Fixes such as LOS reform, which would change how the city gauges traffic impacts associated with projects such as the Bike Plan, were offered support by Rahaim and other top officials, but even that effort has become mired in the same kinds of exhaustive CEQA-based environmental reviews that have stalled bike projects.
“I couldn’t agree more with how poorly CEQA is interpreted in this city,” Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, who sponsored the legislation that got the Planning Department and Metropolitan Transportation Agency working on LOS reform, said at the hearing. “There needs to be uniform reform to LOS and CEQA.”
At a rally before the hearing, bicyclist advocates, business people and public health experts called for the city to do more.
“Mayor Gavin Newsom, we want to know what you’re going to do,” San Francisco Bicycle Coalition director Leah Shahum said shortly after Newsom wanted briskly past the gathering and into his TownCar without comment. “City Attorney Dennis Herrera, we want to know what you’re going to do. To the 11 members of the Board of Supervisors, we want to know what you’re going to do.”
Beyond their pledges of support, all of those named have offered little that will greatly accelerate the process, prompting some bicycle advocates to try to take matters into their own hands.
Bicycle Advisory Committee member Casey Allen and a group of bicyclists have been working on a third party intervention in the lawsuit, hoping Judge Peter Busch will be swayed by their argument that hazardous sections of town constitute an immediate public health threat that warrants dropping the injunction. Allen said they will file their motion to intervene next month after completing legal work on it.
“There are other strategies that we’re working on too,” Allen assured the crowd from the podium. “We ask citizens to become directly involved in this battle.”
Many bike activists are frustrated that the City Attorney’s Office didn’t appeal the ruling and injunction on the Bicycle Plan, except for a limited and partially successful effort to allow bike-related improvements to the some of the most dangerous intersections, such as Fell and Masonic Streets.
But City Attorney’s Office spokesperson Matt Dorsey told the Guardian that an unsuccessful appeal could have turned the limited ruling of one Republican judge into a statewide precedent that affected bike projects in each of California’s 58 counties.
“The danger is it risks writing bad caselaw where none existed before,” Dorsey said.
He disputed accusations that his office hasn’t made the injunction a high priority or that they’ve disregarded its impact to cyclists, saying they’ve worked hard on the case and are as frustrated by the verdict as anyone. But he said the problem is with CEQA, which doesn’t acknowledge the environmental benefits of bicycle projects and allows single plaintiffs such as Rob Anderson, who brought the case in SF, to tangle up projects for years.
“Dennis believes that if we’re really going to solve this problem, we have to work together…The injunction against the SF Bike Plan is the perfect example of what’s wrong with CEQA,” Dorsey said. “The real solution is in Sacramento. We need to reform CEQA.”
Yet until that happens or until the city can do legally defensible LOS reform or bicycle advocates can find some other way to end the injunction, San Francisco won’t see any bicycle improvements, which rally speakers said will hurt the city’s physical and economic health.
Mark Dwight, who founded Timbuk2, which makes popular bike messenger bags, and serves on the board of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, said, “Bicycling is an economic stimulus for the city of San Francisco…Bicycling is increasingly important for San Francisco’s number one industry: tourism.”
Naomi Bardach, a pediatrician at San Francisco General Hospital and UCSF, said bicycling is an important activity both for exercise and air quality. “This means the Bike Plan has great potential to improve the health of the city’s kids and adults.”
Sup. Gerardo Sandoval, who called the hearing, praised bicyclists who combating air pollution, global warming, and traffic congestion. "You are doing such a good turn for the city," he said. "People who drive should absolutely love you."