Photo by SFBike, via Flickr.

With Bike to Work Day coming net week, the city of San Francisco has been increasing its bike infrastructure around town. One of the recently-completed projects was to paint a bike lane on Market Street.

Streetsblog San Francisco has a nice post. Excerpt:

Papandreou and his team noted that even if there wasn’t data that demonstrated these lanes were safer with green paint than without, the perception that this space is dedicated to cyclists was an important signal to send to cyclists. Patel agreed.

“We are very excited this is coming just days before bike to work Day,” added Patel. “We know lots of people are riding into work either the first time or they are pretty new on Bike to Work Day. I think it sends a great message to all the people who are thinking about bicycling that it’s getting safer.”

If creating visibility for cyclists is the most important thing for securing safety and attracting new riders, said Patel, these lanes are a step in the right direction.

“I rode on it this morning on my way to work and it goes even better than the visibly separated bike lane because you have this great visible cue and visible path of where you need to be going,” said Patel. “It’s like this really long ribbon that fades into the horizon. It’s really fantastic.”

It would sure be great to see something similar here. There’s a lot more pics on the Streetsblog S.F. post. The blog also has a nice series of posts on other cycling improvements in San Francisco, including on-street bike parking. Also, check out this new bike map and route finder assembed by the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, SF Environment and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.

Also, a reminder that Metro’s second bicycle roundtable is this evening from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. at Metro headquarters. Here’s the flier.