SF’s First Raised, Parking-Protected Bike Lane is Here

San Francisco’s very first raised, parking protected bike lane has just been completed on a short stretch of Valencia Street south of Cesar Chavez.

This street design flips around the conventional setup of car parking and bike lanes most San Franciscans are used to by placing a buffer area between parked cars and the bike lane.

These lanes are just 1-2 inches higher than the roadway and there’s concern about the cost/benefit of raised bike lanes (reported to be 40X the cost of a street level lane with posts)

Why Parking-Protected Raised Bikeways?

Previously the city tested raised bikeways on Market Street, but there were issues with illegal parking of cars which blocked the bike lane. Refining their strategy, the city is now trying raised bikeways where

Instead of the bike lane being placed between parked cars and the traffic lane, the bike lane runs curbside between the sidewalk and parked cars, with space to load in between. And in this case, the bike lane is physically raised slightly from the roadway by a small curb.

What’s Next for SF’s Bike Network?

Since 2010, the SFMTA has installed 13 miles of protected lanes in San Francisco – and that’s just the beginning.

Fifteen miles of new protected bike lanes should be ready for construction by the end of 2017. When completed, these projects will more than double the miles of protected lanes in San Francisco.

Read more at SFMTA in an article by Aaron Bialick