Mission Mission

It’s been 973 days since San Francisco got a new bike lane, but with the lifting of a court-ordered injunction imminent, 2009 is poised to be the year of lots of new bike lanes and other improvements, as indicated in the above graphic.

The thing is, in order for all of these changes to be realized, the effort needs boots on the ground. To that end, SFBC tonight at 6:30pm hosts an all-member meeting at First Baptist Church of San Francisco (near Market and Octavia) at which we’ll learn what kind of concrete tasks members and concerned citizens can undertake in order to push these initiatives through. Link.

Read more at Bikes and the City.

From the San Francisco Bike Coalition newsletter:

Is your winter riding hampered by new potholes? Now you can get road problems fixed even easier with the City’s new 311 services online. It’s quick and easy to report potholes and other surface defects online, and it’s easier for the SFBC to make sure they get fixed. You can access the Street Defect reporting page here, or start from sfgov.org/311 to see all services.

Important: You can always report anonymously, but in order for the SFBC to track the City’s progress on addressing cyclists’ pavement concerns, please create an account and use “SFBC” as your last name. We get monthly reports and work closely with the Department of Public Works to make sure repairs are done fast and well.

As if it weren’t enough that Box Dog Bikes has the cutest mascot in the city, they also have maybe the best bike shop staff I’ve ever met. Is it just me or are bike shop staffs usually at least a little bit mean? I’ve been getting made to feel dumb at bike shops all my life, and I’m tired of it. I may be dumb, but you don’t have to rub it in my face. In any case, Box Dog’s staff is nothing but pleasant, all of them, every time I go in there. It kind of blows my mind.

They also have an awesome blog.

Full disclosure: A member of the staff happened into my birthday party yesterday friend-of-a-friend style, and we became friends, but that had nothing to do with this. I wrote this post on Saturday but was sitting on it for lack of a picture I liked.

Photo by subtlet.

At the SFBC new-members meet and greet on Tuesday, I was reminded of something cool: 311. Meeter/greeter Kate said if ever there’s a bike lane obstructed by glass or junk or potholes or illegally parked cars, call 311, identify yourself as an SFBC member, and explain the problem. So, I did.

Five minutes on the phone, guy took all the pertinent info, and told me the asphalt spillage in both northbound and southbound bike lanes on San Jose Avenue between 29th and 30th (that’d been forcing me into rush-hour traffic all week) would be policed within 48 hours. Forty-seven hours later, all clean!

Our buddy Becca (whom you may remember as the author of such beloved Mission Mission posts as The Phonebooth Actually Very Pleasant Before Dark and Construction Camp on Valencia Street) recently left the Mission for greener pastures. She’s mixing business, pleasure, activism and maybe some higher learning on an extended tour around Central America.

Fortunately, Becca’s documenting her adventure on her blog Travel Maven, Large Jet (I think the title is some sort of travel writer injoke). Yesterday, she talked a bit about a few weeks she spent with an NGO called MayaPedal in Guatemala.

MayaPedal designs and builds “bicycle machines” for use in areas of the world where electricity and mechanization isn’t yet quite freeflowing. Becca got to make hot sauce with the blender bike (!), peanut butter with the mill bike (!), and wash her clothes with the laundry bike! (!!) So like, do you have to get a pro cyclist in there if you want to puree, or your muddy jeans need permanent press, or you don’t like your peanut butter chunky?

She also got to wield a machete. Link.

Great, a week after I spend $70 on lights so that my friends can do Critical Mass with me in Sacramento (where front and rear lights are required by law if riding after dark), SFBC and Muni give away free blinky bike lights. The event goes from 6-7pm tonight at various locations throughout the city. The Mission spot is Valencia and Chavez, in front of St. Luke’s. SFist has the details here.

Box Dog Bikes has a mascot named Taco, and omg, how cute is Taco!? Link.

Just a reminder: Tomorrow’s installment of the SFBC‘s month long Gas-Free Fridays initiative features an energizer station on the corner of 17th and Valencia Streets. There, cyclists can fill up on fair-trade coffee and other goodies.

As of like an hour ago, this pile of junk was sitting abandoned right in front of the Valencia Street Art Wall.