Safety Improvements on the Way for Folsom Street

Thank you to the more than 800 people who sent letters to Mayor Lee calling for Safer SoMa Streets. Your calls and personal stories about why Folsom and other SoMa streets need safety improvements are being heard.

We are hearing commitment from the City that they will implement a pilot redesign of Folsom Street that includes separated or buffered bikeways!

This is encouraging news for those of us traveling on SoMa streets, and the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition is pleased to see the City finally moving forward with long-overdue improvements to Folsom Street. Unfortunately, it took the death of a young woman for the City to finally take note of how unsafe this main bicycle corridor is.

Hundreds of people signed our letter to the Mayor calling for Safe SoMa Streets

Your San Francisco Bicycle Coalition is now working to ensure that Howard Street also gets separated bikeways, so you and your loved ones have a safer ride to and from downtown. We will be working to make sure that this pilot is implemented quickly so that the thousands of people who bike it daily will have a safer commute.

As your advocates for safe streets, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition will continue our work to make sure other SoMa streets safer. While fixing Folsom Street is a great start, there are other high-speed SoMa streets — like 2nd, 6th, 7th, 8th and Howard — that are in desperate need of safety improvements.

Three Ways You Can Help Move This Project Forward:

1. Speak up for Safe SoMa Streets at an upcoming San Francisco Municipal Transportation Board Meeting (Tuesdays at noon). Email Chema@sfbike.org if you can attend.

2. Join our Central City Member Committee to be on the forefront of advocacy. Our next meeting is Monday, September 23 at 5:30PM at SF Bicycle Coalition office, 833 Market Street. You must be an SF Bicycle Coalition member to attend.

3. Join the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. Our ability to win these quick safety improvements and our  work to ensure the police fully and fairly investigate crashes is funded by membership dollars. Thanks to all of our members for supporting this on-the-ground advocacy!

Note: The post has been modified from its original version. On September 6, we reported that the pilot would include separated bikeways. We are now hearing that it could be separated or buffered. We’ll keep you updated as SFMTA learns more in its feasibility study.

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