Posts Tagged ‘snickerdoodle’
Wednesday, February 13th, 2013
If you want to get there and back again from the Panhandle bike path and Mid Market (and beyond), your best choice is McAllister Street.
It’s waaaaaaay better than The Wiggle route.
Why?
Well, why not? McAllister Street (aka the Hastings Cutoff) is shorter and swifter and straighter and safer.
Actually, The Wiggle is The Rookie’s Choice, full of part-timers like CW Nevius (oh he just quit cycling in The City, hardly surprising) and fast fixie riders who don’t know any better.
And The Movement prefers the Wiggle, for some unknown reason. But if you just want to get from A to B, then its Market McAllister Divis and eventually Fell for you.
Like this – that’s UC Hastings, your Hastings Cutoff lodestar, there in the background on the left:
Click to expand
So you climb a bit more using McAl, like 20 more vertical feet if you add up all the ups and downs, but big whoop.
All right, see you out there on the HC!
Tags: 20, 2013, alamo heights, asphalt, attack, bicycle, bicycle coalition, bicycles, bike, bike coallition, bikes, boulevard, citations, civic center, construction, cops, cyclist, dept., eastbound, fell, fillmore, flat, golden gate, haight, hastings, inbound, lead, lower, market, mcallister, new, oak, octavia, officer, officers, outbound, panhandle, paving, pierce, pipe, police, repaving, route, route 20, route 30, safeway, San Francisco, sfbc, SFPD, snick, snickerdoodle, street, tickets, uc hastings, westbound, western addition, wiggle
Posted in bikes | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, November 29th, 2011
[UPDATE: And, you know, I guess I hadn't considered the one-way streets. Particularly inbound, they can get you there fast if you're up for lights timed at 20-something MPH. I've seen people on Oak and Golden Gate inbound, but, due to geography most likely, I haven't seen that many using the outbound analogs Fell and Turk. See footnote.]
Well here we go. This shot from United 931 shows, in high relief, why you’re better off talking McAllister Street, Bike Route 20, to downtown from the Panhandle and vice versa.
You see Alamo Square inside the red box on the lower left? It’s the summit of Alamo Heights, sitting there in the sunlight jutting in from the left.
The vaunted Wiggle bike path takes you from the Panhandle through Lower Haight and then behind the Church Street Safeway to Market Street and beyond. Your preferred alternative has you leaving the end of the Golden Gate Park Panhandle by taking Baker north to Fulton to Divisadero up to McAllister. That’s the pass over Alamo Heights – it’s the intersection of McAllister and Divis. Then it’s all the way downhill to Market.
You’re going between the camel humps, between Alamo Square and Kaiser Heights (seen in the sunlight on the left side).
Via jpp123
Now it’t true that Route 20, aka the Snickerdoodle, does have you climbing up, outbound, 20 more feet vertically, net, than the Wiggle (and also inbound – there’s one block of Divis that’s uphill a bit) and it’s also true that Route 20 has a couple steeper blocks betwixt Fillmore and Pierce in the Western Addition.
But, Route 20:
Is a third of a mile shorter
Is faster*
Has better pavement
Has you waiting less time staring at red lights (which is nice when compared to the Wiggle’s concomitant Market Street section with the Octavia Boulevard obstacle, which has traffic signals biased for car drivers heading north-south using Octavia)
Avoids hated Octavia Street / Boulevard entirely (cause Octavia simply doesn’t exist as a road in the McAllister area – it’s like you have a permanent green light)
Has less traffic
Has fewer peds to deal with
Has fewer cyclists to deal with (cause, you know, especially in the Lower Haight area, you just don’t know what those cyclists are going to do)
Is, due to the factors cited above, safer
Avoids the ridonculas behind-the-Safeway-to-inbound-Market puzzle that makes no sense (that I can see – I don’t know how to get across Market at Duboce legally without getting off and walking in the crosswalk)
Has zero cops sitting around handing out tickets (because you’re avoiding Fell and Scott, and Duboce and Steiner, and Haight and Pierce, and all the other places the SFPD hangs out during those periodic stop sign and red light enforcement actions)
Has Gallery 1269 to look at (optionally)
So, I don’t care, go whichever way you want. I’m just saying the Wiggle is the wrong way to get the Panhandle (and Beyond) from Downtown.
And vice versa.
*I suppose that jinking over to Oak and taking it all the way (almost) to Market might be faster still, although you’d have to decide which side of the street to go on. (The left side has more room, but there’s no longer a dashed line to keep left lane traffic out of your way. The wait at Octavia Boulevard might slow you a bit, however.
Oh, and there’s Golden Gate Avenue as well, inbound…
Tags: 20, alamo heights, asphalt, attack, bicycle, bicycle coalition, bicycles, bike, bike coallition, bikes, boulevard, citations, civic center, construction, cops, cyclist, dept., eastbound, fell, fillmore, flat, golden gate, haight, inbound, lead, lower, market, mcallister, new, oak, octavia, officer, officers, outbound, panhandle, paving, pierce, pipe, police, repaving, route, route 20, route 30, safeway, San Francisco, sfbc, SFPD, snick, snickerdoodle, street, tickets, westbound, western addition, wiggle
Posted in bikes | 4 Comments »
Friday, June 18th, 2010
This fellow on the Snickerdoodle Bike Path (Route 20, westbound McAllister in the Western Addition) had some sort of beef with the driver of the hybrid taxicab you can see on the right.
So much so that he chased down the taxi and spit on one of its windows.
Let us conclude that the taxi driver was somewhat negligent and the bike driver was/is somewhat _________.” (I’ll let you armchair psychologists make the call on that one.)
On it goes, mostly conflict-free. Mostly.
Tags: 474, 474 veterans, bicycle, bike, car, cyclist, driver, hybrid, mcallister, psychotic, roadie, snick, snickerdoodle, spit, spitting, street, taxi, veterans
Posted in bikes | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 10th, 2010
As seen on SFist and SFWeekly’s The Snitch, Google Map’s new bicycle trip planning service has alternatives to the famous Wiggle bike path.
Peter Jamison checked it out:
“We keyed in a request for directions from the downtown area to Golden Gate Park to the easternmost edge of Golden Gate Park, at Stanyan and Fell. Rather than sending us up Market Street, behind the Castro Safeway, and then north along the flat, zigzag route through the Haight that is known to any serious bicyclist in the city, Google advised us to bike straight up McAllister for a mile to the west — an uphill and decidedly less convenient trek.”
The problem with Google’s route is that it favors Fulton. The correct route from downtown is slightly different – Market, McAllister, Divisidero and then Fulton and Central or however you want to get to Fell Street and or the Panhandle Bike Path. Route 20 (or if you prefer a cute name for it, the Snickerdoodle) is faster and easier overall. You might have to wait for lights at McAlllister and Van Ness / Franklin / Gough but you completely avoid horrible horrible Octavia Boulevard.
This is the pass over Alamo Heights that the Wiggle Route avoids. If you can handle a couple not-all-that-steep blocks then you’ll prefer this route over the vaunted Wiggle.
Not that I care what you do. But this counterintuitive route is superior for anyone going to the Panhandle and points west from Union Square / Mid-Market / The Financh / The Tenderloin and most of the SoMA. Of course, if you’re already behind the Church Street Safeway and you want to get to Ocean Beach, then by all means, take your precious Wiggle route.
More deets here at the StreetsBlog SF.
Tags: 20, 30, bicycle, bike, bike there, cyclist, divisadero, get there, getthere, google, maps, market, mcallister, Planning, route, San Francisco, snick, snickerdoodle, street, wiggle
Posted in bikes | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010
Via ActionNewsSF, you might search to find a KGO-TV bit covering the traffic-disrupting venting steam pipe at McAllister and Larkin today – it’s more steam than usual, that’s for sure.
But this area of Civic Center right in front of our Asian Art Museum (this year, it’s Shanghai) is basically steaming all the time, right?
HC SVNT DRACONES:
Click to expand.
This intersection is usually steaming, unless it’s flooding. Like this:
via Lulu Vision
Oh well.
As per usual, it all happens on (or near) McAllister Street, Gateway to the Golden Gate Park Panhandle and home of the Snickerdoodle bike path (Route 20), your best way of getting over Alamo Heights while avoiding the abysmal, Hayes Valley NIMBY-designed Octavia Boulevard 24-7 traffic scrum.
Tags: 20, 7, alamo heights, art of the city, asian art museum, bicycle, bike, boulevard, broken, channel, civic center, cover, crosswalk, ctiy hall, cyclists, department, dept., disrupt, disruption, dpw, dragons be here, flodding, flood, hayes valley, HC SVNT DRACONES, Here Be Dragons, hic sunt dracones, hill, intersection, kgo, larkin, macallister, manhole, market, nimby, octavia, octavia boulevard, pass, path, pipe, public works, repair, report, restaurant, route, San Francisco, shanghai, snick, snickerdoodle, soluna, Steam, steaming, street, tc, traffic, vent, venting, water
Posted in streets | No Comments »
Wednesday, July 29th, 2009
See? That’s smooth, baby.
San Francisco Bike Route 20 (if you’re going west, anyway) on McAllister near Pierce. Click to expand:
(If you’re heading east, in towards downtown, the Route 20 switches over to hillier Fulton, which is not recommended.)
And those “lead pipe” attacks (well, not actually lead, probably, but whatever) on cyclists ended more than four years ago. From 2005:
“ASSAULTS ON CYCLISTS REPORTED IN WESTERN ADDITION“
“We’ve received reports of cyclists being assaulted near the corner of Fillmore and McAllister by youths carrying lead pipes during the past few weeks. Use caution when biking through this area after dark, and immediately report any violence to the SFPD by calling 911 (for emergencies) or 553-0123 for non-emergencies.”
So now there’s no excuse not to take The Snick to get to the Golden Gate Park Panhandle bike path.
If you want…
Tags: 20, 30, asphalt, attack, bicycle, bicycle coalition, bike, bike coallition, civic center, construction, cyclist, eastbound, fillmore, flat, haight, inbound, lead, market, mcallister, new, octavia, outbound, paving, pipe, repaving, route, route 20, route 30, San Francisco, sfbc, snick, snickerdoodle, street, westbound, western addition, wiggle
Posted in bikes | 3 Comments »
Thursday, June 4th, 2009
Here’s what Scott Street looks like these days in the Lower Haight - new macadam is a coming.
What’s next, the Scott Street Bike Lane project? Possibly.
And of course, there’s always the Snick route on McAllister as an alternative to The Wiggle. Your choice. (McAllister was scheduled for a striped Class II bike lane going uphill through the Fillmore, but that’s on the back burner for now.)
No matter, all wheeled vehicles will soon be enjoying a smoother ride on this short stretch of Scott.
Project 3-5 Scott Street Bicycle Lane, Fell Street to Oak Street
This project would involve the installation of a Class II left-turn bicycle lane in the northbound direction on Scott Street between Oak Street and Fell Street. This project includes two design options:
Option 1 would add a northbound Class II left-turn bicycle lane by removing the left-turn lanes on northbound Scott Street approaching Fell Street and on southbound Scott Street approaching Oak Street. No parking spaces would be removed under Option 1.
Option 2 would add a northbound Class II left-turn bicycle lane by narrowing travel lanes and removing approximately three parking spaces from the west side of Scott Street between Fell Street and Oak Street. The existing left-turn lanes approaching Fell Stree and Oak Street would not change under Option 2.
Hurray.
Tags: 30, 47, asphalt, bicycle, bicycle coalition, bike, cars, concrete, construction, cyclists, dpw, fell, haight, lanes, lower, macadam, mcallister, new, oak, page, repaving, route, San Francisco, scott, sfbc, snick, snickerdoodle, street, western addition, wiggle
Posted in streets | 1 Comment »
Sunday, May 24th, 2009
These days, it’s all Wiggle this and Wiggle that- but is that really the best way to get to the Golden Gate Park Pandhandle bike path from downtown? Consider McAllister Street to Divisidero as an option.
Yes it has a couple hilly blocks in the Western Addition, but it’s a shorter, faster route – and one that uses less energy, or burns fewer calories anyway per the Gmaps Pedometer. And best of all, you avoid that long wait at the public policy disaster known as Octavia Boulevard.
When oh when will McAllister have it’s own Yelp entry as a relatively flat bike route?
Click to expand
I propose calling this route the Snickerdoodle, or “The Snick” for short.
Wiggle, you’ve met your match.
Tags: bicycle, bike, civic center, cyclist, fillmore, flat, haight, market, mcallister, octavia, route, route 30, San Francisco, sfbc, snick, snickerdoodle, street, western addition, wiggle
Posted in bikes | 2 Comments »
