Cycling activists create protected lane with their bodies near Ferry Building

Protected bike lane advocates high-fived passing cyclists while forming a barrier between vehicle traffic and the bike lane along the Embarcadero Wednesday night. Protected bike lane advocates high-fived passing cyclists while forming a barrier between vehicle traffic and the bike lane along the Embarcadero Wednesday night. Photo: Bradley Tramer Photo: Bradley Tramer Image 1 of / 8 Caption Close Cycling activists create protected lane with their bodies near Ferry Building 1 / 8 Back to Gallery

A cadre of activists pushing for the expansion of protected bike lanes in San Francisco took to the streets again Wednesday night, using their bodies to form a barrier between cyclists and the bustling traffic along the Embarcadero.

Among the group of about 50 — many of them from a group called the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, clad in yellow shirts that read "Protected Bike Lanes Save Lives" — were two women who have been hospitalized for injuries sustained while biking in the streets of San Francisco, one of them in the very bike lane the group was protecting.

The other, Lauren Sailor, who was hospitalized after an accident on Market Street, came to the protest dressed as a crash test dummy.

Also among the group were a pregnant cyclist and a mother who rides in the Embarcadero bike lane with her children.

"Cities simply need to understand bicyclists don't wear armor and don't belong next to 30 mile-per-hour, 4,000-pound speeding metal. We need to be protected," said Matt Brezina, an organizer of the protected bike lane action.

Brezina and his fellow activists want the city to create more bike lanes like the ones on Valencia Street from Cesar Chavez to Mission streets, where parking forms a barrier between vehicle traffic and cyclists.

The activists say that along the Embarcadero, as on the unprotected parts of Valencia Street, where they demonstrated earlier this year, cars block the bike lane to discharge passengers, and trucks rumble by without regard for the safety of people on bikes.

A long stretch of the Embarcadero is part of the city's "High Injury Network" — a dangerous group comprising 12 percent of San Francisco's streets that serve as the sites for 70 percent of severe and fatal traffic injuries, according to the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency and Vision Zero SF.

San Francisco launched its Vision Zero program in 2014 with the goal of eliminating all traffic fatalities, but the efficacy has been questionable. The Embarcadero demonstration came less than a day after a pedestrian was struck and killed on another of San Francisco's high injury streets, Sloat Boulevard in the Sunset District. It was the 12th pedestrian death this year, city officials told The Chronicle.

As of Oct. 30, two cyclists have been killed in traffic accidents this year in San Francisco. Three cyclists were killed in 2016, four in 2015, and three the year before that, according to city data.

The city began developing plans for a protected bike lane along the Embarcadero in 2014, but the changes remain in the planning stages.

Filipa Ioannou is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at fioannou@sfchronicle.com and follow her on Twitter.