Read John Avalos' plan for a world-class biking city
We took 26th to Bryant to the "Underpass of Broken Bottles and Dreams" to Cesar Chavez. I had scouted out the UBBD yesterday, maybe Ed Lee knew Supervisor Avalos was headed that way this AM and cleared it out - no shopping carts, not even a single homeless guy, and the dead rat that was adorning the path yesterday had disappeared. The lack of these amenities left the bike path ... still completely undignified. So it was good to show him this crap.
Then we took Chavez and he got to see it in its full glory - 4 lanes of not much traffic yet we still got buzzed by a truck or two.
I pointed out the "sidewalks" which will not be widened thanks to the cancellation of the original planned project. Sun Tsu could not have done it better - if you want to wage war on one group, figure out how to pit another group against them. In this case, the ongoing ability for people who hate bike lanes because it messes up their car centric lifestyle to suddenly become "pedestrian advocates" and pit pedestrians against cyclists. Sure, there aren't many pedestrians walking on Chavez. Perhaps because there are NO SIDEWALKS. Anyway, this was very useful - Avalos frankly had no idea about the project or it's "cancellation/postponement/modification" - "Wait, who did this? The *current* Mayor?" I pointed out the access to Caltrain via Chavez for Noe/Glen/Bernal/Mission.
Then we had a pretty cool ride down 3rd Street. Another rider remarked to me that he used to ride on 3rd a lot when he worked at Mission Bay, and he said "Wow this is so much better than it used to be". I had to agree. And now they have a Fresh and Easy down there. That has to be an upgrade. Right turn on Paul, left on San Bruno and up the one hill for the day, on which Supervisor Av alos did his best Mark Cavendish impression. We gathered at the little park thing at Blanken and Bayshore, took pictures, handed out literature, and pointed John to the Bayshore Caltrain station where he could get his "Bike On Board" to get back to 4th/King by 7:45 AM to make a breakfast he had downtown.
"Does Clipper work on Caltrain". "Yes, there is a blue box, tag your card on it. Then do NOT forget to TAG OFF as if you were on BART, when you get off". "OK, great meeting you". "Great meeting you too! DO NOT FORGET TO TAG OFF or you will be charged for a ticket to Gilroy".
I tried in vain to put an Avalos spoke card into my wheels, my wheels are tied and soldered so it was impossible.
We said goodbye and headed South down the Peninsula on a glorious Bay Area Morning.
Murph
John Avalos: @murphstahoe forgot to tag off
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3 comments:
I imagine that NB bike car will be PACKED at Bayshore. Do you know if he actually made it on?
I assume he made it on because I didn't hear that he did not, and I did hear that he forgot to tag off. That's a local train, all stops from RWC to SF, I predict it would not actually be that full.
That would be epic if the possible future mayor of San Francisco was bumped.
Great story, John! Impressive job pulling that together. Would have been there but the half marathon I ran last Saturday caught up with me and I just ran out of gas mid-week.
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