As SustainLane’s top-ranked cities move aggressively to reduce their carbon footprints by building bicycle infrastructure, one city —surprisingly—is lagging behind.
It’s not that San Franciscans aren’t pedaling; they are. The bike lane on downtown’s Market Street looks like a veritable cyclist highway at rush hour, and San Francisco’s Bike Coalition is nearly ten thousand members strong.
But the city known for its progressive politics (especially in the greenosphere), has been stymied in its efforts to improve bike routes. Its master bicycle plan has been stalled since 2006, when a superior court judge issued an injunction forbidding road crews to move forward until a full Environmental Impact Report (EIR) is completed.
The plan had been unanimously approved by the board of supervisors and the mayor in 2005, in a move they believed would ease the city’s traffic congestion and reduce carbon emissions.
But in what some environmentalists consider an ironic twist, San Francisco resident Rob Anderson filed a lawsuit under CEQA, California ’s environmental review law, to stop the plan’s implementation. Why? Because Anderson says the bike plan may actually be bad for the environment.
Some of its key aspects – like removing some street parking in favor of bike lanes – will snarl traffic, increase idling, and worsen air quality, he says. He doesn’t buy the idea that enhanced bike routes will compel more people to ride bikes and reduce the number of cars on the road.
“It’s a major American city, and we’re always going to have motor vehicles as the dominant transportation mode,” he says. “I don’t think there’s any way around that, and to deny that is very unrealistic.”
The 527-page bike plan calls for more bike lanes and bike racks and a ten percent increase in cycling.
More dedicated lanes are something bicycle-commuter, Mark Andersen (no relation to Rob Anderson), has been waiting for.
“I think San Francisco has a positive bike culture, but I don’t believe that it’s a bike-friendly city,” says Andersen, who cycles daily from his apartment in North Beach to his job downtown.
The non-profit San Francisco Bike Coalition (SFBC) was frustrated with the city’s inaction prior to the injunction, and says the lawsuit may have the opposite effect of what Rob Anderson intended when he filed the suit.
SFBC program director Andy Thornley says the city is embarrassed at having been caught in a procedural gaffe (overlooking the environmental impact study), and that this has galvanized it around the need to make the city more bike-friendly.
“It caught the mayor a little bit off guard,” says Thornley. “It’s called him on his commitments for a sustainable green city. And having been embarrassed at losing this lawsuit … we feel the city is going to be throwing down bike lanes like crazy to make up for the last two years of injunction.”
David Assman, the mayor’s spokesperson, said in an email that the city is proceeding with the EIR as quickly as possible so that the bicycle plan can be implemented.
Photo Caption: Cyclists at Critical Mass (Photo Courtesy of: Michael W. Parenteau, Wikimedia ).
