Great news for San Fran Chinatown. The Marxist Mayor has decided not to kill it off. She will allow cars, people into the tourist area, instead of closing it off to bikes and no car zones.
Sadly, she is willing to kill off the rest of San Fran—like keeping Market Street closed, hence the massive retreat of business form the main area of town—causing small businesses to close and productive people to leave town.
““[SFMTA] is not considering bike lanes in our scenarios in Chinatown,” the agency said in a statement. “We have taken the outreach seriously and will have revisions to our maps.”
The city’s Biking and Rolling Plan aims to promote low-carbon transportation options to support housing and achieve traffic-safety targets. SFMTA is presenting ideas that include car-free zones, protected bike lanes, shared roads and other infrastructure and will finalize the network’s design in early 2025.”
Literally it would have killed the tourist trade, hence killing the businesses. But what about saving the rest of San Fran from the Bike Mafia?
Breed pressures SFMTA to kill Chinatown bike lanes after backlash
By Han Li, SF Standard, 8/5/24 https://sfstandard.com/2024/08/05/san-francisco-chinatown-bike-lane-breed-sfmta/
San Francisco’s transportation agency is changing course on plans for a citywide bike-lane network after facing backlash in Chinatown, a dense, hilly neighborhood with narrow streets where, advocates say, biking is not ideal.
The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency confirmed that it had nixed the possibility of bike lanes in Chinatown after community members pushed back and Mayor London Breed’s office poured cold water on the idea.
“[SFMTA] is not considering bike lanes in our scenarios in Chinatown,” the agency said in a statement. “We have taken the outreach seriously and will have revisions to our maps.”
The city’s Biking and Rolling Plan aims to promote low-carbon transportation options to support housing and achieve traffic-safety targets. SFMTA is presenting ideas that include car-free zones, protected bike lanes, shared roads and other infrastructure and will finalize the network’s design in early 2025.
In Chinatown, the proposed bike lane sparked fierce pushback from merchants and others.
“Based on my conversation with the community, biking is not a primary transportation option in the neighborhood,” Sharon Lai, a former SFMTA board commissioner and candidate for the Board of Supervisors, told The Standard. She believes most Chinatown merchants and residents rely on walking, public transit and cars.
The dust-up over Chinatown bike lanes is the latest controversy over transit infrastructure, with officials drawing criticism from drivers and merchants who feel sidelined. The addition of bike lanes would likely take away street parking spots, sparking protests from merchants concerned about losing customers.
Initially, SFMTA laid out three scenarios, two of which would have added bike lanes in certain areas of Chinatown. The third had no bike lanes at all, prioritizing safety improvements, particularly around schools.
Though no decision had been made, some were angered by what they saw as insufficient outreach efforts, said Jaynry Mak, board chair of the Portsmouth Plaza Parking Corporation in Chinatown.
“I think MTA can do better in their outreach,” Mak said. “People found out about the options and asked, ‘MTA’s gonna do this without me?’ ”
Mak reached out to Breed, who asked SFMTA to overhaul the plan, according to emails obtained by The Standard.
“There is no bike lane being proposed anymore at our request,” Mason Lee, a mayoral staffer, wrote in an email to Mak.
In a statement, the mayor’s office acknowledged that there is room for improvement in the SFMTA’s communications with Chinatown stakeholders, and “nobody should be caught off guard when their street changes, parking is removed or a transit stop moves.”
Breed will work with SFMTA to ensure that communication with the public is clear, timely and informative, the statement said.
This is not the first time Breed has intervened in a city department’s decision after the Chinese community voiced concerns.
During Lunar New Year in February, Breed halted a Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing plan to transform a hotel into sober housing that faced massive backlash from Chinatown denizens. In March, after she was confronted by Asian American activists, Breed ordered the San Francisco Police Department to release surveillance video of a Chinese woman being pushed to her death.
According to the mayor’s office, three updated scenarios for the citywide bike-lane network have carved out Chinatown from any plans, leaving some busy business corridors for “future study.” It’s unclear how this will affect the citywide goal, as other neighborhoods may ask for similar exemptions.
Lai said that despite the concessions, it will take a long time for SFMTA to repair its relationship with Chinatown.
“The Chinatown community had bad experiences with MTA before,” Lai said, pointing to the decade-long Central Subway construction project. “So there’s little trust from the community toward the MTA.”
