SF Vision Zero to Crack Down on Most Dangerous Offenders: Pedestrians and Bicyclists

Which one of these is more dangerous in the eyes of the SFPD and Mayor Lee's "Vision Zero"?
Answer, ALL OF THEM

In what many cities across the country would consider at best "an abject exercise in futility" or at worst "a crime against humanity" the SFPD is ready to spend their limited time and resources to crack down on entitled bicyclists and stupid pedestrians that rob motorists of the experience promised in car ads. According to SFist, special enforcement periods of January 4th, 6th, 9th, 12th, 20th, 23rd and 31st. And even though the three pedestrian collisions this year involved people walking in a crosswalk, the SFPD is ready to crackdown on a auto-industry shame campaign term known as "jaywalking".  

According to SFPD's enforcement plan "Officers will cite for violations when pedestrians cross the street illegally or fail to yield to drivers who have the right of way. Bike riders will be stopped and citations issued when they fail to follow the same traffic laws that apply to motorists. All riders are reminded to always wear a helmet – those under 18 years of age must wear helmets by law. Pedestrians should cross the street only in marked crosswalks or at corners."



Missing from the report?  The countless number of of people killed by stop sign rolling bicyclists and distracted pedestrians.

When asked where these undisclosed areas were, the police captain said "well it certainly isn't going to be Valencia Street, SOMA or Golden Gate Park!  But, seriously we're looking for areas where it's clear that people on foot or on a bike bear the responsibility of their impact on the freedom of autos to move about the city unimpeded."


"Everyone plays a part in safety! AHAHAHAHA!!!"

Mayor Lee said, "it's great to see our mangled shame campaign version of Vision Zero in full swing!  We want to continue to enforce the idea that ~everyone plays a part~ in safety, from the innocent motorists who make mistakes, kill & maim people, down to the reckless bicyclists and pedestrians who theoretically have been killing themselves on motorist's cars.

The SFPD and Mayor hope they can follow the success of their pedestrian and bicyclist crackdowns and move towards preventing equally dangerous practices; such initiatives as cracking down on pea shooters and rubber band guns in SF.  One officer replied "We take great pride in the time honored tradition of picking on vulnerable minority groups in the name of safety."

Officer valiantly defending the city from reckless bicyclists on relatively slow, nimble, lightweight devices.

SF to Replace "Transit-First" with "Parking-First" Policy

It's been a banner year so far with SF Supervisors dismantling transit projects that have been decades in the making.  Marc Farrell helped dismantle 30 Stockton bus changes, as well as add parking back on Polk Street.  David Campos and John Avalos fueled the fires of hate for the red transit only lanes along Mission St by equating bus improvement with gentrification.  More recently, Katy Tang shut down the L Taraval safety plan to appease a few merchants and residents who prefer their parking to any pedestrian's life.  And we can't forget Mayor Lee and his brave work vetoing a "bike-yield" law that would treat bikes differently than a two ton speeding metal box.

"It's becoming more and more difficult to tout this whole 'Transit First" mantra while appeasing some of our merchants and car loving constituents.  So that's why we decided to modify the policy.  We do it with every transit project anyway, so this will save time and energy", said one supervisor.

SAN FRANCISCO CHARTER

PARKING-FIRST POLICY. (§ VIIIA_8A.115)

(a) The following principles shall constitute the City and County’s parking-first policy and shall be incorporated into the General Plan of the City and County. All officers, boards, commissions, and departments shall implement these principles in conducting the City and County’s affairs:
         
1. To ensure quality of life and economic health in San Francisco, the primary objective of the transportation system must be the safe and efficient movement of people and goods, by private automobile.
         
2. The “Poor People’s Shame Cab”, including taxis and vanpools, is a pathetic and ridiculous alternative to glorious transportation by individual automobiles. Within San Francisco, travel by public transit, by bicycle and on foot must be an unappealing alternative to travel and storage of private automobiles.
         
3. Decisions regarding the use of limited public street and sidewalk space shall encourage the use of public rights of way by privately owned automobiles, and shall strive to reduce bicycle and pedestrian traffic and improve public car use and storage.

4. Transit priority improvements, such as designated transit lanes and streets and improved signalization, shall be halted at the whim of merchants, several motorists and pandering supervisors.
         
5. Pedestrian areas shall be enhanced wherever it doesn’t, in any way, impact a motorists ability to live out the dream promised in car commercials.
         
6. Bicycling shall be half-heartedly promoted by throwing some paint scraps on the streets to allow easy access for delivery trucks, especially UPS trucks.  SFPD Bicycle crackdowns are mandatory.
         
7. 20th century parking policies for areas well served by public transit shall remain priority by even a single screaming merchant to encourage travel by combustible metal boxes.
         
8. New transportation investment should be squandered to meet the demand for private suburban style transport.

        
9. The desire of the City and County to reduce traffic congestion depends upon their ability to get re-elected and get to and from their jobs.  The City and County shall promote the use of personal combustible metal boxes so long as it suits their personal and political needs.
         
10. The City and County shall encourage 20th century solutions to meet private combustible metal box transportation needs wherever possible and where the provision of such service will not adversely affect the promise bestowed in said car commercials.

          (b) Sunday double parking is a sacred motorist right and shall never be mentioned by any supervisor or mayor.

          (Amended by Proposition C, Approved 5/6/2016)
          Editor’s Note:
          Formerly Sec. 16.102.

Biking Increases Despite City's General Ambivalence

"We allowed a dumpster to sit in the bike lane for over 20 days, and people still want to bike in this city.  It's fascinating!"
image via Chema Hernández Gil

In his recent Examiner article, Joe "Transit Nerd"Fitz Rodriguez  buys into anti-car propaganda claims that the "Annual bike count shows commutes in SF up nearly 9 percent".  According to the SFMTA, "There are an estimated 82,000 bike trips in the city per day, an 8.5 percent increase in bike trips from 2014 to 2015".  And while I wholeheartedly disagree with data in favor of firmly held beliefs, I'm delighted to see that the city continues to show general ambivalence and some distain to biking, despite the increase in numbers.

A SFMTA representative said, "Yeah we're really shocked the numbers went up, even with our disjointed 'bike network' or whatever you want to call it.  San Francisco even had a 'bike injunction' from 2006-2010.  Our bike plan was held up in court on the presumption that the bicycle plan could cause 'significant damage to the environment and therefore requires an environment review under the California Environmental Quality Act'.  Can you imagine?  Nothing could be done, because removing travel lanes and parking spaces in favor of bike lanes CAUSE cars to CAUSE more congestion.  Our self proclaimed 'green, environmentally friendly, progressive city' couldn't even put in bike sharrows or bike racks because it could ruin the environment!"

"This is the best we can do for your bicycling children, because: Parking > Children"

Unfortunately the bike injunction was lifted, but the spirit of saving parking remains, even with our SFMTA Director of Sustainable Streets, Tom Maguire.  He said he enjoys cycling with his kids on that one mile stretch of "parking protected" Golden Gate Park.  Maguire said, "That’s a weak design choice the city will employ, because just like Golden Gate Park, the city sorely needs as much on-street parking as possible." Maguire added, “We don’t want to make a choice between parking and cyclists” and rarely ever does.

The SFPD has been trying to curb biking for years, and explained, "We also can't believe bicycling increased even though we rarely ticket motorists in bike lanes, or for anything really.  We had police officers dedicated thousands of dollars to ticketing people in those tiny, nimble, relatively slow moving vehicles and the numbers still increased!  We don't even crackdown on Valencia street, where you'd be hard pressed to find a second of the day when there's not some car parked in the bike lane, and we even have a police station on the street!  What are these bikers thinking!? We don't care about biking and you shouldn't either!"

"Don't expect us to unblock bike lanes when we have Wiggle stop sign rolling bikers to deal with"- SFPD, probably.
image via SFGreen

"Despite the fact that none of this paint 'infrastructure' is adequately enforced, we'll continue to install miles of paint on the streets of SF."
 image via 0xEugene

Even Mayor Lee is taking his piece of credit for the uptick.  Despite only using his bike for photo-ops, he said, “as San Francisco grows in population, housing and jobs, it is critical that we offer shoddy and disjointed bike infrastructure that never removes even a thread of parking.  We'll also make sure to increase enforcement on this safe and affordable way of getting around the City,” said Mayor Ed Lee. “And that's why I vetoed the 'bike yield law', to help make biking an even more unattractive option in the city.  Hell, I might even slice up a bike lane again for one of my optometrist buddies!"

"I want to treat these 'vehicles' exactly the same, for safety of course!" - Mayor Lee, probably.

“Despite our lack of efforts, bicycling is San Francisco’s fastest growing mode of transportation,” said Ed Reiskin, SFMTA Politician of Transportation. “We're not entirely sure why it's happening.  Have you seen Market Street, aka "Gauntlet Street" before?  Yikes!  With hundreds of thousands of new bike trips each year, we’re committed to watering down our bike plans while making parking plentiful for motorists.  Expect to see more half-hearted bike 'infrastructure' that will undoubtedly get blocked by hordes of cars, and expect more SFPD bike crackdowns of course."

The city is full of poorly painted bike lanes with motorists double-parked daily.  If we reach our city's official goal of 20 percent of trips by bike by 2020 it won't be from our efforts.” Ed Reiskin, probably.
image via Adam Long