By Steven T. Jones
San Francisco bicycle riders finally have something to be thankful for.
Judge Peter Busch today issued a ruling lifting much of the three-year-old injunction against bicycle-related improvements in San Francisco, allowing city workers to immediately begin installing new bike racks and “sharrow” road markings, as well as working on the 10 bike lane projects that will have the least impacts to automobiles.
Pending a hearing next year on a legal challenge to the adequacy of the Bicycle Plan’s Environmental Impact Report – which the city completed earlier this year after the court said it was required by the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) – Busch wrote that “the City may proceed with those projects within the Bicycle Plan that are least intrusive and most easily reversible should it turn out that the City has not satisfied its CEQA obligations for some reason.”
The bike lanes projects that city officials say they plan to soon construct, and which Busch is allowing, are on Beale, Howard, Otis, Scott, Mississippi, Kansas, and Clipper streets, JFK Drive, Claremont Boulevard, and 7th Avenue. There are another 35 bike projects that have been approved by the city that the judge is not allowing to move forward yet.
While I immediately couldn’t reach bike community leaders or plaintiff Rob Anderson, City Attorney Dennis Herrera issued a statement saying, “This is an important step in the right direction that enables the City to enact significant safety improvements for bicyclists and pedestrians in San Francisco.”