On July 28th, the SF Municipal Transportation Agency began construction of a protected bike lane on Bayshore Boulevard between Silver Avenue and Oakdale Avenue, renovating the existing bike lane. The bike lane features a mixture of painted buffer zones, vertical posts, and concrete medians that will greatly improve the current bike infrastructure which lacks protection along much of its length, especially on the western side of the road.
Since San Francisco adopted Vision Zero in 2014, Bayshore Boulevard has been a part of the City’s high-injury network, a name given to the 12% of roads that make up almost 70% of severe and fatal collisions. This large arterial roadway runs north to south alongside HWY 101 and is the most direct route for people on bikes, connecting neighborhoods like Portola and Visitation Valley to the rest of the city.
When bike lanes were first installed along Bayshore between Oakdale and Silver in 2014, it left local residents and commuters asking for improved, protected infrastructure along this corridor. At the end of 2022, almost 8 years later, this crucial upgrade to the existing infrastructure was finally approved, with allocation of materials and resources allowing for construction to begin early August 2023.
The construction process will be completed in two phases; first, signage and street marking, and second, the installation of physical protections such as posts and a concrete median between Flower Street and Cortland Avenue. During this time, people on bikes can detour around the work area or avoid Bayshore Blvd by taking Loomis Street which runs parallel to Bayshore one block east.
For years residents and our members in the southeast have been advocating for better infrastructure along roads such as Bayshore. Though this project is a great start, there is still much more work to be done. While offering improvements between Silver and Oakdale, this project lacks a solution for the rest of Bayshore between Oakdale and Jerrold, a stretch of road which currently has no bicycle infrastructure and is the primary connector to Cesar Chavez. This project area is proposed as the next phase in this Bayshore Quick-Build project but the SFMTA has yet to develop plans for this or its connection to the “Hairball” (where Cesar Chavez meets 101). The lack of connection between bicycle infrastructure weakens the entire system and disproportionately affects our neighbors and constituents in southeastern neighborhoods such as Bayview, Portola, and Visitacion Valley.
One of the greatest threats to bicycle safety is a lack of safe connections; whether in the form of unprotected intersections, mixing zones, or missing infrastructure along bike routes. Your San Francisco Bicycle Coalition will continue to push for a solution to this gap in infrastructure. This means working to hold the SFMTA accountable for the construction of additional infrastructure, and advocating for stronger connections between our southeastern neighborhoods and the rest of the city.
