Bay Area bicycle news update

Happy Friday the 13th.


In spite of heavy rain (and lighting! and thunder!) throughout the Bay Area this week, yesterday’s Bike To School Day was the biggest ever in San Francisco.

San Francisco board recently approved bicycle parking ordinance for commercial buildings. If a building tenant requests bicycle parking in a commercial building, the building manager must provide for that request. The interesting thing about this ordinance: The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition worked with the Building Owners and Managers Association of San Francisco to get their support for this new rule.

Now this from the San Francisco Examiner is fair and balanced!

Bicyclists just don’t hit people very often; according to The City’s Department of Public Health, cars hit people 811 times in 2010, while bicyclists hit people just 18 times. And when they do, they don’t have the momentum to do the same level of damage.

There is an audience out there — mostly older, mostly cranky — that loves to marinate in the notion that drivers in The City are victimized by political correctness run amok.

This idea of two-wheeled liberalism is an attitude that is pandered to by the likes of curmudgeonly columnists at San Francisco newspapers.

Read more of this at the San Francisco Examiner: Rare pedestrian deaths exploited by bicycle foes.


San Jose rain commute by bike


More Bay Area Updates

The news story says Palo Alto reduced a 13 foot bike lane on Middlefield Road to just 4.5 feet in a restriping project to add a left turn lane, the neighbors complain about safety concerns for cyclists, but I suspect what residents along Middlefield really dislike is the loss of their free, city provided on-street parking.

Bike Alameda ends their 12 year old bike valet parking service.

BART from Fremont to San Jose construction begins. VTA is responsible for building the BART line from Warm Springs (near the Mission Boulevard connector between I-880 and I-680) to Milpitas (station at Montague Expressway and Capital Avenue, where BART will connect to VTA Light Rail Alum Rock line) to Berryessa Station, located near the San Jose Flea Market in the East Valley. BART has also started construction on the Warm Springs Extension, which will extend BART from it’s current terminus in Fremont to Warm Springs, where it will connect with the VTA BART project.

Some theft prevention tips for those who bike to BART. I don’t know about one of those tips: “Use the highest quality … handcuff style lock.” Is there such a thing as a high quality handcuff lock?


Stoker

The California High Speed Rail Authority approves the a more limited HSR proposal. Next step: Legislative approval.

The Republican National Convention will be at a different Bay Area, and Tampa area police get bicycle training for the anticipated protests and rallies.

U.S.A. people: Don’t forget to file your tax returns!

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