By Marie Hurabiell
No more bad governance: SFMTA considering un-funded, sweeping plan, with no cost-benefit analysis or metrics
On Feb. 18, SFMTA is set to rubber-stamp the vague, unfunded and reckless “Biking and Rolling Plan.” (From Marie Hurabiell: We have a late-breaking update – the SFMTA board has moved the vote on B&R to March 4.) This 250+ page document proposes an aggressive expansion of bike lanes, “slow streets,” and other ambiguous measures, all requiring the drastic removal of street parking and driving lanes. The result? Increased transit times, reduced parking and a more challenging, expensive city. Yet, the plan includes zero impact analysis or cost projections – how can any board vote on such an ill-defined “idea” that could cost millions?
The plan’s core claim – “nearly 80% of San Franciscans want to bike and roll more” – lacks supporting data. Census figures show 18.5% of residents are over 65. The plan asserts the primary barrier to cycling is the absence of a comprehensive “all ages and abilities biking and rolling network.” But where is the evidence? Many factors deter cycling: hills, weather, carrying supplies, errands, passengers and time constraints.
Notably, the plan defines cycling infrastructure narrowly, disregarding existing signage and painted bike lanes as “unsafe” to justify an exaggerated need for massive street redesigns. “Safety” is cited as the reason for more bike lanes and slow streets, yet the Upper Great Highway is slated for bike-only access rather than being reopened to reduce vehicle interactions with cyclists and pedestrians. Clearly, the motivations extend beyond safety. The plan aims to cut private vehicle use to just 20% of trips by 2030, an unrealistic and damaging goal.
Forcing people out of cars by making driving prohibitively expensive rather than improving alternatives will raise costs for everyone. Businesses, workers, and residents all rely on accessible transportation, and the hardest hit will be those least able to afford it. Instead of addressing these economic impacts, the plan anticipates public resistance, especially in lower-income neighborhoods, which it dismisses as suffering from a “lack of community readiness.”
To push through opposition, the plan suggests reducing procedural requirements for project approval. Coincidentally, State Sen. Scott Wiener has introduced SB-71 to “streamline” permitting for bike infrastructure. The authors know resistance exists and plan to override it.
The plan even proposes decriminalizing cycling violations that don’t result in accidents. If traffic laws exist for safety, why exempt cyclists?
Key questions remain unanswered:
- If 80% of San Franciscans want to bike more, why is legislation needed to bypass opposition?
- If safety is the main concern, why not reopen the Upper Great Highway to remove cars from surface streets?
- If residents support these restrictions, why does the plan avoid discussing their impact?
- If painted bike lanes are inadequate, how much will structural lanes cost and who will pay?
San Francisco is already one of the country’s most expensive cities. This plan would drive up costs further while using taxpayer money for an undefined, ideologically driven agenda. It’s policies like these that drive businesses away and shrink the City’s population. The Biking and Rolling Plan does not serve San Francisco’s best interests and should be pulled from the SFMTA March 4 agenda, or if a vote proceeds, must be rejected.
Voice your concerns: https://form.jotform.com/250246224944152
Marie Hurabiell is the executive director at ConnectedSF, a passionate multi-generation San Franciscan, fighting for this beautiful place.
Categories: Commentary
Richmond Review/Sunset Beacon 
Slow streets are mostly unused citywide – almost entirely unused on the West side. Entire days go by without a single person. Most days it’s a handful at best, maybe a dozen. This is not something anyone voted for, it was passed during the pandemic out of untethered panic about exercising “away from others” (which was unnecessary the entire time, says medical science) and it’s just another symbol of the misguided allocation of priorities and city attention for the very few activists who run it like their private clubhouse. This has to end with the Breed era.
SFMTA needs new leadership but Lurie doesn’t seem like he has the script yet, is hiring back all the old guard City Family and continuing the mistakes of his goldbricking predecessors. So, call or write your Mayor and tell him in no uncertain terms he needs to CLEAN OUT THE LOBBYIST MACHINERY that has taken over SFMTA and run this city into deficits with nonsensical unfunded mandates that the vast majority of SF has no need for and no interest in endlessly enriching their “non-profit” boards of directors with our misdirected taxpayer duties.
It’s time to start governing for the city majority – working class families that built it. Techie transplants and activist “non-profit” millionaires are not the constituency. Dan Lurie will enjoy his mayoral honeymoon for now, but if he wants a second term he’s going to have to get serious about listening to the people who elected him, cut out the pet project nonsense that has been business as usual for far too long.
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don’t forget that SF is already a top rated city for biking and walking.
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Commend this author for asking for evidence/data in the “80% want to bike more” figure. We need to make evidence based policy. And even if people want to bike more, it is bike theft/petty theft rather than road attributes that make it challenging to get about via bicycle. I’ve had a bike stolen. Every single biker friend I know had at least one bike stolen or parts stolen. It is disheartening and expensive to constantly have to replace a stolen bicycle. Addressing petty crime will make SF more biker friendly even if the unsupported 80% figure is accurate.
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A better title for this article would be: “Boomer/Tesla Owning Woman, Clutches Her Pearls and Foams At The Mouth When She Hears That Her City Wants to Become Safe For Children and Those Who Don’t Want to Drive Around the City”
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It’s not supported by reality. It’s an invented number to “aim for” and they intend to push it as much as possible, using as many millions as possible of SF taxpayer money to do so. And the results? MORE ACCIDENTS. “Project Zero” was always a fraud, a PR play. SFMTA needs to get cleaned out and started over from SF necessities, not Bicycle Lobbyist BS for yuppie daytrippers who think they’re more important than working class families and blue collar workers who still have places to go during the day. When an elderly motorist hit the gas instead of the brakes in West Portal tragically killing a family of 4, they tried to pretend it was West Portal that was at fault, insanely. WRONG. West Portal isn’t the problem, the existing bike lanes are not the problem. These transplants will never be satisfied because they have no end goal – always more disruption, that’s their goal. Anti-vehicle zealots who literally believe they’re saving the environment by inconveniencing people – they’ll get theirs in the end.
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BS. I bought that argument when the Vision Zero hype machine was foisted upon us starting in 2014. The City spent millions on this program that has the vision of zero pedestrian major injuries and deaths by 2024. The results after all that hype and spending: pedestrian accidents have only grown throughout spending millions of dollars, bus stop relocations, intersection daylighting, parking space reductions, traffic calming, traffic enforcement etc. This program was started in 2014 and by the time significant changes were made in SF, say 2017, the traffic fatalities were 2.4 deaths per 100,000 residents. Throughout the next 7 years with more and more spending, disruptions and inconveniences to residents the death rate has ballooned to 4.5 per 100,000. That is how misguided, unsuccessful and wasteful Vision Zero has been. (The facts are that the only way to stop pedestrian accidents is to separate cars from pedestrians. You put cars and pedestrians on the same slab of concrete and pedestrians are going lose PERIOD.) Now comes the SFMTA “Biking and Rolling Plan”. This is going to be worse than the failed results of the Vision Zero program and most likely even more expensive and less successful. The Biking and Rolling Plan is ill conceived, unfunded, not properly vetted and will serve a small portion of the SF population to the detriment of the rest of the population. Don’t fall for it!
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