150,000 Celebrate Bike to Work Day in SF Bay Area

Energizing for a greener city – Ferry Building, San Francisco

Click for more details and images. (This photo essay on CNN i-Report.)
Click for Fab Bike Fashion. (This photo essay on CNN i-Report.)

An estimated 150,000 commuters and students hopped on their bikes, instead of into their cars, in the San Francisco bay area on Thursday, May 13, 2010. People from Oakland, Palo Alto to San Jose overwhelmingly supported the Bike to Work Day…

In San Francisco, bicycles outnumbered cars 3 to 1 in the morning roadway traffic on Market Street, the main thoroughfare of the city, according to the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition which organized the 16th annual event jointly with the City of San Francisco.

Biking advocates say this record increase in bicycle ridership is directly related to the newly introduced distinctly separated, green Market Street bike lanes and other improvements that make the streets all across the city safer for bikers and non-bikers alike.

“We are thrilled to have Mayor Newsom leading these exciting biking innovations on Market Street, the busiest biking street west of the Mississippi. This is a great first step towards a separated bikeway the length of lower Market Street,” said Renee Rivera, acting Executive Director of the SF Bicycle Coalition, a non-profit which promotes bicycling, and organizer of the event.

Rivera rode with Mayor Newsom that morning to City Hall to kick-off the event.

“I saw about 4 times as many people biking to work, which is great. Some people may be trying it for the first time because they feel there is support and advocacy for this specific day,” said Meli Grosa, who bikes to work everyday, and blogs on “Bikes and the City”. She also models for the After-work Party and Fashion Show at Rickshaw Stop in the evening.

The Fashion Show was styled by Gwen Lutz of Gwendolyn Lee Productions, with artisanal bike clothing by B Spoke Tailor, DJs, raffle prizes, and complimentary bicycle valet. “It is really wonderful to see the birth and growth of biking commuter culture in San Francisco with the hard work of the SF Bike Coalition,” enthused Gwen, who takes the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) and then bikes to work in Oakland.

Most Bay Area transits, including BART, Caltrain, Muni, and other buses, allow riders to bring their bikes with them.

Many heads turned when Mark Dwight, founder and CEO of Rickshaw Bagworks, whose stylish biking bags were featured in the fashion show, rode into the energizer station at Ferry Building. Mark sports his custom-made fire-engine-red “human-propelled Ferrari” bike, and has joined the event for the last 8 years.

Over 200 Energizer Stations, during the morning (6:30-9:30 am) and afternoon (5-7 pm) commute, located along local bike commute routes in all nine Bay Area counties, provided free beverages, snacks and good cheer to bicyclists. Select stations offering basic bicycle maintenance and all-day bicycle valet parking services.

Bike to Work Day 2010 is presented by Kaiser Permanente, the Bay Area Bicycle Coalition, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the SFMTA, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, and hundreds of local volunteers. For more information, visit http://www.sfbike.org.