Valencia Street Shines

As San Francisco’s Bike Plan goes on hold, one thoroughfare shows how bike friendly engineering and a focus on community can lead the way for the rest of the city. History was made as a scrappy group of DIY activists reclaimed bike space from cars and four car lanes gave way to two and a generous bike lane.

We look at the history of Valencia, both past and future to get an idea about how simple changes can make a place people go to rather than drive through. A vibrant, flourishing neighborhood has risen and daily proves the critics of bike and ped based planning wrong.

Listen to the podcast or
go to Bikescape in itunes

Mary Brown (scroll down) led the first efforts at change.

Here's the one year report (pdf) on the Valencia "road diet" that showed a 144% increase in cycle traffic and 10% less car traffic that only added 3% additional traffic to each of three other streets.

Latter day activists are working now for a Better Valencia.

Livable City is involved in the process.

The Ritual Coffee shop is the home of the Ritual Coffee Club Bike Posse.

The Therapy furniture and clothing stores and Aquarius Records have thrived with the bike lanes.

Andy from Aquarius recommended the Portland Bicycle Ensemble.

Ecotalk show on biking

While you're waiting for the next show, you might want to check out an episode of Ecotalk Radio. The National Resources Defence Council's Daniel Hinerfeld interviews two Los Angeles bikers: Slate's writer Andy Bauer and Scott Sing. There are longer interviews on the NRDC's two-part podcast On Earth. (scroll down a bit)

Other bike podcasts I like

The Bike Show
Cycling Insight
Bikelove
NBG Mountain Mover
Gear Noise (mountain biking)
KBOO Bike Show

Leave a comment if I've misssed one that you like!

Its not easy being green: Judge stops San Francisco bike plan on environmental grounds

Last week San Francisco’s cyclists woke up to find out that the city’s bicycle plan, a comprehensive road map to an integrated bike network had been put on hold by a judge’s temporary injunction in response to a lawsuit by Citizens for Adequate Review. (C.A.R.)

How could we arrive a time when a healthy, sustainable, and environmentally sound plan to provide transportation choice could run aground because of lack of environmental review? Could it be because the metrics we use to arrive at a conclusion are biased toward the convenience of drivers?

We go to three experts to get some insight –

• Andy Thornley, Program director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition
• Rajiv Bhatia, Director of Occupational and Environmental Health, San Francisco Department of Public Health
  
• Josh Hart, former SFBC program director and member of Transportation Authority consulting team

Listen to the podcast or
go to Bikescape in itunes

Rajiv wrote this article (PDF) about "level of service" standards.

He also mentioned Sally Cairns who wrote this article (also a pdf) about where traffic goes when capacity is reduced, sort of the inverse of "induced traffic", or the "build the roads and the cars will come" theory of traffic.

San Francisco's "transit first policy" is enshrined in the city charter.

Check out the sfbc's LOS page.

Cyclecide's Pedal Monster is coming... July 21-23