Greenzone Online

San Francisco developed a plan to enhance bike riding for its residents and create a safer biking environment. In 2004, the city released a 527-page plan with maps, analysis, and a call for more bike lanes and better bike parking. With the improvements, they had hoped to increase bike commuting to 10% of the total commuting in the city

While bikers loved the plan, local citizen Rob Anderson was opposed. He claimed that bicycle lanes would increase pollution. How, you ask? Well, he said that stealing perfectly good street space from cars and giving it to bikes would increase congestion, leading to emissions from idling. Anderson successfully convinced a judge to halt the plan while the city develops an environmental impact report.

On the whole, Anderson sounds like a local eccentric with too much power. He states in his blog that the city’s plan is an “attempt by the anti-car fanatics to screw up our traffic on behalf of the bicycle fantasy.” He ran for a seat on the city’s Board of Supervisors in 2004 and received 332 of 34,955 votes, so clearly the public does not agree with many of his policies. Despite what might be considered cantankerous ramblings, Anderson does have one good point. He complains that bikers often consider themselves above the law. I would have to agree.

I live in a city with numerous bike lanes and merely moderate traffic. I bike to the library weekly and walk wherever I can. But the city’s cyclists often ignore rules put in place to make everyone safer. They often run red lights while riding in bike lanes. Daily, I’ll see them riding on the sidewalk in broad daylight (relegating my dog and me to the grass) while a spacious bike lane exists five feet beside it. And rarely do they wear helmets, even when cycling with their helmeted children.

It’s difficult to imagine that bike lanes could increase congestion, but I would certainly love for the police to enforce cycling laws as often as they enforce them on motor vehicles. I’ll give you that one concession, Mr. Anderson. But I will continue to live with a personal “bicycle fantasy.”