Bicycle Plan begins to take effect

In today's SF Examiner, a story ("Seniors Rally Against Bikes on Muni Metro," Marisa Lagos) about the allegedly innocuous Bicycle Plan passed unanimously a few months ago by both the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors tells us why that was irresponsible: "A push to allow bicycles on Muni's rail lines is drawing the ire of some senior and disabled advocates worried about overcrowding and safety."

We now learn that Muni "plans to apply for grant money from a regional fund which, if secured, would allow Muni to study the feasibility of allowing bikes on rail lines as well..."

District 5 Diary and others argued months ago before both the Planning Commission and the Supervisors that what they were doing violated CEQA; the city was legally obligated to do an evironmental study before making the 400-page Bicycle Plan part of the General Plan. 

The result of the city's PC haste is that the bike fanatics can now piecemeal in the many policy "actions" specified in the plan, getting various city agencies to do the studies as they go along, instead of studying the impact of the plan as a whole.

The present course of action is both politically unprincipled and illegal.