I love bicycles; however, the Valencia Street bike line must be moved to South Van Ness Avenue.
It is not necessary for bicyclists to use Valencia Street just to pass and on their way to damage the businesses that their owners are trying so hard to keep afloat after the devastating pandemic.
Let’s face it, bicycles do not contribute to businesses in the area, not even to feed the parking meters, much less to pay taxes. But the City is using drivers taxes to provide benefits that ultimately kill their businesses.
Bicyclists just need a path to ride safely from home to work and back, and South Van Ness is the perfect street. It is wide enough to create a safer path for them.
SFMTA Director Jeffrey Tumlin and Board Chair Amanda Eaken wrote an op-ed Tuesday called “We all love Valencia Street. Let’s make sure it works for everyone.”
That “we love Valencia Street” doesn’t seem to be sincere to my opinion and perhaps others’ as well because it wasn’t until when several merchants associations organized a press conference and gathered together on Dec. 5, to denounce the abuse of businesses by the SFMTA with the installation of the bicycle way, that the issue was put in the front burner.
Those acculturated to the use of bicycles cry out for the lives of cyclists and criticize that the demand for more parking spaces do not consider the lives of those who circulate on two wheels.
However, why did they pick Valencia Street in the first place, knowing they would be destroying trendy shops and restaurants when parking was lost, which would result in closing businesses and loss of jobs? I don’t understand.
Also, look at the majority of bike riders, they are mostly young people who don’t need cars, unlike those who have families and need a vehicle to transport them. Those drivers are the ones who support the local businesses, not the bike riders.
The advocates for bike lanes don’t even mention the alternative lanes at South Van Ness as an option; they only argue about how to make it work on Valencia Street, despite that the Van Ness option was mentioned and suggested at the press conference.
You can’t take away revenues from the business sector just to please the bicycle culture – just because they have a strong lobby due to their numbers that translate into voting power.
I went to the toy drive organized by the SF Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (SFHCC) on Tuesday at Amado’s, vibrant bar and music venue on Valencia Street, which closed its doors last week and its owner, David Quinby, publicly blamed the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s controversial decision to implement a protected bike lane in the middle of the street. The club closed after eight years in business. A more trivial reason for the closure was declining sales, which were down 80 percent.
Carlos Solórzano Cuadra, SFHCC’s CEO, said that despite the good intentions of the San Francisco Metropolitan Authority, there is a problem that has been created with the now infamous middle lane on Valencia Street, because what it has done is affect business, especially the loss of regular parking. Although, he said, a requirement for commercial parking was made by the merchants previously, it showed that they do not work. Yellow zone commercial parking spaces remain empty most of the time, and drivers who need to park get a parking ticket when they have to use them.
“At the moment the priority we have is to protect the small businesses that are still open and those to come in the future so that people can visit local businesses, increase tourism, improve the economy,” Solórzano said to El Reportero.
Solórzano said that something important in this is that you have to take businesses into account and pay a visit to local businesses. He said “there was a plan with the main chambers of San Francisco, together with Calle 24 Council and the Commission of Merchants of the Mission to see where bicycle traffic is best so that it does not affect small businesses.
But, as I mentioned before, Valencia Street should not be an option for bicycle lanes, because, you either save and promote businesses – with plenty parking spaces available – or destroy them by ceding the reign of the street to bicycles, which don’t pay taxes nor contribute to the economy of this commercial corridor.
And, I strongly suggest, move the bike lane to South Van Ness. Why haven’t you thought about it before? Why haven’t you foreseen how it would have affected business at Valencia Street before you went on to change the whole ball game?
And besides, the SFMTA is a separate government within the government, and its managers are nonelected officials, who are not accountable to the people. But they get to do what they want with the approval of the elected politicians and change our lives as they please with our tax-payer dollars. They should be fired and the agency disbanded.
