January 25, 2007
Octavia Blvd: A dangerous illegal turn every 3 minutes.
Yet another morning commuter makes an illegal right turn onto the new freeway onramp at Octavia this morning.
Monday's serious accident at the intersection of Octavia and Market is focusing attention upon drivers making illegal and dangerous right turns. Tomorrow's demonstration involving the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, Walk California SF and other groups is scheduled for 8:00-9:00 AM. Commuters might be a tad shy about making illegal turns during the demo, but we thought it would be interesting to see how many drivers err on a more typical commuting day. What can be done to improve things? How many illegal turns were made during one hour this morning? Find out after the jump.
17 drivers on eastbound Market made the illegal turn onto the freeway during the 61 minutes from 8:00 to 9:00 AM this morning. That's a lot - about one illegal turn for every two cycles of the intersection's lights. (It takes about 93 seconds for the lights to cycle during the AM commute.) Here's the mise en scène:
Every driver making this turn must know it's illegal. You can't ask for more notification what with three large no-turn signs. It might be nice to have another "freeway ahead" sign further up Market, but oh well. The drivers appear to be opportunistic turners - they will turn onto the freeway if there are no bikers or peds impeding access. Some drivers appeared to slow down in anticipation of making a turn, but decided not to, for whatever reason.
A little fence of reflectorized white plastic sticks separating the bike lane from the right lane (placed on the rectangular box formed by four white lines) would make the already awkward turn even more awkward for drivers. That might help. A high-resolution video traffic camera could easily document these illegal turns - that's another proposal. The basic problem is that cars don't merge into the bike lane as in a normal right turn - drivers are simply making unexpected sharp turns. Many people are offering various solutions, any of which would be an improvement over the current situation.
Public safety isn't the only reason why Octavia Boulevard fails to live up to the claim it's an "urban success story", but those are issues for another time. Fixing this right turn situation should be job one.
A diverse group met this morning to discuss ways of preventing more accidents.
Audi A4: Chariot of the Yuppie. This driver typifies the reverse commuter taking the illegal shortcut to (the) 101.
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Glad this is getting some attention, I've had some close calls on my bike here as well...
It's Walk San Francisco that is involved, not Walk California. In addition, the Senior Action Network and Livable City are involved as well.
Hi Jim, thanks for covering this. By the way, you don't have a bio on the contributors page.
Oh I forgot to mention: in the first photo there's nobody making the illegal right turn, but how about that jerkoff stopped in the crosswalk?! Wow that's annoying.
What can be done? Well, the lazy-ass San Francisco police could get off their fat, coffee-drinking asses and start ticketing these assholes.
But good luck with that. I've lived in several cities and never encountered such an utterly worthless police force in my life. They do NOTHING of any use.
And may the person who designed the disaster known as Octavia Blvd. be run over by a Hummer, along with anyone who calls this catastrophe an "urban success."
i'm still not sure why they can't put the right-turn lane to the right of the bike lane here (or the bike lane to the left of the turn lane, depending on how you do the math)? no room?
Noted: Walk SF, not Walk CA (although first photo on Walk SF's website was one that I took for Walk CA, but oh well).
They could rejigger the intersection so that it would be like every other in CA. That would cost $50K or $150K or something like that. You'd get a lot more cars making the right turn from Market, for better or worse. Part of the problem of Octavia Blvd. is that it doesn't pull it's weight in getting cars in and out of the city, putting more pressure on other routes.
The downhill aspect of the street tends to put bike speed close to car speed, with unfortunate results.
I'm working on a bio. It will be something nonresponsive like, "Jim has a million hit points and maximum charisma."
And yes, that little red car appear to be sitting in the crosswalk. It might be a little difficult for the driver to know where the stop line is, but obviously it's where the crosswalk begins.
Peds have it much easier than bikers at this intersection generally.
I doubt enforcement is a long term or effective solution ot this
I wonder if the bulb build out couldn't be extended across the bike lane still allowing bikes to pass through but sending a clearer message to drivers, by design, that right turns are illegal
I have a stupid question. I just moved to the area, and I've gotten caught up in that intersection before. Where exactly do you go to get to the freeway from Market? Is there an on-ramp further up or down the street? I haven't known what to do, so I've just detoured through residential streets to get onto Octavia.
I turn there every day. I don't see what the big deal is. It is so much faster than going around the block. I'm a great driver so I have no problem dodging any bikes or peds that get in my way. My Porsche corners so well that I can zip around there before anyone notices. If they are going to start cracking down on this it will take me at least an extra 3 minutes to get to work. That would be terrible.
Note that in addition to the NO RIGHT TURN sign there is a sign that says FREEWAY with a little
arrow pointing straihgt. Follow that sign, and soon you will see another FREEWAY sign with an arrow on it telling you where to go. Keep following signs
that point to the FREEWAY and voila! You'll end up on the FREEWAY. In this case you go another block to Gough, turn right, and enter at I believe Van Ness. I acutually don't know the exact road list to get there because I just follow the signs.
perhaps some regular krypto lock through the rear window several times will wise people up
Redesigning the bulb out is under consideration.
As far as getting to the freeway is concerned, basically any other right turn will get you there. If you are inbound (heading east towards the Financial District on Market) then Duboce or Valencia or South Van Ness will all get you to the 101.
"Audi A4: Chariot of the Yuppie." Come on, you're better than that.
Well, you're probably thinking of the BMW 3-series as having that title, but I'd say the current generation of the Audi outsells the 3-series in S.F. these days.
ILLEGAL! BURN THEM!
next you'll tell us that some drivers exceed posted speed limits.
As opposed to the Cannondale Ironman® Slice Six13 Si 2: Chariot of the yuppie cyclist. Seriously, this issue has nothing to do with class, it's dumbass drivers/cyclists vs er...nondumbass drivers/cyclists. Don't bring your envy of people with shiny things into this.
Preventing right turns is the dumbest idea I've ever seen. And I'd rather have cops spend more time chasing murderers rather than have them waste time ticketing this.
This is was a bad idea to begin with -- a sop to the 1% of SF that cycle regularly. Cyclists in the city have no leg to stand on when it comes to complaining about enforcement of traffic laws. They break them more than any other group around.
all the visual noise at that intersection makes it hard to tell how to get on the freeway *without* making a right, and the no-right turn signs are so completely useless, it's a joke...but it's not funny.
asshole drivers and asshole bicyclists - I'll never forget being forced off the sidewalk on 23rd at mish - after a critical mass demo - by high fivin' clowns riding four, count 'em, four across!! as they congratulated themselves on STICKING IT TO THE MAN - need to get a clue PLUS some law enforcement that doesn't automatically blame the bicycling commuter for turning into roadkill...
unfortunately, a death or three at that intersection might, finally, maybe, somehow get the sfpd to stop criminalizing those darn lefty crazy radical bike riders, even enforce a traffic law or two every so often. wow!
but don't hold your breath. jake...it's frisco-town.