As a resident of this neighborhood and a user of the bike lane, I think these articles are mostly propaganda. Every article I read interviews like 1 or 2 people. I have a feeling most bicyclists and most businesses are totally okay with this because it is so heavily used and Valencia Street is THRIVING. Go there any morning, afternoon, or evening and you'll find people there all the time shopping, eating, hanging out. I find it hard to blame the bike lane for causing businesses to go under when you can look at 80% of the storefronts and find a pretty decent amount of customers in them. Of course, you can also look at the businesses that are going out of business and just see that they have terrible reviews and are just overall unappealing.

Let's look at Amado's comment that "sales dropped 80% after the bike lane was installed and created a hassle for musicians due to a lack of parking". Look at Street View, and you'll see every parking spot in front and around it's property is a parklet for themselves. Hmm, if they really needed parking so bad, why did they take it away from themselves? Same is true with Yasmin with their corner spot and their 4 parking spots converted to parklets. https://www.google.com/maps/place/Amado's/@37.7570262,-122.4...

The only thing I think could help the neighborhood more is if the city declared it an actual "Slow Street" because it is slow. You'll hit every red light and have to wait for pedestrians at every intersection. You have Ubers and doordashers and freight loaders blocking the road all day. Declaring a slow street would probably push Google Maps and friends to route users to Guerrero or South Van Ness which are 1-2 blocks away and are exclusively car friendly.

Why do I like this lane? Cars drive much slower because their lane is "narrower". It's still the standard car sized lane but they are now driving between a separated bike lane (bollards) and parked cars, rather than an unprotected painted bike lane where cars tend to just take over.

Moreover, it's pretty much the only north-south bike line in this part of town. West is too hilly, east is too car oriented.

Go to their website SF Small Business Coalition and their chief complaint is customers can't park in front of their businesses anymore. Really? This is one of the densest neighbhorhoods in SF and you're gonna complain about parking on the street? https://www.sfsbcoalition.org/save-valencia-merchants. you could build them a 6 story garage to store 400 cars and they'll complain about how it's destroying their community.