Friday afternoon, Oct. 2, SFgo project manager, Cheryl Liu, replied to neighbors’s questions posted on BIKE NOPA about the Fell and Oak Street signs and in a preface announced the decision on Oak and Fell Streets. One down, one to go….does the sign on Fell just west of Divisadero become more acceptable one block further west between Baker and Broderick along the DMV site? see MTA’s five page response to questions on BIKE NOPA.

1. Sure, these signs look exactly like an apple mac book, how could I have been so mistaken!?

2. I said more inaccessible, not easier to get caught. The front of a bus is much easier to get caught, and is actually more accessible. Ever notice how graffiti up at the top of a building never gets fixed, but graffiti on a low wall next to the sidewalk quickly gets painted over? That’s what I’m talking about. But on the other hand even if it’s easier to vandalize the portable ones, it’s also correspondingly easier to fix, for exactly the same reasons. Plus the money you save on not putting in giant freeway style signs means you can buy plenty of extra portables.

3. Your response makes no sense.

4. Use an extender antenna, or use a different wireless technology, like cellular or a radio antenna that has no range issues. It’s not difficult, nor expensive.

I agree that electric signs can be useful, but mobile ones are much more useful as they can easily be placed where needed when needed.

Ultimately vandalism is no excuse to not use the temporary signs. Whoever is managing needs to keep them properly maintained, just like the city would need to keep a permanent sign properly maintained.

A taller sign keeps eyes on the road? sure, that makes sense.

“It’s unfortunate that Fell/Oak is THE only way to get from east to west and vice versa” is BS. It’s the only way for a small corridor to get east and west on 1 way streets with timed signals.

Your responses:
1. The signs being proposed are uglier.
2. They are correspondingly easier to repair. Sometime vandals prefer less accessible places, then their vandalism is harder to correct.
3. Use bigger batteries
4. Use WiFi.

1. Whatever. If that’s so, then why does the silver/black design of say, an Apple MacBook, continue to garner industrial awards? I’ve never heard anything positive about orange/black (except strangely, here). In fact, when when these signs are left out there by accident, I’ve gotten complaints “to get that ugly thing outta here”.
2. What kind of logic is that? So, for example, on a bus, you’re saying more vandals are willing to spray paint the front of a bus near the driver rather than the back of a bus? Try riding MUNI for once.
3. Wow. More vandal targets! They can now steal the extra battery packs attached to the signs.
4. You still have to be near the sign.

The higher position of the proposed signs above the road are much easier to see and help keep the driver’s eyes on the road ahead which makes it safer. I’m sure most any other driver (except you) will agree with the above. Try driving for once.

If I did live on Fell/Oak or any other major thoroughfare, I don’t have a problem. I have lived in all over the City (including I guess what you call NOPA). Unlike the NIMBYs here who look all these types of signs as “freeway signs”, I look at the complete picture of the need, purpose, impacts, etc. of these electronic signs, and recognize that are useful for the entire city AS A WHOLE. That’s common sense. These signs are NOT the big monsters that you people make them to be. They are made smaller to fit the urban city neighborhood atmosphere that is along the Fell/Oak corridor. Compare the proposed sign with the one that used to be at Oak/Laguna. The Oak/Laguna sign WAS a “freeway-type” sign, which I agree, was way too big and is now gone.

It’s unfortunate that Fell/Oak is THE only way to get from east to west and vice versa, but the electronic sign is still the best way to warn people what is happening up ahead. You continue to fail proving that this street-type electronic sign will tarnish the neighborhood by creating more traffic and speeding.

We are wondering where YOU live and more importantly who you work for. We LIVE HERE. We interact with these streets everyday. We know first hand, from the ground what the impact will be.

Folks, neighbors and countrymen, lend me your common sense. These days, financial and political motivations are trying to talk us out of common sense based reactions to a BAD IDEA.

I’m not going to get sucked into a PC debate where everyone takes a contrarian position just to be different. There is power in numbers and your local politicians care a lot about what we think.

Let’s stop this deconstructionism and just GET IT FOR WHAT IT IS – A BAD IDEA BEING FORCED DOWN OUR THROATS.

When everyone who is going to be impacted takes a different position and argue among themselves – guess what – they get their way because there is no consensus. Next thing you know the signs go up.

The City is us, the neighborhood is us, the local govt is for us. So speak up and please trust your common sense, support your neighbors, think of the people living along Fell and Oak and ask yourself why we need an electric sign in a residential neighborhood.

We have the usual perfect storm where the agency that benefits from the cash grab is the same one that is allocating the cash. More staff, more “program oversight”, more power. There’s no way out.

Wake me up when any bus anywhere in San Francisco reliably receives any priority at any intersection in the city.

It is ridiculous IMO that they are only charging $74 per year. There are people on Craigslist willing to pay $100 to $500 per month for a parking space. The city is renting its parking spaces for less than 10% of their market value. You can see my source at http://www.sfbg.com/printable_entry.php?entry_id=8792 . They can charge $1000 per year and still probably fill up most or all of the spaces.

In combination with the horrific traffic on the new, unimproved Octavia Blvd., it’s another contributing factor, since the ban on the right turn forces drivers to go all the way to 13th and South Van Ness to get on the freeway. As recent traffic studies by DPT have shown, all the nearby streets and intersections have a lot more traffic since Octavia opened up in 2005.

you can say street style all you want, it’s still a load of BS.

why don’t you google image search “street sign” and “freeway sign” and see which these sfgo signs are more like?

you said regarding mobile signs:

“1. They are UGLY. Put the ugly orange next to the cool silver and the cool silver will win every time.
2. They are easily vandalized. It’s kind of hard (but not impossible) to spray paint something that’s 20 feet high.
3. The batteries don’t last as long as they claim. How many of those message boards have you seen blank when they should say something. Chances are, the batteries died even though they are suppose to recharge by solar power.
4. Who’s going to change the message every time it needs to be changed? Sending someone out there every is time consuming.”

1. The signs being proposed are uglier
2. They are correspondingly easier to repair. Sometime vandals prefer less accessible places, then their vandalism is harder to correct.
3. Use bigger batteries
4. Use WiFi.

Mobile signs can provide all the benefits you mentioned, they can alert you of street closures just as well as a permanent freeway style sign, plus they are not even needed when there are no issues.

Ultimately it’s a safety issue, these sfgo signs will be taking driver’s eyes off the road and direct them to the sky, just when approaching a dangerous intersection, for very dubious, and infrequent benefits.

Octavia Boulevard is a bottleneck now because city voters chose to tear down the Central Freeway overpass there. City progressives and the anti-car bicycle movement—a lot of overlap there—are still congratulating themselves for getting rid of the freeway but are in denial about the trade-off: a lot of that East/West freeway traffic—45,000 cars a day according to DPT—is now on Octavia Blvd., which is jammed up most of the day.

A contributing factor to the Octavia Blvd. bottleneck: the ban on right turns onto the freeway from the Market/Octavia intersection.

1. The diagrams below shows 3 traffic signals. 4 cars are stopped at the first traffic light. The Signal synchronization scheme will turn each traffic light to green in succession in a finely timed manner.

1. __*_*_**R________R_________R_______

2. ____*__*G*__*____R_________R_______

3. ________G__*__*_*G*________R_______

4. *_______G_______*G*_*_____*R_______

5. ______*_R________G___*_*_**G_______

2. The first signal turned green. Cars are moving to the right, heading toward the next red light.

3. The second light turned green precisely after the time it takes to travel from light 1 to light 2 at 25 mph. The light turn green for the first car just in time. This is the optimal condition when every car travels at 25 mph.

4. The first car speeds and pull away from the pack. It hit the third light too soon before it turns green. It has to come to a complete stop at the red light.

5. The third light turns green. The first car have to start from a complete stop, slowing down the entire pack.

Because of the signal timing, it is optimal for every car travels at precisely 25 mph. At long as there are enough traffic, it is almost impossible for cars to go much faster than 25 mph.

This scheme is impossible on a two way street. The light cannot be set to turn green at the right time for traffic coming from both direction. Therefore signal timing cannot be used to regulate the traffic speed as in a one way street. Instead, they will probably keep the signal green for a longer period to maintain the traffic flow. This will probably make it easier for speeding. You can see plenty of evidence of this on 19th ave. Now imagine if 19th ave were designed as two separate one way streets with signal synchronization.

the supervisors should be making such decisions anyway if it weren’t for prop. A. just holding board meetings about it might get the mta to respond. in particular the extra 4th lane is useless. classic put in as many lanes as possible mentality.

Real solutions:

1) If the parking garage under the concourse is routinely filling up, obviously it is not priced correctly. Up the rates. If out-of-town cars are parking in the neighborhoods around the park, install 2 hour parking unless a car has a neighborhood sticker. Let people know they really will get a ticket if they pass the time limit.

2) Because Muni so poorly services the Caltrain station, the de Young and Academy of Sciences should sponsor free shuttles that *meet the trains* and whisk people quickly to the park. Then they need to advertise it massively to their potential visitors. (Yes, I know the culture bus was a failure because a) it was expensive and b)absolutely no one knew about it.) On weekends, Caltrain should be free to children under 12. (This would really get families to consider taking the train.)

3.) Most people on the Peninsula have little or no idea how to take Bart and then use Muni. The park’s museums need to educate their members and potential visitors far more than they do now and severely, drastically encourage them not to drive to GG park. (SF Opera and SF Symphony should do the same for folks coming to the Civic Center.)

4.) Golden Gate Transit does not stop anywhere near GG park. Why? On weekends there should be a way for Marin folks to get to the park without their cars.

5.) The city should place the highest tax on gasoline that it’s legally capable of and use that to increase the reliability and pleasantness of Muni. It should also create a large ad campaign directed towards the suburbs of SF on the joys and benefits of using public transit in San Francisco. The message should be–we want you, not your car. While the improvements San Francisco has made in terms of the environment are laudable (composting rate, solar incentives, etc.) the number one thing the city can do to help the environment and avoid catastrophic global climate change is make Muni work. Period.

We need to get serious about reducing car use. We are not serious yet.

@Dave Snyder: “The Oak Street sign has no benefit, even for motorists”

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.

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. 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.

“…will spread out the congestion and ease the movement onto the freeway at Octavia. This ought to be coupled with measures to reduce through automobile traffic on Page and Haight Street.

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. HUH? This exactly what will happen too if Fell/Oak are converted to two way.

@Kevin, Jeffrey: Moving the sign is a 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.

The sign diverting driver’s attention is not true. I do not see how it’s not much different from reading any other permanent or temporary static sign.

@patrick, michaelSF: “Why not use portable messaging signs?” Because…

1. They are UGLY. Put the ugly orange next to the cool silver and the cool silver will win every time.
2. They are easily vandalized. It’s kind of hard (but not impossible) to spray paint something that’s 20 feet high.
3. The batteries don’t last as long as they claim. How many of those message boards have you seen blank when they should say something. Chances are, the batteries died even though they are suppose to recharge by solar power.
4. Who’s going to change the message every time it needs to be changed? Sending someone out there every is time consuming.

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. MANY other major cities around the world use them.

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….

If Fell/Oak were converted back to 2-way, it would be incredibly difficult to speed at 30mph. Moreover, I’m stunned to see our otherwise well-informed bike advocate expert write such a thing.

Using standard road-diet configuration (1 travel lane each direction, center left-turn pockets, bike lanes), maximum velocity is determined by the slowest drivers. Whereas in 1-way configuration it is the opposite (maximum speeds determined by most aggressive drivers; PLUS the added bonus of dangerous passing and weaving in and out of traffic thanks to the multiple travel lanes.

Using standard traffic engineering metrics, and plugging in typical automobile volumes in the Fell/Oak corridor, it is unlikely that speeds would exceed 25mph during most times of the day for a 2-way lane configuration.

For brevity or a shameless plug: see tonight’s (Thursday) post on ibikenopa.blogspot.com

That’s what I think. I don’t get the rationale that why some people thing it is an improvement over one-way street.

18mph is fine by me. But honestly, it is not going to happen. I will be happy enough if police hand out a lot of tickets to speeders and red light runners.

@zsolt, use your brain, don’t live right on a busy street if you can’t stand the traffic.