San Francisco's path to improved mobility took a crucial turn as the city's Board of Directors adopted a comprehensive Biking and Rolling Plan, the first makeover since 2009. This pivotal decision, reported by SFMTA in a recent blog post, aims to reshape the cityscape for cyclists and pedestrians, focusing on safety, connectivity, and access.
The plan looks to reflect changes in urban transit and adapt to an evolving population, including e-bikers and scooter users. It has been crafted as a blueprint to broaden the bikeway network and enhance transit links, school commutes, and access to essential services. However, the document doesn't specifically approve projects, allocate funds, close streets to cars, or promise new bikeways for merchant corridors. Instead, it proposes to transparently guide key decisions, stressing the importance of community engagement in these future debates.
Community input was a driving force behind the crafting of this plan, mirroring hopes and concerns from different walks of San Franciscan life. Lengthy collaborations with groups like PODER/Bicis del Pueblo and Bayview Hunters Point Community Advocates were crucial in discerning such priorities and molding the contentions into actionable blueprints. As SFMTA reports, this process took the shape of workshops, bike rides, and town halls, ensuring the voices on the fringe were brought to the core of policy-making.
SFMTA's evaluation has disclosed promising figures: a 27% spike in bike ridership on safer bikeways and a decline in pedestrian and bike-related crashes by over 30% post-safety projects.
