Valencia bike lane doesn’t help businesses or safety

A bike lane runs through the center of Valencia Street in San Francisco. Businesses in the area say customers are being turned away because there are fewer parking spaces due to the creation of the road.

Santiago Mejia / The Chronicle

Parking has become impossible, making shopping in what was once a vibrant and exciting San Francisco neighborhood a terrible experience.

While Liz Warburton rhapsodizes in her letter about how safe she feels to ride, I have a different view: cyclists in San Francisco show zero regard for pedestrians or traffic laws. I can’t count the number of times a cyclist has run a red light or ignored a stop sign, putting drivers at extreme risk.

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Bicycle transit only works when all parties respect each other’s rights and there is a balance of interests. That is not the case in San Francisco.

Robert Linderman, San Francisco

Recall is democracy

Nor will the recall move dishonor the will of the voters. The price will be removed if and only if the recall movement obtains 73,195 valid signatures on the recall petition, and the majority of voters choose to recall in the recall election.

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If Price is recalled, the will of the people will have been expressed democratically.

Cars is not a problem

The time, brain power, and financial resources devoted to designing, testing, refining, and programming a self-driving car clearly outweighs that of putting just one of us 8 billion well-heeled humans behind the wheel of a conventional vehicle.

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In the technological field, an industry known for the occasional useless invention, we have an expression of madness like this: A solution looking for a problem.

Jerry Steach, Mountain View

Take care of friends

Comics have made me laugh, made me angry and given me a different perspective, but few have made me cry.

I refer to the November 17 “Mutts” strip. by Patrick McDonald that brought me to tears. He showed a regular character, a bulldog, I believe, who lived his life at the end of a chain, but always hoping that things will change one day. And they changed, for the worse, when their owner packed up and left them.

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What saddens me to tears is that this scenario plays out in real life hundreds, possibly thousands, of times a day around the world.

When you have dogs in your home, you are part of their pack. They will do anything for you. Return the favor. Give them a warm place to sleep, nourishment and affection, and never, ever, break their spirit with a chain.

Your reward? A friend for life.

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