Things were worse back in aught-seven, back when drivers waiting to fill up at the always-cheap ARCO station on Fell Street in the EaPA would queue up big in the bike lane. But it’s no picnic these days neither, as you can see in this shot from a few days ago:
Well, comes now award-winning Michael Helquist of BIKE NOPA to learn us about planned changes:
“‘We have a design hashed out to take out parking on the south side of Fell Street,’ James Shahamiri, MTA Assistant Traffic Engineer, told BIKE NOPA. The new design would designate the former parking spaces as a curbside queue for motorists awaiting entry to the gas station.”
(IMO, that’s a painfully obvious solution that any other town in ‘Merica would have implemented years ago when the issue first cropped up. But oh well.)
So, you see them cars parked on the left side? You know, the Porsche 944 (or 968?), the Saturn S-Series, and the Honda CR-V cute-ute SUV? They’re parked in spaces that could soon be the ARCO queue.
What’s that, NIMBY? Over your dead body you say? O.K., well, I think this cake is already baked, but maybe you’ll be able to hear more about all the deets at this meeting:
Tags: 1775, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 76, arco, area, Assistant, association, automobiles, autos, bicycle, bike, BIKE NOPA, block, blocking, BP, cars, cyclists, divisadero, divisidero, EaPA, east of panhandle, engineer, fell, fulton, gas, gasloline, golden gate park, intersection, James Shahamiri, jannah, lane, Line, meeting, metropolitan transportation agency, Metropolitan Transportation Authority, michael helquist, mta, Muni, neighborhood, nimby, NOPA, nopna, north of panhandle, oak, panhandle, parking, queue, San Francisco, SF, sfist, SFMTA, Station, street, traffic, union, vehicles, wait, Waiting
This is as good as a solution as any, but there will still be problems, caused by the “Me no see line (yeah, right)…….hee-hee-hee; let me get in front of you!” crowd. Net result; traffic chaos and frayed nerves.
The pandemonium is always compounded by taxis drivers who think that they’re above any rules and that lines are for suckers.
The removed parking spots are offset by the two new spots created less than a block away on Scott, when the bike lane lines were redrawn. No net change.
I think a better idea is to close down two of the gas stations in the area, since there are three on that block as it is. I live on the street and deal with the bike lane bs daily, but I don’t think the solution is to now put the cars in another crossover situation, crossing the bike lane to get ‘in queue’ for a gas station.
Is SF not looking into the NYC model, where the bike lane is adjacent to the sidewalk, then cars, then traffic??? If there were a division between bike lanes and traffic I think this would solve some of the dooring and biker-anger issues with speeddemons and non-lookers in their cars.
Of course, this would also require people to change their behaviors… that could take longer than an environmental study to figure out what is best.
Sure, just close down a private business. Just like that!
It’s a 944
People turning into the gas station won’t use the curb lane. It is very uncool and tremedously exhausting to use a turn signal or the curb lane when turning.
I think they should eliminate the bike lanes, since there are others in the area. Of course, that would require a change in behavior. Sheesh.
YEAH! It’s about time. I was hoping the Arco would go, but…. I’ve been calling Mirkarimi’s office for months. Should have know it would take bike people to get it done. Thanks! Any way you can get no left turns on Cesar Chavez?
[...] Arco gas station at Fell and Divis gets some spillover room on Fell. We (meaning, you guys – the ones with cars) lose some parking spaces, The Wiggle [...]