SF Chronicle: San Francisco’s new safety strategy: A crackdown on bikes
Scott Mace
SF Chronicle: San Francisco’s new safety strategy: A crackdown on bikes
By Rachel Swan, Staff Writer
SF Chronicle, April 6, 2026
https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/bicycles-safety-rule-enforcement-22191615.php
Bicyclists run a red light at Powell and Market in San Francisco
Monday morning. The city is cracking down on bicyclists who break
rules.
Rachel Swan / S.F. Chronicle
Biking to work in downtown San Francisco, Tierney Pretzer
typically tries to follow the rules. But last Wednesday she
couldn’t resist breezing through a red light at Powell and Market
streets.
It was the type of safety infraction that cyclists may commit when
they are growing impatient at a traffic signal and see no cars or
pedestrians coming. The light at Powell and Market protects a
crosswalk near the cable car turnaround with no vehicle cross
traffic, so many cyclists treat it as a suggestion to stop, rather
than a mandate.
When Pretzer crossed against the light that morning, two other
cyclists joined her. She was surprised when a police officer waved
them down and handed each person a citation with an unspecified
fine. (In California, the base penalty for red light violations is
$100).
“All three of us were given tickets for running a red light, despite no pedestrians in the crosswalk and no cars,” Pretzer said. Rushing to the office after her encounter with the officer, she scanned Market and saw upward of 15 additional cops. They pulled over at least three more cyclists for the same red light offense.
Bicyclists run a red light at Powell and Market in San Francisco
Monday morning. The city is cracking down on bicyclists who break
rules.
Rachel Swan / S.F. Chronicle
Police said the sting operation was part of a larger strategy to improve street safety in San Francisco, following the release last month of a new “high injury” traffic map.
“We are using the information to do high visibility traffic stops all over the city, which involves anything that could lead to an injury or fatality,” said police department spokesperson Evan Sernoffsky. “That could mean bikes, scooters, or people driving motor vehicles.”
This new Vision Zero strategy marks a stark departure for a city
that had long focused on protecting cyclists and demonstrating
that streets aren’t just for cars. Market Street enshrined that
philosophy after city officials banned private automobiles from
the eastern stretch in 2019, creating a 2.2 mile oasis of transit
and micromobility.
But the vibe shifted last year, after Mayor Daniel Lurie re-opened
the downtown spine to commercial ride-hail vehicles. Now cyclists
worry they are being targeted instead of celebrated. Although
Pretzer acknowledged running a red, she also saw it as a fairly
routine violation that didn’t hurt anyone.
Leaders of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition worry, similarly,
that the city’s safety priorities may be misplaced.
While the coalition’s executive director Christopher White
maintains that all road users should obey traffic laws, he noted
that people biking and rolling are not the ones “creating
extremely dangerous conditions on most of our streets.” He and
other advocates fear the city has drawn a false equivalency
between cars, which can easily kill people, and bicycles or
scooters that in most cases are too small to cause harm.
“I am always thinking about a backlash against bikes,” White said.
“When people have a perception of people who bike as entitled, or
scofflaws, or whatever it is, it actually makes it less safe for
people who bike.”
Powell and Market is, in fairness, an intersection that tempts
cyclists to break rules, since the crosswalk and stoplight are
planted in the middle of a block — making it trickier for a
two-wheeled vehicle to stop. Thus, running red lights seems to be
the norm rather than the exception.
At about 9 a.m. on Monday morning, more than a dozen people
flouted the Powell and Market traffic signal in the space of three
minutes. They included 12 cyclists, a skateboarder and an
e-scooter who zipped through red lights, along with a moped rider
who made an illegal left-hand turn. No officers were present at
the time.
To city leaders who want to instill order on the roadways, this
type of behavior can’t be tolerated. Feelings among cyclists are
more complicated. Full stops at traffic lights and stop signs have
been a point of contention before: Eleven years ago, motorists
cried foul over what they perceived as fast, reckless cycling down
the famous “Wiggle” route between Market Street and Golden Gate
Park. In response, hundreds of cyclists protested by riding the
route in unison and halting, foot planted, at every stop sign and
light. They brought car traffic to a virtual standstill.
Still, lawmakers aren’t convinced that bike riders should be
treated differently than their driver counterparts. In 2021, Gov.
Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill that would have decriminalized the
“Idaho stop,” allowing cyclists to treat stop signs as yields if
there is no approaching traffic. The bill did not pertain to stop
lights.
A recent Reddit thread about the Market Street bike crackdown
sparked a lively discussion. It started with a post by a user who
ran a red light on a Bay Wheels bike, right as it was about to
turn green.
“I take responsibility,” wrote the Reddit user, who was pulled
over by an officer and warned that the city would start enforcing
more heavily against bicycles, mopeds, e-bikes and scooters. Some
commenters expressed support for universal enforcement. Others
were incensed.
“So they’re using previous resources to crack down on the big bad
dangerous cyclists,” one person wrote, “instead of other things
like, I don’t know … the overzealous drivers who keep killing
pedestrians.”
Alan Forkosh
On Apr 7, 2026, at 5:25 PM, Scott Mace <sc...@wiredmuse.com> wrote:
SF Chronicle: San Francisco’s new safety strategy: A crackdown on bikes
By Rachel Swan, Staff Writer
SF Chronicle, April 6, 2026
https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/bicycles-safety-rule-enforcement-22191615.php
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/caboforum/4ea8f094-5125-42a8-9077-88dac27b3982%40wiredmuse.com.