A detour was recently established for a motorcycle trail blocked through the Main Rehabilitation of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission Force, a water allocation on the south side of the Embarcadero between Broadway and Washington. As the main symbol shows, in the past the city had blocked the lane without any plan on how cyclists should navigate the area.
From John Scarpulla of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission:
In collaboration with MTA, Port and Public Works, we have established a motorcycle detour to provide a direction of choice for cyclists along the Embarcadero. The new detour direction will inspire riders to detour to Embarcadero and Broadway before the Force Main assignment site, turn left on Davis Street on the existing motorcycle lane, turn left on Jackson Street, turn left on Washington Street and then reconnect to Embarcadero.
The map below shows the new cycle direction and existing pedestrian addresses around the allocation site. Motorcyclists who sit advancing through the Embarcadero in a short shared traffic lane can continue to do so.
The solution was created in reaction to the court cases of attorney Bruce Halperin, who travels around the area, and to the defense paintings of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition and others.
But Halperin told Streetsblog that the selected detour presented new problems. Broadway is a busy street in its own right, with no trace of motorcycles. “At least they’ve put up detour signs and complex warnings that the bike path is closed,” he added.
At the intersection with Broadway, cyclists are expected to take a two-step turn in Davis or temporarily navigate through moving traffic to make a traditional turn. Halperin, another attorney named Joey Babbitt, and Lee Hepner of supervisor Aaron Peskin complained about the risks of this segment for SFMTA and SFPUC.
The answer came here from Scarpulla. “To strengthen the protection of motorcycles on Broadway, SFMTA is implementing a Bike Box at the intersection of Broadway and Davis streets… SFMTA has shown that this is accelerating and aims to end it until the end of this week. He included the symbol below (of the city) to illustrate:
Streetsblog has a request on SFMTA for an update on the time when the box will be installed (yesterday there were no paintings on the street).
Babbitt, in another email to city officials shared with Streetsblog, asked why the Broadway parking lane cannot be changed to a committed and motorcycle road, at least on this short stretch. “There are two lanes for car traffic in one direction on Broadway, and this specific block has a huge parking lot. Removing some parking areas to protect motorcycles is surely the right thing to do,” Babbitt wrote. “Personally, I have to drive on Broadway for a day or two to get to Telegraph Hill and the amount of area that cars have on this stretch (up to Columbus) is disproportionate.”
“… The north look of Broadway deserves to accommodate a motorcycle trail to allow a two-step turn in Davis or even Battery,” Hepner wrote. But, according to Scarpulla’s response, this is irrelevant (will District 3 ever have lanes for motorcycles protected?) In favor of the aforementioned motorcycle box.
Some things remain uncertain: why weren’t there any motorcycle diversions as a component of the original traffic plan? And instead of providing a detour, why not divert cyclists for a few blocks to the shared trail across the street, as did the assignment for pedestrians (the route is shown in blue on the map)? “That’s what I originally advised as the most productive idea,” Halperin said. “They only put up some signs, but they did none of that, they opted for this detour to the roundabout, two blocks of which have motorcycle lanes in the domain of theArray gates.. I guess almost no one’s following the detour. “
Filed Under: Infrastructure for bicycles, bicycle, promoted