Tag Archives: San Francisco

July 23, 2012 · 9:36 am

Need a Lyft?

We’ve been taking Muni to Japanese class on Sundays ever since the big bike breakdown during Pride. I had ambitions to ride this week, but the MinUte went to the shop for a derailleur adjustment yesterday (and I’ve been encouraged not to carry heavy loads like my son on the Breezer anymore). Muni is a convenient ride usually, but the N-Judah streetcar is closed for construction for much of the summer, including this weekend. The alternate routes are not so great. We took the bus to class on Sunday, but as usual, it took 20 minutes more than the N-Judah, I had to carry my son through much of the Financial District, he was exhausted by the time we arrived, and we ended up getting to class late anyway.

These fluffy pink mustaches identify Lyft cars, evidently.

I just wrote that there were probably dozen other options to get around this city, so on the way home I decided to try one, sending ride requests to Homobiles, Lyft, and Sidecar. Sidecar didn’t have a car within range. Lyft and Homobiles both did, but Lyft got back to me first. Less than 10 minutes after we got out of class, Sam from Lyft swung by to take us home. I figured when I saw his car that that must be our ride. My son liked the mustache. (All the cars have pink mustaches. The drivers greet you with fist bumps. My first impression, that this service had a college student vibe, seems to have been on target.)

Sam, it turns out, moved to San Francisco last month from Oklahoma and is currently driving for Lyft as his full-time job. I was impressed that it was possible for him to make a decent living in a new city immediately upon arrival. Personally I wouldn’t have chosen a stick shift for driving around the city, and he says his leg gets pretty tired at the end of the day, but I assume it’s flatter in Oklahoma. He said that San Francisco was full of the nicest people he’d ever met, and I agree: I have lived in many cities (Boston, Chicago, Munich, Paris, Seattle, Minneapolis-St.Paul, etc.) and although the Twin Cities had a lot of Minnesota-nice, on most days San Francisco is the friendliest place I’ve ever been. Sam was a nice guy himself and a decent driver. He wants to keep driving even after getting a traditional office job, so if you call, maybe you can get a ride from him too.

Post-ride mustachioed photos are nearly obligatory. But: unbeatable value!

This was my first Lyft ride, and I’m considering this whole month as an experiment of sorts in figuring out the costs of car-free life, so I didn’t worry much about the fact that Lyft doesn’t give an estimated cost for the trip until the end of the ride. If it turned out to be exorbitant, well, lesson learned: I wouldn’t use Lyft again. Howver this was not a problem. Our trip was (roughly) from the Financial District to the Inner Sunset farmers market. The rates we’ve found:

  • Homobiles, at $1/minute, would have worked out to ~$20 (plus tip).
  • Sidecar suggested a donation of $22, had a driver been available, for the same trip in reverse.
  • A taxi ride for would be $32 (plus tip) according to the online fare calculator, assuming we could have found one, which is unlikely.
  • Muni fare is a much more economical $2.75 for adult+child, but would have taken an extra half hour.
  • Lyft’s charge for the same ride turned out, once we’d arrived, to be $12 (plus tip). Sold!

When we got home Matt said, “You’re back early! You must have gotten a ride back.” Yes we did. And I don’t doubt we’ll be getting occasional rides from Lyft again.

4 Comments

Filed under car-free, San Francisco

Tagged as ,

July 20, 2012 · 8:26 am

Transportation resources for car-free (and car-light) families, in San Francisco and beyond

When we sold our minivan, one of the things that made it easier not to replace it was the discovery of all kinds of new ways to get around the city without our own car. Realizing there were all these options that offered a safety net helped us finally make a decision. The resources below are so ridiculously exhaustive that we would be hard-pressed to use them all regularly, so we don’t. When we need to get somewhere, we primarily ride our bikes, walk, or take transit, in that order. Every once in a while, for a longer trip, we rent a car from City CarShare or Matt rents one from an agency for a business trip.  Everything else listed below fills in the occasional gaps. For example: my employer, as part of its commitment to reducing car commuting, will reimburse the cost of a ride home from work in the event that a non-driver has a sick kid or bicycle breakdown. I am willing to use some of the more expensive services I’ve listed in emergency situations because time is an issue, and because I know that I’ll be reimbursed. Other companies in San Francisco have similar programs, but they’re poorly advertised, so check with HR before you decide to smack me for being so lucky.

Overall, our bikes are the best transportation choice on most occasions: they are personal vehicles that we can use at our discretion, they’re largely immune to traffic, and we can always find parking. This is why it’s often faster to ride a bike than to drive in San Francisco. But there are occasions that these other options really shine, and they might work even better for other families, and they’re so interesting I thought they were worth documenting in this outrageously long post.

Some useful tools for the car-free family:

  • Cash: Transportation is one of the final holdouts of a cash economy, along with Chinese restaurants, cooperative bakeries, and gambling. I carry around more cash than in the past.
  • Credit card: That said, the majority of ride-sharing services don’t work unless you have a credit card on file.
  • Transit cards: The miserable days when we had to make sure we had two singles in order to ride Muni disappeared when we purchased Clipper cards.
  • Smartphone: I did not get a smartphone until last week, because I live in my own personal Dark Ages. But there is no question that it makes the car-free life easier. Now I can look up bike routes, the next bus, or schedule a car ride instantly. The BayTripper and PocketMuni apps are particularly helpful, as is Bikesy (the bike route mapper for Baytripper).
  • RideSafer travel vests or other portable car seats: We got RideSafer travel vests  as car seat replacements for our trip to Europe last year because they were light enough to meet luggage weight restrictions on European

    Using the RideSafer travel vests in our San Diego rental car.

    airlines. But they are incredibly handy for travel with kids; two fold up small enough to fit in a backpack with room to spare for snacks. Although the kids find them uncomfortable on long trips, they are perfect for short rides. They are pricey but we travel enough out of state that it was worth it to us (also, look for sales; we paid much less than the current price). The vests only work for older kids (arguably 2.5 years and up). However, when we traveled with our son as a baby, we took an infant car seat without the base with us—these styles of car seat all have instructions for installation by seatbelt. And after hearing the stories of such car seats releasing from their bases in collisions, I now suspect that he was safer that way. On occasions when we take longer drives with our kids (e.g. to the Monterey Bay Aquarium) we use regular folding car seats, which now spend most of their time in storage.

  • Folding cart/stroller: It’s nice to have a way to haul kids and/or groceries around. When our kids don’t want to ride a bike to the farmers’ market, we take the stroller and pile up purchases underneath, or we take a folding shopping cart (ours actually works as a cargo-only bike trailer as well).
  • Named non-owner auto insurance policy: If you don’t own a car, but drive, you can still buy auto insurance. We’re on the fence about whether to get a policy like this. It’s not necessary for a lot of car sharing services, which have great insurance (better than you could buy as an individual). But if you’re in a situation where you rent a lot, and have to use national rental agencies, it could be a good deal.

Just the basics (for the more interesting options, skip down to #8)

1. Feet

  • What they are: Look down.
  • When to use them: Local shopping and neighborhood restaurants, visiting local friends and attractions
  • How they work: If you’re able-bodied you know this already.
  • Pros: Good exercise; helps us learn about the neighborhood; we live in San Francisco so everything we need to live is within walking distance
  • Cons: Limited range (especially if kids are involved); limited ability to carry stuff; slow
  • What it costs: Free!
  • Good to know: We can walk further than we think we can, even when carrying a grumpy six-year-old uphill.
  • Personal experience: We like walking; early dates with my husband were long walks.

2. Bicycles (the practical kind, not the road racing/mountain biking kind)

  • What they are: Those things on two wheels most people learned to ride as kids; but if you didn’t, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition will teach you how to ride in a couple of hours.
  • When to use them: Virtually anytime, although in San Francisco it can be a little tricky to get outside city limits on bikes when heading east
  • How they work: Hop on and ride off
  • Pros: Good exercise; faster than cars in traffic; never worry about parking; some bikes can carry more than cars; kids love riding on bikes
  • Cons: Can take some practice to learn to ride in the street with cars; can fuel an obsession that becomes more expensive than planned (although way cheaper than a car) and unnerves friends and colleagues; theft is a problem in San Francisco (although a recent arrest has improved matters dramatically)
  • What it costs: Ranges dramatically, from $50 for a beater bike found on craigslist (quality unknown) to $3,500 for a snazzy new cargo bike, but without kids almost everyone will do fine walking out of the local bike shop on a $500 commuter, with kids ditto on a $1500 cargo bike. Any decent bike shop will let you test ride extensively before purchase. Electric assists for hills and heavy loads run $500-$5,000, but most reliable models run $1,000-$2,000. Maintenance and repair costs are bupkis, even for electric assist bikes, which recharge for pennies.
  • Good to know: If you’re hauling kids you probably need more bike than you think you do. Many people buy a first bike that’s inadequate for their needs and have to replace it (guilty as charged). But even the most wildly expensive cargo bike with electric assist costs less than the estimated cost of car ownership for a year. And also less than an amateur road bike.
  • Also good to know: If you fear breakdowns, you can buy nationwide bicycle roadside assistance from Better World Club.
  • Personal experience: This is our favorite way to get around.

3. Public transit (around here, primarily the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, aka Muni, but also systems around the bay for trips outside the city including BART, Cal Train, and Golden Gate Transit)

  • What it is: Buses, street cars, trains
  • When to use it: When it’s too far to walk; when the bike breaks down; when feeling lazy or when the hill situation or route is unclear in advance; when we have lots of time
  • How it works: Find a route using a trip planner (Baytripper app, 511 through Google Maps), head to the nearest stop, pay, and get on. In SF, the Pocket Muni smartphone app can identify how close the next bus (or whatever) is.
  • Pros: Inexpensive; accessible; nice views; riding historic streetcars and cable cars is a thrill; meet an incredibly diverse cross-section of city residents, most of whom are kind
  • Cons: Horribly unreliable (Pocket Muni can help, but still); aging equipment that breaks down; dirty; the most useful routes are often incredibly crowded; meet an incredibly diverse cross-section of city residents, some of whom are mean and/or insane
  • What it costs: In SF, $2 for adults, 75 cents for kids but cable car rides are $5; to go outside the city, costs vary but are still cheap. Fares are cash and exact change only unless you buy a Clipper card.
  • Good to know: Public transportation is like getting work done at a dental school: the price is right, there are no perks, the service is as promised but it takes a long time.
  • Personal experience: Very useful, but flawed (however I feel the same way about cars)

4. Taxis

  • What they are: Cars driving around that will take you wherever you want to go on a fare schedule negotiated with the city in advance
  • When to use them: Only when we’re desperate
  • How they work: Call in advance for a pickup and hope someone actually comes, hail one on the street and hope it actually stops
  • Pros: Only car service legally allowed to pick up street hails; gets you anywhere you want to go at a predictable price
  • Cons: San Francisco’s taxi fleet is notorious for poor availability, the willingness of dispatchers to lie about sending a taxi for a pickup, the unwillingness of drivers to pick up people that don’t look rich and well-groomed, etc. The cars themselves are often filthy and I say this as a Muni rider. Drivers pay little attention to traffic laws or speed limits. All taxis in San Francisco are supposed to take credit card payments but trying to pay that way can anger drivers enough that they threaten passengers and/or throw their belongings on the ground. This has happened to me.
  • What it costs: $3.50 at pickup then 55 cents per fifth of a mile or minute of wait time, plus tip
  • Good to know: You can do better, see below.
  • Personal experience: Primarily hellish, although there have been exceptions

5. City CarShare (see also: Zipcar)

  • What it is: A membership service for borrowing cars. These are parked around the city in reserved parking places.
  • When to use it: When we have a reason to drive somewhere.
  • How it works: Apply for membership and pay the fee; if you don’t drive like a maniac and have a valid credit card, you’re in. Once enrolled, members can reserve any car in the system online or by phone (there is a smartphone app for droid phones, but not yet for iOS). They send you a key fob in the mail; when your reservation begins, swipe it on the reader in the front window to unlock the car. At the end of the reservation, swipe the fob on the reader to check the car back in.
  • Pros: For occasional drivers who live or work near pods, it’s much cheaper than owning a car and more convenient. For complicated trips (hauling six kids, going to Ikea) there are pickup trucks and minivans to rent. For people who like cars, there are interesting vehicles to drive: Mini Coopers, Smart cars, electric cars.
  • Cons: Need to schedule trips in advance and be aware when the reservation is ending or there will be late fees. Cars must be dropped off at the pod of origin, so all trips must be round trips, and members are responsible for parking in the interim. Not all members are responsible about bringing vehicles back on time or refilling the gas tank, which can be a hassle (although people who don’t live near a university like we do report fewer problems of this nature). Car sharing can be expensive for frequent users. May not be worth joining if pods are far away (unless you have a Brompton!)
  • What it costs: We pay an annual membership fee plus a set rate when using a car ($1-$9/hour) plus a mileage fee (35 cents/mile). Each membership comes with a certain number of “day trips” allowing a 24-hour rental ($48-$70/day plus 10 cents/mile) and more day trips can be purchased for $12 each. Membership includes insurance, maintenance, roadside assistance, tolls, and gas (or charging if an electric vehicle). Fees are charged at the end of the month to a credit card on file.
  • Good to know: Car share services have reciprocal relationships with their counterparts in other cities. Zipcar is more expensive and has poorer insurance than local nonprofit options.
  • Personal experience: Good; historically we’ve rented through City CarShare once every couple of months, although this has now increased to 1-2 times/month.

6. Rental car agencies

  • What they are: An ad hoc service for borrowing cars
  • When to use them: Longer-term rentals or business/out-of-state travel
  • How they work: Call or book online to reserve a car, hope we get something like what we requested
  • Pros: Lots of different cars available; no extra charges for long trips
  • Cons:  Most agencies require customers to come to them but don’t provide rides, which can be inconvenient (exceptions: City Rent-A-Car in SF, Enterprise nationwide). Insurance and gas are the responsibility of the renter. Cars tend to be in poor condition (relative to car-share vehicles) and it is obvious that some people smoke in them. Rental agencies tend to dump gas guzzlers onto renters who book economy cars, which is a drag as the renter pays for gas.
  • What they cost: Varies, in SF usually ~$40/day on weekends or ~$400/week plus gas, insurance for an economy car; credit card payment required
  • Good to know: Local agencies like City Rent-A-Car typically have better prices, cars, and service than national chains; airport pickups involve substantial additional fees
  • Personal experience: Tolerable, used for business trips but only because Matt’s company makes the reservations

7. Limousines/livery cars

  • What they are: Private car service for passenger trips
  • When to use them: When scheduling a one-way trip in advance, e.g. to the airport, in which case they are almost as cheap as cabs or airport shuttles for a family of four but vastly more reliable (at least in San Francisco)
  • How it works: Call a dispatcher or book online, usually several hours in advance
  • Pros: Cars usually come when scheduled or earlier; cars are clean; drivers obey traffic laws
  • Cons: Some services are more reliable than others; expensive; with kids a portable car seat may be needed although some provide child seats on request
  • What it costs: $55-$65 for an airport ride regardless of the number of passengers; other pricing is hourly or zone-based and typically comparable to or slightly more expensive than a cab (we only use these for airport trips so I’m ignorant); credit card payment required, tips often included
  • Good to know: Dealing with individual companies is a thing of the past thanks to Uber; see below.
  • Personal experience: We decided it was worth the money to take limos to the airport after a couple of incidents where cabs and airport shuttles didn’t bother to show up.

Peer-to-peer and beyond (this is where things get interesting!)

8. Bike trailer loans: If you’re a member of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, you can reserve and borrow Burley Travoy or Bikes at Work trailers for heavy cargo loads. Included for no additional cost with membership! (no personal experience)

9. Bike rentals: City CarShare is rolling out an e-bike plus cargo trailer rental option late in 2012, rates to be determined. Most of the other bike rental options in San Francisco are geared to tourists, but might be useful for family visiting from out of town; check Yelp for deals. San Francisco universities have relationships with a local bike shop that allows students and other visitors to rent a Trek 7.3FX commuter bike for a day ($25), multiple days ($12.50/day), or a semester ($175), contact milanal@lombardisports.com. (no personal experience)

10. Employer and transit shuttles: Some employers and neighborhoods offer free shuttle service to various locations throughout the city. Amtrak also takes people across the bay for no charge. If you’re near the route, these are the best deals in the city. Technically I work for the state so although my employer’s shuttles are primarily for staff and patients, anyone can ride them—see also PresidiGo, SF City and County, Nordstrom. Driver quality is better than cabs but worse than limos. In San Francisco, check university websites or Yelp for details on shuttle rules and routes, or ask around. Personal experience: Excellent

11. Casual carpool/slugging

  • What it is: Some cities, like San Francisco and DC, have established ad hoc car pool locations for regular commuters. In the Bay Area, drivers pick up passengers in order to use the car pool lanes on the bridges into the city.
  • When to use it: When you want to get into the city more quickly and cheaply than you could alone and the routes and times make sense
  • How it works: Head to a pickup location as a driver/passenger, then pick-up the next two people in line/hop in the next car that pulls up. Drop off/get out at the drop-off site.
  • Pros: Cheap; fast
  • Cons: The etiquette around payment of carpool tolls has not yet been established for passengers (some drivers ask for a contribution). Some people freak out about the idea of getting into a stranger’s car, although this is mitigated by the fact that drivers typically pick up two passengers (women passengers often refuse to join a two-seater vehicle in the casual carpool line; I know I did when I was using casual carpool).  The routes and times don’t work for everyone.
  • What it costs: As a passenger, up to $1, but often free. Drivers pay normal commuting costs but a lower toll.
  • Good to know: It’s nice that such cooperative arrangements can spring up organically, isn’t it? Sure, it’s not everyone riding their bike or transit to work, but casual carpool gets lots of cars off the road and reduces traffic.
  • Personal experience: I rode casual carpool for several months when we lived in Berkeley and it was pleasant enough.

12. Zimride

  • What it is: A formalized casual carpool; drivers taking long trips or regular commutes post rides to potential passengers
  • When to use it: Long road trips in lieu of Greyhound; also, large employers use the service to arrange regular carpools
  • How it works: Check out the website for posted rides and dates; sign up if there’s one that works and arrange pick-up/drop-off with the driver
  • Pros: Cheaper than driving alone; less grungy than the bus; can get picked up somewhere near where you live
  • Cons: Somewhat complicated to arrange; some people freak out about getting into a stranger’s car; ride timing dependent on the driver
  • What it costs: Varies; check website but SF to LA seems to run ~$50 per passenger (by comparison Greyhound is $45-$65 for the same trip, plus the cost to get to the station)
  • Good to know: There’s definitely a college student vibe to this service. Lots of discussion of music; unlike casual carpool, don’t assume you’ll be listening to NPR on this ride.
  • Personal experience: Nada, although my employer runs all its carpools through Zimride, which suggests it is decent.

13. Sidecar/Lyft

  • What it is: Peer-to-peer donation-based ridesharing
  • When to use it: When we want a lift across town for less than the cost of a cab that’s quicker than public transit, or when we don’t want to stand on the bus
  • How it works: You need a smartphone. Download the app and create an account with your credit card information. When you want a ride, open the app and request one. It will tell you how far away the nearest driver is and suggest a donation based on past community standards. If you accept, the driver will swing by within a few minutes and take you to your destination. The donation is charged to your card on file.
  • Pros: Cheaper than a cab, faster than public transit
  • Cons: Mainly the usual freak-outs about getting into a stranger’s car, although drivers are screened, interviewed, and rated after every ride by the service and by their passengers (personally I’ve had much worse experiences in taxi cabs than I’ve ever had while ride sharing). Negotiating the suggested donation can be tricky if driver and passenger don’t agree. Taking kids can be an issue if you don’t have a portable car seat as suggested above.
  • What it costs: Varies, check the apps but seems to run approximately $1/minute; e.g. the community average for a trip from the Inner Sunset farmers’ market to the Financial District was $22, compared to an estimated taxi fare of $32 before tip
  • Good to know: Sidecar seems to have better coverage in San Francisco. Lyft is associated with the successful Zimride, but seems organized to primarily appeal to college students.
  • Personal experience: I looked up a ride with Sidecar recently when my sister’s rental car was hit and I thought I needed a quick way home; although I didn’t book, they said they had a car three minutes away and would get me home for $8. Further updates as events warrant. I suspect I’ll use this service eventually.

14. Homobiles: Moes gettin hoes where they needz to goez! [ho status optional]

  • What it is: A donation-based ride-sharing service for the LGBTIQQ community and friends in San Francisco. Homobiles was started after its founder heard too many stories of cab drivers in San Francisco refusing to stop in the Castro, or stopping and then soliciting passengers for sexual favors, or kicking same sex couples out for kissing in the car, or commenting negatively on bondage gear, or sharing unsavory opinions about the gay community, and so forth.
  • When to use it: When you want a cab but don’t want a cab driver
  • How it works: Text (or call) a request for a pick with your location, number of passengers, and any special requests to Homobiles at 415/574-5023. They’ll text back with your pickup time if they have a driver available (sometimes they don’t, but at least they’ll tell you) and off you go.
  • Pros: This is a donation-based service that wants people to feel safe, so they’ll give you a ride even if you can’t pay. No one will hassle you for looking queer, obviously. Some of their cars have bike racks.
  • Cons: Cash only. Sometimes there’s no driver available. Taking kids can be an issue if you don’t have a portable car seat. The name might freak out relatives from less urban locales.
  • What it costs: $1/minute anywhere in the city. $30 flat fee to San Francisco Airport (this may be our future airport shuttle!) Tips not included.
  • Good to know: Drivers will sell you a Homobiles t-shirt or hanky as a fundraiser (like every other ride sharing service, they’re being sued by SF taxi companies, but they’re they only one without venture capital backing).
  • Personal experience: Haven’t used it yet, but I’ve heard nothing but accolades.

15. Uber

  • What it is: A smartphone app-based booking service for limos
  • When to use it: When you don’t have the cash handy for Homobiles or they don’t have a driver available, or you really want to ride in a shiny black car with water bottles
  • How it works: You need a smartphone. Download the app and create an account with your credit card information. When you want a ride, open the app and request one. It will tell you how far away the nearest driver is, what kinds of vehicles are available (for more than 4 people, request an SUV) and the fare. If you book, the driver will swing by within a few minutes and take you to your destination. A tip is included and the bill is charged to your card, with an emailed receipt; this is a cash-free transaction.
  • Pros: Same as limousines/livery cars but with rock-solid reliability and enforcement of good driving behavior (passengers are asked to rank the driver after the ride). Uber prides itself on having cars available at all times, no matter what, even on New Year’s Eve or during Pride.
  • Cons: Expensive; taking kids can be an issue if you don’t have a portable car seat
  • What it costs:$8 base fare, plus $4.90/mile while moving and $1.25/minute in traffic; $15 minimum fare and $10 cancellation fee
  • Good to know: Uber has coupon codes for new members that give $10-$20 off your first ride.
  • Personal experience: None yet, seems pricey (but great reviews on Yelp). I tried to order ice cream for my kids on Uber’s ice cream truck day but they were too busy, which frankly runs contrary to their whole “we will get you a car no matter what” image. I’ll cut them some slack as it was the first time they tried that, but still, hmm.

16. Getaround/Relay Rides

  • What it is: Peer-to-peer carsharing
  • When to use it: Primarily when you want to rent a car for longer periods than are cost-effective using a car sharing service
  • How it works: This is a more informal version of traditional car share. People who have cars available that they don’t use regularly make them available to people who want to rent one. Rates are set by the car owner and listed on the website. When you join (you’ll need a Facebook account) you can pick from a list of available vehicles and request a reservation. Getaround lets you pick up certain cars using your smartphone and an ID reader, but both services default to meeting the car owner and handing over the key. Drive during the reservation window and then return the car as the owner requested. The service provides insurance but the renter is typically responsible for gas.
  • Pros: Typically cheaper than all-day rental using a car-sharing service; much better insurance for the car-free than traditional rental car agencies; often closer to home than other options; owners are usually more relaxed about late drop-offs than car share services are
  • Cons: Handing off keys can be a hassle for non-smartphone enabled cars; rates are somewhat unpredictable; limited availability in some neighborhoods
  • What it costs: Typically $6-$12/hour in San Francisco, with daily rates of $35-$60 (although Getaround’s rental Tesla is much more). Weekly rates are also available. Where we live it’s cheaper than traditional car-sharing for day trips and more expensive for hourly trips.
  • Good to know: Getaround has better coverage and some keyless entry cars in both San Francisco and Portland, which makes renting for short periods more appealing. Relay Rides is national. Car-light folks can rent out their cars.
  • Personal experience: My sister rented a car through Getaround when we took a weekend day trip and it was more exciting than we’d planned, but that wasn’t Getaround’s fault. $50 for the day, and unusually, gas was included. I would rent through Getaround again, especially for longer trips.

Other interesting options that San Francisco does not have yet, but that are available in other cities

17. Bike share

  • What it is: Short term city-sponsored bicycle rentals available from pods scattered in popular travel corridors
  • When to use it: When you have a short one-way trip that’s still too far to walk or would take too long
  • How it works: Typically you buy a membership card, then swipe it to release a bike from one of the locked racks. Ride it to your destination and check it in at a nearby rack. Short trips are free or nearly so and longer trips are expensive. If there’s no space at a given rack, you can get free minutes to ride it to the next closest rack and check the bike in there.
  • Pros: Inexpensive, easy, fun to ride
  • Cons: It might be hard to carry a large load. You probably can’t ride with kids.
  • What it costs: Varies; free to a few dollars.
  • Good to know: California has no helmet law for adults, so don’t let not having a helmet stop you from trying a bike if that’s what it takes.
  • Personal experience: None, unfortunately, but you can bet I’ll try it when San Francisco rolls out its bike share program, supposedly later in 2012. Or maybe 2013. Or maybe never. Sob.

18. Car2go

  • What it is: A short-term rental program for Smart cars run by Daimler
  • When to use it: When you want to drive one-way, alone or with one passenger
  • How it works: You sign up, pay the annual fee, and get a member card to check into cars (typical rules about not driving like a maniac apply here). Cars can be reserved in advance online or by phone, or just wander around until you see a Car2go car with a green light on the reader, wave your card, enter a PIN, and drive off. Park the car in any legal parking spot at your destination, but there’s no need to pay a meter; Daimler negotiates an annual parking fee for its cars with the city and pays it in advance. Members get a gas card with the car and receive credits for filling up if the tank is less than a quarter full.
  • Pros: Seems very useful for last-mile travel for people who don’t want to carry a folding bike; or for emergency sick-kid pickups—e.g. I could schedule a car pickup for us at school and use the time it takes the driver to get to school to drive myself over from work with Car2go
  • Cons: Limited availability; only an option in a few cities; Smart cars only hold two people and there’s no way to install a car seat
  • What it costs:  Rates are the cheapest combination of 35 cents/minute, $13/hour, $66/day (plus 45 cents/mile if you drive the car over 150 miles per day), plus tax.
  • Good to know: Car2go membership recently became transferable throughout the cities where it’s in operation: if you’re a Car2go member in Washington DC, you can also drive Car2go vehicles in San Diego.
  • Personal experience: None, because it isn’t available in San Francisco, unfortunately.

Available anywhere, but use with caution

19 and last on my list: Mooching

My personal feeling is that if I regularly feel the urge to mooch rides, then we’re not really ready to live without our own car. We had one car for over five years, and in that time I can count on my fingers the number of times we asked for a ride, hinted that we wanted one (particularly with kids in tow: who has a spare car seat anyway?), or asked to borrow a car. Given all of the options available to us now, if we start to find ourselves consistently begging rides, I suspect that would be a sign that we should buy a car again.

That said, I don’t see anything wrong with getting a ride occasionally, particularly when we’re traveling. We were very grateful when a friend offered us a lift late at night last year when we were in Paris and we faced a long train ride back carrying two sleepy kids. There are times that people make an unsolicited offer to drive me somewhere, like at work when everyone is headed to another campus for a department meeting. And in those cases I usually say yes because I enjoy their company. And on the occasions that I have a rental car, I’ll often ask people whether they want a lift where I’m going, for exactly the same reason.

Thanks for asking, and thanks for sharing the ride, friends!

3 Comments

Filed under car-free, commuting, family biking, San Francisco

Tagged as , , , ,

July 18, 2012 · 7:05 am

Round, round, get around, I get around… First time car-sharing with Getaround

As part of my investigation into our transportation options now that we don’t own a car, I recently discovered Getaround, thanks to a referral from I Bike U Bike. Getaround is a San Francisco-based program where people who own cars can rent them to people who want a car for a while—rates are daily, weekly, or monthly. Someone asked me, “Oh, like Relay Rides?” I had to check what that was, but: yes. However Getaround seems to have better coverage in San Francisco, plus some cars that can be accessed without meeting the owner face-to-face.

I’ve developed a lot more flexibility in the last year.

Last weekend my sister and I took a day trip to a yoga retreat in Sebastopol. This was my big idea; I take yoga at noon at work and I like it. My sister does Crossfit. Ultimately I would say that although the retreat had its moments, and although I like yoga classes, I am probably not the yoga retreat type. Most importantly, it was a long time to spend away from my kids. There was also a bigger emphasis on woo than I had hoped. Yoga can get pretty heavy on the woo: qi, live harp music, discussion of sutras, detailing transformational experiences, chanting, “rebirth,” etc. This retreat was admittedly pretty low on that scale, going no further than seated meditation and breathing exercises. What can I say? I’m uptight, and I’m comfortable with myself that way.  My sister also tends to avoid the woo, but she was a good sport.

Anyway, my sister and brother-in-law don’t own a car, and neither do we anymore. She was going to rent one through Zipcar to get us to Sebastopol, but Zipcar charges almost $120 for an all-day rental! I suggested she try Getaround instead. She found a 2009 Jetta the same distance from her place as the local Zipcar pod, which she could rent for 24 hours, gas included, for $50. What’s more, Getaround has a much better insurance plan. I am foreshadowing.

My brother-in-law suggested this gas-powered kick scooter as a car alternative . Thankfully we can do better.

So we went to Sebastopol and back in this lovely car, which was immaculate, more so any other rental car I’d ever seen. My sister said the owner was fantastic, very mellow, and she liked the experience so much that she began wondering whether it was worth maintaining their Zipcar membership, given that Zipcar involves an annual membership fee, has higher rates, and requires them (for the sake of their sanity, not as a matter of policy) to maintain a named non-owner auto insurance policy.  (We belong to City CarShare, which is nonprofit and has lower rates and better insurance, plus I get an extra discount through my employer, but their coverage in her neighborhood is spotty and she doesn’t get my discount.)

When we returned to San Francisco, we stopped for dinner at a Mexican restaurant we’d both heard of but never visited. It was great. We were having a fantastic day, and left so she could drop me off to tuck the kids in at bedtime. When we walked out to the car, which she’d parked on the street, we saw a taxi stopped in front of it with flashers on and a bunch of people standing around taking photos with their smartphones. Why? There was a giant gouge on the side of the Getaround Jetta where the taxi driver had smashed into it.

“DAMMIT!” said my sister. “My very first Getaround rental! This guy is never going to rent to me again!”

Unlike many drivers in San Francisco who hit  parked cars, this one had stopped. It might have been because both his fares and a handful of passersby immediately stopped to start taking pictures, but let’s give him the benefit of the doubt, because he seemed pretty decent about the whole thing. But the incident began a whole cascade of phone calls, information exchanges, and smartphone photography.

My sister called the Jetta’s owner, who seemed surprisingly equable about having his car hit. I called Getaround, and although they didn’t answer, they called me right back, and then told my sister everything would be fine. Everyone took lots of photos. The cab driver called his insurance and they wanted my sister’s license and insurance information, and wouldn’t you know it, there was a Getaround insurance card right there in the glove box.

My sister notes that this vehicle is not authorized to enter the bike lane when necessary.

When the cab driver said he wanted their insurance adjuster to come out right then and there, I started thinking about other ways to get home before my kids passed out and my husband assumed that I’d died. Sidecar apparently had a ride available 3 minutes away, but just before I booked it, the insurance adjuster called to say that he was halfway around the world, and given that the Jetta could be driven, could everyone just deal with this on Monday morning? So that’s where we left things. My sister drove me home and headed back herself. We both kept laughing in disbelief. The car got hit the very first time she tried Getaround! Talk about bad luck.

That said, despite the collision, or rather even with the collision, the Getaround part of the day was great. Assuming that we’re both not permanently blacklisted, I would rent from them again, especially for a day trip. There are so many more options for the car-free in San Francisco now; I feel like our timing could not have been better.

2 Comments

Filed under car-free, San Francisco, travel

Tagged as , , , ,

July 16, 2012 · 10:17 am

Spotted in Hayes Valley: The Faraday Porteur

New Hayes Valley parklet (not the park built on a closed street)

Although I don’t get much chance to socialize with adults given that we have two little kids, I try to meet my sister every once in a while. The last time, she suggested we meet in Hayes Valley, near Civic Center. I hadn’t been to Hayes Valley in a long time, and it turns out it’s a nice ride over. The entire neighborhood has been shifting in character from a seedy strip off the freeway to a shopping and dining destination. Part of that transition involved closing off a major street to car traffic, and building a park where the cars used to be. It was filled with families, even though Hayes Valley itself is more of a hipster neighborhood, packed with expensive housewares stores, wine shops, and expensive restaurants. It is a fantastic place to hang out, and I was not the only person who thought to ride my bike there: the racks and parking meters were packed.  It was one of the rare summer days in San Francisco that was not foggy and cold, and I pitied the drivers stuck in their cars, fuming as they searched for parking. That used to be me.

The Faraday Porteur

I met my sister at Propellor, which is kind of a hyper-local version of Design Within Reach. Propellor was an odd location to find a bicycle, other than the one I’d locked up outside, but a bicycle there was. It was, in fact, an electric bicycle, the Faraday Porteur, a creation of IDEO/Rock Lobster that was the Oregon Manifest People’s Choice winner. Oregon Manifest was a 2011 competition intended to encourage designers to create the ultimate utility bike. Given that hauling kids was not even a criterion in the Oregon Manifest, it was hard for me to take much of an interest. But although the Faraday reflects the goals of the Manifest rather than of many actual utility cyclists, it is an interesting bike nonetheless.

There are some issues that arise when attempting to market a bike in a modern housewares store. The main one is that the people staffing the store clearly had no idea what they had in their window, other than that it was an electric bike, and then only because it said so on the sign. I had a lot of questions, and they didn’t have a lot of answers. Eventually they found a brochure, and that helped. They are planning to sell the Faraday, which is actually going into production. With luck they’ll have someone in the store who can explain what it actually does by then. I’m interested to see how the whole sales process goes. They’re clearly reaching a market of people who would not normally spend a lot of time in bike stores. What will happen after one of them actually buys a bike is something of a mystery.

Front hub motor, apparently

The Faraday Porteur is clearly an effort to make utility bikes seem cool. I recognized from the front hub that it was an electric bicycle even without seeing the sign, but couldn’t spot the batteries. The brochure revealed that they were packed into the double top tube.  Although I think packing the batteries in the frame is a fantastic idea, I wonder about the choice to put them in a double top tube. You can forget about adding a rear child seat given that frame; you’d roundhouse your kid every time you got on the bike. Putting that much weight in the top tube seems like it would make the bike harder to balance, and my brother-in-law wondered what happened when someone needed to replace the battery. And the whole bike seemed designed for a sporty ride; there’s no way to ride upright on that frame. Maybe it’s meant to appeal to people who would otherwise ride fixies?

Those quibbles aside, there is a lot the Faraday gets right. The frame-mounted front rack comes off and on with one hand, and it is large enough to haul serious cargo. The mount for that rack has two headlights built into it, and the rear of the bike has an integrated taillight. They were very, very sweet. The electric assist (which is a pedal assist, but I got that from the website, not from the confused staff at the store) is beautifully integrated into the bike, looking exactly like a left-hand shifter. It’s not a particularly powerful assist, but for this kind of bike, I doubt it needs to be. And there is no question: this is a very pretty bike.

Pretty, but vague on the details

The Faraday got a lot of attention while we were there, from people who didn’t have my kinds of questions. Theirs were more along the lines of, “When will you have them in stock?” and, “How much will they cost?” The store couldn’t answer those questions either.

In a neighborhood like Hayes Valley, a bike built to carry a case of beer easily, rather than a kid, is right on target. The Faraday, which takes the brutality out of climbing the city’s hills and makes it possible to haul everything a single person could need,  was clearly making riding a bike seem practical to people who would never consider it otherwise. I hope they sell thousands of them, and that the next time I’m in Hayes Valley, I see them everywhere.

1 Comment

Filed under cargo, commuting, electric assist, San Francisco

Tagged as , , , ,

July 13, 2012 · 11:25 am

San Francisco destinations: The New Wheel

This is actually quite an accurate depiction of what it’s like to ride an electric-assist bicycle in San Francisco.

A few weeks ago, we checked out a new bike shop in San Francisco, The New Wheel. The New Wheel is marketing itself to a particular niche in San Francisco, and I suspect they will be successful. They sell only electric pedal-assist bicycles.

For this trip I rounded up two other families from our daughter’s preschool to keep us company and so I could get the opinions of people who’d never ridden electric-assist bikes before. Preschool was the obvious place to recruit other families interested in electric-assist bikes; as Matt puts it, the building “looks down on us like a Tibetan monastery.” From asking around, we knew that other biking parents (okay, dads) had tried to haul kids up that hill in trailers and on bikes. Like us, they’d given up after a couple of tries.

Electric-assist bikes: interesting!

Cyclists in San Francisco do not give up easily. There is no avoiding the hills in this city, and there are a few intrepid riders who climb preschool hill every day solo. But not pulling a trailer, which one dad reported actually dragged him back down the hill while he was attempting to pedal up. I have discussed before the reasons that parents in the city don’t typically ride with trailers (can’t be seen in traffic, don’t fit in bike lanes): that’s another. Let’s not even discuss what it would be like back going down that same hill. In summary it would be fair to say that there is intense interest in electric-assist bikes in our preschool community.

So we all headed to The New Wheel one Sunday. It was fascinating. In a lot of ways, The New Wheel is not yet our kind of shop. Although they are interested in the family market, they are most strongly focused right now on pedal-assist bikes for commuters. They can attach a child seat or a trailer or a Burley Piccolo to their bikes, but they don’t offer cargo bikes. It turns out that there is a reason for this.

These are the kinds of bikes they sell.

What I learned from the owners at The New Wheel is that there is a wide range of reliability in electric assists for bicycles, and particularly in batteries. As they are focused not just on selling equipment but maintaining it, there is a very short list of systems that they felt were worth selling: BionX and Panasonic. BionX motors sit in the rear hub and respond to torque on the pedals; the harder you push, the more help you get. I’ve written about riding with the BionX before. The mid-drive motors attach to the chain, and add power throughout the gear range. These are stronger motors, but they are significantly more expensive and they work best when riders maintain a steady cadence. After trying one, I can attest that doing that involves a learning curve.

For the time being, this is the only kind of family bike that The New Wheel is selling.

Because they are very interested in the family market they had considered stocking the Yuba elMundo, which comes with the eZee assist. However they found that customers had so much trouble with eZee motors and batteries, which evidently have a nasty habit of cutting out in the middle of the hills where people need them most, that they are negotiating with Yuba to develop and sell a BionX-assisted Mundo instead. The trade-off for increased reliability, of course, is a higher price.

Having this discussion with them made it pretty clear that for our needs, a BionX system is probably our best choice. After-market mid-drive motors, although they themselves are great, evidently have some of the same battery issues that other systems do, namely that there are not many consistently good ones, and no one is currently making cargo bikes with the integrated Panasonic assists. So it would seem that BionX is the most reliable option for cargo bikes, unless you know a lot about batteries or get lucky.

All these bikes have the motor integrated into the design; the mid drive motors are placed inside a massive chain guard.

All of the bikes The New Wheel sells are built as electric-assist bicycles from the ground up, and they all come with integrated BionX motors (e.g. the Ohm line) or integrated Panasonic mid-drive motors (the German bikes). They felt both of these systems worked well on steep hills. The mid-drive motors were more useful for weaker riders. One of their customers, an older woman with a recent hip replacement, was using one of their mid-drive motor-assisted bikes to commute up to the top of the Berkeley hills every day. That is an extremely long and unforgiving grade.

Having already tried a BionX-assisted bike in Portland, I went out for a test ride with one of the preschool dads, Paul, on a mid-drive bike. He took an Ohm with a BionX assist. I was very curious about how it would feel to ride with the more powerful mid-drive motor. The New Wheel is conveniently located in Bernal Heights, next to some brutally steep slopes. After taking some time to figure out how our respective assists worked, we rode up and down the hills for a while. It was such a hoot!

When I rode with a BionX, I liked that it felt seamless with the pedaling and was almost completely silent. Other than feeling like I’d grown massively stronger, I barely noticed the BionX was there.

I rode the extremely girly “Emotion” bike. I’m not particularly proud, but this kind of marketing leaves something to be desired. Bad manufacturer; no cookie!

The mid-drive motor was different. It makes a slight rattling sound as the chain runs through the motor, which I found kind of annoying. It was hard to tell that it was more powerful, because the assist felt so subtle. I suspect for riders who are already used to going up hills, there may be less difference between the two systems until the cargo load gets quite substantial. And it was hard for me to maintain a steady cadence and pressure instead of reacting to the hill by gearing down and pushing harder, which meant that I wasn’t getting the greatest benefit from the system. As a result, Paul consistently passed me on the way uphill even though I had a stronger motor.

So although I liked riding up hills with the mid-drive motor, especially hills that I could barely move on by myself (I tried turning the assist off halfway up the hill a couple of times; it was unspeakably brutal), I didn’t like it any better than riding a BionX-assisted bike. Yet I suspect that I would feel very differently about these two systems if I were a novice rider. The owners of The New Wheel said that in fact they steer experienced riders to the BionX-assisted bikes like the Ohms, and novice riders to the mid-drives. I suspect that’s because if you have practice going up hills already, you’d have to relearn how to ride effectively with the mid-drive motors. Basically you have to convince yourself that neither the motor nor the hill is there, and just pedal blissfully on. In contrast, if you’re getting an electric bike in order to start riding a bike again, you don’t have to unlearn any existing hill-climbing habits. This information, by itself, was worth a trip to The New Wheel.

My son’s desire for this bike has not waned in the slightest.

I would be remiss if I didn’t also mention that The New Wheel is really, truly committed to family biking, even if they don’t yet stock any real family-hauling bikes. The proof was in their children’s bikes, which were the nicest I have ever seen. The preschoolers could not stop riding their gorgeous balance bikes. Our son test-rode a beautiful 20” Torker (not listed on their website) and has been begging us ever since to trade in his Jamis for this bike. He is willing to put his entire saved allowance to the cause. This was, however, not even the nicest bike available; they do not currently stock, but they do sell, a German bike for kids that comes with an internally geared hub, dynamo lights, fenders, a double-kickstand, and a chain guard. They said they didn’t stock it because they assumed that no one would be willing spend that much money on a kid’s bike. I only wish The New Wheel had been in business when we bought our son’s bike last Christmas. It would have spared us a trip across the bay and he’d be on a better bike right now. At any rate, if you are looking for a child’s bike, I have never seen a higher-quality collection. And they also have very nice children’s helmets, and they know how to fit them, too.

The New Wheel: stop by and check it out!

If I were in the market for an electric-assist commuter bike to handle the steepest San Francisco hills, I would start at The New Wheel. It is a great shop with incredibly nice owners and they are impressively informed about electric assists. We will almost certainly return when it is time to buy another kid’s bike. My only regret is that they do not yet sell family-hauling cargo bikes that can handle steep hills. For that, you still have to go to Portland.

10 Comments

Filed under bike shops, destinations, electric assist, family biking, San Francisco, trailer-bike, Yuba Mundo

Tagged as , , , , ,

July 11, 2012 · 8:39 am

One less minivan

The minivan goes to SoCal. Trucks on trucks! If only the kids had seen this.

Hey! Hi there! What’s new? There are some big changes here at the Hum household. Not only did I almost break a bike (although it’s back and usable now, I can hear it creaking if I go uphill loaded, so I don’t do that anymore—but give me time, maybe I can still manage to snap the frame in two!), we gave up our minivan last week.

Now we are a car-free family.

Yeah, I wasn’t expecting that either.

Oh, the places we go: Golden Gate Park Carrousel

We had been talking about getting rid of the minivan for quite a while and replacing it with something more economy-sized that would be better for city driving. We bought the minivan new, in early 2006, and knew it was still worth a reasonable amount. In May we contacted our credit union, which has an auto-purchasing service (thank goodness, because we are lazy), and asked whether it would be possible to sell the minivan and use the proceeds to buy a smaller car. From the used car values we saw online, it seemed as though this could be a zero-cost transaction.

They said they would have no trouble selling the minivan, which was still worth a fair bit, even more than I’d expected—they shopped it around the state, found several dealers who wanted it, and had them bid for it. But their efforts to find us a used small car with good mileage were less successful. Everyone wanted cars like that, and the used market was almost nonexistent. The cars that they found had been driven to death and/or were priced nearly the same as new ones. They suggested that if we wanted to get a car in decent condition with good gas mileage, we’d be better off buying new, although they’d keep looking.

Oh, the places we go: The F Castro line streetcars, imported from Italy

I had no interest in buying a new car. We have learned in the past few years what happens to cars in San Francisco. The city is cruel to vehicles of all kinds. Multiple pieces of our minivan had been replaced when they were hit while it was parked. So we sat around and waited for updates.

Three weeks ago, we took the minivan in for an oil change. The shop noted that it was time for the 60,000 mile tune-up, which they estimated would cost $1,500 or so. We also received our insurance bill for the next six months, which was $600 (auto insurance in San Francisco is expensive). We were looking at spending over $2,000 to maintain a car that we drove maybe once a week, couldn’t park in our tiny space without flipping in the side mirrors just to get through the garage door, and didn’t even LIKE.

Oh, the places we go: The Children’s Playground at Sharon Meadow

At that point we began wondering it whether would make more sense to just sell it and use City CarShare and Muni until we found something we wanted to buy. The bus stop is 100 feet from our front door, the street car line is two blocks away, and there are three City CarShare pods within three blocks. We have bikes that we ride with our kids all the time. How bad could it be? We called the credit union and they said: sounds reasonable to us.

So two weeks ago we sent in the paperwork with the final mileage to sell the car. Last Friday, a dealer transporter showed up and drove it away on a truck. During these last two weeks, we began to wonder if we really wanted another car after all.

The first week was very hard, partly, I suspect, because the car was still sitting in the garage but we couldn’t drive it anywhere, having submitted the final mileage, the title and the registration. The kids knew it was going away and were confused that they couldn’t take a last ride. But that was the same week that I calculated what it was costing us to own a car that spent most of the time sitting in the garage, and it was sobering.

  • Insurance: $100/month
  • Gas: $50-$100/month (depending on business trips; the minivan had horrible mileage)
  • Maintenance and repairs: $100-$200/month
  • Depreciation: $200/month (given the price we paid on purchase and the price we were offered)

Oh, the places we go: my brother-in-law’s birthday dinner at StrEAT Food, south of Market

We bought the minivan for cash and so we never had interest payments, and by university policy, parking for one car is bundled into our rent. And yet an older, paid-off car that we drove only occasionally was costing us $400-$600 each month. That kind of money would pay for a lot of rental cars and taxi rides, more than I could imagine needing. And that was without even considering that we would walk away with a big windfall if we didn’t get another car.

After some discussion, we thought: well, it’s worth a shot. Even if we decide to get another car eventually, every month that we can put that off saves us ~$500, less whatever we spend on public transit, rental cars, and taxi rides. At a minimum, waiting a few months would fund a very nice family vacation.

And so here we are. With every day that passes the thought of getting another car seems less interesting. Despite some terrible bike karma in the last two weeks (broken bike, flat tires, you name it) everything is basically fine. We were planning to get another family bike anyway. We have found all kinds of cool new travel alternatives: car sharing, ride sharing, public and semi-public transit. All of them seem pretty appealing compared to buying a car that will sit unused in a garage most of the time. And even if we use them quite a lot (we haven’t), they are much, much cheaper than owning the car.

Oh, the places we go: Hayes Valley

There aren’t a lot of families who choose to go without a car if they can afford one, even in San Francisco. Most people insist it is impossible: Muni is unreliable at best, the hills are too intense for biking, taxi service is horrible, and car sharing services are too inconvenient or expensive. You hear the same stories, with different verses, when people talk about living without a car in suburban or rural areas: public transit is dreadful or nonexistent, riding bikes is too dangerous, everything is too far away, taxi service and car sharing are too expensive or too hard to find. Nearly everyone says families in America can’t survive without cars. Can they?

Oh, the places we go: “Look!” yells my daughter. “It’s my emergency room!”

A year ago, we were preparing for a trip to Copenhagen, a city we had no idea was full of bike commuters. If you had asked whether we could live without a car I would have said it was not possible. Not possible. How would we get our kids to school? How would we shop? It was hard enough with one car. What a difference a year makes.

How long will we last? Let’s find out.

14 Comments

Filed under car-free, family biking, San Francisco

Tagged as , , ,

July 9, 2012 · 9:20 am

How wide is a bike lane?

What you see is not always what you get.

I was reading an article about bike lanes recently, which claimed that the newest bike lanes in San Francisco (on Kirkham Street) were 6 feet (183cm) wide, which is the new city standard.

It also claimed that most of the existing bike lanes in the city were 5 feet (152cm) wide, which I’ll admit, I thought was cracked. I ride in a lot of bike lanes in this city, and I would eat my helmet if they were all 5 feet wide. Time to take out the tape measure!

After stopping in various awkward places around my commute, I concluded that bike lanes are the opposite of trees: the older they are, the narrower they are.

  • On Arguello and Sacramento north of Golden Gate Park: 4 feet (122cm) travel width
  • New JFK bike lanes within Golden Gate Park: 5 feet (152cm) travel width
  • According to the article above, the new Kirkham bike lanes: 6 feet (183cm)–I didn’t measure

The protected bike lanes on JFK Drive rarely feel crowded.

My feeling is that the narrowest 4 foot lanes are by far the majority within San Francisco right now, although admittedly I don’t ride as much South of Market, and they’ve striped a lot of lanes down there in the last few years. If the lane has a marker reading “BIKE LANE” or a picture of an un-helmeted bike rider you’ve hit a 4 foot lane for sure, although some of them have been repainted with a helmeted rider. I would guess the odds of these lanes being restriped to a greater width are pretty slim. Most of the attention right now is rightly concentrated on creating new lanes and expanding the network.

Why does it matter? Two major reasons: car doors and traffic.

In the new JFK bike lanes, 5 feet of width is plenty: they’re right against the curb and cars park on the left, they’re protected from the door zone with a buffer zone, and so there is plenty of space for me to ride alongside my son, or for another rider to pass us.

In the 4 foot lanes in the city, and even some of the new 5 foot lanes things can get hairier.

At the dotted line, the cyclists move left and the cars turning right (if there were any) move to the right before heading into the intersection.

These lanes are primarily to the left of parked cars, and an opened door can easily cut the bike lane in half, giving a rider an effective width of a 2 foot (61cm) to 2.5 foot (76cm) travel lane. Dooring incidents are relatively low on weekdays as San Francisco drivers are conscious of bike commuters. Dooring incidents are rampant on weekends when out-of-towners drive into the city and leave their doors hanging open in the bike lanes for no apparent reason, maybe to air out their cars. It’s a mystery, and they get angry when we ask them, politely, to stop blocking traffic.

These lanes are also striped to merge at intersections, allowing cars to turn right and bicycles to move left, which is why San Francisco doesn’t have the right-hook issues that other cities do. As long as everyone signals it is a little complicated but works fine: when the line becomes dashed, turning cars move right and bikes pass them on the left to go to the front of the intersection. (Moving forward in the intersection is a safety move to prevent a car further back in queue from turning right in front of a bicycle moving straight, the dreaded right-hook.) But this merge dance results in cars blocking the right half of the bike lane: once again, the bike lane effectively narrows to half its width whenever a car is turning right. Cars can’t usually pull right up to the curb for a right turn as they would when parking, or they’d run over the corner and pedestrians, so they’re partially in the bike lane.

When a bus moves into the right lane for pickups or turns, it takes some guts (and a narrow bike) to move to the left as suggested when heading straight.

Why does this matter? Most bikes can effectively navigate a 2 foot bike lane, but cargo bikes like our Kona MinUte can be more problematic; the bags on the side hang out several inches when full, making the bike up to 25″ (65cm) wide. I prefer to keep them in the folded position while I’m riding even though they can hold less that way. Then the bike is 16″ (40cm) wide, which is no problem (or I can fill one but not the other.) Matt typically keeps both filled but is actively looking for a better replacement for the stock bags due to their width. Can you put FreeLoaders on a MinUte?

I also had real problems getting the Yuba Mundo through these pinch points when it was visiting. For a long time I couldn’t figure it out: long-tail bikes are basically the same width as other bikes and we were using the front Bread Basket for cargo, so we didn’t have the MinUte rear bag problem. Why was I feeling caught at intersections all of the time and forced to stop behind turning cars (blocking other bikes behind me)? I hated taking the lane from the bike lane when the kids were on deck; cargo bikes are slow to start when laden, and drivers understandably get a little annoyed when riders swing in and out of the bike lanes. And I was the only bike doing it.

I only recently realized that my issue was the Mundo’s Side Loaders. To keep heavy loads off the ground or carry bicycles or give kids a place to rest their feet, the Mundo has two bars sticking out from each side of the rear deck, so the frame’s total width is over 20” (51cm). If you add a pair of full GoGetter bags, the bike’s width increases to over 35” (90cm). I didn’t even have the GoGetter bags, and 20.5” isn’t that much wider than an ordinary bike, but it was changing the way I rode. And yet: I didn’t feel like the Bread Basket in front, at 19″ (48cm) was the problem, even though it was almost as wide. And Yuba notes that the Side Loaders are supposed to be no wider than the rider’s feet on the pedals. Was it just that I couldn’t see the wide load in back?

Why does it matter? We are trying to figure out a new family bike, and width is apparently an issue. Most family bikes and cargo bikes are much wider than an ordinary bike. My problem, even if it was just perceptual, was the same problem people have with child trailers in San Francisco: at 28”-32” (70-82cm) they’re often wider than the space available in the bike lane, and as a rider, you can’t see whether they’re going to make it through. We have an additional issue: no trailer on the market would fit through our narrow basement door, which when opened is just shy of 28″ wide.

Could I handle a wide bike in normal bike lanes, when I arrived at intersections where the lane is cut in half? Would it be easier if the load were in front where I could see it? These are San Francisco problems, but they’re real for us.

4 Comments

Filed under commuting, San Francisco, traffic

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

July 7, 2012 · 9:26 am

The reason they’re building more bike parking where I work

This is the main campus bike cage.

I took these photos of the two major bike cages on the main campus around 9am one morning. These bike cages can be made accessible to any campus employee who shows up at the subterranean parking garage office during the random hours they are open. They re-magnetize your campus ID to allow entry and give you a parking sticker. This is free, but it took me almost a month to get there during a time they were actually open. I assume that it’s not much easier for other people.

This is the second bike cage (slightly smaller)

All of this actually does not seem to be much of a deterrent. The bike cages nearly always look like this, unless it is later in the day, when there are even more bikes. They thin out a little late at night, but a medical center is open 24 hours a day, so there are always bicycles there. The cages are regularly inspected by campus security, and bikes left longer than a few days with a campus sticker result in a call to the owner; bikes without a sticker get confiscated in the short term, and sold after a year unclaimed. This is not long-term bike storage.

More racks outside the bike cages

Outside the main cages is overflow parking. The bike cages are monitored by parking attendants and by remote cameras. There is never enough bike parking.

2 Comments

Filed under commuting, San Francisco

Tagged as ,

July 6, 2012 · 10:00 am

Book review: Traffic; why we drive the way we do

This is a street designed for traffic.

I recently started reading paper books again, the kind found at the neighborhood library, rather than scanning the digital library and downloading books without having to leave the relative comfort of home. The paper library is still substantially more diverse than the digital library, with a much broader selection of non-fiction in particular, although admittedly it appears to offer less in the realm of evangelical romance novels (which are surprisingly difficult to identify based solely on title and cover art; this is why now I only download books that have gotten a good review somewhere, sometime).

Even though we rarely drive, it still really ticks me off that drivers park their cars right in our driveway, like, daily. Drivers who are really committed can even block the bikes.

While in this less ephemeral realm I picked up a copy of Tom Vanderbilt’s Traffic, which is one of the most fascinating books I’ve read in quite a while. For a long time I have accepted that getting on an airplane is the psychological equivalent of locking myself into a small prison cell, and I have prepared myself for flights accordingly. I drive more frequently than I fly (every week or so rather than every few months) but I hadn’t really thought before about how putting myself in a car is somewhat equivalent. I also only recently learned that cyclists call drivers “cagers,” which has a certain dark accuracy.

Riding a bike means never being stuck in traffic.

Vanderbilt discusses the many illusions of driving, including the expectation that early merging is more efficient than late merging, and the efforts of traffic engineers to reprogram people who resent late mergers and create traffic jams to force them out of merged lanes (I used to be one of these people). Even more fascinating was the illusion of queuing in traffic, where whichever lane you pick appears to be moving more slowly than all of the others. Ultimately, it turns out that they’re all moving at the same speed, but because everyone ends up waiting far longer than they end up passing—that’s what makes it heavy traffic—no one perceives the underlying equity.

This made me realize that one of the pleasures of cycling is never having to queue except at stop lights. Speaking as someone who cycled in Copenhagen, where bicycle traffic is thick, I can testify that this benefit is not an artifact of only having few riders on the road. Part of this is undoubtedly another counter-intuitive discovery by those who study traffic: slower speeds lead to faster movement; below certain speeds, there are no traffic jams. The rest is just inherent.

This is a street designed for people. Drivers complain that parklets are “too close to the road.”

It was particularly terrifying to read about just how awful most drivers are, which is something you can often ignore in the car because you’re busy being an awful driver yourself: trying to settle down kids, program acceptable music, talk to passengers, talk on the phone, or worse yet text. But I definitely notice it as a cyclist and pedestrian. Given that there is no feedback that all the dangerous things drivers do are dangerous until they actually hit something, why wouldn’t most drivers believe they’re doing a good job? Even when they do hit something, the fact that it doesn’t happen every day makes people believe the non-collision days are more meaningful. And my friends who work at power companies tell me that even people who hit utility poles argue that the pole was at fault (“It was too close to the curb!” or if seriously drunk, “The pole was in the road.”)

My husband is not a MAMIL

It was painfully familiar to read Vanderbilt’s discussion of how women end up creating and suffering in the worst traffic because of what is referred to as “serve passenger” driving. Taking the kids to school, picking up dry cleaning, doing the grocery shopping: these trips involve the most traffic—school pickup and dropoff zones are particularly notorious—because everyone needs to do them at the same time, and they are the least compatible with ride-sharing. And that’s before even mentioning parking. This is why there are dark jokes about the kinds of hardcore cyclists (Middle-Aged Men In Lycra, or MAMILs) who are able to commute the way they enjoy because their wives are doing all of the errands by car.

Doing errands by bike means never having to look for parking.

Although my husband handles his own dry cleaning and many other household tasks, he does far more business travel than I do, and when he’s away I do almost everything alone. This is part of the reason we’re in the market for a new family bike, and it’s part of the reason I get so annoyed that the market for bikes like these is so thin. I think there are more models of Trek Madone alone than there are family bikes of any brand. (I only recently learned that the Madone is a model of racing bike made by Trek that costs like $5k, and there are apparently a million versions, all of which sell like Big Gulps.)

My son will grow up riding his bicycle for transportation just like I did.

In my personal experience, when I transitioned to commuting primarily by bike I actually saved time, not to mention frustration, because I avoided so much traffic en route. In addition, as a working parent there is almost no other time to exercise. But it’s not possible to do these kinds of errands—picking up two kids at two different schools, etc., with a mountain bike or even a so-called commuter bike. You need something that can haul non-traditional cargo, like cartons of milk, kids themselves, and whatever fragile and emotionally significant popsicle-stick-and-cotton-ball art projects that they want to bring home unscathed.

At the end of this book, I understood why Vanderbilt apparently transitioned to riding a bicycle and public transit. I would have done the same thing if I hadn’t already. Public transit is unequivocally safer and the majority of research suggests cycling is as well (although people find this difficult to believe, or at least “not where I live!”–urban people insist they’d ride if they lived in the country where there’s less traffic, rural people insist they’d ride if they lived in the city where there are bike lanes, etc.) And either option is dramatically less grueling than driving.

When I was first hired at my university I went to a talk for junior faculty by a senior professor (who later won a Nobel Prize) about how to balance work and family. Although many of the things she did were not possible for me (e.g. having her first child at age 45—too late already!) her strongest advice was, “Kill your commute.” Do whatever it took to move close enough to work and school that almost all your time was spent doing something you valued (research, patient care, spending time with kids) rather than something you didn’t (driving, or more likely, sitting in traffic). And we took that advice. We moved from a large house in the suburbs to a small apartment in San Francisco that cost over 50% more per month, and my husband, after a long stint of unemployment and underemployment, found a new job within city limits. We slogged through the San Francisco public school lottery. (And we did all this before we had bikes. Between the hills of San Francisco and the absence of family bikes nationwide, cycling wasn’t an ambition for us at the time.) It was a long road, but our lives are infinitely better for it.

Streets can change. People can change.

Most people wouldn’t have to move and sell a car and change their jobs and their kids’ (pre)schools to change their commutes, as we did. And some of the best changes, which involve transforming streets themselves, are not individual decisions but collective decisions: removing parking, adding bike lanes, creating parklets, developing bike share programs, lowering speed limits, and narrowing roads. But having seen the result of changes like these, in our own lives in San Francisco and after visiting cities like Copenhagen and even Paris that have implemented them, those changes are most assuredly worth it. They scale cities back down to human size. Calming streets is really calming people. It takes the stress out of living.

8 Comments

Filed under advocacy, cargo, commuting, Copenhagen, family biking, San Francisco, traffic

Tagged as , , , ,

July 4, 2012 · 8:44 am

What fresh hell is this?

On Sunday my son and I headed downtown on the Kona MinUte to Japanese class. I thought, “Gee, I hadn’t remembered the MinUte being this bumpy to ride.” Then I heard a swish-swish-swish sound, and asked my son if he was sticking something in the spokes (hey, it’s happened). Nope. Flat tire. When did I lose all my bike karma?

Studying Japanese on the train downtown

Fortunately we weren’t far from home, so I walked the bike back up the hill and then we walked back down the hill to the streetcar stop. We were late, but Muni came through; thankfully, there was no parade downtown this week. It had been so long since we tried this that I had forgotten one of the advantages of riding Muni: we ended up studying Japanese all the way into downtown, which made for a stellar class. A passenger across from us knew Japanese and helped as well. (Experiences like this explain why people keeping leaving their hearts in San Francisco.)

Blue Public Bike with a Bobike Junior seat

On our way up from the train station I saw a woman whose bike had a Bobike Junior seat on it, the first other than mine that I’ve seen. She said she knew a couple of other people with Juniors as well, and she was still hauling her nine-year-old son (!) on hers. They were headed to Sunday Streets as volunteers.

The downside of riding Muni is the waiting. On the way home it took as long for our train to arrive as it would have to ride all the way home (thanks in part to one train going offline right before it arrived at the station, horribly frustrating my son, who believed the arrival time board).

For novelty value, my daughter rode on the MinUte for about 10 minutes before returning to her plush mamachari seat.

After we got home Matt and the kids enjoyed a rousing game of “put the bike tube underwater in the tub to find the hole” and then my son asked to go out for a ride. Sure!

We headed to Golden Gate Park to show him the drop-off site for this month’s summer camp, check out waterfalls, and visit the bison.  This was an impressive ride for a six-year-old, even with the street closure, at over six miles.

Riding with my son has made me reassess my definition of hills. I would have said before this weekend that this was a pretty flat ride, with a slight downhill heading west and a slight uphill heading east. After watching my son, who had to get off the bike and walk some of those “slight uphills,” as well as take multiple rest stops, I realized I’ve lost perspective by comparing them to my daily commute. It was a brutal ride for a little kid on a single-speed bike, but he never complained.

Although it was raining and cold, my kids wanted ice cream.

So we bought both kids ice cream when we got to the bottom of the hill heading home, and we took the long way around on that last leg. And we saw my son’s first grade teacher, who is native Japanese. “A mamachari!” she said.

Our son wants a bike with gears. Although I despair that it seems like we can’t manage to find a bike with any longevity (except the MinUte! and the Brompton. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that those are also our most expensive bikes. Mamachari TBD.) I can’t argue with this. How much farther and faster could he go on a better bike?

Leave a comment

Filed under family biking, Kona, San Francisco

Tagged as , , , ,