“The city removed that fourth lane of morning traffic on Oak, and they predicted Armageddon, and it didn’t happen.”

FALSE. Traffic is backed up even worse on all streets approaching Octavia with all 3 Oak St lanes at a standstill at peak times. I ride the 16X everyday, and the “X” is now a joke compared to what it used to be. It used to slip slowly by all the freeway-bound traffic in that narrow curb lane to get downtown. Buses couldn’t go fast due to the narrow lane, but at least we kept moving.

“…nobody’s made a good case (for the electronic sign) to me on Oak at all.”

1. Show when the peak hour lane is open or closed. Perfect placement. I’ve seen my share of near rear-enders when people don’t realize the lane is closed and continue east in the left lane. If a car rear-ends a parked car, they could ricochet into the sidewalk. I think it will make the pedestrians waiting to cross Oak feel safer if drivers clearly know to merge right. The static signs don’t work.

2. Street closures. For bicyclists like me who brave downhill Oak, I can make a decision which route to take to get downtown – via Baker/Fulton or Page. For example, one time, I needed to get to Leavenworth/McAllister quickly, so I bravely biked Oak, and turned onto Baker/Fulton/McAllister. However, I didn’t realize it was Gay Pride Weekend and all the Civic Center streets were closed. Although there were emergency lanes open, there were still a lot of people, so I quickly walked my bike instead through the area. Unfortunately, I was too late to the meet my appointment. I think I would have gotten there faster if I knew about the Gay Pride Event and avoid it by taking Page/Market instead. Of course, NOPA/Alamo Square NIMBYs will shrug it off like that it doesn’t matter – I’m only one bicyclist from the Sunset/Richmond.

3. Public Service Announcements. IE Bikes Belong – Share the Road, Slow it Down – Watch for Peds, etc. They can be valuable in emergencies too.

“Cities are moving away from the whole idea of giving people information…”

FALSE. The exact opposite is happening. SFgo style traffic management is happening in many cities around the world. Simply go to any major city’s transportation website, and they will mention these type of traffic management centers.

Moving the sign: Bad idea. You’re forgetting the people who come from Gough/Hayes. Not everyone on Fell comes from Octavia. If it really needs to be moved, it should be in front of the DMV or in the Panhandle itself.

Sign sending drivers to side streets: Um, they’re doing it already due to the bad design of having only one lane feed into Octavia from Oak. The sign will make no difference no matter what road closure is up ahead. This just shows the hypocrisy of these NIMBYs. They push for using the grid network to spread out traffic and now they say they don’t want traffic on their streets. What the F***? This exactly what will happen too if Fell/Oak are converted to two way.

Sign diverting driver’s attention: FALSE. It’s not much different from reading any other permanent or temporary static sign.

This is another reason why I don’t join the SFBC. They claim to think outside the box, but again, anything that is normally associated with driving a car is automatically bad for bicyclists. I, as a bicyclist, want to avoid them street closures/events just like drivers. I don’t understand why bicyclists want to go through street closure events unless they are going to the events themselves. Do these SFBC bicyclists want to mow pedestrians down going through the event area? I don’t get it. That’s another reason why people hate bicyclists.

I’m all for traffic calming the streets, increasing enforcement, and other safety improvements mentioned here, but I am not convinced by any argument here that the new STREET-style electronic signs will increase speeding or detrimental to the neighborhood. These are NOT “freeway-style” signs! They are MUCH, MUCH smaller.

This deal with the STREET-style electronic sign has NIMBY-ism written all over it. NOPA/Alamo Square/Hayes Valley has done everything to screw Sunset/Richmond District residents from getting downtown/Bay Bridge/Peninsula by car, bike and bus. Now they are making up this false, ridiculous idea that these small STREET-style electronic signs will increase speeding by giving drivers and bicyclists from the Sunset/Richmond valuable information on what is happening ahead. Damn NIMBYs….

Yeah, Fell/Masonic is pretty bad. I make it a point, when I see a car pull forward looking to turn, to look at them and point at the RED left turn arrow and green bike light. They just don’t see the arrow for some reason.

As far as the “Watch out for bikers” PSA’s that the signs will broadcast? The only thing they will add is a megadose of irony when a driver looking at it instead of the road slams into someone.

The Fell freeway leads to problems on other streets. During rush hour the bike signal at Masonic is ignored about 30% of the time. At night cars rush through JFK going 40+ mph while often completely ignoring the Stop signs.

5 or 10 years from now the problems of speeding and congestion will still be there. It’s probably more feasible to build a 2 way bike bridge from the Panhandle to the Wiggle than to redesign the street so it’s safe for everyone.

I think it is interesting that a similar ITS (Intelligent Transportation Systems) program is being pushed through on the freeways to reduce traffic congestion. That seems to be the Bay Area’s answer to transportation planning. It is too bad they are so short sighted.

Lots of anger in the neighborhood about the sign. There was some very heated comments, and a bit if raised voices, particularly near the end.

There was also a deal of emotion about the general safety issues around Fell and Oak, particularly between Divisadero and Masonic.

I think there is a feeling in the neighborhood (and I personally feel this way) that the MTA is more focused on speeding traffic through the area than on improving safety.

There were two suggestions that I felt were very good:

1) Move the sign to the Freeway offramp that feeds onto Octavia.

MTA claims the sign will only be used to inform people of parking problems in the park and to drive safely. If that is the case, then moving the sign to the freeway off-ramp makes a lot of sense. It is my belief that most of the people going up Fell to the park looking for parking are coming from outside SF, otherwise they wouldn’t be taking Fell and would probably already know parking sucks in the park. Therefore putting it at the Octavia off-ramp would pretty much catch everybody that would benefit from the sign at Fell & Divisadero.

2) Shorten the duration of the green lights on Fell & Oak.

This makes a lot of sense to me. The lights are timed for the speed limit (which I believe is 30mph currently, but might be 25) but are green for a pretty long time, so people at the front can’t really go any faster, but anybody at the back of the pack is actually incentivized by the long green to speed until they catch up to the pack.

There were a few other good suggestions, but I don’t remember them specifically.

There was also a representative from Ross Mirkarimi’s people who said he supported the sign on Fell as its intended purpose is to calm traffic of people looking for parking at the park, but was surprised to learn of the sign on Oak, and is opposed to that, since it will really only be used to inform people trying to get on the freeway, thus sending them onto side streets when there is traffic. She also mentioned that the signs were intended to improve traffic conditions and safety for those living around the Museum area of the park. I don’t think the support for Fell was very well received by the people at the meeting. I think this is probably due to the perception that even if it does improve conditions near the museum it will worsen them around the sign, as people will be taking their eyes off the road to read the sign at an already very dangerous location. I certainly believe that the sign will only worsen conditions where it is placed. It seems to me that the safety around Fell & Divis is being sacrificed for safety around the museum.

Mirkarimi’s representative she will bring the two ideas above to his attention.

After the meeting I felt completely unconvinced that there’s any real benefit to the improvements, particularly given that there are many other improvements that could be done first that would be widely supported all over the city.

whir -

I believe the N takes +/-40 minutes or so from the beach to Market. Check the schedule, I don’t know what hour+ you’re talking about – I used to live on 47th ave, and now from where I live at 32nd Ave., it takes about 30 min. and driving still 20-25 min…

Even so, I think a great solution for the N would be giving it a dedicated right of way, with some very prolific signage of course. I think it’s absurd that the train of a couple hundred people has to stop for the possibility of a car of 1. Dedicated right of ways work, people get it – if the MTA had the balls to do it in the face of its recently damaged safety image.

One frustrating aspect of the transit thing is that a large part of what makes the N move at a snail’s page out there looks an awful lot like traffic calming – to wit, a stop sign at almost every block along Judah from 9th Avenue all the way to La Playa. If they dug a tunnel that would improve things immensely, but I can’t see that happening in the next few years.

When I moved back here in 2005 I actually lived on Oak near Divisadero and let me tell ya, walking around those two streets always sucked. NO ONE obeys the traffic laws, and more than once I missed getting killed by a stupid car by like, mere moments.

I think Sup. Mirkarimi is right on when he points out the half-assedness of the planning around this problem. For example – why did they make the Faletti’s garage such a pain in the ass? Couldn’t they have made this work for both the neighborhood AND the business? This isn’t rocket science.

This is one of those times where if we had someone who could have the authori-tah to pull everyone in a room, say “Fix this, and fix it right”, you know, like a chief executive of a City or something, maybe someone could kick some asses on behalf of the residents. I think it’s called a “Mayor” or something, but I’m unaware of one that exists here.

And I think the Oak and Masonic intersection could use some of the improvements Fell and Masonic has had. It doesn’t have the issue with the bike path, but it’s just as unpleasant to cross on foot. I’m not 100% sure how the left turn is set up from Oak onto Masonic, but I believe parking is allowed all the way up to the crosswalk at most times, which makes it very difficult for turning cars and pedestrians crossing Masonic to see each other. That corner should at least have a hatched no stopping anytime area like the one at Fell and Masonic.

If the lights on Fell were timed at 20 mph, people would go 20, maybe 25 tops. Those lights are timed at 30 mph right now, and at times people go 40 to catch up to the timing. Of course the construction today on Divisadero at Fell slowed things down considerably. Made riding a bike by far the fastest option . . .

Also, the speed limit on Masonic has dropped to 25, but the lights are still timed at about 33mph. Seems counter-productive.