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Because this infamous intersection isn't dangerous enough, the SF Municipal Transportation Agency Board of Directors have "unanimously endorsed its traffic engineer's plan to eliminate the eastbound bike lane on Market Street at Octavia Boulevard" despite protests from cyclists who don't want to die while riding Market Street. Yes, really.
This is crazy talk, people. Ever since ramps opened in 2005 on Octavia at Market, cyclists have been plowed by vehicles making illegal right turns onto the highway. Streetsblog has a great post on why it needs to stay.
The final word will come down when SF Judge Peter J. Busch hears the case on January 22nd.
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Thanks for the link to the streetsblog post. Super informative.
I'm sure there's more to the story that I'm missing, but my super cyclist-biased mind reads: Cyclists are getting hit here, so it isn't working. Our solution is to take away our previous solution to protect the cyclists, because cars aren't obeying it.
There's a lot of cyclist hate around, but this is clearly not one of those "asshole cyclists riding on the sidewalk/riding the wrong way/running red lights" excuses that are so popular to point to. Everywhere clearly states that it's people getting hit by people making ILLEGAL right turns. I agree that intersection is a problem - and as cyclists, sure, we should keep an eye out for everyone doing stupid things regardless of whether or not they're legal. (After all, we might be right, but we also get hit.) But what does this solve? I guess in theory we're all single file, so if someone turns right there illegally, I'll see them ahead of me. But I know I personally don't/can't always ride fast enough to keep up with traffic, so I end up getting passed in my lane. Can't wait for the first time someone gets hit there when someone goes to turn and a cyclist is now just inches away from the side of their car.
Let's hope Judge Busch can propose better ideas and doesn't let this happen.
Typical MTA stupidity. They installed a barrier island at that intersection after cyclists sharing the lane were regularly run over by entitled asshats in automobiles. Has anyone been run over since? I stop there regularly on my morning commute and I think it would be a challenge for anyone to make an illegal right turn there in such a way that anyone but the most reckless urban hipster on a brake free fixie could be run down (and let's face it, if anyone deserves to be run over...) Now we'll all be at risk. Why fix what's not broken?
P.S. I'd actually be really interested in knowing why they think removing the bike lane is the best idea. Aside from my idea above, I can't come up with a single reason this is beneficial.
It may be useful only in that it illicits public reaction.
I can see where they are coming from in concluding that the current arrangement (though better than it was) is still flawed, but they are going to have to make some massive education/enforcement effort (targeting both bikes and cars) on the block or two leading to that intersection for the bikes-merging-into-car-traffic strategy to be any safer than the separated bike lane currently is.
I'm curious what the reasoning was for that offramp to touch down exactly at that intersection but without allowing any turning. Seems like it would have saved some headaches to move the toe of the ramp a little bit north and bend Market a little bit south so that Market could pass under the ramp and the northbound freeway traffic could hit the ground between Market and Haight. That would move the problem one block north, and Haight Street isn't as busy as Market.
The entire purpose of the redesign of the Central Freeway was to get it to touch down South of Market and thus eliminate the overpass that cut mid market away from Upper Market.
This whole intersection is a case of good intentions gone wrong. The original proposal called for a dedicated right turn lane onto the freeway from Market AND a separate bike lane on its left side. For some reason this was deemed to be too dangerous by cyclists so they lobbied Matt Gonzales to ban right hand turns onto the freeway and instead make cars go a block further..... and turn right onto the freeway. Alas if you are in a car with GPS almost all of them still tell you to turn right onto the freeway at Octavia. Many people turn left on Laguna and then make two rights to get onto Octavia. Unfortunately, the time has passed for the original design to go through. So we are stuck with band aid solutions and hit cyclists. Eliminating the lane seems silly at this point.
I don't believe the No Right Turn was added to this project by the Bike Coalition. I believe that this has always been a provision of the plan. I've always heard it explained that the purpose is mainly to keep freeway traffic from backing up onto Market.
Maybe make the rightmost one-third or so of the new combined bike/car lane a rumble strip to force bikes into the center of the lane and prevent cars from trying to pass them in the intersection? Maybe throw in some one-way tire shredders that catch anyone trying to turn onto the freeway from there.
Having a bike lane to the left of a right-turn lane isn't much better than what is there now; cars still won't look over their right shouldn't before moving into the turn lane.
"shouldn't" = "shoulder"
A bike lane to the left of the right turn seems to work well two blocks west at Duboce and Market.
The Duboce intersection can be somewhat nightmarish for a cyclist to negotiate when it's congested with car traffic. Moreover, the Octavia one is a good ways down a hill, so cyclists are traveling faster and need more room to stop. I'm not a believer in bike lanes as a panacea for safely mixing car and bike traffic, but I don't think removing the bike lane on this stretch is a good idea.
Wouldn't it? Couldn't you solve the merge problem by slightly elevating the bike lane as they do MUNI platforms? Wouldn't take much, just a low slope onto a slightly elevated bike lane. Cars which didn't merge right early enough in the right spot would be out of luck as they are elsewhere on Market.
Octavia Blvd/on/off/ramp was a terrible, terrible idea.
Bring that mother down.
Start the reactor, free Mars.
Don't eliminate the bike lane. Eliminate the intersection.
How? By installing magic teleporters a half a block out in all directions?
If you think they're going to remove this new ramp, or build a new bridge over Market, you're really on crack.
I really don't understand why a combined car+bike lane will do anyone any good. Combined lanes are already more dangerous than separate lanes for all the reasons we have discussed ad nauseam.
Maybe the answer is a bike bridge? It would spoil the pretty, pretty, lovely, Alan Jacobs-approved gateway to the city, but it would also allow cars to make the turn AND bikes to cruise through at breakneck speeds. Which has to be the design standard, because neither of these behaviors can be stopped.
WOW! Holy crud muffins iBarna is a GENIUS!!!
aj magical teleporters are a nice idea, but impractical. I think instead each car should be driven into a quantum tunnel that uses quantum probability to pop them out on the other side. This saves cars time by not having to wait at the stop signal. Granted, the car might not come out in this dimension, but at least the driver can enjoy some time with Schrodinger's Cat in whatever dimension they do turn up in.
Brock, I think SFist needs to host a contest to come up with the most "practical" solution to the Octavia on ramp fiasco.
Interesting note about the GPS giving incorrect directions. I mean, people SHOULD still be paying attention to the giant "you cannot turn here" sign instead of just listening to the GPS lady yell at them, but we all know that's a little easier said than done. And clearly difficult to enforce.
This is an awful idea.
bring pack the overpass! Woo hoo!
I got hit here last June and went to the ER. I don't ride a fixie & I wear a helmet etc... this kinda makes me sick.
I bike through here all the time. I'd hope people can see through their myopic "more facilities = bettar" stupidity and see that actually, removing the bike lane is probably the best choice for cyclist safety here.
The fact of the matter is, the right turn ban here is a legislative fiction. It's a legislative fiction with big fines and 5 different signs telling you not to and a barrier that makes it difficult, but it's still a fiction. Drivers will naturally want to turn right here, and enough of them will continue to do it that having a bike lane to the right of the traffic lane will continue to put cyclists at risk. Never underestimate the stupidity and selfishness of motorists.
Removing the bike lane forces cyclists and motorists to merge into one lane. This prevents anyone from cutting anyone off. As it is, when I approach this intersection on my bike, guess what I do? I MERGE INTO THE FUCKING LANE SO NOBODY CUTS ME OFF AND KILLS ME. Soon enough, everyone else will get to be as smart as me.
Thanks MTA :)
please pretend I didn't make the stupid comment above.
neVERmind
But you can't count on cyclists taking the lane in a responsible way. I would expect at least as many crashes from cyclists cutting too close to cars, or cars not noticing cyclists in the lane, than from right turns.
In protest, I suggest bikes using the full traffic lane and slowing down to create a bottleneck/impromptu traffic calming device.
The real solution it to tear down the central skyway all the way back to 101.
Taking the whole lane is exactly what they should do in this situation. The problem is that a lot of cyclists aren't assertive enough to do that and a lot of drivers can't handle merging with a bike without going all road-ragey. Whatever they do to that intersection needs to include a ton of education for everyone involved.
Yeah, there are way too many people riding bikes like little old ladies around there for that to happen. Why not put up a right-turn camera?
Any traffic design depending on "education" is doomed to fail. Traffic systems need to be OBVIOUS to the UNEDUCATED user. Why this is lost on (some) SF activists is really beyond me, but maybe such activists are too well informed?
Hey, here's another idea.
Put in a bike only traffic light, with a button a block ahead. That way bikers can request it and then have some chance of cruising down the hill with a green.
They could even do this AND bring back the right turn lane. Anathema, I know, but it might work.
MTA is making a big time mistake on this.
as both a biker and driver in SF, I can say that intersection is the worst of both worlds: drivers can't make an obvious right turn, and bikers are lead to assume that cars won't make the right turn. Lose-Lose.
As a biker, I'm embarrassed that the bike coalition rammed through that no-right-turn policy there; it increases animosity between the bike and car communities, and fails at reducing bike accidents there.
As a driver, I'm embarrassed that most drivers make the turn anyway, though people will always take the most efficient path (something which bikers know well).
Ugh. San Francisco politics at its finest.
I don't believe the No Right Turn was added to this project by the Bike Coalition. I believe that this has always been a provision of the plan. I've always heard it explained that the purpose is mainly to keep freeway traffic from backing up onto Market.
This was absolutely the result of SFBC pressure. I remember the emails asking members to lobby the supervisors on this.
They need to eliminate the rest of the Central Freeway. It's extremely dangerous for everyone, ugly as hell, and always smells like piss.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhMoE2flLqg