Construction crews for San Francisco’s Municipal Transportation Agency began cutting surfaces on Valencia Street on Monday. It’s in preparation for a year-long pilot program to evaluate a radically new, center-running bike lane design on Valencia between 15th and 23rd Streets.
A raised curb and periodic posts will protect the bike lanes, which combined will be 12-feet wide. Vehicles will be routed to the right of cyclists, in each direction, and prohibited from turning left.
Angelica Campos, at Angelica’s Hair Salon on Valencia near 19th St, said she was not aware of the pilot, and expressed concern about reduced parking. She said business was impacted in recent years, when sections of Valencia were closed to traffic as part of the City’s Shared Spaces program.
“Because when they closed the streets on the afternoons before, it’s no customers. They take maybe 20 minutes, an hour… we don’t have business if they put something like that.”
This stretch of Valencia has one of the highest collision rates in the city, and 40 percent are between drivers and cyclists.
