Brand new bike racks have been popping up all across the city in the half-year since the city got partial-relief from the long-standing Bike Plan injunction. Along with countless sharrows, they're one of the most visible and widespread improvements to the city's bike infrastructure during that time.

But with so many racks being installed, how does the city determine where to put new racks, and how can people request a rack near their home or favorite business?

For the most part, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) installs racks on a first-request-first-serve basis, with the most deserving requested locations (like Church and Market) occasionally jumping the line, said SFMTA Bike Plan Implementation Manager Damon Curtis.

The SFMTA still has a backlog of over 700 requests, many of which built up during the injunction, that it's plowing through. That backlog had grown to about 1,000 by the time the injunction was partially lifted in November. The agency has already installed 300 racks since then, and is on pace to do about 600 per year.

In fact, the SFMTA has pretty clear guidelines on its website for how to request a rack. Start by calling 415.585.BIKE or 311, or emailing bicycle@sfmta.com, with a message that includes the address you want the rack installed at, the cross street, and your name and phone number or e-mail address.

Before sending the request, be sure to check SFMTA's criteria for bike rack locations. Racks must still leave a six-foot clear walkway on the sidewalk, they can't be directly in front of building entrances or driveways, they need two-feet of clearance from utility vaults, they can't be in front of a blue disabled parking curb zone, and they have to be at least two feet from the curb. SFMTA likes the walkway clearance to be even wider on sidewalks with high pedestrian traffic volumes.

A stenciled sign of good things to come. Flickr photo: Jeremy Brooks

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition's Andy Thornley has an additional suggestion for people requesting a bike rack, whether they ride a bike or own a business and want parking for their customers: briefly make the case for your request in your message to the SFMTA. "Make the case why this rack matters and don't just say, 'I'd like a rack on this corner,'" says Thornley. "You're more likely to get that rack sooner if you can say, 'There's a daycare center that has lots of bikes that don't have any place to park.'"

Thornley has another piece of advice: just make the request, and then be patient. "Don't just sit back and wait for that rack to show up," he said. "Folks that ask will eventually see a rack, so go today and ask for a rack -- ask for ten racks. It costs nothing."

Curtis offered another point of clarification. You don't have to live in or own a building to request a rack in front of it -- people can requests racks anywhere. But SFMTA staff will stop in businesses when they survey the site to see if the rack is wanted, so it helps to make your case to business owners when you make a request, too.

"It would incumbent upon you as a customer to educate the business that, 'Hey, look, I frequent your business, I ride my bike to get here, I'd like bike parking,'" said Curtis.

For the most part, businesses are happy to have racks installed in front, said Curtis, though occasionally things are a little more complicated. Patrick Marks, who owns The Green Arcade bookstore on Market, said that when he requested bike racks, the SFMTA was prompt to show up and take a look at his storefront, but there wasn't a suitable spot because of existing infrastructure on the sidewalk. Some of his neighboring businesses were hesitant to have bike racks installed, so he had to settle for racks across Market instead.

Some of the many customers who arrive at his store by bicycle get "kind of cranky" about the lack of bike parking directly out front, said Marks, but he gives the SFMTA high marks for working with him to quickly identify the nearest possible location for bike racks.

"MTA was excellent," he said. "They would have put them in if there would have been a spot for them."

The SFMTA has plenty of racks, said Curtis, and plans to keep installing them at a fast clip. The main obstacle to installing racks even faster, he explained, is that each request goes through a rigorous process that includes logging it in, physically surveying the location, marking it with a stencil, sending the location to the Planning Department for Environmental Impact Report clearance, and then on to the agency's meter shop for installation.

Once the SFMTA catches up on its backlog of requests, said Curtis, the plan is to role out a clearer prioritization scheme for installing racks, which it already has in draft form.

New bike parking at the Harvey Milk/Eureka Valley branch library. Photo: Michael Rhodes

"Hopefully in the next year, as we put in another 700 or 800 racks, then we'll be able to get the list down to a manageable level, and then we can actually implement our prioritization scheme," he said. That includes looking at the type of businesses racks would serve, whether they're on a bike route, how many existing racks are nearby, and whether a bike corral might make sense.

Thornley has some ideas for what the city should prioritize, including the city's major destinations, such as parks, libraries, museums, and major Muni stations.

He also points out that when the judge allowed the SFMTA to install bike racks and sharrows last November, he explicitly did so with the understanding that they were reversible measures, if need be, so until the injunction is fully lifted, all the new racks are technically subject to being removed at the judge's discretion.

But after three-and-a-half years without a new rack, said Thornley, "having bike racks pop up is a wonderful thing."

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, the Mayor, and the Board of Superviors have greatly upped the pressure on Muni operators for a revote -- as well as on each other over the SFMTA's budget -- following the operators' vote to reject a concessions package last Friday.

Placing some of the blame for last Friday's rejection vote on a lack of education about the concessions, SFMTA Executive Director Nat Ford announced today that Muni would be "sunshining," or making public, the proposed changes to the operators' contract [PDF], which had previously been kept under wraps.

There aren't any surprises: the bulk of the $18.7 million saved over two years would come from allowing the agency to hire 190 part-time operators and requiring operators to work at least 40 hours in a week before they begin to accrue overtime pay. The agency would see some minor savings from a switch in the operators' health plan to the citywide plan as well.

When the operators rejected another concessions package in February, Streetsblog reported that many of the operators felt they needed more information about the agreement, and Ford said that was an issue this time, too. "[T]here may be additional work that needs to be done in terms of education of what the components of this agreement actually mean as it relates to their compensation, their pensions, their health care benefits, things of that nature," he told the SFMTA Board today.

Ford and Mayor Newsom have called on the members of the operators union, Transport Workers Union Local 250-A (TWU), to revote on the concessions, a mantra they repeated early this week.

"[The operators] deserve to be embraced and respected, and I want to embrace and respect them, but you actually have to earn that, and the way you earn that right now is to do the right thing," the Mayor said at a press conference yesterday on his upcoming visit to China. "They have the chance to do the right thing, and I think that the fact that they're getting one more chance is significant and I'm hopeful."

Acting TWU President Rafael Cabrera told the SFMTA Board today that the sunshining of the contract comes as a surprise.

"I'm kind of shocked to hear that the [operators] contract is going to be sunshined," said Cabrera. "I mean, the members voted it down, they rejected any type of concession there is."

Cabrera also added that no one from the SFMTA or the Mayor's office has contacted him yet about a revote. "Nobody has contacted me personally for me to say yes," he said. "The matter of the fact is it was rejected by the membership and that stays as is."

Mayor Blames Supervisors

The Mayor and the Board of Supervisors traded shots over why the operators rejected the concessions agreement, which would have saved the SFMTA $18.7 million over two years -- money that Muni said it would use to reverse a recent ten-percent service cut partially by September 4 and fully by next summer. Yesterday, the Mayor suggested some of the blame rests with the four supervisors who introduced a sweeping Muni reform measure that would give the SFMTA a $40 million allotment from the city's general fund.

"I think the board, in their desire to show 'leadership', actually hurt our efforts at TWU by saying, 'We're going to bail you out with $40 million of city money,'" the Mayor said. "If you're Muni drivers, and you just heard the board say, 'Hey, don't worry, we're going to send $40 million over to your agency of city money,' it kind of makes you feel like you're off the hook, doesn't it?"

But Board of Supervisors President David Chiu rejected that idea, and said the allotment measure and the TWU vote should be complementary solutions.

"The suggestion that proposing more revenue for the MTA lets TWU off the hook is absurd: everyone knows Muni needs more revenue, and everyone knows that TWU needs to step up like every other union during this economic crisis," Chiu wrote in an email to Streetsblog. "Muni riders deserve better than the ongoing blame game. We must continue to make clear to TWU that they must give back, while also reminding the Mayor and MTA management that the unprecedented service cuts cannot stand."

With the operators' vote, the SFMTA's recently-approved two-year budget, which continues service cuts from last May, is back on a collision course with the supervisors, who have threatened to reject any budget that doesn't restore service.

But while the progressive bloc on the board is lined up against a budget that includes service cuts, some of the four supervisors who sponsored the wide-ranging Muni reform measure are less enthusiastic about the $40 million allotment, since it would take money from the general fund.

The Mayor isn't a fan of other aspects of the supervisors' reform measure either, but perhaps more surprisingly, he also criticized a ballot measure supported by one of his allies on the Board of Supervisors, Sean Elsbernd. That measure would set Muni operator pay through collective bargaining, removing language from the City Charter that guarantees them the second-highest pay for transit operators in the country among large transit agencies.

Newsom said the Elsbernd and SPUR measure, which Muni operators have called an attack on them, combined with the $40 million allotment, "created conditions to make this more difficult to get to where we need to go."

Elsbernd is still collecting signatures to put the measure on the November ballot, and defended it as a longer-term solution than the two-year concessions package.

"Whether or not they voted for it or they didn't, we were going to keep collecting signatures to try to qualify," he said. "If anything, I think it's made it a tad bit easier to collect those last few signatures. I wish I could say I understood it. I really don't."

Asked whether his measure jeopardized the concessions vote, Elsbernd responded: "The Mayor may be concerned about this year. I'm concerned about the next 20 years."

Until a year ago, there was no written agreement between Muni and the city's police department specifying what services Muni was paying for and how much, despite the fact that the police department was sending the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency an $83 million annual bill.

Now, one year after a formal memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the departments was finally released, the City Controller's office has released a report that looks at the patrolling services SFPD is providing in a district that is both the location of a dramatic spike in Muni-related crime and also a potential model for how SFPD can reduce such crime.

The report, entitled "Addressing Crime and Disorder on the Municipal Railway: A Case Study on Data-Driven Policing in the Ingleside District," focuses on the efforts of Ingleside Captain David Lazar to overhaul and strategically target how police are assigned to Muni during their shifts.

The SFPD's Bus Inspection Program, or BIP, which was formally outlined in the 2009 MOU but has been around much longer, 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.

But the BIP agreement doesn't give any direction for how officers should choose the time and location of their trips, and for many people who ride Muni, it came as a surprise that officers are required to ride at all, since they have been such a rare sight.

The Controller's report concludes that "the issue with the Bus Inspection Program was that the times, routes, and locations were left to the officers' own discretion which likely contributed to the public's perception about the lack of police presence on the transit system." There's even been widespread suspicion that many officers haven't even met that bare requirement, prompting a pilot program to track their rides using TransLink cards.

For now, the MOU still only requires SFPD to meet the two-inspections-per-shift requirement. But Lazar, working with the Controller's office, developed a new inspection program in the Ingleside, called Operation Safe Muni, based on multiple data sources and community input. Lazar began assigning officers to high-problem transit lines and times, instead of allowing them to simply ride whenever they wanted to.

Image: City Controller's office

The City Controller's office called the results of the program, which launched in October and includes both regular patrols and sting operations, promising.

"While it is too early to know if the strategies employed by the district are having the intended impact of reducing crime and fear, there are promising signs," the report notes. "A comparison of Muni incident data for December 2008 and December 2009 shows that vandalism -- the crime reported most frequently on Muni in December 2008 -- was not reported at all in December 2009. Moreover, the two bus lines that were targeted by the Ingleside -- the 8X San Bruno Express and the 14 Mission -- dropped from being the first and second most problematic lines to the third and fourth."

The Ingleside police station began targeting deployment based on City Survey results, resident focus group results, and security incident data reported by Muni operators. That City Survey data showed that Ingleside was not only the second-most dangerous for riding Muni in the view of residents, it was also the district where the feeling of safety was dropping most rapidly, with 38 percent of residents feeling safe on Muni in 2005, and just 31 percent feeling safe by 2009.

The neighborhood focus groups also pointed to crime on Muni as a major concern in the Ingleside, as did complaints from concerned residents, and Muni operator incident reports confirmed the public's perception that crime on Muni was getting worse.

Oddly enough, the report finds, SFPD didn't notice the spike in Muni crime before because it's still a relatively small volume of the city's total crime.

Fare Inspection Concerns 

One of the key changes in how Ingleside officers did Muni inspections also became a source of controversy as it rolled-out citywide.

Instead of just riding the buses, officers began checking proof-of-payment from riders, on the theory that minor violations were creating a sense of disorder that invites more serious crime and creates a sense of fear. Officers made five outstanding-warrant arrests in October through December of last year as a result, and the City Controller's office report called the tactic "more effective at fighting crime because [officers] can verify if someone has an outstanding warrant for a previous crime or is carrying a weapon."

The principles of Operation Safe Muni have now been expanded citywide, but that central component -- fare inspection by SFPD -- has been suspended for several months until concerns that the inspections are really about immigration can be addressed.

"I don't know the whole story yet, but [the crime] may have eased as a result of our complaints that we want the police to do their police work and to target it, and people to check the fares, but not to intimidate them to the extent that some of them were afraid to ride buses," said Marlene Tran, spokesperson for the Visitacion Valley Asian Alliance. "That was terrible."

Click to enlarge: Ingleside police station used community responses to help target enforcement. Image: City Controller's office.

Still, for the most part, the report confirms what SFPD Chief George Gascón concluded when he expanded Operation Safe Muni to the entire police force: the data-driven, targeted police assignments are much more effective than the haphazard, loosely enforced patrol requirements required by the BIP.

The Controller's report suggests that the SFMTA should provide regular Muni operator security reports from the TransitSafe database to the SFPD, that the two agencies should implement a public service campaign about crime prevention on Muni and the importance of reporting all crime incidents, and that the SFPD should formalize a proof-of-payment fare inspection training program to make sure it's consistent across all departments.

Lazar has since been assigned to help deal with the mess at SFPD's crime lab, and is no longer head of Ingleside station, but a new formal order from Gascón has ensured that the Ingleside approach will be used department-wide. According to the Controller's report, the order requires "all police districts to provide crime prevention and enforcement on Muni based on analysis of crime, community complaints, and Muni operator concerns."

"This is the most significant change in how the SFPD patrols the transit system in over a decade," it notes.

The SFMTA Board will discuss the report at its meeting today, which may provide more insight into whether the SFMTA shares the City Controller's assessment of the program.

• Tuesday: Masonic Avenue Street Design Community Workshop. SFMTA Staff will give a presentation on existing conditions and community members will share their ideas and vision for a better Masonic Avenue, which will help shape the SFMTA future recommendations. 6:30-8:30 p.m.
• Tuesday: SPUR Lunchtime Forum: Economic impacts of SB 375, California's new anti-sprawl legislation. A new report by the Urban Land Institute assesses the impacts of SB 375 -- the 2008 bill that limits greenhouse gas emissions by curbing sprawl -- on land values and economic vitality in California. Learn about the results and what the implementation of this bill will mean for the state's economy. 12:30 p.m.
• Wednesday: SFBC Treehouse Talk: SF Great Streets Project. The Great Streets Project has helped shape the city's trial pedestrian plazas, its flexible parking program, and its historic Market Street trials. Kit Hodge, the project's director, will share her ideas for what's next. 6:30 p.m.
• Wednesday: East Bay Bicycle Coalition Monthly Meeting: Introducing your community bike organizations. Find out what East Bay bicycle groups are doing to encourage bicycling at the grassroots level, where their shops are located, and how you can get involved. 7:30-9 p.m.
  
• Saturday: 4th Annual Bicycle Music Festival. The Bicycle Music Festival is the "largest human powered festival in the world," featuring 18 bands, 3 festival stops, 2 bicycle parades with bands performing live from the backs of cargo-bikes as it rolls down the San Francisco streets and an enormous pedal-powered sound system. 10 a.m.-2 a.m.
  
• Sunday: Sunday Streets: Mission. Come play in the streets! Sunday Streets returns to the Mission for a second year to provide car-free recreational space for everyone. 10 a.m.- 3 p.m.
  

Echoing a vote earlier this year, members of the Transport Workers Union Local 250-A voted down the proposal negotiated between TWU leadership, San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency management, and the Mayor. The $18.7 million in savings would have come over two years, primarily by allowing the agency to use part-time operators and requiring operators to work at least 40 hours in a week before receiving overtime pay.

Operators rejected the proposal by a vote of 747-to-538 -- slightly closer than the 857-575 vote operators cast last February to reject another concessions package.

In a statement released this evening, Mayor Gavin Newsom said the rejection is "simply unacceptable" and called on TWU to revote. "TWU's rejection of a second tentative agreement is a slap in the face to everyone who rides Muni and to every other public employee union member," the Mayor said.

"Once again, I call upon the membership of TWU to reconsider and revote. TWU union members' vote to raise their own pay while forcing longer waits and more crowded buses is simply unacceptable."

SFMTA Executive Director Nat Ford said he was deeply "disappointed and perplexed" by the operators for rejecting what he called "reasonable concessions."

"I join with Mayor Newsom and all responsible people in challenging the members of TWU 250A to quickly reconsider their actions and to recast their votes," he added. "By doing so, they will join the ranks of their union brothers and sisters across City government who have selflessly acted to preserve jobs and to ensure the delivery of vital services to the people of San Francisco.”

TWU officials could not be reached this evening for comment on the vote. More coverage from the Chronicle. We'll have a follow-up on Monday.

A pedestrian was struck and seriously injured by the driver of a cab near the intersection of Market and 5th Street this afternoon.

Large numbers of onlookers gathered on Market Street following the crash, just after noon today. According to Ted Goldberg, a KCBS Radio producer who happened upon the scene minutes after the crash, the victim was put into an ambulance on a stretcher, and was bleeding.

"I could see blood on his head but I don't know if that's where the injury took place," said Goldberg.

The injured pedestrian appeared to be a middle-aged white man, said Goldberg. Lt. Lyn Tomioka of the San Francisco Police Department said the victim was unconscious but breathing when police arrived on the scene.

"At 12:28, we received the first of multiple calls," she said.

Police were interviewing the cab driver for the ten minutes that Goldberg stayed on the scene, and there was at least one passenger in the cab. The cab was stopped in the middle of the crosswalk on westbound Market Street, and had not yet crossed through the intersection with 5th Street, while the victim remained a few feet behind the car in the center lane, adjacent to the F-line stop.

"People had to walk around the cab to get across the street at that moment," Goldberg said.

The cab windshield was heavily impacted from the crash. A fire truck, police patrol cars, and police officers who had been on their bicycles tended to the victim before loading him onto a stretcher and into an ambulance.

Lt. Tomioka was still waiting for further details on the crash and the victim's condition. We'll update as we hear more.

San Francisco could eventually see car-sharing come to the curbside after the Planning Commission voted yesterday to urge the city to explore the idea of allowing on-street car-share pods. The commission also voted to start a process of updating the city's guidelines for car-share requirements in new buildings.

Car sharing first came to San Francisco in 2001, and just a year later, the Planning Commission began requiring some new buildings to include car-share spaces as a condition of project approval. According to the Planning Department, San Francisco is the only city that requires car-share spaces for many new buildings by law, a policy it adopted in 2005.

Almost all of the city's car-share parking space, or pods, are in private garages and lots, where they've been required as part of a building's approval for construction, or where building owners have voluntarily leased out spaces to one of the city's two major car-share organizations, City CarShare and ZipCar.

That could soon change, as the Planning Commission urged the city to study using some public on-street spaces as car-share pods.

Planning Department staff wrote in a memo [PDF] that providing on-street car-share parking spaces could greatly expand the number of available spaces, increase car-sharing's legitimacy and visibility, make it feel safer for people who don't want to go into garages, and make more efficient use of on-street spaces that otherwise often stay occupied by one person's vehicle all day.

While San Francisco is cutting-edge in requiring many new buildings to include car-share pods, it's already lagging in on-street car-share parking: Planning staff pointed to Philadelphia and Vancouver as models of cities that already allow on-street car-share parking, for a fee. And state law isn't holding San Francisco back: the California vehicle code was amended in 2006 to allow on-street car-share parking.

The Planning Code encourages car-sharing as a way to "mitigate the negative impacts of new development by reducing the rate of individual car-ownership per household," and early on, the city provided some spaces in public garages to car-share companies. But that sparked a debate about giving away public goods to private companies, which put a halt to the practice.

On-street car-share parking could also face the same questions about the use of public goods, but Planning staff suggested the city could lease these spaces instead of giving them out for free, using the money to fund other transportation improvements.

City CarShare CEO Rick Hutchinson said he strongly supports the idea and called for an immediate on-street car-share parking pilot program. "City CarShare is a non-profit organization, and we recognize that there are some controversial issues about on-street parking," he told the commission. "However, we strongly support it."

Livable City Executive Director Tom Radulovich also voiced his support for car-sharing and expanding it to the city's streets. "Lots of [new buildings] are not quite large enough to trigger the requirements" for car-share spaces, said Radulovich, "so it's important to think of on-street spaces there."

Update to Car-Share Guidelines for New Buildings

The commission also adopted hard guidelines for how many extra car-share spaces to require in "extraordinary cases where transportation impacts of the specified project combined with the project location warrant additional mitigations."

Right now, new residential buildings with fewer than 50 units don't need to include car-share spaces, while 50-200 units triggers a one-car-share-space requirement, and new buildings with over 200 residential units must include two car-share pods, plus one space for each 200 additional units. There are guidelines for non-residential uses, too.

Click to enlarge: car-share requirements for new buildings. Image: San Francisco Planning Department.

"The City's existing car‐share requirements are generally appropriate at this time," the Planning Department memo notes.

But while standard guidelines are already clear, the Planning Commission hasn't always had clear guidelines for just how many car-share spaces should be required in buildings that might have an exceptional impact on traffic. The commission approved a set of guidelines for such cases yesterday, outlined in the adjacent table.

The commission also approved a policy yesterday for setting car-share requirements in new projects that replace old buildings that have car-share parking spaces.

In several cases, the commission reviewed projects where a building that had voluntarily leased out spaces to car-share organizations was going to be replaced with a new building, and the commission sought to require that the new building replace those spaces one-for-one. But that has had the side-effect of discouraging some building owners from leasing out spaces voluntarily.

"Property owners have described an increasing hesitance to voluntarily provide car-share parking on underutilized lots due to a perception that the Planning Commission or Department may require that such voluntary spaces be indefinitely retained by the property owner," a Planning staff memo notes. That's a big problem, since the majority of the city's car-share pods are provided at will, not as conditions of project approval.

The Planning Commission moved to clarify that old spaces don't need to be replaced in such instances, whether they were voluntary or required. New projects will be evaluated based on requirements for new buildings, not based on how many car-share pods the previous building or lot had, voluntary or otherwise.

City CarShare's Hutchinson told the commission that Planning staff had done a "thorough job of developing guidelines and producing what is effectively a new policy for car-share."

Planning Commission Vice President Christina Olague also praised staff for its "great work" on the policy, but suggested developers that wanted to include excess parking should not just provide car-share spaces, but actual memberships. "If buildings want tons of parking, I want to look at requiring them to provide memberships too."

The Planning Commission will have a further hearing on the policy sometime after July 1.

A parking tax increase that could send $19.2 million to the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency moved a step closer to the ballot Tuesday, as Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi introduced the measure before his colleagues on the Board of Supervisors.

Mirkarimi made the move at the behest of the SFMTA Board, which voted last week to request that the supervisors introduce the ballot measure on the agency's behalf. It would include a 10-percent increase in the commercial off-street parking tax -- that is, the tax on parking in commercial garages and lots -- and would also close a loophole that allows valet parking services to go untaxed.

"I think it's important in answering the question as to how we are able to generate revenue for the MTA," said Mirkarimi. "This is one consideration I would like us to seriously review. The last two years we have struggled to keep Muni running in the face of historic budget deficits."

Mirkarimi warned that the measure faces competition from other tax measures the supervisors are considering, the rest of which would not directly benefit the SFMTA. Not all of them will make it to the ballot. "I understand that a number of taxes potentially will be submitted for today," he said. "I also believe that in the menu of considerations for taxes, all may not make the final cut."

Several of the supervisors introduced a sweeping SFMTA reform ballot measure last month that would dedicate $40 million from the city's general fund to the SFMTA, but Mirkarimi and others have expressed reservations about that set-aside, so the parking tax could have a future as part of that reform measure as well.

As Streetsblog reported in March, the parking tax may be the most politically viable revenue ballot measure the SFMTA could pursue right now, and many of the city's transit advocates support it for its clear nexus between discouraging parking and increasing funding for Muni service.

"The SFMTA Board of Directors also considered other revenue options, but concurred with the SFMTA Citizens' Advisory Council in preferring measures that generate revenues with a strong nexus to transportation," wrote SFMTA Board Chairman Tom Nolan and Vice Chairman Jerry Lee in a letter to the supervisors [PDF].

But while an increase in the commercial off-street parking tax has the support of the SFMTA Board, some of the supervisors, and transit advocacy groups like Livable City and the San Francisco Transit Riders Union (SFTRU), the Mayor's office was quick to blast the proposal.

"It's another unnecessary tax that will cost the city jobs and hurt the city's businesses at the wrong time," said Tony Winnicker, a spokesperson for the Mayor. "We're already working to reverse the service cuts completely before next July so another November tax measure is unnecessary."

As for the nexus between reducing commuting by car and increasing transit ridership, Winnicker said transit is not an option for everyone. "We absolutely agree that commuters should be discouraged from driving to their jobs in the city and encouraged to take regional transit like BART, Caltrain, Samtrans and AC Transit instead," he said. "But the reality is not everyone who works in the City has that choice, especially when most of those transit agencies are cutting back service deeply."

That puts the Mayor in line with the Chamber of Commerce, which doubts the prospects for such an increase passing muster with voters, and at odds with the SFMTA Board, a body the Mayor's office is often accused of micromanaging.

While the SFMTA may be able to restore the Muni service it cut last month with the help of possible concessions from its unions and funds from the San Francisco County Transportation Authority, the letter from Nolan and Lee to the supervisors notes that the agency has also had to make one-time swaps from capital funding to its operating budget just to prevent further service cuts and fare increases. The current deficits arose in part from a downturn in revenue due to the economic crisis, and deep cuts in state funding for transit.

Even the measure's supporters acknowledge that it faces an uphill battle, as a similar initiative was defeated by a 40-percent margin in 2006 and a poll in March found that just 38 percent of respondents in the city supported even a five-percent increase in the tax, with 12 percent undecided (that poll didn't include any mention of Muni getting 80 percent of the funds, however.) SFTRU's Dave Snyder said the 2006 measure failed in part because it didn't have a strong campaign.

Another key group, SPUR, has endorsed increasing the commercial off-street parking tax to boost Muni funding, but took no position on the 2006 measure since it wasn't guaranteed to be dedicated to the SFMTA. While the SFMTA gets 80 percent of the city's commercial off-street parking tax revenue, the new measure is not fully dedicated to the agency either, so it's not clear if SPUR would ultimately endorse it this time around.

The upside to that, however, is that the measure would need just 50 percent of the vote instead of the two-thirds majority required for SFMTA-dedicated revenue measures. The SFMTA Board still has never introduced such a measure directly on the ballot, but the commercial off-street parking tax measure it's pushing through the Board of Supervisors marks its first foray into aggressively seeking new sources of funding, something the city's voters mandated when they approved 1999's Proposition E, which also created the SFMTA.

The $19 million the SFMTA would receive annually from the measure compares to the roughly $29 million it acted to save annually by cutting 10 percent of Muni service in May. The current commercial off-street parking tax rate of 25 percent would increase to 35 percent if the measure goes forward and is approved.

Improvements to San Francisco's bike network have been popping up all over town in the half-year since the city got partial relief from the bike injunction. Some of them are splashy -- like the bright green, fully-separated bike lanes on Market Street, or the on-street bike parking stations on Valencia Street.

But the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency has been even busier with many small improvements and tweaks, including one or two changes that might not be subject to the injunction at all.

In April, when a portion of Lake Street got a touch-up in the form of a 'Slurry Seal' treatment (cracks and eroded areas were paved over without doing a full repave,) the SFMTA found a way to make biking a little safer. By narrowing the traffic lanes from 12 feet to 10 feet and adding the extra space to the parking lane, people on bikes now have extra breathing room between the door zone and moving traffic. The parking lane now stretches nine feet across, so cars no longer hug the edge of the bike lane.

"The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition is excited and pleased to see this re-striping on Lake Street," said the SFBC's Andy Thornley. "It makes the already good Lake Street bike lane even better by reducing the danger of dooring, and otherwise makes the bike lane more comfortable and inviting."

Thornley praised the SFMTA for taking the initiative on the change, which involved no pushing from the SFBC.

"We encourage the MTA to make this improvement on every street as repaving occurs," Thornley added.

The Lake Street bike lane is already relatively wide at six feet, but the added door-zone space makes it a lot less dicey. Not a shabby upgrade for a repaving project that was already scheduled.

Have you spotted other small scale improvements to the bike network that almost escaped your notice at first, but have made a difference? Let us know in the comments section below.

A stretch of Lake Street where the bike lane hasn't been re-striped and still hugs the parking lane.

It appears the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency has come to similar conclusions to Streetsblog's in its review of the pilot traffic changes on Market Street at 6th and 10th Streets: A big thumbs-up for transit, bike riders, and people on foot, relatively minor impacts on traffic, and some uneven results when it comes to driver compliance with the new configuration.

Judging from a brief update [PDF] on the program produced Friday, the "Required Right Turns on Eastbound Market Street" pilot appears to be meeting the SFMTA's goals on most fronts. Traffic volumes on eastbound Market just east of 10th Street declined by roughly 200 vehicles per hour during rush hour.

Most of that traffic diverted to Mission Street, where it slowed down transit vehicle travel times by three percent -- but that's offset by a five-percent increase in transit travel times on Market. Muni noted in an earlier report that vehicles are traveling down Market an average of 50 seconds faster.

People on bicycles and taxi drivers are continuing to respond well to the changes, and most drivers are at least complying with the required turns at 10th Street (no word from the SFMTA on whether they're grateful for being diverted from hectic Market Street.) As Streetsblog reported last week, the vast majority of drivers are behaving well at 10th Street, but 6th Street, which has much less clear signage for drivers about the required turn, has lower compliance, the report concludes.

For now, the traffic treatments that make 10th Street easier for drivers to understand (or harder for them to ignore) aren't possible at 6th Street, since, as the report notes, the roadway is narrower and there's a Muni boarding island. That means no separate lane for bikes, which helps avoid a bottleneck as drivers queue up to turn right. There are also heavier pedestrian volumes at 6th Street, making it harder for drivers to turn right, with the resulting line of right-turners creating some issues for those on bike.

The original objectives of the eight-month-old pilot program, the report states, are to "determine whether diverting private vehicle traffic improves transit reliability, pedestrian safety and bicycling comfort," "observe impact of diversion on [the] surrounding street network and determine whether any problems would be created on the streets that experienced increased traffic volumes," and "decrease use of Market Street as a private vehicle through route."

So has it been a success? The report concludes it has been, and has met its objectives "without any adverse changes to traffic conditions." The city is now gathering additional data for "environmental clearance to make the restrictions permanent if so desired."

From SF's radical history to brand new valet parking at the Ferry Building Farmers Market, there's plenty to check out this week. Here are the highlights:

• Tuesday: SPUR Lunchtime Forum: The politics and policy of AB 32: California's Global Warming Solutions Act. Join SPUR for a discussion of the policy and politics of AB 32, four years after its adoption. With Wade Crowfoot, West Coast Political Director for the Environmental Defense Fund, and Donnie Fowler of the Clean Energy Network. 12:30 p.m.
• Tuesday: SFBC New Member Meet & Greet. Been an SFBC member less than a year? New members are invited to join SFBC to learn about its advocacy, education and community programs. 6:30-7:15 p.m.
• Wednesday: SPUR Lunchtime Forum: Bicycle share systems in European cities. How do bicycle shares work, what makes them successful and what are their challenges? Join Jessica Coleman, landscape designer at MPA Design, former recipient of U.C. Berkeley's Scott Traveling Fellowship, as she shares her research from Paris, Amsterdam and Copenhagen. 12:30 p.m.
  
• Wednesday: AC Transit Board of Directors Meeting. Bus Rapid Transit will be on the agenda. 6 p.m.
  
• Saturday: SFBC Valet Bike Parking at the Ferry Building Saturday Farmers Market. Starting this Saturday, SFBC will be providing complimentary valet bike parking at the Ferry Building Saturday Farmers Market all 52 weeks a year. 8 a.m.-2 p.m.
  
• Sunday: Radical History of San Francisco Ride. Learn about the radical history of San Francisco from the 1800s through the more recent past, visiting sites of protest and dissent. 10:45 a.m.-3 p.m.
  

If Muni operators approve a concessions agreement their union leaders brokered with the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency last week, the agency and the riding public could be faced with an unusual task. Instead of public hearings to determine what Muni service will be cut, the SFMTA could be holding hearings on how to add back capacity.

The plan is to use the $18.7 million in savings from the concessions, if they're approved, combined with anticipated funds from the San Francisco County Transportation Authority, to restore 55 percent of the service cut last month by September 4, building up to a complete restoration of service by July of next year.

The simplest version of that entails restoring service to what it was before the May 8 cuts. But with hoards of data from the Transit Effectiveness Project already informing many of the cuts, the SFMTA is now looking to the TEP to shape service restoration. That's more complicated than simply adding back service as it was, though, since the agency would then need to hold public hearings throughout the summer, while a one-for-one service restoration could be done without extended public discussion.

"It would be simpler to add back service where we cut it, but want to stay within the TEP theme," SFMTA Executive Director Nat Ford told Streetsblog.

Either way, the SFMTA has already crafted an initial outline [PDF] for a large portion of what the September service restoration could look like. Late night "owl" service will be restored to 30-minute frequencies across the board; community routes will go back to their previous end times; and some of the city's most crowded routes will get a capacity boost, including the 1X series, the 8X series, the 24-Divisadero, and the 44 O'Shaughnessy.

That adds up to over half of the 55 percent of service that will be restored initially, but still leaves much of the plan uncertain. Ford said the agency is looking at lines where overcrowding is the worst as it contemplates how to add back the service hours.

In addition to the May 8 service cuts, which Muni enacted to help cover its current and projected budget deficits, the SFMTA made major service changes last December. Those were also heavily informed by the TEP, and -- a surprise to many riders -- actually were virtually neutral in terms of the total number of service hours delivered. The May 8 cuts, which the agency now hopes to reverse, were much deeper, axing 10 percent of Muni's total service hours.

Of course, all of this may be wishful thinking, for now: the Muni operators previously rejected a concessions package, and the SFMTA Board hasn't authorized any other near term major revenue infusions, like a proposed demand-based extension of parking meter enforcement hours across the city.

If Muni is able to restore service, what lines are a priority for you? As always, let us know in the comments section below.

Facing a budget deficit that threatens to end train service altogether, the Caltrain Board of Directors voted today to declare a fiscal emergency and began considering some new options to cover the deficit for the next fiscal year, including raising fares.

Caltrain has whittled together enough money through partially restored state funding and one-time savings that it may get through the next fiscal year, 2011, without gutting the railroad, but with a $12.5 million deficit left to cover, its staff is proposing cutting some service altogether, including the three trains that reach Gilroy daily, and increasing fares by 25 cents.

Working out the numbers in the past month, Caltrain staff has found that cutting service has limited returns, said Caltrain Deputy CEO Chuck Harvey. That's because Caltrain has an especially high fare box recovery ratio. "We're getting over 40 percent [of our revenue] out of the fare box," said Harvey. "So when we start cutting service, we start losing revenue in a big way. You have to cut a lot to get a net savings."

By cutting the three trains to Gilroy, Caltrain expects it would save $770,000 annually, versus just $200,000 from cutting four midday trains altogether, and just $170,000 from cutting four early morning and late evening trains. Harvey said those trains have much higher ridership, so cutting them cuts deeply into fare revenue, offsetting much of the savings on operating costs, compared to the more sparsely patronized Gilroy trips.

Caltrain would get even less out of cutting weekend service: staff projects it would save just $420,000 from cutting weekend service altogether, since weekend riders are generally different than the commuters who ride the train during the week, and most pay per trip instead of using an unlimited monthly pass.

Without taking any votes on the budget today, the board appeared to favor the Gilroy option. As for fare increases, the options include a 25-cent increase in the base fare, netting $2 million annually, an identical increase in the fare for each travel zone, netting $2.8 million, or an increase in the employee-sponsored Go Pass from $140 to $155, bringing in $150,000 annually.

"Fares are a sensitive subject, particularly in this economy," said Harvey. They were last increased in January 2009, and if the board approves it, they could increase again next January. While the path to a balanced budget still isn't certain, he said the combination of fare increases, service cuts, and capital funding swaps should leave the agency in a position to "cobble this together." The service changes could go into effect as soon as October.

The board will take a vote on the FY2011 budget on July 1, with money from the service changes and fare increases assumed. But an actual vote on both of those changes won't happen until later: first, the agency will hold public hearings in July and August on any changes. Oddly enough, that means the public could be commenting on major changes that haven't been approved yet, but are assumed for budgeting purposes.

Things look even worse for fiscal year 2012, however, when the agency faces a projected $35.6 million deficit.

Caltrain CEO Mike Scanlon said he was "cautiously optimistic" about fiscal year 2011, and that the board could approve a budget that would "buy us another 12 months." But there are "dark, dark clouds ahead in the not too distant future," he said.

"The cliff at the end of the next year is an extremely steep cliff and extremely difficult one to fall off and survive," he added.

The fiscal crisis at Caltrain snowballed in April when Scanlon, who also heads SamTrans, announced that agency, hit hard by the poor economy itself, would likely pull 70 percent of their funding contribution to Caltrain. That triggered similar moves from the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency and the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority.

At the time, Scanlon suggested Caltrain might need to cut 50 percent of its service to balance its budget. That's no longer looking likely for fiscal year 2011, but it's still uncertain how Caltrain will make it through FY2012.

"We have not been able to find a service model that will work to keep this railroad open" in FY2012," said Harvey.

With the recent addition of fully separated bright green bike lanes and a set of traffic changes that have improved conditions for Muni and people on bikes, Market's midsection has become a place to watch for innovative transportation trial projects. Seven months after a pilot program launched, local drivers seem to be catching on to the required right turns at 6th and 10th Streets on Market, even without anyone standing around to enforce the rule.

But the city's innovative experiment isn't without some turbulence. Over a 15-minute period on a recent weekday, 24 drivers heading eastbound on Market traveled straight through the intersection of 6th Street. Just seven drivers made the same illegal move at 10th Street during a similar period, suggesting the extra signage and cues are working better at the first required turn. At both locations, a large majority of drivers got the message.

"It's definitely a work in progress," said Great Streets Project director Kit Hodge. "The first turn at 10th street is a lot easier to follow for people no matter what mode they're using. The one at 6th, which doesn't have as much enforcement and clues for people as to what they should do, is definitely more of a challenge."

There's an upside to that: the different configurations are serving as a test of what works and what doesn't. "The goal is clarity for everyone so everyone can have the best possible experiences," said Hodge. The huge LED sign at 10th Street and a number of smaller clues seem to be sending a clearer message than the relatively small sign at 6th Street.

A driver ignores huge signs at Market and 10th Street. Most drivers appear to be getting the message.

Part of the issue, said Hodge, is that Market Street attracts a lot of visitors who aren't familiar with its rules. "Market Street is always a challenge because of the number of tourists who end up on the street," she said.

The San Francisco Police Department doesn't have a special detail assigned to the turns, said officer Boaz Moriles, nor do they have a breakdown of tickets specifically for that area.

A police officer who was issuing tickets on the scene last week said he tends to go easy on out-of-towners, often giving warnings instead. He was stationed there of his own accord, and said adherence was pretty good with enforcement, but seemed to slip when no officers were around.

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency is running the traffic experiment, which is intended to reduce auto congestion on Market to make it more pleasant for people walking, biking, and riding transit on the city's main drag. Early results suggest it's doing just that, speeding up Muni by an average of 50 seconds and making the street safer for those on bikes. None of the vehicles that ignored the require turn rule last week appeared to get in Muni's way, though they did occasionally create dicey situations for people on bikes who didn't expect to be sharing that stretch of street with private automobiles.

The signage at 6th Street is much subtler.

When the trial first launched in September, parking control officers were stationed at the turns regularly, but since then, the SFMTA has called them off, leaving the signage to alert motorists to the changes. It also tweaked the trial in January, moving the western required turn from 8th Street to 10th Street, alleviating a tight squeeze for people on bikes and foot at the former intersection.

Hodge said the SFMTA is collecting data on the trial, and we'll update with that information once we hear back from the agency on it. In the meantime, let us know how the trial is impacting your experience on Market Street, whatever your modes of travel are.

The trial is making it easier for Muni to sail down Market.

For the first time in its 10 year history, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency Board is officially pushing for a ballot measure that could bring a revenue infusion to Muni -- to the tune of over $16 million annually in the form of a 10-percent increase to the commercial off-street parking tax.

By a 4-1 vote, the agency's directors approved a motion today urging the Board of Supervisors to put such a measure on the November ballot, and explore the possibility of an increase in the vehicle license fee, if state law changes to allow such an increase. In going through the supervisors instead of putting the measure on the ballot directly, the SFMTA will reduce its cut of any new revenue, but will also face a much less daunting political scenario, since the measure will require simple majority voter approval instead of the two-thirds supermajority of voters required for SFMTA-dedicated measures.

While a 10-percent increase in the commercial off-street parking tax is projected to bring in a total of $20.4 million annually to the city, the SFMTA currently gets 80 percent of such tax receipts, meaning the increase would net the agency about $16 million of that. That's not a huge sum compared to the agency's $700 million annual budget, but it could, for instance, help the agency avoid future Muni service cuts or even increase Muni service, since each five percent of Muni service costs the agency about $14 to $15 million annually.

"[The SFMTA Citizens' Advisory Council] has wisely suggested there be a nexus between whatever we put on there and transportation," said SFMTA Board Chairman Tom Nolan, who pointed to the commercial off-street parking tax and the vehicle license fee as the two revenue options that best match that description.

The one director who voted against the resolution, Malcolm Heinicke, said he wanted to see more analysis of a commercial off-street parking tax increase's impact on businesses.

Tim Leonoudakis, Chief Executive Officer of City Park, said parking operators would oppose the measure. "It's punitive, it discriminates," he said. Instead, Leonoudakis suggested looking to demand-based on-street parking models for revenue.

Nolan called the SFMTA Board's vote an "advisory" recommendation to the supervisors. "My intent is it would go to Board of Supervisors with a strong recommendation that they support it," he said of the commercial off-street parking tax increase. Nolan called the SFMTA Board's vote on supporting the revenue measures "a historic moment."

"I think we're exercising our responsibility put forward in Prop. A to put a ballot measure in front of people," said Nolan.

If the Board of Supervisors accepts the SFMTA Board's "advisory" resolution on the commercial off-street parking tax increase, it has until June 8 to introduce a motion in support of putting it on the November ballot.

If they don't bite, Nolan said the SFMTA Board isn't likely to try to put the measure on the ballot itself. "I don't think we can get two-thirds" of the vote, he said.

Fell St. Arco Station Treatment Approved

The SFMTA Board also approved a temporary solution for the hazardous situation at the Arco Station at Fell and Divisadero Streets, where long queues of drivers waiting to get cheap gas often obstructs the bike lane on Fell.

As we reported in April, SFMTA traffic engineers decided to convert the two parking spaces closest to the station from residential parking to a 24-hour tow-away zone. The next four spaces to the east will be a 7 a.m.-7 p.m. tow away zone, reverting to residential parking at overnight. A green bike lane may go in eventually once the city finishes collecting data and testing different options to improve the queuing situation.

"We're excited to see the city moving forward with these changes, which are important first steps to fixing this dangerous situation on busy Fell Street," said SFBC's Marc Caswell. "The green pavement is a bold treatment that could help ensure that people walking and biking have a safe path of travel."

Muni unveiled the first pair of its refurbished buses today, thanks to federal stimulus funds, marking the start of a 66-week, 62-vehicle program the agency hopes will help turn around a trend towards increased breakdowns and reduce de facto cuts to service.

On top of the up-front service cuts that Muni enacted earlier this month, one of the worst consequences of the economic downturn for Muni riders is the de facto service cut that occurs when maintenance gets deferred and vehicles start breaking down more often. That caught up with the agency at the end of last year, when the mean distance between vehicle breakdowns increased and more scheduled runs were missed altogether because no working vehicle was available.

But with 62 biodiesel Neoplan coach buses -- 40-and-60-foot vehicles that are workhorses on some of Muni's most heavily-traveled lines -- set to get a full overhaul thanks to the federal government, Muni should see a bump in overall vehicle reliability.

The buses were originally purchased in 2000-2002, and are old enough to need the work, but not so old that they're not worth the trouble, SFMTA Executive Director Nat Ford told Streetsblog during a tour of the first two vehicles to complete their rehab process.

SFMTA Executive Director Nat Ford shows off what's new under the hood of a rehabbed 60-foot bus.

Between now and fall of next year, the buses will be sent down to Complete Coach Works in Riverside, California, seven vehicles at a time, where they'll each get new propulsion packages, rebuilt wheelchair lifts, new brake valves, rebuilt steering gear boxes, new suspensions, new all-LED signs and lights, graffiti-resistant light lenses, new rubber flooring, and other mechanical parts.

Bus drivers will get new seats, and all of the buses will get new paint jobs. The buses will all get cosmetic touch-ups, too. Years of graffiti had been scraped off and painted over in the two refurbished buses that SFMTA showed off today, leaving them looking almost like new.

Those two buses are actually being reviewed by the SFMTA before the rest are sent down to make sure the rehabilitation is being done correctly. All told, 35 standard 40-foot buses will be fixed up, as well as 27 articulated 60-foot buses, for a total of $16 million.

That's still a relatively small portion of Muni's 495 diesel buses and roughly 1,000 total buses, but at one-third the price of a new 40-foot bus, and one-fifth the price of a new 60-foot bus, at least the newly-refurbished buses are a good deal.

Before and after. Image: SFMTA

Inside a refurbished bus.

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency has reached a tentative agreement with six of its employee unions, including the Muni operators union, that would save the agency $18.7 million over two years and allow it, by September 4, to restore over half the service it cut earlier this month.

The agreement, which still needs to be ratified by the members of six separate unions, would likely mean a full service restoration on Muni by July of next year.

Mayor Gavin Newsom and SFMTA Executive Director Nat Ford announced the deal this afternoon, just a day after San Francisco police and firefighter union officials agreed to bring concession deals before their members for approval. Muni operators had rejected a concession deal in February by a 857-575 vote, but concession agreements from other unions will put extra pressure on the Muni operators to approve the deal, Newsom said, as will the recent service cuts.

"They know they'll be recognized and rewarded" if they approve the package, he said.

Ford said that with the $7 million the Board of Supervisors--which acts as the board of the San Francisco County Transportation Authority (TA)--has agreed to send to the SFMTA with conditions, the concessions deal could allow the agency to undo 55 percent of the service it cut on May 8, with a gradual ramping-up of service until it's back to pre-cut levels by July 2011.

Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, who chairs the TA, welcomed news of the agreement. "I think that was exactly the direction we hoped they would go," he said. As for whether the TA will now send the SFMTA $7 million for next year, Mirkarimi said, "it's not automatic, but it certainly helps advance the cause. We'll have to process this but my forecast is that it will likely prevail."

As for the Board of Supervisors' vote on the SFMTA's two-year budget, Mirkarimi added, "we must keep in mind that this is a one-time fix and it doesn't remedy the chronic problems that are still very much on our minds."

Ford credited union officials for their commitment to working on the deal, and said it could mean ultimately increasing service above pre-cut levels, guided by Transit Effectiveness Project data.

Neither Ford nor the Mayor would discuss details of the plan, which involves all of the SFMTA's public employee unions. But Bob Muscat, director of Professional & Technical Engineers, Local 21, and a key negotiator on the agreement, said all of the unions would hold votes on it within the next 10 days, including Transport Workers Union Local 250-A, which represents Muni operators, SEIU "service critical" employees, which include PCOs and station agents, and TWU Local 200.

Muni operator wage rates are guaranteed in the city charter, and were set to increase by almost $9 million on July 1, the beginning of the next fiscal year.

Through concessions from all six unions involved, the new deal would save the SFMTA $9 million in the first year and $9.7 million in the second year, and would all but assure that no Muni operators will be laid off.

Last February, the SFMTA Board voted to cut overall service frequencies by 10 percent to cover a mid-year budget deficit, and subsequently voted to extend the cuts into the next fiscal year, and restore half that service in the fiscal year following that, since it's anticipating an uptick in revenue if the economy continues to improve. It will cost the agency about $15 million to fully restore service in fiscal year 2012, which starts on July 1, 2011, and somewhat less to partially roll back the cuts in fiscal year 2011.

"Riders should recognize" the sacrifice from drivers "and thank them" if they approve it, the Mayor said.

Brand new green bike lanes on Market Street, one of the "innovative treatments" Judge Busch allowed under the partial lifting of the bike Injunction. The city hopes to get the green light on its full Bike Plan next month. Photo: Bryan Goebel

On June 22, Superior Court Judge Peter J. Busch will consider the arguments of the City Attorney's office in support of lifting the injunction, as well as opposition from Mary Miles, the attorney for Bike Plan opponent Rob Anderson. While the city got partial relief from the injunction last November, setting off a flurry of bike upgrades including new on-street bike corrals, sharrows, some new bike lanes, and fully-separated green bike lanes on a stretch of Market Street, the majority of the city's 45-plus planned bike lane projects are still blocked.

The lack of an environmental review document for the Bike Plan led the court to order the injunction in the first place in 2006, after Anderson sued the city, arguing that additional bike lanes would slow traffic and increase pollution from idling vehicles.

The City Attorney's office and bicycle advocates had hoped to see the injunction lifted at a November hearing, since the city had finally completed an exhaustive and expensive FEIR, which was certified by the Board of Supervisors last summer.

But Miles persuaded the judge that the injunction shouldn't be fully lifted until her challenge to the adequacy of the FEIR is heard, so the city's bicycle riders will have to wait until next month for another shot at lifting the ban.

The City Attorney's office is evidently ready for the hearing: Yesterday, it sent over to Judge Busch a point-by-point response [PDF] to Miles' objections to the FEIR.

"Petitioners take issue with virtually every aspect of the Bicycle Plan EIR and the City process for approving it," the response's argument begins. "But … substantial evidence supports the City's decision to certify the EIR as adequate, accurate and in compliance with [the California Environmental Quality Act.]"

It goes on to address Miles' arguments, including her contentions that the FEIR is "not accurate, stable, finite, or legally sufficient," that it doesn't accurately describe baseline conditions, that it doesn't adequately analyze impacts to the city, that it didn't consider a reasonable range of alternatives to bike upgrades, and the that public wasn't sufficiently involved in the review process.

The hearing is set for June 22 at 9:30 a.m. in Dept. 301 at the San Francisco Superior Court Building, 400 McAllister Street.

Mayor Newsom speaks at a press conference near One Rincon Hill today. Photo: Michael Rhodes

One of the two spots has already been filled, the Mayor said today, but he's still working on convincing a second candidate to accept the position.

"We have someone I'm trying to convince," he said. "That's my challenge. I have clarity. They're just not convinced." The first appointment is "100 percent" on board, the Mayor said, but he wouldn't reveal any names.

The Mayor acknowledged that there's a hurry to appoint two new directors. In fact, last week, the SFMTA Board didn't have enough members to convene a meeting, since two of its five remaining directors couldn't make it. The board was supposed to discuss recent audits of the agency's work orders, financial statements, and performance, and possible revenue-generating ballot measures.

Newsom didn't exactly oversell his choices, saying instead that Muni's current financial problems will overshadow any board selections in the near term.

"I don't think in this town anyone's excited about anything associated with the MTA," he said. "I don't know that they'll ever be excited until the system's operating at [voter-mandated] 85 percent on-time performance, and we work through the macroeconomic crunch that has been the burden to the system, to the tune of $220 million of state cuts."

Once Newsom makes his appointments, they'll go before the Board of Supervisors for confirmation.