• San Francisco police are cracking down on scofflaw cyclists, especially on high-injury corridors, so if you're biking to work, think twice about blowing through that crosswalk or red light. [Chronicle]
• More than 450 shelter beds in long-term residence hotels are set to disappear from the city's shelter system, as contracts with three of these hotels in the Tenderloin are expiring. [Mission Local]
• Oakland coffeeshop owner Amy Hillyard remains missing after two weeks and multiple search efforts. [KTVU]

National:

• After posting an expletive-laden rant against Iran on Sunday night, President Trump escalated the threatening rhetoric Monday saying the "entire country" of Iran could be "taken out in one night" if a deal isn't reached tomorrow. [CNN]
• As fuel costs continue to rise, United Airlines is raising its checked baggage fees — $45 for the first bag and $55 for the second bag. [Associated Press]
• After Stephen Colbert has his final Late Show on May 21, CBS announced that it will be filling the 11:35 pm timeslot with Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen, the show that has been airing at 12:35 since September. [CNN]

Video:

• This is not AI... it's a colorized, enhanced, and restored bit of street-scene footage of San Francisco in the 1940s, with added sound design, starting out possibly at Washington Street and Grant Avenue in Chinatown, driving through Russian Hill, and finally stopping at Fisherman's Wharf.

Photo by Spencer Plouzek

Dozens of cyclists were spotted swerving in and out of traffic, riding directly at moving cars, and narrowly missing pedestrians before heading the wrong way up the ramp to the Bay Bridge — where they were greeted by the SFPD and CHP.

The San Francisco Police Department put out a pretty spectacular video of authorities detaining 85 cyclists who attempted to take over the Bay Bridge Saturday.

According to a press release from the California Highway Patrol, the CHP alerted the San Francisco Police Department Saturday about a large group of bicyclists driving recklessly on the streets of South of Market as they headed toward the Bay Bridge.

Using intelligence technology from the SFPD’s Real Time Investigations Center — presumably drones, Flock license plate readers, and public surveillance cameras, to name a few, authorities tracked the group as they rode en masse, reportedly weaving through traffic, riding toward moving vehicles, and coming close to hitting pedestrians.

The group then headed the wrong way up the Harrison Street off-ramp where authorities had blocked access to the bridge.

“What we saw yesterday was not harmless fun. This is no place for games or risky behavior,” said CHP San Francisco Captain Tim McCollister. “Riding the wrong way on the freeway poses a serious danger not only to cyclists but also to the motoring public traveling at freeway speeds.”

Officers detained 85 cyclists, seized their bikes, and then released them after giving them citations for riding a bicycle onto a freeway.

“Our priority is safety, and actions like this put lives at risk and disrupt critical transportation corridors,” said McCollister. “We will continue to enforce the law and hold individuals accountable to prevent a tragedy before it occurs.”

Related: 16 Vehicles Involved in Bay Bridge Sideshow Seized, Impounded

Image: SFPD

Bystanders, including an EMT, came to the aid of a cyclist who received traumatic injuries, but is expected to survive, after she was struck by a driver in the Inner Sunset, and a pedestrian was found dead in the street in the Outer Mission as the result of an early morning hit-and-run.

This past week was particularly deadly for non-drivers. SFist reported Monday that a two-year-old was killed last Friday in a horrific crash in Mission Bay by a driver who reportedly appeared to have attempted to flee the scene. On Thursday evening, a driver who was reversing downhill on Kearny Street in North Beach struck and killed a male pedestrian on the sidewalk. Debris from the collision then caused a man on a nearby scooter to crash, sending him to the hospital with injuries.

Just a few hours later, as the Chronicle reports, a second pedestrian was fatally struck by a driver in the Outer Mission who reportedly fled the scene. The pedestrian was found lying in the street and declared dead around 2:30 am Friday after emergency responders performed life-saving measures. No arrests had been made as of Friday evening.

Per Bay City News, Friday’s hit-and-run marks five pedestrian deaths in San Francisco so far this year, according to the group Walk SF, which is pushing for quicker progress on the city’s Vision Zero initiatives.

"Two lives cut short unnecessarily,” said Walk SF Executive Director Jodie Medeiros, referring to Thursday and Friday's deaths. “It doesn't have to be this way. San Francisco can and should do better to keep us safe."

Additionally, KRON4 reports that a female bicyclist was struck by a driver a little before 3 pm in the Inner Sunset Friday, on Irving Street between 7th and 8th avenues. The bicyclist was sent to the hospital with life-threatening injuries. According to a post on Reddit, the bicyclist is expected to survive, but she has a long recovery ahead of her.

Other Redditors said bystanders, including a nearby EMT, were able to immediately put a tourniquet on the cyclist’s leg, potentially saving her life.

The driver remained at the scene, and alcohol or drugs do not seem to be a factor in the crash, which is under investigation. Anyone with information about the bicyclist’s case should contact SFPD at (415) 575-4444 and use case number #260128153.

Image: carlballou/Getty Images

Related: Pedestrian Killed, Scooter Rider Injured In Collision With Vehicle In North Beach

Bystanders Describe Horrific Scene Where Toddler Was Killed In Mission Bay Intersection

There’s no bike lane on the western span of the Bay Bridge, so a few hundred bicyclists took that matter into their own hands and made the entire eastbound deck a bike lane Sunday, clogging traffic for about a half-hour.

We are guessing that it is not a coincidence that on Sunday, which was August 6, a few hundred bicyclists took over the Bay Bridge according to SFGate, and they just happened to do the same thing on August 6 of last year. KTVU describes the bike riders as “young bicyclists,” and social media posts from the bridge takeover indicate the crowd skewed younger than a Critical Mass ride.

I’m not sure if the above type of Instagram post is the kind of post where you’d want to publicly respond “We’ll be there!!!,” but some people did. This one seemed organized by an anonymous Instagram account called bayareatakeover2023 and has been promoting Sunday’s ride for nearly three months.

According to SF Standard, the cyclists disrupted traffic on the western span of the bridge “for nearly a half an hour.”

California Highway Patrol confirmed that the incident took place, and there were apparently no arrests.

These rogue cyclists may have glommed on to August 6 as their annual day to pull this stunt, but similar bike takeovers have happened on the Bay Bridge in January 2021 and January 2023.

Related: Rogue Bike Brigade Took Over Eastbound Bay Bridge Lanes, Possibly Then Committed Burglaries In Oakland [SFist]

Image: bayareatakeover2023 via Instagram

The reviews are decidedly mixed for the new Valencia center bike lane, with some saying it’s safer, and others alarmed that it “sandwiches” bicyclists between two lanes of moving cars.

We all had a good laugh last week, when Mission Local reported that pranksters had altered the signs on the new Valencia Street “center” bike lanes to display messages like “Uh, good luck turning right” and “We regret this bike lane.” And while construction remains underway on the still-incomplete center bike lanes between 15th and 23rd Streets on the Valencia corridor, the Chronicle reports that cyclists are highly polarized in their opinions on this center bike lane experiment, with the paper noting this center-lane model was “never utilized in San Francisco and rarely seen in other cities.”

Yes those signs are amusing, but there’s nothing funny about the multiple bike accidents that have occurred during the construction phase. The main problem seems to be confusion over a highly counterintuitive layout, though there are also reports of motorists basically using the bike lane as a passing lane. Streetsblog even published a “Don’t Bike on Valencia” op-ed, and it appears many cyclists agree.

To be fair, though, there is some support among cyclists from these center bike lanes — including from the SF Bicycle Coalition, which advocated for this one — and you’re certainly less likely to get “doored” by a car under the new design. Supporters say they’ve seen fewer cars parked in bike lanes with the new layout, and cars seem to be traveling more slowly on Valencia in general.

“I feel more comfortable riding with my kid on the back of my bike than I did before,” KidSafe SF organizer Sara Barz tells the Chronicle. “It’s not perfect by any stretch, but, in my opinion, it’s an improvement."

That’s not consensus opinion, as others have called the new layout "The Valencia Meatgrinder."

"The center bikeway is flawed at a fundamental — and potentially fatal — level," sustainable transportation advocate Luke Bornheimer tells SFist. “It sandwiches people between two lanes of driving cars, locks people into the bikeway making it more difficult to visit local businesses along Valencia, and discourages people from shifting trips from cars to active transportation (e.g. bikes, scooters, skateboards).”

The design can still be altered, as the center lane is a year-long pilot program (and the “year” hasn't even started yet, with construction still underway).

“SFMTA can replace the center bikeway with curbside protected bike lanes within months if the Agency and Mayor Breed made it a priority,” Bornheimer adds. “Our city and the planet need them to make it a priority, and the SFMTA Board can take immediate action to correct this flawed and dangerous decision.”

And the top brass at SFMTA already sound resigned that the pilot program will be scrapped. “We are hoping that three years from now this will not be the design for Valencia,” SFMTA director Jeffrey Tumlin tells the Chronicle. “But what we’re trying to do is to buy time while we rethink our original plans for Valencia and raise funding for that.”

Those plans could include shutting down part of the street permanently to car traffic (this seems unlikely), or turning much of it into a one-way street with a dedicated bike lane on one side.

So the Valencia center bike lanes feel like a brand new TV show that the network has already decided to cancel. The question is how much collateral damage might happen in the meantime.

Related: New Valencia Bike Lane Construction Underway, Parking on Valencia Street Currently Quite Restricted [SFist]

Image: Joe Kukura, SFist

A half-dozen or more separate incidents of cars allegedly "dooring" bicyclists took place in the lead-up to and the wake of Friday’s East Bay Bike party, and the bicyclists say 14 of them were targeted and at least two suffered serious injuries.

The East Bay has its own version of the Critical Mass bike ride, a second Friday of every month event called East Bay Bike Party. But KTVU reports this past Friday’s East Bay Bike Party saw several “dooring” attacks, where motorists intentionally swung their doors open at bicyclists riding to the right of them. There's video of one of these attacks, and there were allegedly other dooring attacks this weekend on Thursday and Saturday as well, spanning Berkeley, Emeryville, Oakland, and Rockridge.

According to KTVU, "At least 14 [bicyclists] were targeted and eight actually hit. In two separate incidents, the suspects would swerve directly into the bicyclist as opposed to using their side doors."

The video below shows what the cyclists describe as one of these attacks, which allegedly took place just before 5:30 Friday night in Berkeley. There is a visible face of someone in the vehicle and license plate number visible on the vehicle. Though according to an Instagram post from East Bay Bike Party, “At least two different vehicles were used in these attacks.”

There’s also a different description of a vehicle in KTVU’s report, from an incident on Colby Street near Rockridge, and KTVU notes in that attack, “The suspected car is described as a gray Hyundai Elantra Sedan bearing a California license plate 8EDX27.” It’s unclear if there’s a motive in any of these attacks.

At least two bicyclists were injured seriously enough to be hospitalized, one of them named Ellie Mead, and KTVU has photos of the damage to Mead’s head. That station described the incident as happening “Saturday around 8 p.m. on Shafter Avenue and Forest Street.”

"I have eight stitches and this big gash in my forehead," Mead told KTVU. "There was this gray sedan. A passenger on the passenger side opened the door and slowed down the car. My bike rammed right into it. I fell to the ground. They drove away. As they drove away they were laughing."

But it is troubling that witnesses describe what sound like more than two separate cars. KTVU reports that “The day before on Thursday, a light blue SUV driving southbound on King Street between Alcatraz Avenue and 63rd Street hit another bicyclist, Watson Ladd, around 5:30 in Berkeley.” The station also adds that late Friday night, “ a blue hatchback attacked multiple people riding bikes on Grand Avenue between Park View Terrace and Lenox Avenue and hit at least three riders.” Describing yet another incident, KTVU says that “On Saturday afternoon, EB Bike Party said a driver with at least one passenger of a Kia Soul attacked a man in Southwest Berkeley.”

East Bay Bike Party reps tells KTVU that "they believe the actions are being done with three separate and possibly stolen cars." They pointed to the cars being described as Hyundais or Kias, which are commonly stolen — and the occupants of the cars clearly were not concerned with causing damage to the cars.

East Bay Bike Party says in a statement that “Make no mistake — these were violent, targeted attacks with cars used as literal weapons. Last night was another frightening reminder that local governments must take immediate action to make the streets safe for everyone.”

They add, “If you are a witness or victim of any similar attacks please DM us or email ebbikeparty@gmail.com and contact the police.” We’re linking contact information for the Berkeley Police Department, Emeryville Police Department, and Oakland Police Department.

Related: 77-Year-Old Woman Intentionally Hit by Car in East Bay Church Parking Lot, Authorities Say [SFist]

Screenshot: dal211 via Youtube

A proposal by the SFMTA to do a bike lane "quick-build" project to create a protected lane for cyclists coming down 17th Street between the Mission and Dogpatch/Mission Bay has raised the hackles of the owners of music venues Bottom of the Hill and Thee Parkside.

"Hey bike safety and bike lanes are wonderful, but this very specific one bike lane could destroy our venue. As in, we will have to close. Not exaggerating in the slightest," tweeted Bottom of the Hill owner Lynn Schwarz on Wednesday.

Schwarz links to a Change.org petition and encourages supporters of the venue to sign it, explaining that the protected bike lane "could eliminate over half the parking on the street" in a neighborhood where parking is already a challenge. And, she suggests, that bands arriving with vans or trucks at the venue will have to "load in through protected bike lanes, which we feel will be more dangerous, and not safer, for bicycle riders."

Also, the petition adds, "This neighborhood is a place to bike to not just through."

"No one opposes bicycle safety," Schwarz writes. "On the contrary, many signers are bicycle riders. The problem is that the plans do not address the real-world concerns shared by the stakeholders. Alternatives should be debated, and concerns considered."

It does seem as though the SFMTA is still gathering input on the project — the agency's webpage for the 17th Street Quick-Build project says that it is still in the "initial outreach, planning, and analysis" phase of the project and the public review process won't begin until fall, with installation slated for next spring.

Schwarz and other businesses in the area have launched a website and mailing list called Save 17th Street, and the concern seems to be that the businesses like Bottom of the Hill won't get a significant enough say in how the project takes shape.

"We wish we knew what the exact plans are—there are a lot of variations we’ve seen, none of which address our concerns," the petition says. "The problem is, once the plans are created and approved by the SFMTA, it could be too late to oppose because of the nature of the Vision Zero Quick-Builds."

The petition also points out that there are already double bike lanes — one on each side, uphill and downhill — on 17th Street (see image above), but cycling advocates argue they are unsafe and too frequently blocked.

Streetsblog is already proposing that cyclists boycott Bottom of the Hill based on the petition. "To point out the obvious, if Schwarz is for safe bike lanes, just not in front of her venue, then she’s not for safe bike lanes."

Streetsblog also quotes a neighbor of the venue who's a cycling advocate, Cliff Barger, who sent in a photo of a car blocking the bike lane outside Bottom of the Hill. "The amount of blocked bike lane on 17th – it’s a big deterrent from cycling." Barger says.

It's not clear what the alternative would be for bands loading in and out of a music venue — maybe its an area where the bike lane barricades end and there's a delivery-only area to pull into that doesn't block the bike lane.

But in any event, expect this fight to potentially get louder in the coming months.

Photo: Google Street View

A group of what appeared to be teenagers on bicycles, numbering around 200, took over the lower deck of the Bay Bridge on Saturday afternoon and biked their way into Oakland. A short while later, some East Oakland businesses reported that they were burglarized by a gang of about 200 bicyclists.

This sounds like a case for the old Deplorable Teens tag, and as the Chronicle reports via the CHP, officers began getting reports of this rogue, Critical Mass-esque troupe of bicyclists on the bridge at 2:26 p.m. The group reportedly tied up the lower-deck lanes of the Bay Bridge for about 26 minutes.

Rather than sticking together in a tight mass, a la Critical Mass, these cyclists were weaving in and out of traffic on the bridge, and doing performative tricks on their bikes, too, as some cellphone video obtained by NBC Bay Area shows.

CHP officers got involved, pushing some bicyclists onto the bike path that only runs the length of the eastern span of the bridge. Officers also guided a group from an I-880 offramp onto West Grand Avenue, but it sounds like no one was detained and the officers lost track of the group as it somewhat dispersed.

Not long after, around 3 p.m., Oakland police received reports of "a group of roughly 200 bicyclists burglarizing businesses and throwing items at people," per the Chronicle. Police can't yet say that these two incidents are connected, but how many roving bands of 200 bicyclists were in Oakland at that hour?

No specific businesses or addresses were mentioned in that report.

Oakland Police Department spokesperson Candace Keas explained to the Chronicle officers arrived in the area of Bancroft and 89th avenues and the bicycle group "peeled away." They were later reported getting back on to I-880 and riding in car traffic.

The kids on their bikes were apparently around parts of East Oakland for several hours, with CHP saying that the group ultimately dispersed near 35th Avenue at San Leandro Street around 6 p.m.

No specific group has claimed responsibility for the flash-mob brigade, but both the Critical Mass Twitter account and the account of SafeStreetRebel — which bills itself as a "hub for organizing direct actions to end car dominance" — cheered them on.

"just FYI — we didn't organize this ride out, but absolutely condone it with two thumbs up and can’t wait for the next one!" tweeted SafeStreetRebel.

Inspired by a similar “bicibús” ride in Barcelona, a pro-slow-streets group has created a pint-sized Critical Mass bike ride for kids pedaling to school en masse.

Imagine the old monthly bike ride Critical Mass, except without the road rage and political piousness, and with primarily little youngsters heading to school with their parents. This is apparently now a new monthly thing here in San Francisco, as SFGate brings us the story of a loosely organized “bike bus” in SF, a communal bike ride that’s like a school bus, except it's a caravan of kids on bikes, and part of the car-free/slow streets movement that’s become popular during the pandemic.    

"There were almost 30 people in the bus, and I think the next one will be double or triple," the ride’s organizer and SF dad Peter Belden tells SFGate. "It’s so positive and fun for everyone. There were two kids who joined the ride, friends of my son, whose parents had meetings, and they were allowed to ride along. They hadn’t ridden their bike to school before, but because it was a bus, they felt safe doing it."

This is based on a similar ride in Barcelona, which NPR reports is known as the “bicibús” (seen above). It is an every-Friday thing that has attracted hundreds of youngsters on bikes. It’s spread to other cities in Spain, and apparently now to San Francisco too.

It seems from SFGate’s story that there was only one of these rides so far, in December, but Belden and his affiliated advocacy group Kid Safe SF are planning another bike bus the morning of Friday, January 14. Another car-free group Friends of Slow Lake has been holding similar bike meet-ups in car-free areas of the Richmond District.

As cute and wholesome as these group rides and bike meet-ups may seem, this is a political act. Kid Safe SF is very vocal in pushing for a car-free JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park, and a car-free Great Highway too. It is no coincidence that the bike bus path starts at Eighth Avenue and JFK in Golden Gate Park. So while these car-free debates are politically contentious, bike groups are using a soft touch to build support for making these two controversial car-free areas into permanent pedestrian spaces.  

Related: Block-Long Mural By Local Artist Amos Goldbaum Completed on Noe Valley Street [SFist]

Image: @jeffreytumlin via Twitter

A group of local firefighters and military vets are now off on a 40-day bicycle trek across the U.S., riding from the "Bay to Brooklyn" with plans to arrive in time for the 20th anniversary commemoration of September 11th in New York City.

The group of a dozen firefighters and vets left Sunday from Santa Clara, led by retired Santa Clara firefighter Derrell Sales. As he tells KTVU, "We have people from Arizona, military, state fire agency, local fire agencies. We're doing this because we want to remember the 343 firefighters who died on 9/11."

They plan to ride about 80 to 100 miles per day, arriving in New York by September 9.

"For many of us, we remember what happened on that day, we remember where we were, we remember the sounds, we remember the smells," says Sales, speaking to NBC Bay Area before the Sunday departure. "For some, they still haven't healed from it."

The group left from Fire Station No. 2 in Santa Clara, and the city's mayor, Lisa Gilmor "We're with you every mile. We'll watch you the entire time and just know it means so much to us and so much to the families affected by 9/11."

This is the second time this group has made the cross-country journey, having done a similar ride in 2011 to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the attacks.

As they say on the Bay2Brooklyn website, "This is our 2nd event and we invite you to follow us as we ride and connect with everyone across this great country."

Their daily routes are all here, and the trip started with a ride to the San Francisco Ferry Building on Sunday, and then today they rode from Vallejo to the California Firefighter Memorial in Sacramento. From there, they take a couple of legs by car, first to Redding, and then to Eugene, Oregon, and from there they get on their bikes tomorrow to ride 52 miles to Rainbow, Oregon.

By September 6, they plan to be in Washington, D.C. for a day to commemorate those who died in the Pentagon attack.

If you want to donate to their ride, you can do so here.

An 86-year-old man who was well known in the Lamorinda area for bicycling hundreds of miles every week and advocating for bike safety on the roads was hit by a car and killed on Tuesday less than a mile from his home.

Joe Shami, who lived in Lafayette, died from injuries sustained in the collision at Olympic Boulevard and Pleasant Hill Road, as KRON4 reports, just after 6:45 a.m. on Tuesday. He was known for bicycling up Mount Diablo and back at least once a week, beginning at least 10 years ago, and as the Mercury News reports, he was known in the cycling community as "The Legend of Mount Diablo."

When Shami was 83 in 2018 the East Bay Times covered the story of his 500th consecutive week of biking up the mountain at least once a week.

"He was just amazed at how everybody thought he was such a legend and hero, because he was just doing what he loved," says close friend Linda Kwong to the Mercury News. "He didn’t have any idea how much he inspired people."

Kwong, who leads the Mount Diablo Cyclists group, says that Shami was always surprised by how many people knew his name and said "hi" on his rides. "He just didn’t get that his riding created hope and inspiration for everyone around him. But he just didn’t understand. And I’d say to him: ‘That’s why you’re a legend!’ He was just a great, great friend and person."

Kwong told KRON4 that she "never thought that someone would hit him with a car and kill him like that," and that she was devastated and still processing the news.

Shami had always lived an active life, running 10 marathons before he took up cycling. And that 500-week streak ended up lasting 615 weeks, but ended when he blew out a tire.

He was injured after being hit by a car on his bike at least once before, and he was a vocal advocate for sharing the road, as KRON4 reports. Local cyclists say he helped to get bicycle turnouts installed on Mount Diablo in recent years, which greatly reduced collisions.

As Shami himself told the East Bay Times three years ago of his bicycling passion, "It’s a spiritual experience. You’re with nature and when you go early, it’s quiet and peaceful. The mountain is awesome. You really don’t know what to expect each time. The seasons change. It goes from green and verdant to completely dry. It’s always different — every week."

Photo: Linda Kwong/Mount Diablo Cyclists

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf announced Thursday that the city will be closing 10 percent of its roadways to vehicle traffic during the coronavirus lockdown in order to create more social-distancing space for people trying to stay fit and active. It's an emergency measure called “"Oakland Slow Streets," and will involve some 74 miles of streets — with enforcement efforts to be determined.

"Because of the reduction in car traffic we will be closing off a number of streets, so that bicyclists and pedestrians can spread out and exercise and take in fresh air safely," Schaaf said Thursday evening during a virtual town hall, per the East Bay Times. The move comes as the East Bay Regional Parks District has had to periodically close its parking lots due to overcrowding in the first weeks of the lockdown — though the district has vowed to keep the parks open.

The map below shows the city's existing and proposed bike routes, with the new ones in purple dots.

The Oakland Slow Streets project was led by City Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan, and the city's Department of Transportation helped create the plan, as the Chronicle reports.

As Alex McBride, the city’s chief resilience officer, explains the East Bay Times, parks make up about 11 percent of the land in Oakland, but streets and sidewalks make up 20 to 30 percent. "We’ve decided to take advantage of that resource,” he said, so that Oakland residents can have "more space to walk, bike and run safely through their own neighborhoods."

Update: Kaplan tweeted that roads aren't actually being completely closed, traffic is just being "restricted" on certain roads.

A more detailed announcement about the plan is expected today, and it remains unclear how the measure will be policed.

This is by far the biggest traffic-quelling effort of its kind by a city during this pandemic, though Minneapolis and Denver have each closed around 10 miles of their streets in similar fashion.

Will San Francisco follow suit? According to the Chronicle, the city has rebuffed calls to close John F. Kennedy Drive in Golden Gate Park over fears that it would lead to large gatherings of people. But if a wider-spread shutdown of streets occurred, maybe that would be less of a fear?

Following the death of bicyclist Tess Rothstein on Friday, the SFMTA says it will immediately be removing street parking on the north side of Howard Street between Fourth and Sixth Streets in order to extend the protected bike lane.

Cited as a "high-injury corridor" by the SF Bicycle Coalition, Howard Street has been due for further safety improvements which Mayor London Breed said she would try to expedite Friday in the wake of Rothstein's death. The Coalition had argued for the bike lane on Howard Street for years, and it was only just installed in late 2018.

As the Examiner reports via SFMTA spokesperson Paul Rose, new signage was set to be in place as of Tuesday morning, and the bike lane, which previously ended at 6th Street, will be extended two more blocks to Fourth to create "more space and protection between cars and cyclists."

Rothstein's collision occurred at 5th and Howard, and witnesses say that she swerved out of the way of a parked car whose door had just swung open, causing her to collide with an oncoming truck.

The SF Bicycle Coalition minced no words on Friday in a tweet, saying, "A protected bike lane would have saved this person's life. Where infrastructure stops, people die."

Coalition organizer Charles Deffarges tells the Examiner, "We recognize SFMTA’s urgent response here but again are frustrated that this sort of action only happens when a death occurs."

Previously: Female Bicyclist Killed In Collision With Truck Friday In SoMa [SFist]

The incident sounds relatively minor, but we have reports today, via mandatory DMV reporting, of a collision between a self-driving car and a bicyclist on the streets of San Francisco in May which resulted in the bicyclist suffering minor injuries.

As KRON 4 reports, the incident happened on May 25 at 5:30 p.m. at the intersection of 11th and Mission.

The car was an autonomous 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV with one operator/passenger inside, and it was making a left turn from the northbound lanes of 11th Street onto Mission. Per CBS 5, "When a vehicle in the inner turn lane began to cut in front of the Bolt, it braked, causing a bicyclist who had been crossing closely behind to ride into the rear of the vehicle."

The Bolt was reportedly minorly dinged up, and the bicycle was undamaged, according to the DMV report. The bicyclist suffered a scraped knee and said s/he may seek medical attention, but no ambulance was called to the scene.

This wasn't one of Waymo's or Uber's self-driving cars, because we know they've been testing other car models. KRON 4 notes that General Motors' self-driving car project uses Chevy Bolt EVs, and that the cars have been involved in the three other minor collisions this year, including one that resulted in a minor injury.

So far, the California DMV requires all self-driving cars to have human operators inside, in case of emergencies. Earlier this year, though, likely under pressure from companies like Google/Waymo — who are developing cars that don't even have breaks or steering wheels inside — the DMV began suggesting that they would rewrite the rules to allow autonomous vehicles to eventually operate without drivers.

Related: Newly Proposed CA DMV Rules Would Let Self-Driving Cars Hit The Roads Without Humans

There’s been significant gnashing of teeth and grinding of gears in San Francisco over the controversial, so-called “Idaho stop” — the practice of bicycles yielding instead of hard stopping at intersections with stop signs. Here locally in San Francisco, the Board of Supervisors originally approved rolling stops for bicycles in September 2015, was quickly vetoed by Mayor Lee, and did not have the votes to override Lee’s veto.

But now that veteran of those Idaho stop debates Scott Wiener has moved on up to the California state legislature, he’s taken the fight for Idaho stops statewide. Rebranding the practice with a new (and perhaps sushi-inspired?) name “California roll,” Wiener serves as the principal co-author of a pro-Idaho stop bill introduced by San Francisco assemblyman Phil Ting and southern California assemblyman Jay Obernolte

It’s called AB 1103, and it’s still just in the committee phase. Assembly Bill 1103 proposes to “authorize a person operating a bicycle approaching a stop sign, after slowing to a reasonable speed and yielding the right-of-way, to cautiously make a turn or proceed through the intersection without stopping, unless safety considerations require otherwise.” Naturally, the bill is opposed by the California Police Chiefs Association, and also AAA.

Former SF Bay Guardian editor Steven T. Jones chimes in on Human Streets the Idaho stop/California roll “can benefit motorists by making intersections more efficient and predictable and encouraging cyclists to use stop-sign-strewn side streets and avoid congested arterials.”

Advocates for changing the stop sign laws for bicyclists pretty routinely point to a 2010 UC Berkeley study called Bicycle Safety and Choice: Compounded Public Cobenefits of the Idaho Law Relaxing Stop Requirements for Cycling. “Intersections are the most dangerous zone for cyclists, whose safety benefits from the freedom to choose the safest time to clear, and to do so more quickly,” writes author Jason Meggs. “Bicyclists enjoy vastly superior abilities to perceive and execute a safe yield at a stop than other modes, and great incentive to do so safely. Exposure to harmful pollutants which accrue at intersections is also reduced.”

Again, this bill is still just in an Assembly Transportation Committee. It is not before a full state assembly vote, it is not on the governor’s desk, and it may not even make it of committee. But the Assembly Transportation Committee will be debate AB1103 at 2:30 p.m. today, with an audio livestream available online.

Related: How To Ride A Bike In San Francisco