The 17-month experiment of moving Valencia Street’s bike lanes to the center of the street has just been officially reversed, as the SFMTA just voted to move the bike lanes back to the curb in early 2025.

Back in April 2023 when the SF Municipal Transit Agency (SFMTA) approved the new center-running bike lanes on Valencia Street, the meeting was interrupted by an earthquake. Fast-forward to 17 months after the new lanes were installed, on Tuesday afternoon when the SFMTA was considering plans to move the Valencia bike lanes back to the curb side, the meeting was interrupted by someone pulling a fire alarm at City Hall.

Does this indicate the center-running bike lane on Valencia Street was cursed? Maybe. Because after everyone returned from the fire alarm scare, the SFMTA board of directors unanimously voted to approve moving the bike lanes back to the curb on Valencia Street.  

When the unconventional and some would say counterintuitive center-running Valencia Street bike lanes were installed last summer, some frustrated bicyclists nicknamed them “the Valencia meat grinder." In multiple instances, bicyclists were struck by vehicles, particularly those trying to make U-turns. And businesses on the Valencia corridor absolutely hated the center bike lanes, blaming them for an alleged drop in business.

So after months of bitter controversy, the SF Municipal Transit Agency (SFMTA) decided to end this center bike lane experiment and move the Valencia bike lanes back to the curbside. Tuesday’s meeting was to approve the final design.

“Over this long odyssey, this feels very much like the couple that has moved the sofa to every conceivable location in the living room,” board member Paul Heminger said before the vote. “At some point you just have to stop looking and put it down and sit in it.”

The area in question only encompasses Valencia Street between 15th and 23rd streets. The new design creates “protected” bike lanes where parked cars separate the bike lane from moving car traffic. (Green lines represent the bike lane in the above image, the parking spaces are white lines.)

And you’ll notice the bike lanes are not a straight lines, but an occasionally swerving design referred to as “floating parklets” where the bikes go around the parklets. SFMTA says this floating parklet model has been successful in Oakland and New York City. Through per the Chronicle, only three of the 26 parklets in the area in question are floating parklets.

It will still be illegal to make left turns on this eight-block stretch of Valencia Street, but with the bike lanes moved, it will now also be illegal to make a right turn on a red light.

And Valencia Street is going to lose parking spaces with this new bike lane layout. SFMTA estimates there will be 79 fewer parking spaces and loading spots under the new design, and that’s a 40% reduction in parking. According to Mission Local, the agency says they have signage promoting nearby parking garages at 16th and 21st streets “that are rarely full.”

Still, businesses are not happy with the loss of parking spaces.

“Our concerns are that all left-hand turns are still eliminated, nearly half of parking/loading spaces will be lost making it difficult and frustrating for customers to park, and pedestrians, deliveries, and cyclists will collide with each other in the lane,” the Valencia Corridor Merchants Association said in a press release to KQED. “Inconsistency in how the SFMTA has treated Parklets and Shared Spaces not only reduces customer parking, but makes the experience unpredictable and confusing.”

The SFMTA board seemed to acknowledge that they misjudged this one on a radically different bike lane design than any other in the city.

“We have to be very careful about experimenting in commercial corridors, specifically, and that requires a certain level of care that perhaps we did not perceive when we initially approved this particular item,” board vice chair Stephanie Cajina said prior to the vote.

Yet just like the last redesign, this new bike lane layout is a pilot program that will be reevaluated after six months.

So when will bicyclists get their protected curbside bike lanes on Valencia Street? SFMTA project manager Paul Stanis told the board that construction is “expected to start after the holiday, in the winter.” He estimated construction time could take “two to three months” from there, though inclement weather conditions could delay that timeline.

Related: Center-Running Valencia Bike Lanes Could Be Heading Back to the Curbside in January [SFist]

Image: SFMTA