Summertime Weather Swells Turnout for NOPA's Sunday Streets

This time the weather was perfect -- sunny, warm and only a slight breeze -- for Sunday Streets in the Western Addition, NOPA, Alamo Square and the Fillmore. Today thousands of neighbors and friends from all over San Francisco gathered on several blocks open to walking, biking, games, painting, live music, dancing and claiming a sofa seat in the middle of the street.

Thanks to the organizers -- the amazing Livable City with Sunday Streets director Susan King, program coordinator Beth Byrne, the hundreds of volunteers with the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, and collaboration with the SF Municipal Transportation Agency -- for an amazing event where everyone could enjoy public spaces and envision a safer, more equitable way to share our streets.

For views of Summer Streets in NOPA 2010, check here.

Dad on Wheels: For Robbie Socks, San Francisco Is One of the Safer Cities to Ride Bikes with Kids

Image by Meli of Bikes And The City

Starting with an iBert: Robbie Socks and Son All Photos: Robbie Socks

On one of NOPA's busy bicycling blocks: Robbie Socks and sons

When did you start biking with your sons?

I started my oldest boy biking when he was about 2. Eli, my oldest, started on a Skuut. He can ride a bike without training wheels but often prefers to ride on a tandem bike with me. I've since started my younger boy biking with me in an iBert front-style bike seat at about 13 months. My boys are currently 4.5 and 16 months old. I bike with them because it's fun. Also, my oldest boy has a lot of energy, and biking is a great way to burn that energy in a positive way.

How often do you bike with your kids and where to?
I try and bike with them at least once a weekend, and i do take them on errands. I dropped off my youngest this morning to his nanny. It was about an 8 block ride; then i went to work.

What’s the best thing about biking with your kids?
The act of biking itself. Moving our legs, enjoying fresh air and exercising together.

What do you say to relatives or friends who think the streets of San Francisco are too risky for kids to bike?
I tell them that SF is one of the safer cities to ride bikes with kids. Motorists are more conscious of bicyclists here than in most places. Furthermore, the city and organizations like the Bicycle Coalition have recently made a lot of great improvement to the bike infrastructure.

What makes a route or street OK for your kids to bike?
I would say having a bike lane is very important. I try to only take my kids on streets with bike lanes. However, even streets with a bike lane can be scary, like Fell street. I don't think I would take my kids on it. There is just too much traffic on that road.

Is it even harder getting kids ready for trips if you’re traveling by bike?
No, not really. In fact it might be easier. My kids are never very excited about sitting in their seats in a car. They love to go on bike rides.

How often do you get to bike on your own?
I ride to work everyday, rain or shine, 5 days a week. It's one of the things that has keep us in the city. I couldn't imagine driving to work everyday in a car. It would be like death to me.

Any advice for other dads thinking about biking on their own or with their kids?
It's funny. A dad friend of mine who recently moved out of the city to Marin was complaining to me how his kids did not ride bikes yet. I couldn't understand his point. I mean we live two blocks from the Panhandle, a place I consider very kid and bike friendly. Fell street still scares me a little because it's like a highway in our city, but until gas reaches 10 bucks a gallon I don't think that's going to change much.

*****

For previous BIKE NOPA posts in the Dads on Wheels series, check here. And don't forget more dads biking at Bikes And The City.

Remembering Sunday Streets. A real San Francisco experience: walking, biking, skating in the streets, sometimes up hills and even if it was drizzling. Great to see so many dads, moms, and kids on wheels on our neighborhood streets.

East End, West End: DPW Gets Sunday Streets Route Smooth; SFBC Good Roads Reports The Hazards

Persistent sinkhole filled for now on Grove Street near Lyon

DPW road crews repaired the hazards two days after SFBC filed 311 request

Block of Steiner just south of Geary had a dozen nicely spaced deep gaps

A hard-edged 30 ft long pavement drop previously here along newly-turfed Kimbell Playground

No one wants Sunday Streets walkers and bikers twisting ankles or bike wheels while out having a good time Sunday, September 19th. The SF Bike Coalition's Good Roads volunteers zeroed in on Western Addition blocks that will host thousands of San Franciscans, found the potholes and cracks, "turned 'em in" to 311, and DPW road crews did the rest. Sinkholes filled (for now) on Grove Street in the North Panhandle, a nasty series of deep gashes on Steiner just south of Geary smoothed over, and an odd-but-dangerous drop from one pavement level to another 30 feet along the Kimbell Playground on Steiner no longer a threat to walkers and bikers. Welcome to the Western Addition, Sunday Streets!

Dads on Wheels: J.J. Strahle Rides with Cobalt

Image: Meli of Bikes And The City

First two-wheel ride in the park

First trailer ride to the ocean

Look what we got on Craigslist

JJ with Cobalt in Windy City

BIKE NOPA and Bikes And The City get the momentum going on our new collaborative series, Dads on Wheels. Every Tuesday on both sites find San Francisco dads who bike with their kids for transportation and fun.

J.J. Strahle had the best of reasons for delaying his responses for this series. He explained that he and his wife "just got home from the hospital today with our newest bicyclist this afternoon." I like these early starts with bicycling! J.J. knows what to do when his "newest" is ready; he's been bicycling with his son Cobalt for a few years now.

When did you start biking with Cobalt?
He's 5-1/2, and we started bicycling with him in a bike trailer when he was about 2-1/2. It was mainly for recreation and weekend exercise and soon became a major mode of daily commute transportation for my wife and son.

How often do you bike with him now?
We try to get out as much as possible. I work long days on the peninsula and with afterschool activities all over the city and being on a tight schedule, it's not always conducive to cycling. For the time being, and with him on his own 2-wheeler, bicycling is more for fun. We will still, occasionally, take the trail-a-bike down to the ball park to take in a game, however.

How did you start biking with Colbalt?
We started off with an el-cheapo trailer from Craigslist. After we went on more outings and my wife got a new bike for commuting to work, we purchased a new Burley. When he was around 4, I found a trail-a-bike on CL and by age 4-1/2, he was using it daily for commuting to and from preschool. He received a 2-wheeler for his 5th birthday, and it only took a couple of times on training wheels before we took them off. Once off, he took off in a breeze and hasn’t looked back.

What’s the best thing about biking with him?
Exercise, time together, fresh air.

What do you say to relatives or friends who think San Francisco streets aren't safe for kids to bike?
They are both right and wrong. I also drive a car every day, so I know and appreciate being communicative and predictable on a bike (as well as in a car). I try to stick to designated paths and routes as much as possible. When it is not possible, I try to take less-congested streets. We will ride (slowly) on the sidewalk if the streets are not safe. In general, however, I feel pretty safe as long as we are smart, courteous, visible, wearing helmets and following the rules of the road.

What makes a street OK for you and your son to bike?
A street without cars is preferred, e.g., GG Park on Sundays. I try to stick to designated routes. I don’t know the classes of bike lanes off the top of my head, but we stay to designated paths and routes whenever possible, even if it is “out of the way” or “less convenient” to do so. For example, I will occasionally ride the Fell street route between the Wiggle and our house, but I also understand that cars drive close by at 25 mph, so most of the time I will make the short climb up to Hayes to head west.

Is it even harder getting kids ready for trips if you’re traveling by bike?
Harder than what? Than a car? Sure. Cobalt likes riding with us, even in the rain, but sometimes it’s harder to get him motivated to take the bike over the car. But that’s mostly when he’s tired or it’s cold. He loves taking the trail-a-bike out to the zoo, for example, even in the cold and fog.

How often do you bike on your own?
Not as much as I’d like to. When I can get away with it schedule-wise or because my car is in the shop, I will do the bike-train-bike commute, but that takes me an extra 45 minutes to an hour each way. On the weekends, I prefer to leave the car parked in the garage and bike anywhere I need to in order to run errands. My wife is the bike-commuter of the family…she works downtown.

Any advice for dads who are thinking about biking on their own or with their kids?
Seriously? Just do it (or at least try it). It’s easy! I just gave that advice to a dad yesterday. It’s a great way to get yourself and your kids some exercise. And for us, the transition to a big-kids bike was a snap. Bicycling in SF is really pretty easy and convenient when it comes down to it. The Bike Coalition and MTA have done a great job in the last couple of years bringing visibility and respect to riders and that helps make the move from biking as an alternate form of transportation to simply another way to get around.

For previous posts in the Dads on Wheels series, check here.

Dads, moms, kids: go the distance with your bikes on car-free Sunday Streets this summer. Next up: Golden Gate Park and the Great Highway, August 22; and the Western Addition, Sept. 19, with 11 blocks open through NOPA. More info on Sunday Streets here.

Dads don't have all the fun. Check BIKE NOPA's Women Who Bike series. And more women on wheels at Bikes And The City.

Soaked Surface Stalls Smooth Spins: JFK Drive Repave Update

Can't wait until all of JFK Drive is smooth like this to the Great Highway

The work stops here for now at 30th Avenue

If you've biked JFK Drive west of Crossover Drive these last few weeks, you never want the smooth spinning to end. And then it does, right about at 30th Avenue. In the midst of biking bliss, the old cracked, ridged, mogul-seeming surface re-appears. If you caught our recent post here, you know it's all about the weather and the winter rains. But haven't we had a clear and dry patch lately?

Rick Thall, Project Manager of the Recreation and Parks Department, provided BIKE NOPA with the back story. "I had hoped that we could get another section of paving done during this dry stretch, but no such luck," Thall wrote in an email.* He explained that both the roadway and the ground below is holding too much moisture. The soaked "under-surface" is an important factor because the repaving involves adding a layer of fabric to the road and then paving over it. "This fabric minimizes current cracks in the road that 'telegraph' through to the new layer of asphalt," Thall wrote. He added, "The main source of failure with this method is from moisture trapped under the fabric."

Recreation and Park is right with the city's cyclists (and motorists) in wanting the route to the Great Highway completed. "As much as I want to get the rest of this paved as soon as possible," Thall wrote, "Paving funds are limited so we need to make sure we follow the proper measures and make sure this paving lasts."

Check the weather forecast and note that rain is expected this weekend. What the repaving effort really needs is a stretch of sunny, clear days so the road bed, the surface and below, dries out. When conditions permit, Thall expects the repaving to be completed in three more stages. Celebrations pending!

* BIKE NOPA quoted Thall, with his permission, from an email he sent to the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition in response to an inquiry about repaving progress.

No More McAllister Waves

A Smooth Saturday Surprise at McAllister and Van Ness.

Safer for everyone, easier to share the road, and no more liability claims waiting to happen.

Everyone can appreciate the new, smooth pavement of the McAllister Street / Van Ness Avenue intersection, but bicyclists especially will welcome a much safer street crossing. For cyclists who opt out of the slalom down Golden Gate between Broderick and Divisadero for the speed rush downtown, McAllister provides a tamer but direct route into the Civic Center and, with a jag, onto Market Street. Yet McAllister is no smooth sailing, especially at the Franklin and Van Ness intersections.

Cyclists must dodge a large sunken manhole while crossing Franklin Street eastbound and then prepare for what I cursed as the "McAllister Waves" in the Van Ness intersection -- a several foot wide area where the asphalt had been been "pushed" into a series of deep, broad ripples. To stay within the bikeway and avoid motorists and especially the #5 Muni bus behind or alongside them, cyclists had to negotiate the waves without benefit of surfing gear. The jumbled surface made crossing the intersection difficult and dangerous.

Saturday morning the McAllister waves looked more like a smooth, sandy beach. Overnight road crews had re-surfaced all the intersection. (The waves weren' t the only surface defects in the lanes of traffic). Now the crossing is smooth and safer, allowing cyclists to focus on traffic without risking a nasty spill or worse. Thanks Dept. of Public Works road crews! (Now, about that sunken manhole cover at McAllister and Franklin ... ).

It's beyond me why motorists so seldom report the gaping craters that chew their tires and damage alignments or why pedestrians tolerate wide cracks and crumbled surfaces in several of the city's crosswalks and sidewalks. Bicyclists have reported more than 1300 potholes, cracks, and craters to 311 during the last 18 months through the Good Roads program of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. We can all be the city's "eyes on the streets and sidewalks" by turning in potholes or other defects in the roadway through 311, either by phone or online.

A2B Bicycling in Copenhagen and San Francisco

A little bike parking in Copenhagen. Photo by SaraXg on Flickr.

And a little more. Photo by MyLSD on Flickr.

Mikael Colville-Andersen. Photo by BikePortland.org on Flickr.

"This is all people want...It doesn't matter if we're on foot, on a bicycle, or in a car, we just want to get there quick," explained Mikael Colville-Andersen, bicyclist ambassador and buzzed-about blogger from Copenhagen. "We're rivers. We will find the quickest route."

In the last few months, urban planners and livable city advocates from the Netherlands and Denmark have shared with Americans what worked, what didn't, and why we should try harder when it comes to encouraging alternative modes of transportation and use of public spaces. Colville-Andersen is on an American tour to describe why 56% of Copenhagen residents ride bikes. He stopped in San Francisco last Friday for a presentation at SPUR, following a similar talk the night before in Portland. (Yes, they stopped at that platinum-level biking city first).

His message in both cities is similar to what he presents on his blog Copenhagenize, one of the hottest bicycling blogs around. (And, if you've got the time after your stops here at BIKE NOPA and at Streetsblog, check out BikePortland for more on Colville-Andersen's talk and tour sponsored by the Danish Embassy.

"A2Bism" is what Colville-Andersen calls the approach to increasing bicycle use by making it easy and fast to get from Point A to Point B. San Francisco is already off and running with the concept. Leah Shahum, Executive Director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, told a recent City Arts & Lecture audience that one of the main reasons she bikes is because it's the best way for her to get from Point A to B. She added, "It's a big thing for me to be on time. With bicycling I can do that."

Talk to a NOPA bicyclist and you hear the same thing. Mariana Parreiras barrels down Golden Gate -- but, yes, observes the stop signs -- because it's the quickest commute to school. Jarie Bolander bikes from his NOPA home to the Caltrain station because "I can get there as fast on my bike as I can by motorcycle or car." Marc Caswell takes McAllister for a quick connection to his Market Street office, and and J.P. Collins takes Masonic Avenue because "it's the most direct route." They love biking, but mostly it gets them where they need to go.

Colville-Andersen believes his practical A2Bism reflects how Copenhagen cyclists treat riding. He explains there's not much of a biking subculture in the city. There's more "mainstream bicycling," to the point that bicycling has become an almost boring means of transportation. For more on the lack of a bike subculture, read the BikePortland post. Find out if you're at the point where you think of your bike the same way you do a vacuum cleaner.

MTA's Bond Yee on SFgo, Fell/Oak Speeds, Possible Bike Lane on Fell

Bond M. Yee, Director of Traffic Engineering for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), provided NOPA and Alamo Square residents last week with an update on the agency's plans for a range of neighborhood concerns centered on Fell and Oak Streets. As previously reported here, SFMTA will undertake no further installation of the SFgo signs, as Yee wrote in the October 16th email, "until there is further discussion with the Supervisors and, we hope, a mutually agreed solution." Yee affirmed MTA's resolve to work with Supervisor Mirkarimi's office to "engage the community" to discuss alternatives to the signs.

Yee also detailed agency plans for increasing pedestrian and bicyclist safety and for slowing traffic along the Fell/Oak corridor:

• The Oak Street SFgo sign will be removed, but Yee provided no date for doing so.
• MTA will consider a smaller, more neighborhood-friendly SFgo sign for Fell Street with a new pole structure as well as other alternatives.
• MTA will "evaluate travel speeds and potentially reduce traffic signal cycle length during evening hours in an attempt to address the speeding concerns." MTA's intentions here are unclear: Will the evaluation only be directed at later evening hours, after the commute, and, if so, why focus on the time period with the fewest number of pedestrians and bicyclists and motorists using the Fell/Oak corridor? Was Yee proposing to look at the evening commute and not the morning commute? No timeline was provided for when this evaluation will be undertaken.
• MTA will "evaluate the possibility of removing a travel lane on Fell Street between Baker and Shrader Streets and replace it with a bicycle lane to alleviate the current congestion at the shared pedestrian and bicycle path along the Panhandle." This option will certainly require MTA to "engage the community" as it touches so many other issues: the need to upgrade the current Panhandle Path, improvements to the southside Panhandle Path, removal of a traffic lane, and the need to slow traffic overall.
• As previously announced here, MTA "plans to install a new red light camera at Fell and Masonic." MTA traffic engineer Jack Fleck informed neighbors of this decision at NOPNA's September 17th meeting. FIX Masonic and other advocacy groups, including the SF Bicycle Coalition, have urged installation of a red light camera at this location for several months to alleviate motorist's confusion with the bicycle/pedestrian light. Yee did not provide an installation date.

We have requested clarification from Yee's office about these issues and timelines.