Hotel Whitcomb - tour bus parking in "separated bike lane" on Market Street.

Cyclists who commute down Market Street at rush hour run into the same issue every day. The Hotel Whitcomb, at 8th Street, fronts a green painted, post separated bike lane. Every day, tour buses affiliated with the hotel park in that bike lane.



Photo by thegreasybear on mybikelane.com

"thegreasybear" has a write up on My Bike Lane that can be found here.

On Bike to Work Day, I had the pleasure of riding in with my Supervisor, Scott Wiener. We encountered the exact same blockade, with the buses parked 3 wide, including the protected bike lane. Going around 3 buses means going into the F line tracks, and one of our entourage crashed in the tracks. I pointed this out to Scott, and later sent him this email.

From: John Murphy
To: "scott.wiener@sfgov.org" ,
"jane.kim@sfgov.org"
Cc: "MTABoard@sfmta.com" , San Francisco Bike Coaliton
tahoe@murphstahoe.com
Date: 05/12/2011 05:57 PM
Subject: Tour Buses in Market Street Bike Lane



Supervisors Wiener and Kim:

It was a pleasure to ride in to work for Bike to Work Day with Scott and
to hear Supervisor Kim describe her lessons from Deep Jawa on riding a
bike so she could ride in today. Great stuff!

What is not so great is something Supervisor Wiener got to experience
first hand this morning. Every morning at the heart of bike rush hour on
Market Street, tour buses pull inside the "protected bike lane" and park
for extended periods in front of the Hotel Whitcomb in Supervisor Kim's
district. Buses then double park in the "primary travel lane", forcing
everyone onto the F Line tracks. Supervisor Wiener also got to see first
hand how problematic riding a bike over those tracks can be as one woman
in our party caught a wheel in the tracks and crashed.

Scott asked me "Has anyone said something to them?"

Answer: The hotel and SFPD have been notified of this situation many
times, and complainants have tried to point out alternatives, to no avail.

That block is one of the centerpieces of the boasts the Mayor and the
Supervisors made this morning at the press conference - an actual
protected bike lane in San Francisco. But if it is blocked every day at
peak usage time - the inbound rush hour commute - then all it is is a
waste of plastic poles and green paint.

Plenty of people have said things to the Hotel. None of them has the
gravitas of a sitting San Francisco Supervisor. We'd love your help with
this situation.

Thanks

John Murphy - District 8

Scott's response is here.

From: Scott Wiener/BOS/SFGOV
To: John Murphy
Cc: "jane.kim@sfgov.org"
, San Francisco Bike Coaliton,
, tahoe@murphstahoe.com, Mike Sallaberry
, Kit Hodge
Date: 05/13/2011 07:52 AM
Subject: Re: Tour Buses in Market Street Bike Lane



Hi John. Great riding with you this morning!
Yes, that situation was not good. At one point all three lanes were
blocked by buses/shuttles. I'd be happy to address it with Jane, with
SFBC, with SFMTA, or whatever would be most effective. Since it's in
Jane's district, I'll defer to her in terms of how to proceed.



Scott Wiener
Member, San Francisco Board of Supervisors
District 8

And one from Jane Kim

Hi John and Scott,

I am more than happy to follow up with MTA to discuss what enforcement we
can place on Market Street to discourage tour buses and shuttles from
blocking the bike lane. I have cc'd Matthias Mormino and April Veneracion
from our office who can call MTA to discuss some immediate solutions.

Jane