market

On Golden Gate Avenue

• Free roller skating rink, with lessons & skates near Baker Street
• Slumdog Millionaire skate dance (12:30 to 2:30)
• Thriller skate dance (12:45 to 2:45)

And lots of wide open spaces for strolling, biking, dancing, and people-watching. The streets have never been this open in the North Panhandle. Be sure to be here for all of this. Add your own events: front porch parties, garage sales, lemonade stands.

There's More? NOPA's eleven open blocks are just the east end of the Sunday Streets route. Check BIKE NOPA tomorrow for everything planned to the west for Alamo Square, the Fillmore, and Japantown. (A few teasers: Hawaiian Dance and Lion Dance Troupes, free batting cages, open mural painting, Rock the Bike pedal powered stage and live music).

The full program will be available in Wednesday's San Francisco Examiner and will be posted along the Sunday Streets route.

Final note: with everyone coming to NOPA, post Welcome to the North Panhandle window signs along the route and through the neighborhood. Copies available at the NOPNA meeting this Thursday night or download and print your own.

Lower Divisadero/NOPA Next Up for City's New Bicycle and Shop Incentives

After a successful first month in Hayes Valley, I Bike SF is coming to the Lower Divisadero and NOPA neighborhood. During the month of June, several local businesses and bicyclists from all over the city will participate in a win/win promotion. Patrons who bike will find a range of discounts at restaurants, cafes, bars, and all kinds of shops that post the I Bike SF sign at the entry or in windows. By showing their bike helmet or bike lock (update: make that "bike lock key"), cyclists might get 10% off purchases, a buy-one-get-one-free offer, free dessert with purchase of an entree, happy hour discounts, or something even more creative. Local merchants who participate in I Bike SF get lots of free promotion of their business by the city and local organizations during the month-long run.

BIKE NOPA recently spoke with Mari Hunter, the intern who developed the program for the Mayor's Climate Protection Initiative, at the Matching Half Cafe, one of the NOPA businesses set to participate in the program. "There's lots of carrot and no stick involved," Hunter said about I Bike SF. "We simply encourage bicycling and promote local businesses at the same time."

Mari Hunter promoting I Bike SF in Lower Divisadero/NOPA

Five merchants in Hayes Valley found the program so beneficial that they want to be year-round participants, according to Hunter. One Hayes Valley business -- the popular restaurant Supenkuche -- embraced the program so much that it placed the I Bike SF discount on its menu. Hunter thinks local businesses find I Bike SF really easy to join. "They can say yes right away without having to go to corporate headquarters for approval."

Eleven businesses along lower Divisadero -- from Haight to Turk -- and on Baker Street have joined the program and will be ready for anyone stopping by with a helmet or bike lock. Hunter expects more to participate early in the month as word spreads along the corridor, and she thinks Divisadero businesses might be even more successful with the program given the area's high bike traffic and several bike lanes.

Hunter helped develop I Bike SF with lots of dedication but no budget. "I'm effectively a volunteer," she said, "but we've received some money from different city departments." The list of collaborators for the program is daunting: the Mayor's Office, SF Environment, the Municipal Transportation Agency, the Office of Small Business, the Office of Economic and Workforce Development, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau, and the Golden Gate Restaurant Association. Hunter reported that all the organizational reps had been "really excellent" to work with. "They pipe in where they have the most experience."

For a full listing of all the participating businesses, check the I Bike SF website June 1st. Merchants can contact Mari Hunter at 415-554-6556 and at Mari.Hunter@sfgov.org .

Women Who Bike: Rose Johnson

Rose Johnson: another day of biking

Women Who BIKE!: Rose (2nd from left)

Photos by Rose

Women Who Bike is a collaborative effort by BIKE NOPA and Bikes And The City that features San Francisco women and their bicycles. Each Monday and Wednesday check both blogs for the experiences, stories, and ideas that women who bike the city want to share with you.

What's your style of biking?

Efficient. Depending on my mood, how late I am, and my energy level, I choose routes that accommodate my needs. On a sunny day there is nothing I love more than a cruise down the Wiggle. When I am tired, I avoid the hills and enjoy the granny gear. On a sunny Saturday morning the Sausalito hill is nothing. But most of the time, I bike standing up.

How often do you bike and what for?

I ride my bike everyday, almost everywhere I go. I bike because I can and because I believe in alternative forms of transportation, a low-cost life style, and participation. My bicycle is not only my main form of sustainable travel, but it is also my load wagon. I like to see how much stuff I can fit on the back. By using busted tubes creatively, I am able to carry all of my supplies for my small bike-powered business, Apothocurious, my camping gear for bike tours, and for my bike-less friends.

What can San Francisco do to encourage more women, including teens and younger, to bike?

I think with proper education to EVERYONE (cyclists, car drivers, and youth) we can share the road safely and enjoyably. When we prove that "it can be done," we empower everyone in being able to live a low-cost, low-impact, and low-stress life style.

I think when someone is able to experience bicycling around the city in a safe, fun, and supported environment, within a few rides they are hip to the ease, the possibility, and the new-found freedom that comes with bicycles.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays I lead an all-girl bike club at Hoover Middle School. The group is not a place without boys, but a place where females can express their uniquely feminine experiences without judgment of misunderstanding. They can ride slow, walk up hills, or ask questions that might otherwise have have overlooked or unheard in a bike club comprised mostly of boys. The group is unique in the way that the pace is more calm, the leadership is fluid, and, when I look back to check on the riders behind me, every rider is doing exactly what she should should be: riding safely.

What's one of your best times bicycling?

I live on my bicycle, and most of my friends do too! So much is shared, experienced, and grown when we travel together. For the past three years I have trained for the AIDS Life Cycle ride. I have only ridden once, but the training is what is special to me. Year One, my friend Nicole convinced me to jump on for an 80 mile trip to Occidental. This was when I was first getting into long distance cycling, and the feeling of accomplishment I got at the end of that trip was enough to know it was true love. Year Two I decided to do the ride, and I convinced my two besties to join me. It was the greatest thing to spend a Saturday riding 80 miles, catching up, preparing and appreciating each other. This two more besties have decided to do the ride. Watching them preparing, helping fundraise, and riding the Headlands has been full of so much beautiful quality time.

I surprise people when I bike when ...

I'm in my yellow vest with ten kids in tow.

My message to women who want to try biking:

We can do it!

Rose lives in NOPA and, as she says, "I heart the Panhandle...so hard."

*****

For more great stories, take a look at these previous Women Who Bike posts:

And stop by Bikes And The City every Monday and Wednesday for Meli's Women Who Bike. (Treat yourself and visit her site every day!)

If you or someone you know might like to join this series, please ask them to contact me at Michael7820@gmail.com

NOPA Greets Bay to Breakers Sprinters

An unusual sight: Fell Street open for fun and partying

The first men to reach NOPA

Kids waiting for their contingent along Fell Street

Maid races AND cleans

Minute men or uh briefed men?

Coffee-toting NOPA neighbors gathered along Fell Street at 8 am Sunday morning to cheer the first Bay to Breakers runners. Before the contestants appeared, several residents commented on the unique opportunity to see Fell Street clear of traffic. Within minutes the first two women sped past and continued along the Panhandle, followed by the first two men.

At the start of the race, mostly earnest runners packed the front with little trace of a costume. After another fifteen minutes, however, a few Supermen and Wonder Women along with men in their white underwear and women in their pink Baby Dolls matched the pace. A group of early teens cheered when "the first naked man" ambled along.

Within an hour the party crowds grouped together, six packs replacing the coffee mugs. The annual "especially-in-San Francisco" festivities were underway.

NOPA Bikes to Work...Especially on Bike to Work Day 2010 This Thursday

NOPA's Rick Boardman All Ready in BTWD 2010 Tee

Everyday bike energizer station: Central Coffee & Tea @ Central & Hayes

Ali (left), owner of bike-friendly Central Coffee, walks or bikes to work every day

Rick Boardman has volunteered for Bike to Work Day programs in London, Edinburgh, and down the San Francisco peninsula but never for San Francisco's own version of the Biggest Biking Day of the Year. All that changes this Thursday, May 13th, when Rick will help fuel hundreds of bicyclists at a special Energizer Station at 12th and Market Streets.

As bicyclists spin along the new smooth green bike lanes on Market, Rick and other volunteers will give a shout and offer free coffee, energy bars, fruit, and unique Bike to Work Day (BTWD) bags filled with essential bike stuff (you'll want to stop to get yours and find out what's inside). He'll also encourage bikers to join the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition to support the group's top-notch advocacy efforts to make city streets more livable for all. Rick will be wearing one of the perks for signing up on BTWD: the cool color graphic T.

"I want to do my bit, meet other cyclists, and enjoy the city waking up in the morning," Rick said of his volunteering. "This year it will be even more special with new green stripes on Market Street." For the past five years, Rick joined the SF2G (San Francisco to Google) ride for BTWD. "Usually 50-60 people rode together and we stopped at refresher stations in the different cities along the way to Google." Rick now freelances, offering his expertise in user experience research. His new daily schedule allows more stops at two of his favorite NOPA coffee spots: Central Coffee, Tea, and Spice just down the block at the corner of Central and Hayes and the Matching Half Cafe at Baker and McAllister. Rick also helps organize the monthly NOPA VELO bicycle rides.

NOPA cyclists will be helping in all the BTWD activities. Several will be forming a Bike Convoy, meeting at 7:45 a.m. at 2095 Hayes at Clayton (Sacred Grounds Coffee House) and riding as a group downtown. In addition to Rick Boardman, NOPA biker Dale Danley will be stationed at the 12th and Market Energizer Stop from 7:30 to 9:30 a.m. For the Bike Away from Work, look for NOPA cyclists at Fell and Masonic in the Panhandle for more cool bike give-aways from 5 - 7 p.m. But don't forget the after-party at the Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell Street, from 6-10 p.m. Everyone will be there!

For all things BTWD check here at the SFBC site. Plan your morning or evening commute to get the bike out -- or borrow or rent one -- and join the fun Thursday. It will be one fine day to Bike to Work.

Where will you be on bicycling's Biggest Day of the Year?

The After Party for SFBC members

Murals of NOPA: Divisadero Destination

Divisadero, a bit out of this world at McAllister

Before the street makeover, the artist envisioned something better

Four-eyed bananas? Six-eyed pineapples? Only on Divisadero

Sometimes greater livability requires a frothy dose of whimsy. Or perhaps this artist envisioned something for Divisadero that no one else has considered. I have friends who worked for a revitalized Divisadero corridor fifteen years ago. They either failed in their efforts or planted very slow-to-sprout seeds. And now look: Divisadero the destination.

Other entries in the Murals of NOPA series.

One Very Good Reason to Keep Fell & Masonic Crossing Safe

SFBC hits the rush hour on the Panhandle Path to urge more SFPD enforcement

Every bicyclist, pedestrian, and motorist who crossed or traveled through the Fell and Masonic intersection late Thursday afternoon deserved safe passage, but one in particular caught my attention. Declan, a young NOPA resident, was out with his dad for a good spin on his Skuut along the Panhandle Path, including using the crosswalk at Masonic. He managed the crossing quite well.

For Declan's safety and for that of all bicyclists and pedestrians using the crosswalk, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition set up a "streetside outreach" station at the corner of Fell and Masonic late Thursday afternoon. SFBC has urged the SF Police Department to increase enforcement with ticketing of red light running, especially for drivers turning left from Fell onto Masonic against the light. Dozens of bicyclists signed a petition requesting such action from SFPD.

Cheryl Brinkman, an SFBC volunteer at the station, believes it's important to remind people to keep making this intersection a safety priority. "For myself, I watch like a hawk for cars making illegal turns when I cross through here," she said. NOPA resident Rose Johnson reported that she has problems with red light runners "all the time" at this location.

As reported earlier in BIKE NOPA, SFPD Park Station launched a special Task Force of motorcycle officers this week to monitor the district's most dangerous intersections.

Last weekend Captain Teresa Barrett said Park Station officers ticketed 13 motorists and one bicyclist for running red lights at the Fell and Masonic intersection.

Ride It or Walk It, But Do the Wiggle

Perhaps you thought the raved-about Wiggle was a recent hill-dodging bike route to get to NOPA and the Panhandle from most anywhere east. Maybe you didn’t know that much. Cast aside all assumptions and join expert Joel Pomerantz for his all-things-Wiggle “zig-zaggy” tour on two wheels or on foot. Expect plenty of natural and social history along the way.

Be transported back to the days when these very blocks were part of the San Souci Valley, with the inevitable sand dunes but also a good share of ponds and creeks. The real San Francisco natives, the Ohlone people, used this route, according to Pomerantz, “long before it became known by the ridiculous moniker.” Joel doesn’t shy from the ridiculous tag. He’s the one to first popularize the term “Wiggle” in a 1994 issue of the SF Bike Coalition’s Tubular Times. Not for a full decade did the Wiggle name really stick.

Do the Wiggle Bike Tour
When: Saturday, Feb. 13, 2010
Time: 12:45 to 2:30 pm
Meet: At the Bike Mural, Duboce Bikeway, Corner of Duboce & Church Streets
Cost: Donations appreciated, but no one turned away for lack of funds

Do the Wiggle WALKING Tour
When: Sunday, February 28, 2010
Time: 1 pm to 2:3 pm
Meet: At the Bike Mural, Duboce Bikeway, Corner of Duboce & Church Streets
Cost: Donations appreciated, but no one turned away for lack of funds

More info on this tour and others, see ThinkWalks here.