Guerrilla Bike Lanes: San Francisco Makes Illicit Infrastructure Permanent

I love 99% Invisible, but in my opinion this piece is far too generous to the actual SFMTA, who occasionally respond to the SFMTrA&#x27;s work reasonably (as covered in the article), but who usually just strip it wholesale, to the detriment of the safety of thousands of pedestrians and cyclists. For example, these markers on Folsom St helped improve safety considerably and were constructed in an incredibly professional way, but are now gone completely [1].<p>The group itself puts it best here [2]:<p>&gt; &quot;The SFMTA is glacially slow to install pedestrian and bicyclist safety infrastructure, yet was able to remove our simple safety improvements within a week,&quot; the group said in a statement sent to SFist. &quot;We call on SFMTA to immediately replace these pedestrian safety improvements with protection at or above the level installed by SFMTrA.&quot;<p>Everyone who walks or bikes in SF can atest to the truth of this statement firsthand. Progress _is_ being made, but it&#x27;s frustratingly slow.<p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sfmtra.org&#x2F;blog&#x2F;2016&#x2F;10&#x2F;26&#x2F;the-sfmta-removed-safety-infrastructure-on-folsom-st-and-they-need-an-email-from-you" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sfmtra.org&#x2F;blog&#x2F;2016&#x2F;10&#x2F;26&#x2F;the-sfmta-removed-safe...</a><p>[2] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;sfist.com&#x2F;2016&#x2F;10&#x2F;19&#x2F;sfmta_says_street_safety_improvemen.php" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;sfist.com&#x2F;2016&#x2F;10&#x2F;19&#x2F;sfmta_says_street_safety_improve...</a>

I&#x27;m all for this kind of citizen action. They&#x27;re volunteering their own time to improve public safety. Kind of like how neighborhood watch groups can supplement police, these volunteers are supplementing departments of transportation. Of course it&#x27;d be even better if they could do it without breaking the law, but I doubt there are rules in place to permit citizens to do their own DIY infrastructure improvements.<p>Also, unlike what some commenters think, this doesn&#x27;t really go against democracy. The cities where these groups work have embraced Vision Zero at least on paper, so they&#x27;re generally for these sorts of improvements. Government just tends to move slowly, and they often have to deal with NIMBY groups that are more concerned with keeping as many parking spaces as possible in their neighborhood than public safety.

When startups skirt entrenched and slow industries, it&#x27;s disruption; when bicyclists add traffic cones to already-defined bike lanes, it&#x27;s an affront to democracy.<p>Nice, HN commenters.

They mention New York in this as well, and Sixth avenue. It&#x27;s annoying to bike up due to the lack of a bike lane, but traffic is usually slow enough that you can get along pretty easily and safely. It&#x27;s also better than 8th avenue, which does have one - but is always filled with pedestrians. (And which seems to disappear around Port Authority, forcing bicyclists to go into traffic anyway.)<p>Luckily, you can usually take the Hudson River Greenway by cutting all the way west. It&#x27;s a more pleasant ride, but does take you out of your way, and once you get above 59th street, has limited access eastward and not a lot of signage to that effect.<p>If I don&#x27;t mind pedaling through traffic, I&#x27;ll take Sixth. If I&#x27;m angry and want to stay that way, I&#x27;ll take 8th. If I&#x27;ve got time to kill, I&#x27;ll take the greenway.

This seems related to the idea of the Desire Path[0], which some of us may have heard by the story of the &quot;architect who waited to see which pathways pedestrians would take through his&#x2F;her outdoor spaces, and then paved sidewalks to match those routes.&quot;[1]<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Desire_path" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Desire_path</a><p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.quora.com&#x2F;Who-was-the-architect-who-waited-to-see-which-pathways-pedestrians-would-take-through-his-her-outdoor-spaces-and-then-paved-sidewalks-to-match-those-routes" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.quora.com&#x2F;Who-was-the-architect-who-waited-to-se...</a>

I think it would be very good to have bike lanes more separated from the road. Safer for everyone that cars don&#x27;t accidentally use bike lanes and bikes don&#x27;t affect traffic. It reminds me of those articles that said j-walking is more safe than crossing at crosswalks. Paying attention is something people seem to have trouble with. Clear markings are definitely for the best.

These are not &quot;Guerilla bike lanes&quot;. These are guerilla traffic cones. The lane was there. The only non-permitted part are the improved markers. I doubt many driver really care. Most probably appreciate them as they keep the bikes away from the non-bike areas. If people want to spent their own money installing such devices, more power to them.<p>Going out and painting new lanes, that is stepping things up a notch. That will get police involved. That will create liabilities should any accident occur due to your new lane designations.

The City of West Hollywood has installed delineators on its crosswalks to prevent further accidents. They have been effective in their goal so far, but are not going to be maintained since drivers keep hitting them and the cost to constantly repair them is high. <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;laist.com&#x2F;2016&#x2F;06&#x2F;29&#x2F;weho_crosswalks.php" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;laist.com&#x2F;2016&#x2F;06&#x2F;29&#x2F;weho_crosswalks.php</a>

I think city infrastructure can learn something from the open source software community in situations like this.<p>The city has a ton of work to do, but it is really picky about how it is done and how it gets paid for. If it planned out the work out in advance, community organizations like the SFMTrA could claim the low hanging fruit and comply with the official requirements. If it fails inspection the city can tear it down just like they are doing now.

I really hope that biking SF will improve in the future. It&#x27;s freaking dangerous to bike on some of the streets in downtown SF.

IMO this is fantastic. Benevolent, efficient and easily reverted in case it was wrong. I would love to see many public choices made as such.

I wonder if the people fed up with the slow pace of infrastructure development, to the extent that they are <i>building their own</i>, have made any effort to push for a less sclerotic government structure in their town?<p>Actually, I bet I can guess the answer.

This is more or less how Pyotr Kapitsa helped to plan pedestrian lanes in Cambridge. He said that officials should wait until pedestrians lay out their ways and then just move them into official walks plan. So they did, I was told.

Yeah, fuck democracy. Just do whatever you want to shared resources. Gotta look out for number 1! &#x2F;s