Five people were arrested over the weekend for chaining themselves to bicycles and blocking an entrance to the Arco/BP gas station at the corner of Fell and Divisadero in San Francisco. The August 20th action was the 11th since the group Fix Fell began demonstrations to demand that the city and the Department of Public Works take measures to make the street safe for bicyclists.

Fix Fell activists say that the street is a particular danger to bicyclists because auto drivers sit in the bicycle lane that runs down Fell Street while awaiting entrance to the mainline pumps, forcing bikers into traffic. Protesters shut down the gas station for about 3 hours on Friday evening.

The group began demonstrating at the Fell Street station this summer to call attention to BP's oil spill and "the unsafe streets that keep us hooked on fossil fuels." San Francisco District 5 Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi spoke to the assembled crowd of about 100 people at the station on Friday and pledged to throw his full political weight behind a separated bicycle path for Fell Street and closure of the gas station entrances. Five protesters were arrested after u-locks around their necks were sawed off by firefighters.

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