Today I am going to talk a little about the Panhandle. So as most of us know last week we took a trip to the Panhandle to observe and collect evidence.Before I mention more about that I am going to talk more about the controversy with cyclists, pedestrians, and drivers regarding the Panhandle.

As you can see from here there path coming from Fell that lead into the Panhandle and runs into the multi-path. In the Panhandle, cyclists have trouble with the multi-use path. Sharing amongst many different users, for example joggers and walkers, causes cyclists to slow down and unable to ride at speed that allows them to get to their final destination.

With this current situation, the Panhandle Residents Organization started asking local residents if they would like parking-protected bike lanes added to Fell and Oak.

The North of Panhandle Neighborhood Association did the survey and out of the 700 responses more than 70% of people were in support of the protected bike lane.

With this data this will show city officials that there is a demand for street improvement.

Data from the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency showed trips have grown

2009- 25,730 trips were taken per month

2015- 50,886 trips per month

So with this amount of bikers using the Panhandle, it would be beneficial for cyclists who are trying to travel and beneficial for residents using paths who do not want to be disturbed by fast speeding cyclists. The multi-path in the Panhandle will be primarily used by walkers, joggers, and casual bike riders. It will also relieve a lot of cycling traffic.

The data i collected at the Panhandle within the 15 minute span was 118 cyclists and about 50 walkers and joggers. So imagining that the amount of cyclists within a day is probably more that thousands.

Though there are many benefits, adding a protected bike lane comes with its tradeoffs. So one would be that the project would cost between 1.6 to 3.9 million. The other would be that it would cut out 75 of 280 unmarked parking spaces on both south  and north edges for turning lanes.

Although there is another survey being conducted specifically for neighbors that might be problematic because they are opposed to bike lanes and do not want to lose any more parking that is necessary.