Bayshore Blvd underpass. Hwy 101

Elite '08

282

739

Andi T.

San Francisco, CA

You never really know what you'll find when you cycle through the underpass...  you're pretty much guaranteed homeless folks, broken glass and pigeons/droppings.  You may get the additional bonus of strange puddles, odors, or unsolicited comments about your physique.

One morning, I was waiting to cross the street to the underpass, and a cyclist coming from the other direction told me, "Watch out -- they're throwing bottles back there."  Sure enough, they were.  Nothing like riding through a gauntlet of broken glass first thing in the morning!

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26

127

Joe G.

San Francisco, CA

Not really the best place to score, unless by scoring you mean  syringe whelding junkies accidentally poking you in the arm. Bike riding through here gives me the willie's like back when I went to haunted houses. The engineering/ policing genius of this area is that there is no way to ride from potrero/ C. Chavez to Bayshore Blvd without riding through this death trap. And since no cars can fit through there cops rarely, if ever police this area. The next best thing are the great smells you'll experience.

Sketchy anytime of day.

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Elite '08

87

226

Mike W.

San Francisco, CA

If there was ever a tortured tangle of urban asphalt that was worthy of the name "dysfunction junction", this would be it!

From a bicycling standpoint, the approach from Bayshore Boulevard is nasty. To navigate it and live to tell about it,  you've gotta to break some rules.  First off, stay put while your light's green....instead, wait for it to turn red and immediately haul ass towards the underpass.  Traffic that will cut across your path is blocked by the red, and anything coming off 101 won't cross your path unless it wants to jump back on the freeway.  Once you're under the freeway, you're not out of the woods.  While heading through the underpass, look out for the ever-present menace of broken glass. I averaged two flats a month along this fifty-yard stretch,  and the inner-tube carnage ceased only after investing in Specialized Armadillo tires and Mr. Tuffy liners. Looking to head out Army?  There's a crosswalk to deal with, and a signal that stops the relentless flow of traffic only once in a blue moon.  Heading North on Potrero?  Look out for the merging exit to your right; as cars tend to fly out of it at breakneck speed as they mesh with traffic.  

The approach to Bayshore from Army is worse.  Don't mess with the myriad of paths that snake through the homeless encampments...I've done it on three or four occasions, and I've felt like a goldfish in a piranha tank each time.  The only other route? The harrowing "Bayshore Chute", a slightly banked chicane-style exit with no provisions for cyclists, and no escape routes either. It dumps into a sans-sidewalk interchange that runs for fifty yards or so before hitting the more civilized section of Bayshore Boulevard proper.  Try it in the rain....it's even worse.

A better option?  Bail on this intersection altogether, and make the grunt over Courtland through Bernal Heights.  It's a moderate climb from Mission....and a grueling one from Bayshore.  Regardless, it beats the hell out of the Bayshore-101 interchange.  Fellow two-wheelers, avoid this intersection at all costs.  You might break a sweat coming over Cortland, but heading under 101 you might wind up breaking something else....

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