Getting up to speed on legality of lane splitting
QLane splitting is technically legal for motorcyclists in California, but the way it is done is often not legal. Problems include lane splitting faster than 30 mph, using no signal, making unsafe lane changes, following too close, and lane splitting more than 10 mph faster than cars they are passing. Many motorcyclists have no plates or no visible plates, no Class M driver's license, no insurance, etc.
I know what I am talking about. I'm retired from law enforcement and am a private investigator. I have dealt with these people. They are not people who do things by the rules and do not care about others. It is too bad the CHP does not stop and cite/arrest/tow more of them.
— Doug, Walnut Creek A
The big issue for me is motorcyclists who lane split at high speed. Q The intersection of Foothill Expressway and Magdalena/Springer looks like a war zone, with easily 50 potholes on Foothill in the area right around the intersection. They filled two potholes a year ago, and left the rest. Recently, they did it again, filling one of the newer potholes and ignoring the road crumbling all around it. Any hope of getting the whole intersection repaved? — Mark Lemley A Santa Clara County is aware of the need for pavement rehabilitation at this intersection. Work was paused as staff focused on road repairs suddenly needed after winter storm damage. The county is finalizing a contract for repairs at this intersection and anticipates beginning the work this fall.
Q
Some of your readers are mixed up about the Caltrain extension to the Salesforce Transit Center. In 1999, 69.3% of San Francisco voters voted for Proposition H, approving this extension to downtown San Francisco. The cost of getting trains and running in the Salesforce Transit Center was recently reported as being $5 billion. A significant portion of the funding already has been raised from San Francisco, regional and state sources.
Unfortunately, a handful of greenhorn planners in the San Francisco Department of City Planning have for years quietly been trying to slip their proposed but unvoted upon $3 billion Pennsylvania Avenue subway in under the umbrella of the Caltrain extension project. If this ill-conceived “add-on” were built, it would become the single most expensive grade separation in the world. Given that the existing Main Line north of Potrero Hill is appropriately located directly under the massive I-280 Freeway viaduct, tracks and trains block nothing. The 16th Street/ Main Line grade crossing is troublesome, but could be eliminated by depressing a short section of 16th Street for as little as 5% of the cost of the subway.
A
Thanks for adding this perspective.