Despite recent biking deaths, 2 veterans say Mission is safer than other areas

By Sarah Bogen

Riding a bicycle anywhere near traffic in the Bay Area seemed less safe after two bicycle accidents, including a fatality, happened in Cupertino and at the Octavia and Market intersection in San Francisco this past March. But according to two San Francisco veteran bicyclists, the opposite is true in the Mission district.
Andy Thornley of the San Francisco Bike Coalition (SFBC) says that within San Francisco the safer areas to bike in are areas that are more urban, where people rely less on car transportation. Also in neighborhoods with a high rate of bicyclists, drivers are more aware of their presence. A lot of people who drive in the Mission are bikers themselves.
“Biking is safer in the Mission than for example, the Sunset,” he said.
Lorraine Lombardo, a Noe Valley beat cop who locks up her bike with a pair of handcuffs, starts her route at the Mission station on Valencia Street. She agrees that bike presence and driver awareness makes the Mission a safe area to ride in.
Bicyclists aren’t as worried about cars as they are about things like garbage and debris on the street and Muni tracks, she says.
Lombardo was chasing a speeding driver on her bike while going northbound on Church Street when her front tire got caught in the Muni tracks, causing her to fall on her head and injure her shoulder. She spent a year off with disability and had surgery on her rotator cuff.
“I think they should make everybody wear a helmet,” she said. “I have a cracked helmet to prove it. When your head hits a train track you’ll wish you had a helmet on.”
The Mission has no Muni tracks and is one of the flattest parts of the city to ride in, which makes it easy for even non-athletes who bicycle.
“It is the ideal environment to get around on a bike,” said Thornley.
The growing presence of people bicycling through the streets of the Mission is hard to miss.
From 2006 to 2007, the number of bicyclists in San Francisco grew 15 percent, according to a report by The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s (SFMTA) bicycle program.
Thornley says that San Francisco’s bike community will only get larger because people will see others biking and catch on to the trend.
“They’ll see someone on a bicycle pass by and say, ‘Hey that guy doesn’t look like Lance Armstrong, he looks like me’,” he said.
Bikers frequent 14th to 16th streets between Valencia and Guerrero because of the area’s proximity to Dolores Park, three bike shops, a cool environment, and most importantly, bike lanes, says Andy Desantis, a San Francisco State University student and bicyclist.