A San Francisco restaurant owner has started a 30-day hunger strike to protest a massive new bike lane that is displacing scores of businesses along Valencia Street.
Eiad Eltawil, 41, is currently sleeping in the park outside his business, Yasmin Syrian Restaurant, drinking only water until May 7.
Outside the family restaurant, he hung a sign denouncing the bike lane construction as “unfair, racist, Islamophobic policies” by “the mayor’s office, the MTA and the Valencia Street Merchants Association.”
‘This is my last escape. I don’t know how long I can go. I got a lot of loans. I’m in debt and I just want to fight before I leave,” he said in an interview with ABCas he held back his tears.
The hunger strike follows the completion of the controversial cycle path eight months ago. A dozen companies have since closed their doors, as reported by San Francisco Chronicle.
Eiad Eltawil, 41, a San Francisco restaurant owner has started a 30-day hunger strike to protest a massive new bike lane that is displacing scores of businesses along Valencia Street
The hunger strike follows the completion of the controversial cycle path eight months ago. Since then, a dozen companies have closed their doors
Eltawil is currently sleeping in the park outside his company, Yasmin Syrian Restaurant, and only drinks water until May 7.
To build the Valencia Bike Route, a 1.9-mill lane running from 15th Street to 23rd Street, San Francisco MTA removed 71 parking spaces in Valencia.
Business owners said they witnessed customers canceling their reservations after searching for a parking spot for half an hour.
‘Complete destruction; only one hundred percent destruction. At least twenty companies have disappeared. Last week, five companies exited.” Eltawil told it FOX.
‘At least another thirty companies [are] about to go out. Seventy-one parking spaces are gone. They made it for commercial parking lots,” he added.
“I don’t want the bike lanes to cause so many people to lose their businesses,” Eltawil said.
‘I have already suffered so much. This way, maybe someone in power will see my struggle and make some changes. It’s a last resort for me.’
In February, Eltawil and two other street business owners filed claims against the city of San Francisco, claiming the bike path violated their rights and affected the local economy.
The claims demand immediate removal of the cycle path and compensation for the damage caused by the construction.
Nile Vignoles, representing Valencia merchants, said: “Violates not only the civil rights of our customers, but also the city’s charter, which requires the city to protect the economic well-being of its businesses.
The lawyer added: “The center cycle lane has been a catastrophic failure for Valencia Street businesses.”
The cycle path was constructed with the aim of improving cycling safety on one of the city’s most important cycle routes, according to the city’s website.
But after the opening of the cycle path, even more accidents occurred: twelve accidents between cyclists and cars took place between August and October.
Two fatal crashes were reported in the area last year, in which an 80-year-old San Francisco resident was killed by a left-turning driver, and a 64-year-old woman was struck and died.
The Valencia Corridor Merchants Association, which represents 200 businesses on the street, also protested the bike lane and proposed an alternative bike lane design.
“We want it gone immediately,” said David White, one of the association’s members. ‘People are not happy. It’s a terrible design and it doesn’t work. It hasn’t worked.
‘We don’t think it’s safer. It’s anecdotal. We see many more accidents. We see a lot of frustrated drivers driving over or on the bike path,” he added.
The municipal transport office said: ‘We spoke to the park operators in Valencia and received their feedback on their charging needs to inform the design process.
Our outreach and collaboration will continue throughout the spring as we work on solutions that best protect both businesses and cyclists on the corridor.”