After an uphill battle of nearly four years, the San Francisco Bicycle Plan proposed in 2005 is finally about to pedal through, completely this time. Superior Court Judge Peter Busch will consider fully lifting the injunction he placed on the plan in a scheduled hearing with the City Attorney’s Office on June 22.
The injunction, first implemented in 2006, was a result of a lawsuit from cycling cynic Rob Anderson, who feared that the bike plan did not adequately review environmental effects on the city. He argued that cyclists would cause more traffic, and thus more idle cars and more pollution.
The city, in turn, compiled a million-dollar environmental impact report that was approved by the Board of Supervisors last summer.
These efforts led to a provisional lifting of the injunction last November, which allowed partial execution of the bike plan in specified locations. The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency who had adopted the plan began several improvements such as painting sharrows and installing more racks.
But those were only the training wheels starting to come off, bigger and better improvements may soon be on the way if the long-awaited bike plan gets the green light at this month’s hearing.
