San Francisco is a city bordered by water on three sides. But San Francisco is not just any waterfront city. It's hard to imagine another city with a more iconic waterfront than San Francisco: The Golden Gate Bridge, The Ferry Building, Fisherman's Wharf, Lands End and Ocean Beach to mention a few. All of this with a backdrop of the Pacific Ocean, Golden Gate and of course, the namesake San Francisco Bay.

Many waterfront cities around the U.S. have converted their prime waterfront into public spaces and promenades. These spaces provide opportunities for new retail, gathering spaces and oftentimes a fun and beautiful way to get around the city by bike.

When you ride a bike on SF's shoreline, you can see that it is on the cusp of this transformation. Sunset Dunes that opened in 2025 is one such example of the city creating a park from a derelict highway right along the Pacific Ocean.

However, the Embarcadero, which is the most accessible waterfront in the city, has some serious gaps. As you ride north on the Embarcadero in search of the Golden Gate Bridge, the bicycle infrastructure devolves from shared path to a two way bikeway and eventually to an unprotected bike lane. You are then diverted away from the waterfront into the city on a high speed and busy road. From here, it's not clear how you're supposed to figure out how to get back to the water.

And for all this trouble you have still not seen the Golden Gate Bridge even once. What a disappointment!

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (@sfmta.com

The Embarcadero has had various "quick" builds since 2014 slowly adding a two way bike way to the waterfront. As of 2026, 12 years after planning, 0.8mi are complete with about 1.5mi to go. That's about 1 city block (100m) of cycleway per year.

The lack of dedicated bikeway along the Embarcadero is somewhat bearable given that bikes are allowed to use the pedestrian sidewalk. But bearable is being generous: bike-pedestrian congestion is severe without dedicated bike space. Congestion is worst on game days when the area around the Giants stadium becomes packed with visitors. Sometimes I have no option but to weave in and out of people in the shared space on my way home.

And of course, SFMTA does not anticipate that I would ride my bike to the Farmers Market on Saturdays when the bike lane is closed to provide extra loading/unloading zones:

However, the bigger issue in my opinion is connecting the Embarcadero with Fort Mason. While dodging pedestrians on the shared Embarcadero pathway, you are eventually diverted onto North Point Street. A wide road where the painted bike lanes are used as parking spots by the tourist coach buses. Now I'm sure you can continue along on the waterfront without the detour but the signs are not as clear whether cyclists and pedestrians are supposed to even share this space.

North Point Street is the missing gap separating someone going from the Ferry Building and in search of the Golden Gate Bridge. I've taken several friends through here and it's always the part of the ride I'm most worried about. It's also the biggest vibe kill of the ride. No one wants to be having a chill ride on the Embarcadero to be punted into traffic.

In early 2025, I was pleasantly surprised that SFMTA was planning a Beach Street "Quick Build" that was supposed to address exactly this gap!

Beach Street is parallel to North Point Street and could be a much calmer experience for cyclists. Getting from the Embarcadero to the area around Ghirardelli Square on a less stressful and congested route could be a game changer for the area and for connectivity westward to Fort Mason.

After a year-long delay due to the U.S. Government shutdown, SFMTA finally announced that construction was substantially complete in July. I decided to go check it out.

I should've lowered my expectations because I was disappointed by the lack of vision and execution. Firstly, given that SFMTA knows about the existing gap in the network, only a third of Beach Street would be marked to have the bikeway. Why not just do the whole street in one go?

The bikeway itself was quite spacious and despite being 9am, it was already well used. It passes right in front of Ghirardelli Square, several bike rental shops and the Buena Vista Cafe. I'm sure they'll be glad that all their patrons now have a safe way to get to their establishments!

The second let down was that the design included a compromise to avoid moving a bus stop: the bikeway would divert into a pedestrian path on the NPS parkland. I was worried this would become congested similar to the Embarcadero.

As feared, the shared section through NPS property was very narrow and was already congested leading to lots of potential pedestrian and cyclist conflicts.

I got to ride the diversion shown in the slide show:

I felt the diversion was unnecessary. The stated reason for the diversion is to provide a bus layover for the 19 Polk bus. However, the design mainly aims to preserve space for two-way travel lanes for cars. More than 51% of people get to this area without a car and about 30.3% of them come by transit. A better design might have been to reflect real usage and reclaim one travel lane for a bus-only stop lane and continuing the bike-way straight without the diversion.

Finally, if you continue riding east along Beach Street after the protected bike-way ends, you realize how little SFMTA is willing to push on improving access to this area.

The rest of the street is plenty wide and is lined with street parking despite having 11 large parking garage/lots. Why do we need street parking when several large parking lots exist in this area? Why is a quick build not the perfect time to pilot a bike way through here and collect some usage data?

It's always nice to see new bike infrastructure come online and there are even more bikeways coming soon across the city. But improving access to and along the waterfront should be a no-brainer at this point. The snail's pace of bicycle improvements rivals the slow northward creep of the Central Subway!

By being timid on the waterfront, SFMTA keeps the city stuck in the Mayor's "SF is back" narrative instead of leaning into SF's bike popularity and propelling the city into the future (like @london.gov.uk

Why can't SF, world-renown waterfront, also be world renowned for a glorious bike ride through sun and fog delighting its riders searching for its most famous landmarks?