Streetsblog San Francisco

The recently released Transbay Transit District Draft Plan is the culmination of two years of detailed work by the many city agencies and consultants that had a hand in it, and its objectives for creating a vibrant, walkable public realm and its goals to promote transit and reduce automobile traffic make it a valuable mission statement for growth in San Francisco's downtown over the next 25 years.

The Planning Department's Joshua Switzky, one of the lead authors, said like any draft plan this one will fluctuate based on the public and the Planning Commission's feedback, but the principles espoused in it should remain intact.

"The plan that we put out is clearly the one we think is the best plan. Depending on what the Commission wants to do, we will potentially make changes. It's kind of really open to the process," said Switzky.

Switzky pointed to several key recommendations, ones that could prove contentious several years down the line when more detailed proposals are hammered out. One is assuring the quality of pedestrian accessibility with the objective in the plan to maintain, on average, 21-foot sidewalks, 15 feet for circulation and 6 feet of curbside amenities, such as bike racks, benches, street trees, or news boxes.

"That will mean different things on different streets," said Switzky. "On some streets, the only way to achieve that will be to eliminate on-street parking. Sometimes it might mean eliminating a travel lane." Sometimes, he said, it could be a combination of both. "The future of this area is probably a lot less on-street parking than there is today."

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Amid growing concerns that Muni hasn't gotten safer along with the rest of the city, and widespread reports that police officers rarely ride Muni though they're required to do so, the SFPD and MTA will update the public on Muni security efforts at a Board of Supervisors committee meeting on Monday. Muni riders are being encouraged to show up and tell their stories about crime on Muni as well.

Safety on Muni has become a hot issue in the mainstream press after several horrific and widely publicized attacks, as well as a fight that was videotaped and posted on YouTube. That's brought extra attention to an issue that surfaced during the MTA's budget crisis this spring: the agency is paying the police department for officers to ride Muni, but riders rarely see police onboard.

The SFPD's Bus Inspection Program requires each sergeant in a patrol division and each officer "assigned to a radio car" to make two transit inspections per shift. Officers on foot patrol are required to make at least four inspections per shift. Even though the MTA was paying for the service, officers have been a rare sight on Muni.

In June, the SFPD and the MTA announced a trial program to record and track officers on the city's buses and trains by requiring them to tag TransLink cards when they enter and exit, and 1,300 cards were issued to officers in September as part of the pilot. SFPD has also conducted several high-profile "Operation Safe Muni" stings, first out of its Ingleside Station and then, recently, citywide. Each District Station has also developed and submitted its own transit security plan.

Supervisor Bevan Dufty called the hearing to determine if officers are regularly riding Muni now and to get a full update on SFPD's Muni safety plans. "While we're happy, certainly, that mainstream media have taken the gauntlet up of Muni crime, it's been recent, but Muni crime has been a reality for folks who ride the system for years," said Boe Hayward, Dufty's legislative aide. "Muni is a major lifeblood of this city, and our citizens should be protected on Muni just like they should be at their homes or walking the street."

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Hey, we need your help again for our next slide show. This one is going to make you feel good. We're looking for pictures of kids on bikes -- on their own, with their parents, on trailers and seats and Xtracycles and whatever other kind of rig there is. Show us what you've got.

Send your JPEGs to sarah [@] streetsblog [dot] org, or tag them with "kidbikes" and "streetsblog" in Flickr. Your deadline is next Tuesday, November 24.

Our past slide shows have been on bike traffic, space hogs, work bikes and crummy transit conditions. Check them out if you haven't already.

As the federal deficit squeezes the Obama administration's options for financing ambitious new infrastructure projects, public-private partnerships (PPPs) are gaining currency as a possible solution. And in an illustration of PPPs' potential, the $86 billion private-equity firm Carlyle Group yesterday struck a deal with the state of Connecticut to run ... 23 highway rest stops.

The $178 million Connecticut deal is the first PPP in the three years since Carlyle began raising money for its $1.15 billion infrastructure group, according to the Washington Post:

[T]he agreement ... will include putting Subway restaurants as well as Dunkin' Donuts locations in the centers, according to a Carlyle spokesman. Dunkin' Donuts is owned by Carlyle.

Meanwhile, the same Connecticut governor who called Carlyle's donut investment "an unprecedented commitment to ... meeting the needs of the traveling public" recently vetoed legislation that would have eliminated the need for significant transit fare hikes.

Is this what President Obama meant when he called for "more creative, new approaches" to fixing "infrastructure that is falling apart"? Let's hope not.

Given that government audits have found existing federal transit regulations riddled with obstacles to attracting successful PPPs, perhaps it's not surprising that Carlyle chose to go the donuts route rather than collaborating on Connecticut transit-oriented development projects in the vein of the New York MTA's Beacon Station revitalization.

But that's no reason for Carlyle to take a victory lap while plans for a National Infrastructure Bank (NIB) remain frustratingly unclear. If the administration follows through on its NIB plans, information-sharing and incentives will be needed to prod private capital into genuinely beneficial projects rather than new fast food joints.

For a taste of how groundbreaking federal infrastructure PPPs could happen on the local level, this presentation [PDF] by the deputy general manager of the Boston area's Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority is a good place to start.

A very interesting article in USA Today on the future viability of suburbs came up in our Twitter feed this morning, via Community Research Partners of Columbus, Ohio.

The piece, by Haya el Nasser, starts out talking about how population is falling in many of the suburbs that grew most quickly over the last few decades -- places like Bellevue, Washington. These communities have become known as "boomburbs." But their boom days are past -- for now. Some have begun losing population.

The most interesting angle in the article, however, isn't the decline of suburban fortunes and the real estate market that fueled them. It's what municipal leaders and researchers are saying will be necessary to make those places economically viable in the future. Which is this: they'll have to become more like cities. Denser. More walkable. Not bedroom communities, but self-contained communities.

Robert Lang, a professor of sociology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas who coined the term "boomburbs," put it this way: "The irony is that if they want to keep growing, they must grow as cities, which is diametrically opposite of how they got so big in the first place."

And transit will be key to that transformation:

Population has declined since 2006 in Irving, Texas, but the city is prepared for healthy growth as soon as a light-rail line to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport is completed. "Eventually, you have to shift your focus to not just booming growth but redevelopment," Mayor Herbert Gears says. "That (rail) line is what's given us the opportunity to create an urban center."

Condominiums, apartments and retail are planned along the transit line. The city projects a 240,000 population by 2015, an 11% jump.

Growth in Henderson, Nev., near Las Vegas, has slowed but not stopped. "With the slowdown we've seen, it gives us an opportunity to take a breath," says city spokesman Bud Cranor. Henderson is focused on creating "green" jobs and a more sustainable urban environment, he says.

The article highlights what is emerging as a powerful unifying argument for smarter development: economics. It's an approach that could bring conservatives and liberals together. And it will certainly be part of Transportation for America's upcoming discussion on conservatives and public transportation.

More from the network: Bike Portland on results from an ad campaign that asked, "Should cyclists pay road tax?" Dotage St. Louis on an attractive replacement for a parking lot. And Rights of Way in Portland, Maine, on what a difference a four-foot narrowing of a street can make.

• BART Faces $26 Million Deficit for 2010-2011 (ABC 7)
• BART Workers Argue Staffing Cuts Put Public at Risk (KCBS)
• BART Union Upset Workers Don't Have Proper Protection While Cleaning Pigeon Droppings (ABC 7)
• Former BART Officer Mehserle's Murder Trial Moved to Los Angeles (CBS 5) (ABC 7) (KCBS)
• BART To Offer Free Rides to Military Personnel on Leave from War (CBS 5)
  
• Transbay Terminal Draft Plan Released Yesterday, Focus on Height and Density (SF Gate)
  
• Supervisor Dufty Will Hold Hearing Monday for Crimes Committed on Muni (N-Judah Chronicles)
  
• Pedestrian Killed in Richmond, Incident Under Investigation (CBS 5)
• Could String of Vehicle Arsons Be a Display of Passion? (NBC)
• Mr. Roadshow Gets Hell From Readers for His Love of the Prius. (Merc)
  
• San Jose Identifies Room for 90,000 Street Trees, Doesn't Have Money to Pay for Them (Merc)
• Oakland Taco Truck Bike Tour This Sunday (NBC) (SF Weekly)

More headlines over at Streetsblog Capitol Hill.

A bicyclist was seriously injured this afternoon after a woman driving an SUV struck him at the intersection of Haight and Pierce Streets. According to eyewitness accounts, he remained conscious after the crash, and was taken to the hospital by the Fire Department.

Elaine Santore from 2 Girls, 1 Queen sent in the above photo, which Aimee Ellis took shortly after the crash.

Alex Caroll, who works nearby at Burger Joint, witnessed the crash and was among the first to call for an ambulance. The bicyclist appeared to have suffered a broken leg or ankle, as well as a possible broken shoulder or collarbone, said Caroll. The bicyclist was traveling southbound on Pierce, and the SUV was traveling eastbound on Haight when it struck him. An SFPD officer was first to arrive on the scene, followed by the fire department, according to Caroll. Officers were still speaking to the driver when Caroll left a half hour later.

Ellis reports that the injured man was missing a shoe and was taken to the hospital in a fire truck.

SFPD spokesperson Sgt. Lyn Tomioka said the bicyclist remained conscious and breathing, and was not bleeding.

We will update with more details as they're available.

The San Francisco Planning Department will release the Draft Plan for the new Transbay Terminal and development project after the Planning Commission meeting tonight at 5:30 p.m. According to Planning's Joshua Switzky, the plan will be presented to the commission but there will not be extensive discussion about its details until future public hearings.

In a press release sent out moments ago, Mayor Gavin Newsom called the project a lynchpin of the city's future growth, "one that is based in sustainability and channeling growth around major investments in public  transit.” 

“This plan takes a very comprehensive approach to sustainability, looking at everything from land use to transportation patterns to energy systems in order to reduce the ecological footprint of growth,” Newsom said in the release.

John Rahaim, the Planning Director, said San Francisco's downtown has added "over 20 million square feet of office space, hotels and thousands of housing units since the 1985 Downtown Plan. This growth was possible due to excellent transit, resulting in little appreciable increase in auto congestion on downtown streets."

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California residents living in sprawling suburban developments could save billions of dollars every year if they lived in denser, urban zones and along transit corridors, according to a study released today by smart growth and transit advocates TransForm. Analyzing four metropolitan areas--Southern California, the San Francisco Bay Area, San Diego, and Sacramento--Windfall for All found that shifting populations in those regions to denser development along transit corridors would save save $31 billion per year, or $3,850 on average per household [Report Summary PDF].

In the Bay Area, where annual car ownership costs on average over $8,000 per person, individuals spend roughly $34 billion every year on personal transportation costs, compared to only $4.6 billion spent by public agencies on transit and roads combined. Households with poor access to public transit not only spend double the amount per year on transportation when compared to those with good access to transit, they produce more than double the amount of CO2, a greenhouse gas.

"The most astounding thing is that agencies pinch their pennies on transit and cut back and we feel like we can't afford not to save that service," said Stuart Cohen, Executive Director of TransForm. "We're already spending more than seven times as much as our agencies spend on public transit and roads just on buying and operating our vehicles."

What's more, the report points out that fuel costs represent a small minority of the cost of owning a car, so the craze for electric and other low-emission vehicles will not dramatically reduce the transportation costs for those living far from their jobs and far from transit. The best solution to combating climate change, the report notes, is to build walkable, vibrant communities where residences are situated close to job centers. 

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