Cycling calms cities. A bold claim. Stick with me for a few paragraphs and perhaps I can persuade you. I’ll be moving into my third decade of cycling in San Francisco this fall. Twenty plus years provides plenty of perspective on changes in societal behaviors; cycling or otherwise. Particularly in a large city like San Francisco. The most striking behavioral change with respect to cycling I have seen and experienced is that it has calmed the city. From a transportation perspective, anyway. Clearly, cycling is on the rise. Prior to 1994, with the exception of Critical Mass, started in San Francisco in 1992, there were really no significant bike first initiatives anywhere. Riding a bicycle was something you did when you were a kid… and never, or rarely, again. Certainly not for anything so mundane as just getting yourself from point A to point B.

Cycling not an option?

When my wife and I moved back to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1994, with two kids in tow, we chose to live in San Francisco proper, not one of the outlying suburbs. We wanted to experience the city and knew we could always move to Marin, the East Bay or the Peninsula if it didn’t work out. We’re still in SF and a one kid larger family unit to boot! In 1996, I participated as a volunteer in my first Bike to Work Day. One of the key initiatives at that time was an effort to make Valencia Street, from its start at Market Street heading south to Cesar Chavez (nee Army St around that time) more bike friendly. I assisted the then director of the SF Bicycle Coalition, Dave Snyder, with laying out traffic cones along the first mile of this two mile route to convert the then two lane two way street with no bike lanes into a single lane each way with a center turn lane experience for cars and a single bike lane each way next to the parked cars. Following this day’s experiment the SFBC was able to get experimental striping laid down the whole length of Valencia Street in roughly this same format. Six months later, with a little nail biting and trepidation that the SF Planning Commission would get cold feet, the experimental striping was made permanent. There was plenty of store owner griping that business would fall off, but to date, clearly, this change transformed Valencia into a thriving urban mecca for fine food and shopping. And it shows no signs of slacking off.

Last year, the evolution of Valencia Street advanced a bit further with the introduction of a ‘green wave’, timed lights for all traffic going north and south at roughly 13mph. Valencia Street Cycling slows down life in this neighborhood. More human scale. Cyclists, initially, made all drivers mad. Now only a few. Many drivers today wave me through intersections first. They’re courteous!

1994 to 2004: Decade of the hard core cyclist… messenger men, middle-age men in Lycra (MAMIL’s) careening through traffic with little respect for cars and traffic laws.

2004 to 2014: Decade of cycling ascendancy … the growing inclusion of women and cycling as a useful mode of transportation. City planners actively incorporating safer cycling options across cityscapes.

2014 to today: Decade of cycling acceptance. Cycling as a regular transportation mode is here to stay. Parents regularly taking their children to school on bikes. Strong growth in electric bikes.