Update: The SFMTA board voted to implement the new protected side-running bike lanes starting early 2025. There were many people in support of the center bike lane at the November 2024 meeting, and a few supporters of the side-running lanes too, but it had likely already been decided on.
If you’ve come here and still want to save the center, it can’t hurt to make your opinion known. Send this one tap email to get your opinion on record for our politicians. More info below.
The moment I turn onto Valencia Street and enter the center running bike lane I suddenly feel at ease. The intensity of biking through city traffic melts away, and I can ride my bike with peace and safety no matter what’s happening in the other car lanes on the edges of the street. This is what it feels like to ride a bicycle in the Valencia Street center bike lane. It feels peaceful, safe, and easy.
When I’m riding with a friend, we can ride side by side and have a chat if it isn’t too crowded or rush hour. I don’t fear for their safety as well as my own (as a bike advocate I’m often taking people on some of their first rides). We can ride straight and simple and if we need to turn we can stop in one of the turn boxes.
This feeling of safety and ease happened almost immediately, although I was initially unsure of the feeling and not fully trusting myself…mostly because of all the complaints I heard about from others. Wasn’t I supposed to hate this bike lane? Why does it feel SO GOOD?
Most people I talk to these days agree with me. They love the Valencia center bike lane. They may not have loved it at first (who could with that construction nightmare?). There were some growing pains, but now it’s grown on them and it’s the best bike lane in town! Not to mention the public safety enhancement of emergency vehicles able to use the bike lane.
If you’re already on my side, the next section is for you. Send an email to make your support known! Afterward, I’ll detail the terrible side-running bike lane design slated to replace the center lane, along with addressing the complaints from the Valencia merchants and other problems. So if you’re still in doubt, keep reading.
Call to Action: Let’s Save the Valencia Center Bike Lane!
Share your support of the Valencia Center Bike Lane with a one tap email! (or write the email manually below)
The side-running bike lanes to replace the center bike lane have been designed and were approved at the SFMTA board meeting on November 19th, 2024. The SFBC was also at the meeting advocating for better biking & rolling in general. The side-running bike lanes are significantly worse than center lane is better in many ways that you can read more about in the next section. Merchants continued to make claims in the meeting that the center bike lane was bad for business, despite evidence to the contrary. They made a believable case, but I don’t think the center bike lane is the biggest culprit. I think it was the construction debacles along with changes to how people normally use the street that just needed time to process. We’ll see if anything changes as side-running bike lanes get installed.
If you still want to show your support for the Valencia center bike lane, here’s an email template you can send to some important leaders. Tap here to paste all the important emails in your email app of choice, or copy & paste this list: MayorLondonBreed@sfgov.org, Board.of.Supervisors@sfgov.org, MTABoard@sfmta.com, jeffrey.tumlin@sfmta.com, viktoriya.a.wise@sfmta.com, leanne.nhan@sfmta.com, kimberly.leung@sfmta.com, alexandra.c.sweet@sfgov.org
If the mailto link isn’t working properly or you don’t have mailto setup, here’s the message body you can copy & paste for your email. I suggest you add a bit about who you are and where you live to help bring some personalization to your email.
Hello, I heard that the Valencia center running bike lane is under threat and I wanted to express my support for it. The Valencia center bike lane makes me feel safe and at ease, and I’m concerned that the side-running bike lanes will increase the conflict between pedestrians, bicycles, cars, parklets, and cause more dangerous double parking in the vehicle lanes. Please let’s keep the Valencia Center Running Bike Lane and instead continue to make safety improvements and merchant corridor enhancements to what we have in the ground!
Feel free to add your own Valencia center bike lane experience and change things accordingly. This process is similar to any kind of action you want to see for bike infrastructure improvements.
Side-Running Bike Lanes Will be Painful for Everyone
First of all, side-running protected bike lanes in general are not bad. They’ve been implemented successfully on many streets, they’ll be protected from cars and will generally be better than the historic painted bike lanes of Valencia Street in the 2010s, but the center bike lane is so much better.
Take a look at this mind boggling design that I saw at the community meeting. The SFMTA street designers are just doing the best they can with the constraints put on them, but clearly this is not better than the simple wide center lane!
The SFMTA has clearly implied that the side-running bike lanes will be worse for everyone. Some notable things that will be worse:
- 41% fewer parking spaces than the center running bike lane. I believe this also means fewer loading zones. Opponents of the center bike lane include people who are unhappy about parking, but I’m not sure they realize that we’re never going back to the historic painted bike lane and the center bike lane preserved many parking spots.
- Narrower bike lanes as the bike lane squeezes by parklets and zig zags nearby parked cars. This sounds like an absolute mess.
- More conflict between bikes, pedestrians, and cars at every intersection.
- Cars turning right are at much higher risk of right hooking a bicyclist, and cause waiting cars to potentially go into oncoming traffic.
- Pedestrians need to cross the bike lane to get to some parklets.
- Pedestrians will walk in the bike lane since it’s right next to the sidewalk.
- Car doors might still be close enough to the bike lane to door cyclists.
- Enables dangerous double parking forcing vehicles to go into oncoming traffic to pass.
One huge issue with the side-running bike lane on this street is the parklets. Many business owners have parklets that make for a better experience for everyone. Parklets are amazing. The issue comes when only some businesses have parklets, and some want them sidewalk side, and some don’t mind if the parklet is installed across a bike lane. I dislike parklets that require pedestrians to cross a bike lane, since it causes a huge conflict point. Side-running bike lanes on Valencia simply don’t work as well.
What happens when a sidewalk adjacent parklet closes? Will we have to rethink the entire design or have an abandoned parklet? And it won’t be available for parking anymore because it’s across a protected bike lane (unlike a street adjacent parklet). Again, if you care about parking & loading then the center running bike lane design is much better for that.
The other huge issues are loading zones and double parking. The few remaining parking spots may be mostly loading zones, but much of the loading may simply be done in the vehicle traffic lanes. This forces waiting cars to go around and into oncoming traffic making the street more dangerous for everyone. I like the single vehicle traffic lane that prevents people from double parking because they know there is no escape from the single traffic lane for anyone behind them. This ensures usage of the loading zones or loading is done on side streets.
Most importantly, with side-running bike lanes we’ll lose a huge, wide space in the center for average daily bicycle ridership to increase. The center lane has so much space you can almost fit 4 people riding along it at the same time. This will allow Valencia Street to become the biking haven that we know it can become. The narrow side-running bike lanes will be at capacity during rush hour almost immediately.
Overall, the side-running bike lanes will NOT be like many of the other protected bike lanes you’ve seen in the rest of the city. They will be narrow and twisty with lots of conflict points. Tell the politicians we don’t want them!
The Recent History of the Valencia Center Bike Lane & Merchant Opposition
The bike lanes on Valencia Street of San Francisco are always contentious, and the Valencia center bike lane pilot is no different. As a popular area for merchants day and night and an important arterial bicycle street through the Mission, there’s a lot of people to please. The SFMTA took a big leap in implementing a novel center bike lane on such an important street, and I’m here to tell you this leap has paid off with one of the safest and most effective bike lanes in San Francisco. The problem is, the initial pushback momentum was so strong that less than 6 months into the new center bike lane it was already slated to be removed. WE CAN SAVE IT IF WE ACT NOW!
Now that it’s been a full year since it’s inception and we have seen the results of the pilot program, we need to keep the center bike lane in place and reject plans to rebuild it in a different, inferior way. The center bike lane provides ample space for increased bike ridership as well as side-by-side riding, reduces conflict between cars, pedestrians, bikes, and other micromobility and is vastly better than side-running bike lanes that will zig zag around parklets, cause more conflicts during turns and at parklets, and end up with less parking (which is ironically something people have complained about with the center lane design).
Some of you may have read my previous post about How to Use the Valencia Street Center Bike Lane where I didn’t make sweeping judgements and instead shared how to use the bike lane regarding some of its newness and complexities. Since humans naturally dislike change, it was normal for people to resist the new design.
Now that the pilot is officially over a year later (even though the pushback was so strong initially that the pilot was deemed a failure even before it finished), we can truly look at the data and see that:
- Merchants were not harmed in the creation of this bike lane. Thanks to Mission Local for some great reporting on this:
- The bike lane was just a scapegoat and not the reason for slow business
- Businesses doing better than they thought
- New businesses coming to Valencia
- For folks saying the center bike lane makes it harder to stop in the middle of the block, that is absolute nonsense from people who don’t ride bicycles. It’s easy to escape the center bike lane mid block or simply go back half a block when you see a place. A bicycle is so fast for half a block the extra time is barely noticeable. I find establishments easier to see from the center rather than from directly next to a row of parked cars.
- The feeling of safety on Valencia Street while riding a bicycle has greatly increased (my own judgement and talking with other riders)
- Collisions went up immediately after installation and are now about the same as pre-pilot.
- Double parking has been reduced
- Side by side bike riding is enabled
Most of the backlash against the bike lane has been proved to be unfounded and based mostly on desires for parking…which ironically Valencia street will have EVEN LESS PARKING if the center lane is taken out in favor of side-running protected bike lanes.
Unfortunately, the average daily bicycle volumes have not yet increased much from pre-pilot data. I think this is mostly due to the bad reputation of the center lane even among cyclists, and with time and safety enhancements these numbers will grow. The Side-running lanes are so narrow and wild I doubt we’ll even be able to see bicycle volumes increase as it will be at capacity.
The Center Lane Pilot Program Was Improved over the first 3 months
Another thing people don’t realize is that feedback in the first few months was taken into account, and changes were made to accommodate people’s needs.
This is also a PILOT PROGRAM, which means for the bicyclists who don’t think it’s safe enough…it would be much safer if this were allowed to be a permanent bike lane solution. I’ve talked with employees from the SFMTA who have told me that this was a pilot quick build and many things could be improved if the center bike lane stays.
As a pedestrian on Valencia, I can enjoy all the shops and restaurants with full separation from the fast moving bicycles. There are no conflict areas between the bicycles and the parklets. With the new potential side-running bike lane designs, I would have to cross the bike lane to get to some parklets, and there would be other potential conflict points not present with the center running bike lane.
As a driver in a car, Valencia is currently easy to drive on and entirely conflict free with bicycles. I can turn right without risk of right hooking a bicycle, and left turns are prohibited so that’s easy too. The first time I drove on Valencia with the center bike lane I forgot I couldn’t turn left, but that is just a growing pain. People know not to double park since they block the entire lane of vehicle traffic, so there’s no need to go around people dangerously double parking. The side-running bike lane designs would put the cars in the center and drivers would again double park since they know people can go around in the opposing lane of traffic, increasing the stress for everyone.
As an emergency vehicle, the Valencia Center Lane is now another huge improvement. Bicycles and other micromobility have no problem moving out of the center bike lane to let emergency vehicles pass. They never get stuck, and having a fire lane that’s almost guaranteed to be available regardless of traffic is an improvement of emergency services.
Improvements Necessary for Center Bike lane
The center bike lane isn’t perfect and there is room for improvement. However, these improvements are very possible and likely if we collectively decide that the center bike lane is the path forward for Valencia Street. Here are a few:
- Better protection for the bike lane and entrances and exits to prevent vehicles from going into the bike lane (but allowing emergency vehicles). This can include beautification like art & plants as well.
- Improved transitions into and out of the bike lane at 15th and 23rd streets. Of course if this center bike lane is accepted as a success we could get a center lane running the entire length of the street that would make this problem disappear.
- Better signage & protection for turn boxes.
- Pedestrianizing Valencia Street – this is a bigger topic, but the center bike lane is a better step towards this ultimate goal of Valencia Street not having cars on it at all. Imagine a pedestrian only street with a 2 way bike lane in the center. Think of how great for business this would be! This would be much better than having bikes going in narrow lanes between all the parklets and pedestrians.
I’ve also talked to bike riders who dislike the center bike lane, but I find their grievances about it to minor and easily remedied. The Valencia center bike lane in its current state is a pilot program after all, and if we keep the center bike lane we can make tweaks and changes to continue to enhance it. I’ve talked with SFMTA employees about the potential plans they had to increase safety and reduce conflict even more, and that’s exciting to hear!
Some people were frustrated with the process of how this center lane got in the ground in the first place. People who have been involved in a better Valencia street were blindsided by this design and felt like their feedback was ignored as the SFMTA went ahead and made an experimental center bike lane. I empathize with the people who initially thought the center lane was a bad idea, but I don’t think there was ever enough evidence to truly know.
After seeing the side-running bike lane design I appreciate how the SFMTA made a big bet on safe infrastructure. It’s now clear that the side-running designs were less than ideal, and I hope we can all see the opportunity of a center bike lane as the starting point for something even better.
A Safer Valencia Street for Everyone
The Valencia Street center running bike lane should stay in place and be improved upon. Tap here to save the Valencia Center Bike Lane with a one tap email! Although the side-running bike lanes have already been approved at the Nov 20224 meeting, I Think it’s worth making known any center lane support that still exists.
The sad thing about this situation is that it shows that San Francisco is still a car-first city, and we’re not willing to do the hard things to make change to a people-first city happen. The merchants on Valencia suffered from the construction and change in design of the street, and the city should’ve helped them get through this transition time while preparing people who drive to use Valencia in a different way (aka not driving directly to your destination, but instead driving to a parking garage and walking around), and eventually providing more people first spaces we’ll all learn to love.
I hope that we can see more bold moves in the future that keep merchant corridors alive and well during the inevitable transition to a people-first city.
One thought on “Save The Valencia Center Bike Lane. It’s Better Than You Think.”
Thank you for this very insightful piece. Enjoyed meeting, and riding w/you at the Bike Party, and have sent along my support to the civic leaders/decision makers.
Rode along Valencia today, and again, find the center lane so easy, efficient, and enjoyable up to and including the slip lanes w/the green bike light!