A Personal Inventory of SF's Worst Bike Intersections

I’ve spent a lot of time biking in SF and there’s been a few intersections where clearly the traffic engineer responsible went to town with a crazy design. This is my personal top 5, a “worst of” list of sorts.

#5: SF Bike Coalition at Market & Valencia

Tons of bike commuters ride everyday by the SF Bike Coalition offices. Most of them keep straight but a few of them have to turn left to get to the mission.

And this is where the problem is: the city decided to add an intersection with a little concrete block where turning cyclists are supposed to wait for a light before turning. The problem is there’s just not enough space in the lane for that which makes it very risky at rush hour.

Rating: 4/10.

#4: The Hairball

Not especially dangerous but kind of sketchy – the hairball is a bike path that goes under a huge overpass on the east side of the city. Not my favorite to take as there’s a homeless encampment that can get pretty big at times.

Rating: 5/10.

#3 McAllister & Van Ness

This one I’m still puzzled by. The traffic designer decided that it’d be a good idea to have bikes take a little detour by a bus stop; I guess they wanted to put bikes in contact with vulnerable pedestrians?

Like seriously, why put the bus shelter right by where bikes are going to re-enter traffic unless you want someone to get really hurt?

Rating: 3/10

#1 (ex-aequo): San Jose & Rousseau / Portola & Glenview

Both of these are winners, best-in-class intersection. They’re out there with the infamous Palo Alto bike merge¹. Both follow the same crazy pattern of crossing bike traffic along with cars going at a high rate of speed.

Behold, San Jose Ave:

As well as Glenview:

No wonder people don’t feel comfortable riding in the city!