Streetsblog San Francisco

We are often attracted to city life for the energy, the boisterousness, the noise. I am a city guy having lived all my life in cities (born in Brooklyn, Chicago until age 10, Oakland until 17, and San Francisco since I was 20). I often make the joke that "nature is trying to kill me," when one of my friends suggests we go camping. Back in the late 1970s and early 1980s I was a punk rock fan, and went to dozens of shows with ear-splitting volumes. I've been to plenty of other events through the years with overwhelming noise, from other concerts to major sports events, etc. Maybe that's why I have had a ringing in my ears for the last two years (tinnitus). And perhaps not surprisingly, I've become increasingly frustrated at the oft-overlooked urban problem of noise pollution.

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You'd hardly know that it's illegal to charge discounted daily and monthly parking rates at numerous downtown San Francisco garages because enforcement of the law is almost non-existent.

Planning Code Section 155(g) prohibits discount rates for all-day or monthly parking in off-street parking spaces downtown (the C-3 District in planning code parlance). It’s intended to discourage commuting by car to San Francisco's crowded downtown, while encouraging transit and leaving spots open for shorter car trips, like shopping and appointments.

Because the Planning Department doesn't have an effective enforcement wing, nor a financial incentive to enforce parking rules, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (MTA) is considering how it could take over enforcement of the commuter parking law, a move the MTA believes could net an additional $6 million annually.

"Enforcement has not been done in any systematic way that I’m aware of," said the Planning Department's Josh Switzky. "It's normally done on a complaint basis. It's a matter of practicality and workload."

Switzky said the Planning Department is enthusiastic about the idea of handing the responsibility over to the MTA, which already enforces many other parking rules in the city and has a major financial incentive to enforce the code aggressively.

At present, the average monthly fee for parking downtown is $285, according to a recently completed parking census. That’s an average hourly rate of $1.78 based on a 40-hour workweek. If the ordinance were strictly enforced, based on current market rates all parkers would pay an hourly rate of around $2.30, regardless of their length of stay.

By enforcing existing law the MTA would gain additional revenue to help close budget gaps of $45 million and $55 million in the next two fiscal years, without resorting to cutting even more Muni service. By discouraging discount rates, garage operators would charge more for long-term parking and the MTA will get more in parking tax revenue and income from its own garages.

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In a move to gain the support of Supervisor Bevan Dufty, Board of Supervisors President David Chiu has stripped language from his proposed garage legislation that would have ensured all new garage additions to existing buildings in Chinatown, North Beach and Telegraph Hill conform with Better Streets Plan (BSP) guidelines.

The original legislation, which Chiu sponsored, would have required garage additions in sections of those neighborhoods to receive a conditional use authorization from the Planning Commission. Garages would be blocked if they had been built following no-fault evictions or didn't meet the design guidelines in the BSP.

At Tuesday's Board of Supervisors meeting, Chiu announced that the BSP provision would be removed, and only buildings with four units or more would need to go through a full discretionary review process at Planning -- significantly lowering the bar for adding new garages compared to the original proposal.

Chiu said the revised legislation would return to the Board of Supervisors Land Use Committee for a public hearing on Monday. The revised legislation, he said, "would really help to protect the core purpose of why we're moving this legislation," while dealing with the concerns raised by Dufty and others.

That's still an important victory for protecting housing, said Livable City's Tom Radulovich, but a setback in terms of ensuring better conditions for pedestrians, bicyclists and transit riders.

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On an incredible spring day with temperatures in the 60s, thousands of people descended on the Embarcadero in San Francisco for the first Sunday Streets of 2010, riding, skating, dancing, hula hooping, and swinging in the coolest bicycle-powered amusement park ride I've ever seen.

With over three miles of the northbound lanes of the Embarcadero closed to cars, San Franciscans of all stripes flocked to the typically touristic confines of Fisherman's Wharf for a Family Fun Fair hosted by the merchants, including the bicycle powered Cyclecide carnival, a rock climbing wall, and a number of other free events.

Fisherman's Wharf Community Benefit District (FWCBD) Executive Director Kevin Carroll marveled at the nice day and said that events like Sunday Streets are important to show locals that "there are things you can come down and enjoy the rest of the year" at California's second largest tourist attraction (behind Disneyland).

Carroll said his merchants had assembled gift bags with promotional materials meant to draw locals back to the district after the events and said they were monitoring who attended by getting feedback. At last year's Sunday Streets event at Fisherman's Wharf, Carroll told Streetsblog, more than two-thirds of visitors were local San Franciscans.

This year's series of Sunday Streets events has been spearheaded by the MTA, which co-organizers like Livable City said makes the events run much more smoothly. MTA Spokesperson Judson True, who told me that he made the Embarcadero route a piece of a three-hour bike ride throughout the city yesterday, was very encouraged by the street "closure."

"This was a terrific start to the Sunday Streets season," said True. "The credit goes to the tremendous team of volunteers, all the city staff and personnel and to everyone who came out on a gorgeous day to enjoy the best of what San Francisco has to offer."

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As if the lure of playing in the street wasn't enough, city leaders and organizers gathered at City Hall yesterday afternoon to promote the first of nine Sunday Streets events this year, which will run along the Embarcadero up to Fisherman's Wharf [route map PDF] this Sunday.

The six Sunday Streets events last year managed to attract between 16,000 and 20,000 people each, and the biggest complaint was that there weren't enough of them, said MTA Executive Director Nat Ford.

"Last year, we checked with all the participants and they said they wanted more Sunday Streets. We're delivering that," said Ford. "They said that they wanted to have more activities. We've provided that. And they wanted it to be diverse around the city, so I think we've answered all of the requests by our citizens."

On top of that, they'll be longer: each event will run from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. this year.

Sunday Streets is a chance to walk, bicycle, and generally play in the streets, all for free - but merchants have embraced the events as a welcome economic boost as well. "We're really excited this year because we're going to be able to welcome everyone into the heart of Fisherman's Wharf for a Family Fitness Fair," said Kevin Caroll, Executive Director of the Fisherman's Wharf Community Benefit District.

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Could the bleakest budget in the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency's history force its directors to finally get creative in funding Muni?

The answer, judging from Tuesday's MTA Board meeting, is yes. Fresh off approving a 10 percent cut to Muni service to balance this year's budget, MTA directors appeared eager to close the agency's massive budget gap in the upcoming two years without cutting more service or raising fares.

MTA staff presented $75 million in solutions that the agency could enact without going to the ballot box, but more than a third of that would come from charging for transfers and cutting even more service -- ideas quickly shot down by the board.

The remaining solutions, including a plan to extend parking meter enforcement hours, add up to about $40 million annually. That's far less than the $56.4 million shortfall the agency is projected to face next year, or the $45 million shortfall projected for the year after that.

But for the first time in the MTA's ten-year history, the board seems serious about going to the ballot box to stave off further service cuts. Transit supporters say it's a noteworthy shift.

"It is a really good sign to see the MTA trying to get ahead of things now and come up with a long-term revenue strategy so they're not facing a crisis every single year," said Gabriel Metcalf, Executive Director of the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR), an urban planning think tank.

Tom Radulovich, Executive Director of Livable City and a member of the BART Board, also called it a welcome development. "This would be the MTA Board for the first time not being totally passive about creating new revenue and actually being proactive," he said. "It's late, but it's progress."

The directors will have to maintain their resolve during what is certain to be an uphill battle. MTA staff presented five potential ballot measures to the board on Tuesday, and the directors themselves suggested two more. Each of the seven faces formidable hurdles.

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Supervisor Bevan Dufty says he is still considering how he will vote tomorrow on legislation that would limit new garages in existing buildings in Chinatown, North Beach, and Telegraph Hill and eliminate minimum parking requirements in those neighborhoods. Advocates are urging him to support the measure, but Dufty said he's still deliberating as he continues to receive waves of feedback from supporters and opponents of the plan.

The Board of Supervisors will take a second and final vote tomorrow on the legislation, which passed in a first reading by a 7-2 vote, including an aye from Dufty. Since the Mayor hasn't come out with a position on the legislation yet, proponents hope Dufty will vote in favor of the legislation again, giving it an eight-vote supermajority in case the Mayor vetoes it. (Supervisor John Avalos was absent from the first vote, but the measure's supporters are hopeful he will lend his support tomorrow.)

While he voted for the measure on February 9, Dufty said he did so at the time to give it further study before a final vote. He is reportedly being heavily lobbied by garage addition companies and other groups that oppose restrictions on condo-conversions (including the group Plan C, the Examiner reported.)

"I have not decided what I'm going to do, but I definitely plan to talk to David Chiu before mid-morning tomorrow and let him know what my thoughts are," Dufty told Streetsblog today. "I suspected that I was going to have some concerns, and I definitely have concerns."

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Among several initiatives San Francisco has developed to put an aesthetically pleasing face on the economic downturn, such as Art in Storefronts, which brightens shuttered retail spaces with murals, a new effort to utilize empty lots for green space, called Green Development Agreements (Green DAs), would transform the way the city's development approval process works, a move some open-space advocates question.

As John King has reported in the Chronicle, the idea for Green DAs was developed by Mayor Gavin Newsom's Office Economic and Workforce Development (MOEWD) in coordination with various developers, landscape architects and community groups and would open vacant lots where the credit crunch has stalled construction to the public for interim uses such as community gardens and tree nurseries. 

In exchange for interim green space and community use on the lots, a developer will enter into a development agreement with the city that makes it much easier for the project to retain existing financial backing and secure future money when the lending market improves. Development agreements are binding commitments that allow a project to move forward as approved by the Planning Commission no matter what new legislation might be passed between granting of development entitlements and the time needed to complete the project.

According to MOEWD's Michael Yarne, development agreements are a common tool outside of San Francisco and their value to a developer becomes particularly evident when proposals arise like Board of Supervisors President David Chiu's shadow legislation.

If Chiu had proceeded with his ballot initiative to limit shadows on public parks, said Yarne, much of the Transbay Transit Center site would have been impossible to build as approved because the towers are so tall. The Trinity Plaza Apartments project in the mid-Market Street area, on the other hand, would have been just fine because its developer worked with housing advocates and the city to craft a development agreement in exchange for increased affordable housing units.

"The development agreement as a legal tool is the equivalent to a binding contract," said Yarne. "If attitudes change or boards change, that project is guaranteed to go forward."

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StreetUtopia is a new community organizing effort centered in North Beach. Launched by Hank Hyena and Phil Millenbah at an inaugural event in early January, they drew upwards of 150 people to an empty historic storefront at 1 Columbus Avenue, where they showed Streetfilms, had a small art exhibit, and conducted a survey of the folks who turned out. Hank Hyena explained his motivation in terms of European cities which are often greener, more bike-friendly, and with more pedestrian-centers than US cities. Along with several other parents of children at Yick Wo Public School, including co-instigator Phil Millenbah, a San Leandro city planner, they staged an inspiring evening of art, film, and conversation.

The questionnaire they handed out at the event started with a brief paragraph, assuming that we are on the cusp of a carbon-constrained transition to a future with far less cars:

The “modern” era brought television, automobiles and other technological changes. As part of this cultural transformation to the modern era and to support automobile use, society built millions of miles of paved roadway as both streets in urban areas and as highways connecting urban areas. The “postmodern” world is carbon constrained and the focus of transport is bus or rail and the old the roadway infrastructure is not needed in the same capacity. What should be done with the old infrastructure?

Then it asked a series of questions about whether or not Columbus Avenue should be closed to cars, if there should be “flex-streets,” if Washington Square should have a fountain, and what kinds of mixed-uses North Beach streets should have if cars weren’t the only priority?

Subsequently, I interviewed both Phil and Hank about StreetUtopia and their organizing, which you can read after the jump:

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When San Francisco Board of Supervisors President David Chiu introduced legislation last October to limit new garages in existing buildings in District 3, which includes North Beach, Telegraph Hill, and Chinatown, his action catalyzed several advocacy groups that don't always see eye to eye. The bill is aimed at stopping no-fault evictions where building owners turn rental units into more valuable for-sale units and has united the community group Telegraph Hill Dwellers with transportation advocates Livable City and the Chinatown Community Development Center (CCDC), who are concerned about tenant rights and affordable housing, particularly in Chinatown.

Chiu described his bill as an effort to curb the "recent trend in my district and in other parts of the city where tenants have been evicted from buildings where owners have chosen to build garages."

"What this means is literally we’ve seen a tradeoff of people being forced to move out of San Francisco because someone wanted to put a car in the place of their bedroom or where they used to live," he added.

The legislation would create the Telegraph Hill‐North Beach Residential Special Use District,  eliminate minimum off‐street parking requirements for residential uses, and institute a maximum parking cap in the Broadway Neighborhood Commercial District, North Beach Neighborhood Commercial District, and the Chinatown Mixed Use and Community Business Districts. In addition, the bill would require a Conditional Use Authorization from the Planning Commission every time an owner wanted to install a garage in an existing residential structure. Finally, the bill would prohibit new garage entries and driveways on a stretch of Columbus Avenue and would stop the issuance of minor sidewalk encroachment permits for installing driveways in residential structures that narrow the sidewalk unacceptably [details of bill, PDF].

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