Friday, July 20, 2012

Doing the Wiggle and getting a ticket


I can almost sympathize with the cyclists ticketed on the Wiggle for running stop signs. For years City Hall and the Bicycle Coalition have been touting the Wiggle as a bike route to Market Street from this part of town. And the new bike lanes planned for the Panhandle are being sold as a quicker, more "comfortable" route to the Wiggle itself. Hence, cyclists assumed speeding through the lower Haight on the Wiggle is officially sanctioned, and they aren't wrong. The Wiggle problem is really evidence that people in the neighborhoods don't find cyclists as endearing as City Hall does. 

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7 Comments:

At 6:47 PM, Blogger murphstahoe said...

City is preying on cyclists

 
At 2:53 PM, Blogger Rob Anderson said...

Yes, and it's nice for a change. But this crackdown is temporary, and ticketing cyclists will never be a serious source of revenue for the city, like preying on city drivers is to the tune of $170 million a year.

 
At 11:37 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

So you admit this is about revenue, not safety. I see...

 
At 11:52 AM, Blogger Rob Anderson said...

No, the post says the opposite. Revenue raised ticketing cyclists can't possibly approach what's extracted from city drivers.

 
At 1:55 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Even if it doesn't approach what is coming from drivers, it's being done to get whatever money they can, not for some sort of "safety". The city won't turn down money, ever.

 
At 12:26 PM, Blogger Rob Anderson said...

I disagree. It's coming from complaints from people living on the Wiggle. But, like Critical Mass, City Hall has in effect endorsed the idea of cyclists speeding through this lower Haight neighborhood. Sporadic enforcement of traffic laws won't change that reality, and the planned Panhandle bike lanes are designed to allow cyclists to get to the Wiggle even faster.

 
At 12:04 PM, Blogger Mark Kaepplein said...

Thanks for the video because in MA sightings of unicorns, big foot, and Nessie are more common than cyclists getting tickets! 23 in the entire state of Massachusetts since 1/1/2011, except for Cambridge which may have issued some city bylaw citations. Since cyclists don't pay road user fees and frequently break traffic laws, SF is just leaving cash on the table for such low hanging fruit.

 

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