BICYCLE ADVISORY COMMITTEE
Monday April 27, 2015
6:30 p.m. City Hall, Room 408
Regular Meeting

MINUTES

1. Roll Call – Determination of Quorum
Present: District 1 - Kevin Dole, District 3 - Marc Brandt (6:45 arrival), District 4 - Ed Nicolson (6:57 arrival), District 5 - Morgan
Fitzgibbons, District 6 - Richard May, District 7 - Bert Hill (Chair), District 9 - Ilyse Magy, District 11 - Casey dos SantosAllen
The meeting was called to order at 6:40 PM.

2. Announcements & Acknowledgments
● The Chair welcomed Ilyse Magy to the Committee
● May apologized for missing recent meetings due to work conflicts
● Fitzgibbons was featured on KRON 4’s People Behaving Badly for refereeing the Wiggle as part of the NOW Festival. Brandt was also featured.

3. Approve Minutes March 23, 2015 BAC Meeting
● Motion: Dole
● Second: May
The minutes were approved unanimously.

4. Public Comment
● Adina Levin (Friends of Caltrain) Friends of Caltrain is a nonprofit, 501c3 with 5000+ members, 800 in SF. FoC has supported modernization of Caltrain, stable funding for Caltrain, transit friendly development around Caltrain area of service. Recent video
highlights weakness of bike infrastructure at 4th & King near Caltrain station:
( http://sf.streetsblog.org/2015/04/13/whytownsendstreetneedsprotectedbike....) Video has received over 100+ comments on streetsblog.Note sent to Sup. Kim, SFBC & SFMTA.

○ Chair request SFMTA comment
○ Ben Jose, SFMTA: Central subway construction is rerouting bicycle traffic through the area. Possible short term solution would be upgrade of sharrows on Townsend
○ Chair noted increased levels of taxis in area.
○ May: Road in area is quite quite rough. When will it be repaved?
○ Jose: Repaving is DPW issue.
○ Chair: station abuts federal property, possibly federal grants available to improve road.
○ Magy: SF Transit Riders Union is aware of issues at 4th and King.

● John Woodell: Commuter to Twitter from Menlo Park, uses 4th & King. Area has high number of right hooks. Suggests green stripe merge at corners like at Howard. Also suggests relocation of Bike Share dock at the station.
● Devon Warner, organizer of SF Ride of Silence honoring cyclists killed in traffic accidents. SF Ride will be 5/20/15, departing from Bryant St location of Sports Basement. Would love to see Committee attendance and full support, request route monitors

○ Nicolson: how many participate last year?
■ Warner: Approx 80 visiting 8 locations.
○ Brandt had attended in years past and was moved by the experience.
○ Fitzgibbons suggested reaching out to Bike Party and offered to promote through social media.

● David Froelich, DPW: Caltrain Station is Federal right of way and not DPW jurisdiction.

5. Committee Member Reports
Chairman's Report – GG Bridge District:
● There will be major additions to the bathrooms at the bridge plaza.
● Currently there are more pedestrian/bicyclist collisions than pedestrian/motorist collisions. Will explore bike valet service for tourists who bike to the bridge but want to walk across.

Committee Member Reports
● Nicolson:

○ Attended the District 4 meeting with the Mayor but bicycles were not a major discussion point.
○ A traffic signal is being installed at 34th & Lincoln as discussed at previous meetings.
○ There is no sensor for making a left off Embarcadero onto Northpoint and cyclists are regularly running the red light. Tour buses are often parked in the Embarcadero bike lane during rush hour

● Brandt:

○ Attended the 4/2/15 Folks for Polk meeting. Sups. Wiener, Breed and Christensen were present.
○ In the wake of the fatality at 14th & Folsom, visited crash site. Video camera footage from nearby Foods Co was blocked.

● Fitzgibbons:

○ In addition to the “Wiggle Referee” project, NOW Festival included a “high five ride” along the panhandle.
○ Fell/oak lanes finally complete.
○ Attended public forum on Wiggle greenway. Project for before SFMTA board for approval on May 5

● Magy thinking about legality of riding in crosswalks for purposes of making box turns
● Dole:

○ Findings of the 311 subcommittee were the cover story of the 4/1/15 SF Examiner.
○ 4/2/15 there was a hit and run crash at Fell & Scott in which three cyclists were injured. Disappointed SFPD not present at meeting to discuss it.

6. Governmental Reports
a. MTA Bicycle Program Report – Ben Jose
Jose:
● OAK/FELL

○ Multiple evaluation periods in May 2013 found notable drop in vehicle speeds and less bikes on sidewalk.
○ Project took so long because it was a multiagency project involving sewer replacement.
○ Green paint to be restored within next few weeks.

• Fitzgibbons highlighted multiple safety issues in the in area around the Oak/Fell due to attempts to mitigate parking loss

● Automatic review into accidents:

○ All investigation into deaths are set into motion by SFPD

• Fitzgibbons: SFMTA should do automatic review of design without SFPD involvement

● The following 311 requests were addressed:

○ 4588040 Tree trimming assigned to Rec & Park
○ 4588049 8th & Lake was studied by traffic engineers. Recommendation expected within next two weeks.
○ 4521566 8th Ave pavement defect assigned to DPW
○ 4586036 Broadway Tunnel has been assigned to Liveable Streets staff

• Dole acknowledged prompt SFMTA response to a request for sharrows along 15th avenue.

● Chair requested a project update on Masonic.
● Dole requested an update on planning work being done in the Hairball

PUBLIC COMMENT
● Adina Levin requested that SFMTA projects be available in a map version as opposed to a list version.

b. BART Task Force – Dr. Shirley Johnson – BBATF
Johnson was not present. The Chair read the following email from Johnson, re: Caltrain:

“The SFBC/SVBC/Bike SMC joint platform recommends that Caltrain provide bike
capacity to allow 20% of passengers to bring a bike onboard in 2021. This
recommendation is based on extrapolating bike boardings from Caltrain annual
passenger counts. The estimate is conservative, because bike boardings are
suppressed by bicycle bumps and Caltrain passenger counts are conducted in February
when bike ridership is low. For details behind the recommendation, please see:
https://www.sfbike.org/wpcontent/uploads/2015/01/Presentation_Bikes_on_Electrified_Trains_SFBC_v1.pdf

Friends of Caltrain claims that onboard bike capacity can be reduced by 50% due to
people parking their bikes at the station. While we fully support wayside improvements,
it’s not realistic to think that there will be fewer bikes onboard electrified trains than
there are today. Ridership trends point to more bikes on electrified trains, not fewer.”

c. Report on PSAC Joint Initiatives – Morgan Fitzgibbons,
No report

d. SFPD Report on Safety and Security Issues – Sgt. Eric Mahoney
Mahoney was not present.

e. Vision Zero Coalition Report – Winston Parsons
Parsons was not present.

7. DPW Representation
● David Froelich introduced himself to the Committee. Froelich is both a D10 resident and a landscape architect with DPW. He is interested in serving on the Committee as a representative in either capacity. He is unsure how the DPW representative is appointed to the Committee.
● It was determined that the D10 position seems like a better fit for Froelich since his position within DPW does not address the Committee’s concerns.
● The Chair will check to see if Froelich’s status as a DPW employee constitutes a conflict of interest with his representing on the Committee
● Froelich stated said that 311 requests for street repair received by DPW are internally routed to the Bureau of Street and Sewer Repair but after that he has “no idea” what happens. He has made 311 requests himself and never heard back. He will look into it
and report back to the Committee next month,

8. Recommendations for Caltrain’s BikeonBoardService
The committee elected to vote on a resolution advocating that Caltrain plan for 20% bicycle ridership on the new electric trains, as opposed to a letter of support for the resolutions from the SFBC, Silicon Valley BC, and Bike San Mateo County. Brandt will author the resolution.

PUBLIC COMMENT:

• Adina Levin, Friends of Caltrain: FoC is a big supporter of bikes on board project but concerned about increasing to 20% bike capacity on electric trains in context of overall capacity crunch. New Caltran survey said 50%+ of riders would prefer bike lockers at station over bikes on train. More fine grain data analysis will be available by the May meeting. Urges Committee to hold off until then.
       - Chair requested Levin to present info at the May meeting.
• Woodell: This morning Caltrain was kicking riders off. Called for promotion of folding bikes as commuter solution, better signage on caltrain.
• Fitzgibbons suggested a “hackathon” with the Caltrain data

9. Resolution in Recognition of Leah Shahum (Brandt)

• Motion: Brandt
• Second: May

The resolution passed unanimously.

10. Adjournment

• Motion: Dole
• Second: May

The meeting adjourned at 8:59 pm.