Bicycling in San Francisco
A blogger highlights a real shortcoming in the all-too-common American approach to risk - the small-scale "pilot" which fails to account for the success in the thoughtful, yet radical.
What's worse, if the San Francisco's BikeShare experiment really is a mere 50 bikes and a tiny number of stations - that also increases, not decreases, the furore from existing bicycle rental businesses.
EDIT: The JCDecaux spokesman for Velib speaks of a minimum of 1 bike:200 residents required for system stability. For San Francisco that means at least 4000 bikes for a successful launch, assuming no specific targeted capacity for the tourists and daytime worker population. If a single bike unit (bike + docking station) is approximate 4 feet by 2 feet, that means a public spatial commitment of at least 32,000 sq feet. From the cumulative footprint of bus shelters, parking meters, and newspaper dispensers - I think my fair city can scrape together that kind of space with some clever thinking.
If a "pilot" stage method has to be used for SF, I suspect setting up a boundary that focuses on the historical NE quandrant of the city, with additional capacity along Embarcadero, the Mission, and Haight/Panhandle can be possible. Twin Peaks is an effective barrier to the casual or new cyclist, but there will be plenty of "leak" through Golden Gate Park.
As the SFBC reports: SF Takes Baby Step Towards Bike Sharing
Last week, Mayor Newsom announced that San Francisco will join over 100 cities in starting a bike sharing program to promote more short trips around the city by bike. SF's proposal consists of a small 50-bike pilot project, which is expected to grow into a citywide program. While we appreciate and share the Mayor's enthusiasm for bike sharing, we have reservations about how such a small-scale program can prove itself properly. The success of other bike share programs has been based on broad coverage of bikes, so that users can easily pick up and replace bikes. Plans to create a dense, citywide Bike Share program in San Francisco should not rest solely on the workings of this small-scale pilot program. We look at the success of the highly praised Velib' Bike-Sharing Program, which owes its success to the initial investment of 10,000 bikes at 750 stations, as the right model for San Francisco. Stay tuned for more on bike sharing.
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Video: Green Wave or Retiming Signals for Bike Speeds
Our good friends at Streetfilms made a short film about re-timing signals for bike speeds (or Green Wave) on Valencia Street. Retiming signals not only improves bicycle speeds, but results of a SF MTA study in October 2008 confirmed that synchronizing traffic signals for 12 mph (an ideal speed for bicycles) would increase actual traffic speeds during peak car commute periods by as much as 3.5 minutes. Read the full Valencia Street Green Wave Project story on the SF Streetsblog site.
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Also, the Tour of California is rolling through 16 Feb, including an opportunity to see the legendary Lance Armstrong. That only serves to remind me how far behind I am on my fitness plan. ;-)
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hehehehe
What's worse, if the San Francisco's BikeShare experiment really is a mere 50 bikes and a tiny number of stations - that also increases, not decreases, the furore from existing bicycle rental businesses.
EDIT: The JCDecaux spokesman for Velib speaks of a minimum of 1 bike:200 residents required for system stability. For San Francisco that means at least 4000 bikes for a successful launch, assuming no specific targeted capacity for the tourists and daytime worker population. If a single bike unit (bike + docking station) is approximate 4 feet by 2 feet, that means a public spatial commitment of at least 32,000 sq feet. From the cumulative footprint of bus shelters, parking meters, and newspaper dispensers - I think my fair city can scrape together that kind of space with some clever thinking.
If a "pilot" stage method has to be used for SF, I suspect setting up a boundary that focuses on the historical NE quandrant of the city, with additional capacity along Embarcadero, the Mission, and Haight/Panhandle can be possible. Twin Peaks is an effective barrier to the casual or new cyclist, but there will be plenty of "leak" through Golden Gate Park.
As the SFBC reports: SF Takes Baby Step Towards Bike Sharing
Last week, Mayor Newsom announced that San Francisco will join over 100 cities in starting a bike sharing program to promote more short trips around the city by bike. SF's proposal consists of a small 50-bike pilot project, which is expected to grow into a citywide program. While we appreciate and share the Mayor's enthusiasm for bike sharing, we have reservations about how such a small-scale program can prove itself properly. The success of other bike share programs has been based on broad coverage of bikes, so that users can easily pick up and replace bikes. Plans to create a dense, citywide Bike Share program in San Francisco should not rest solely on the workings of this small-scale pilot program. We look at the success of the highly praised Velib' Bike-Sharing Program, which owes its success to the initial investment of 10,000 bikes at 750 stations, as the right model for San Francisco. Stay tuned for more on bike sharing.
---
Video: Green Wave or Retiming Signals for Bike Speeds
Our good friends at Streetfilms made a short film about re-timing signals for bike speeds (or Green Wave) on Valencia Street. Retiming signals not only improves bicycle speeds, but results of a SF MTA study in October 2008 confirmed that synchronizing traffic signals for 12 mph (an ideal speed for bicycles) would increase actual traffic speeds during peak car commute periods by as much as 3.5 minutes. Read the full Valencia Street Green Wave Project story on the SF Streetsblog site.
---
Also, the Tour of California is rolling through 16 Feb, including an opportunity to see the legendary Lance Armstrong. That only serves to remind me how far behind I am on my fitness plan. ;-)
---
hehehehe