Buffered bike lanes now run on fresh pavement on Sloat Boulevard. Photo: Mark Dreger, San Franciscoize

The six-lane speedway known as Sloat Boulevard has been somewhat tamed after Caltrans implemented a road diet last week, reclaiming two vehicle lanes for bicycles.

Long known as a virtual no-man’s-land for biking and walking, Sloat is technically a state highway that runs through the Parkside District. The stretch between 21st Avenue and Everglade Drive should be safer now, with new buffered (though unprotected) bike lanes running along the left side of parked cars and other pedestrian safety improvements.

“For too long, Sloat’s freeway-like design has been a danger to people who walk in the Sunset,” said Walk SF Executive Director Elizabeth Stampe. “This is a great step toward helping people feel safer and more comfortable walking around the Zoo, Lake Merced, and of course San Francisco State University.”

Mark Dreger first reported the installation on his new blog San Franciscoize (a spin-off of the famed beacon of bicycle culture, Copenhagenize):

This development is especially exciting because this portion of Sloat Blvd is a state highway (CA-35) under the jurisdiction of Caltrans. While California’s Department of Transportation does have a Complete Streets Program, they have a longstanding reputation of prioritizing movement of automobile traffic over other modes of transport. Nevertheless, the agency has gone ahead with enhancements to the safety and comfort of walking and bicycling on this important street and deserve some sincere credit.

With the roadway for cars now reduced by roughly 22 feet, drivers should feel less invited to speed. Caltrans also plans to reduce the speed limit in the near future from of 40 mph to 35 mph. Even by Caltrans’ automobile-centric standards, Dreger noted, ”there is not nearly enough volume to justify three lanes in each direction.”

Photo: Mark Dreger

The bike lanes are seven feet wide with four-foot buffers (seemingly plenty of room for protected bike lanes if such designs had the Caltrans stamp of approval). The improvements on Sloat also come with visible ladder-style crosswalks, painted “yield” arrows (often called “shark’s teeth”), and signage instructing drivers to yield.

“These changes are a good start,” said Stampe. “To reduce speeds further, it would help to see pedestrian islands, wider sidewalks, and some vertical additions like trees or soft-hit posts to visually narrow the street and signal to drivers that they are not, in fact, on a freeway.”

Historically, Caltrans has acted slowly to improve Sloat, particularly at the intersection of 19th Avenue – another Caltrans highway — which is commonly ranked among the most dangerous in the city. Last year, the intersection saw three vehicle crashes in which four people were injured, according to police data. Along Sloat, two pedestrians were hit by drivers last year, and in January of 2010, 54-year-old Feng Lian Zhu was killed by a driver near Forest View Drive.

The project was initiated by Caltrans after District 4 Supervisor Carmen Chu requested safety improvements on Sloat, which divides the Parkside neighborhood from Stern Grove and the Sunset District to the north.

“Congratulations to both Supervisor Chu and Caltrans for proactively reimagining a dangerous street in to one that makes walking and biking much safer and attractive, helping many more families from the neighborhood and far beyond enjoy the many wonderful destinations in this part of town,” said Kit Hodge, deputy director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition (SFBC).

While bike lanes were also striped recently on nearby Portola Drive by the SFMTA as part of the SF Bike Plan, the newest ones on Sloat fall just short of connecting with those and others planned between the Great Highway and Skyline Boulevard [PDF].

No plans to connect the gaps are known as of yet, but the SFBC is encouraging supporters to let Caltrans staff and city leaders know they appreciate complete streets improvements and that more are needed.

Photo: Mark Dreger

New "continental", ladder-style crosswalks were installed along with yield signs and arrows (out of shot). Photo: Mark Dreger

At Walk San Francisco’s big member bash last month, Mayor Ed Lee celebrated San Francisco becoming the first big city in the state to take swift action to make neighborhoods safer for kids to walk to school by implementing 15 mile per hour zones at 60 schools out of 180 to come.

Mayor Lee speaks at a Walk to School Day press conference in October. Photo: Marianne Szeto

“We will, in our lifetimes, get to zero” pedestrian deaths, declared the Mayor, calling for “experimenting out of the box with every possible idea to make streets safer.”

The mayor set a bold vision for San Francisco, and an “out of the box” approach may be just what we need to reach it. But to stand by his commitment, Mayor Lee must provide the leadership our city needs to make smart, immediate investments to improve pedestrian safety in 2012.

Over half of the city’s serious and fatal pedestrian crashes occur on just 7 percent of the city’s streets, according to the Mayor’s Pedestrian Safety Task Force, which started work last year on former Mayor Gavin Newsom’s December 2010 Executive Directive on Pedestrian Safety [PDF].

That finding can provide critical guidance for the city to effectively direct its resources — from traffic enforcement to street redesigns — to save the most lives. Streets that are safer and more pleasant to walk on, research has shown, also tend to increase home values and benefit the bottom line for local businesses and city coffers.

We have the funds available to invest in safer streets. San Francisco voters in 2010 approved Prop AA, a vehicle license fee that helps fund pedestrian safety improvements, as well as last fall’s Prop B, which provides $50 million in bonds for both walking and biking.

As Mayor Lee begins his first full term in 2012, here are a few key initiatives he can take to save lives and help boost the economy:

Half of the city's serious and fatal pedestrian crashes occur on 7 percent of its streets. Image: SFDPH

• Create a Pedestrian Action Plan to fix 10 miles of streets per year. New York City has committed to improving pedestrian safety on 60 miles of streets per year, and San Francisco can set similar goals. The Better Streets Plan was a good start, but it lacked any commitment by the city to implement it. How much will the city do, and how soon? What can city agencies do to reduce the costs and time it takes to calm motor traffic and widen sidewalks?If Mayor Lee is serious about pedestrian safety, he will set clear goals for delivering the better streets our city has been promised for so long.

• Pilot low-cost projects to fix the worst streets. It’s time for a new approach to fixing our most dangerous streets with the haste we need. Mayor Lee can support low-cost pilot projects to make quick and visible changes by scaling up the parklet-and-plaza approach — let’s see what happens if we paint SoMa’s high-speed arterials to look less like freeways, install a parklet along an entire block, and put planters on street corners to make crossings safer. This week’s pilot project to reappropriate car parking lanes for pedestrian space on Stockton Street in Chinatown during the Chinese New Year is an excellent example of a way to support the local economy and improve the pedestrian experience.
• Enforce the laws that keep people safe. San Francisco police are now systematically enforcing the new 15 mph speed limits around schools, but we need to expand this strategy citywide to target the most dangerous behaviors like speeding and red-light running. Mayor Lee must work with the Police Chief Suhr and District Attorney Gascón to make it clear to the public that endangering others will not be tolerated.
• Make Sunday Streets a part of the city landscape. Sunday Streets is a proven success, and it shouldn’t just be a pilot anymore. It’s more than a street fair, more than an event — it transforms car-dominated streets into public space and provides health benefits that outweigh the costs of running the program. Mayor Lee can show his pride in Sunday Streets by making it a permanent and regular part of the city landscape that residents can rely on. San Franciscans should be able to know that on Sundays throughout spring, summer, and fall, they won’t have to worry about cars on streets like 24th in the Mission, Grant in Chinatown and North Beach, or the Great Highway along Ocean Beach.
• Use the America’s Cup “People’s Plan” to make the streets work better for people. This is the year to show the world that San Francisco has smart alternatives to snarled traffic. Let’s put up wayfinding signs showing how long it will take to walk to the water. Let’s finally really get rid of the Embarcadero Freeway by providing more room for people to enjoy the waterfront on foot or by bike. Let’s expedite transformative projects like the Fisherman’s Wharf Public Realm Plan and reserve some streets exclusively for walking — who knows, we might like it so much, we’ll never go back.

Mayor Lee knows that improving streets can make the city thrive. Getting Prop B passed was a great start; now it’s time to walk the walk and use it wisely.

Haight Street looking eastbound from Octavia to Gough. Image Courtesy of the SFMTA and the SF Planning Department

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) Board of Directors yesterday unanimously gave the green light to a project that will convert the easternmost block of Haight Street to two-way bus operation.

When constructed in 2014, the project is expected to improve transit reliability for the roughly 20,000 daily riders on the 6 and 71 Muni lines by eliminating unnecessary detours that delay buses behind congested car traffic.

The current experience on the 71, said SFMTA Director Joél Ramos, is a ”long and painful ride.”

“I take offense at people who have guffawed at the 3-minute savings,” he said. “When you’ve got a bus load of people, that’s 60 people times 3 minutes each. That turns into hours which quickly turns into days of time for people that are late to work, away from their families, and these are people that are doing the right thing by not driving and getting out of our cars in this transit-first city.”

Britt Tanner, the head of the project for the SFMTA, addressed fears voiced at the hearing by several committed detractors of the project who live on the affected blocks. They contended that the change will add danger to the intersection of Market, Haight, and Gough Streets, which buses will cross in the opposite direction under the redesign.

“This project actually has many safety improvements included in it,” said Tanner, citing sidewalk bulbs, pedestrian signals, pedestrian refuge islands, and crosswalk realignments. She also noted that vehicle crashes at the intersection have dropped 75 percent in recent years after traffic signal improvements were made.

The redesign will convert a car parking lane on the south side of the easternmost block of Haight to an eastbound bus-only lane. That arrangement was based on community concerns raised at workshops over inviting unwanted vehicle traffic to use the new cut-through to Market Street.

But removing one of the westbound traffic lanes instead would further improve safety, said Livable City Director Tom Radulovich and Walk SF Executive Director Elizabeth Stampe, who otherwise voiced their support for the project.

“The street actually has effectively been widened,” said Stampe. “It’s an interesting idea that that could be changed back – having parking along the south side can provide a buffer for pedestrians from moving traffic.”

The intersection of Market, Gough, and Haight Streets. Image Courtesy of the SFMTA and the SF Planning Department via Haighteration

Mayor Ed Lee walks to school with students from Marshall Elementary in the Inner Mission. Photo: Marianne Szeto

Yesterday marked the first Walk to School Day since San Francisco began installing 15 mph speed limit signs near dozens of schools, and thousands of students were a little safer from speeding cars as they made their way to class.

“The new safer speed zones will calm traffic in neighborhoods throughout the city and help more people enjoy walking,” said Walk SF director Elizabeth Stampe, who joined students from Marshall Elementary in the Inner Mission on a “walking bus” along with Mayor Ed Lee, D6 Supervisor Jane Kim, Recreation and Parks General Manager Phil Ginsburg, and SFMTA Director Ed Reiskin.

Fourty-four schools around the city yesterday held Walk to School Day events involving over 7,000 students. According to the SF Department of Public Health, 56 percent of students at Marshall walk to school, and 70 percent live within one mile. School re-assignments this year allowed more students to attend schools in their neighborhood, close enough to walk or bike.

“Providing safer streets throughout San Francisco is a top priority for the SFMTA,” said Reiskin. “As we continue our work to install new speed-limit signs around schools like Marshall, we are collaborating with the Police Department to educate surrounding communities of the significant, but necessary change that will help keep our students safe.”

The SFMTA plans to install 15 mph signs at 213 K-12 schools by December 2013.

A Marshall Elementary parent speaks with Mayor Lee, Supervisor Kim, SFMTA Director Reiskin, and Rec and Parks' Ginsburg behind. Photo: Marianne Szeto

Photo: kowitz

Walk San Francisco’s seventh annual Peak2Peak Walk this Sunday promises to be an exciting adventure through the spine of the city.  The walk starts at West Portal, where participants will embark on a 12-mile, 15-peak journey from Mount Davidson to Coit Tower:

You’ll cross the city over wide sidewalks, dirt trails, hidden stairways, and take in glorious views from 15 different peaks! From climbing the slopes of Mount Olympus in the morning to enjoying the view from Coit Tower in the afternoon, this full-day walk will offer you a whole new way to see San Francisco.

The walk is fully guided, and you’ll get directions at the event when you sign in. You’ll also be treated to a delicious picnic lunch midway through.

Explore the city, and support pedestrian advocacy by taking part in Walk SF’s annual fundraising walk. The cost is $75 (well worth it) and the registration deadline is this Thursday, so click here and sign up now!

Photo: Bryan Goebel

Two important projects will get a hearing before an SFMTA engineering panel tomorrow, and advocates say a show of support is crucial.

First up is a hearing for the third set of 15mph school zones, championed by Walk San Francisco. More than 70 streets are on the latest list. As we’ve written, the 15mph school zone campaign is part of a groundbreaking citywide initiative pushed by Walk SF to implement safe speed zones around 200 schools, and comes just a few weeks before Walk to School Day on October 5.

The second item to convert Haight Street between Octavia and Market into a two-way street is a project that could face some opposition, but is being pushed by pedestrian, biking and transit advocates as a much-needed measure to calm traffic, improve walking conditions and speed up Muni service on the 6 and 71 lines. The plan would also give us San Francisco’s first red bus lane.

You can read the Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association’s letter of support here [pdf].

Tomorrow’s hearing starts at 10 a.m. in Room 416 at San Francisco City Hall.

Photo: Aaron Bialick

Eight mayoral candidates turned out for last night’s forum on streets and parks sponsored by Walk San Francisco, the Neighborhood Parks Council and Friends of the Urban Forest. The Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club’s endorsement meeting was also going on, and some of the candidates, who were juggling schedules, either showed up early and had to leave (Dennis Herrera), late (John Avalos, David Chiu) or not at all (Ed Lee, Bevan Dufty).

The candidates fielded a number of questions on pedestrian safety, walkability issues, parks, open space and urban forestry. It was moderated by San Francisco Chronicle urban design reporter John King.

You can listen to the audio below, or download the MP3 here. Special thanks to Aaron Bialick for the photo and audio. Did you attend? Who stood out the most to you?

(Note, there’s a slight technical glitch at 1:15, but it picks up about 30 seconds later).

Download audio file (Mayoral-Forum-1.mp3)

Sponsored by Walk SF, the Neighborhood Parks Council and the Friends of the Urban Forest, the forum will tackle a variety of important questions on pedestrian safety, sustainable transportation, parks and the state of our streets. It will be moderated by San Francisco Chronicle urban design writer John King.

What would you ask the mayoral candidates? You can submit your questions when you RSVP here.

The forum, which starts at 6 p.m., will be held in the State of California building at 455 Golden Gate Avenue in the Milton Marks auditorium.

We’ll have full coverage on Tuesday.

William Cox was walking in this crosswalk Tuesday morning, just like this man, when he was run over and killed by an SUV driver. Residents say the intersection of 14th Street and Noe has long been a trouble spot. Photo: Bryan Goebel

On most recent mornings, 59-year-old William Cox walked several blocks from his Mission District apartment to the bustling Peet’s store on Market Street in the Castro for his daily dose of coffee, crossword puzzles and conversation. He had given up his Jeep Cherokee shortly after moving to San Francisco from San Rafael two-and-half years ago and got around mostly on foot and transit. On Tuesday morning, he paid a visit to his best friend, David Douma, who lives across the street from Peet’s.

“Around 9 a.m. he would usually ring my phone to announce he was at my front door, and then he would hang out in my apartment for awhile, every day,” said Douma.

On this day, Cox — known to his friends as Bill — arrived early, around 8:24 a.m., because he was scheduled to help a friend who lives near Ocean Beach move some large musical equipment. It was in his nature, said Douma, to always offer help when a friend needed it. He didn’t stay as long as he usually did, and left a half-cup of coffee behind. Cox then stopped at nearby Rosenberg Deli, Douma later confirmed, before embarking on the four-block walk up Noe Street to catch the N-Judah train.

Sadly, he never made it.

According to San Francisco police, Cox was in the crosswalk on 14th Street at Noe around 10:39 a.m. when he was run over by an unidentified driver behind the wheel of a Ford SUV who had been southbound on Noe, and was making a left turn onto 14th. Cox underwent two operations and despite the best efforts of trauma surgeons at San Francisco General Hospital was pronounced dead at 5:36 p.m., becoming the 10th pedestrian to be killed on the streets of San Francisco this year.

“The surgeons told us that not only was he hit, but he was injured from head to foot. He was completely run over,” said Douma, who was listed as the emergency contact, and spent the afternoon at the hospital with his husband, Claude Wynne, and some of Cox’s roommates and closest friends.

Police said the driver stopped, and cooperated with police, but was not cited or arrested. Details about the driver were not made available.

“We don’t usually release that kind of information,” said SFPD Sgt. Michael Andraychak. The investigator handling the case, Inspector Clifford Cook, would only confirm that the driver was a male and that there were witnesses. He referred Streetsblog’s calls to SFPD public affairs and said he was still in the process of conducting the investigation and it would be up to the District Attorney to decide whether charges would be filed.

‘A Gentle Man’

2008 photo of William Cox courtesy of David Douma and Claude Wynne.

When Douma first met Cox at a bar in SoMa a few years ago “he was coming out of his shell.” As Douma tells it, Cox had been in a long-term relationship with a man suffering from pancreatic cancer and had served as his partner’s full-time caregiver until his death. Cox then decided to move to San Francisco.

Although Cox had a hearing problem and other disabilities, Douma said “he flat out refused to consider himself a handicapped person.” Douma bristled at the suggestion made in some media reports that hearing had anything to do with Cox’s death: “There is no excuse for a left-hand turning vehicle to clobber a pedestrian in the crosswalk.”

Cox wore a small hearing device and “it was amazing what that man could hear with that little thing.” Douma recalled that when he and Cox would go into cafes or bars with loud “boom, boom” music, which he has a very low tolerance for, “Bill would would just reach in his pocket, turn down his device, give me an impish grin and stick his tongue out at me.”

Douma said those who knew Cox, including the regulars and some of the staff at Peet’s, were terribly saddened to hear the news of his death. Gentle was the common word members of the congregation at St. Giles Episcopal Church in Moraga used to describe Cox, who was a volunteer greeter and usher and attended services there on a semi-regular basis, Douma said.

The parish priest said in a newsletter that he was “a gentle spirit who was extraordinarily kind and self-sacrificing ” while a member of the choir described him as “the perfect gentleman.”

Last night, according to Douma, Cox’s two older brothers, Clyde and Darrel, arrived in San Francisco from Hawaii.

A senior (pictured behind the white car) stepped off the curb, and into the crosswalk, but was forced to stop as a driver ignores the pedestrian right-of-way and speeds through the crosswalk. Photo: Bryan Goebel

A Troubled Intersection

Fourteenth Street at Noe is a four-way intersection with stop signs, and sits at the bottom of a hill, surrounded by Victorian homes and apartments, landscaped sidewalks with street furniture and tall trees, and Davies Medical Center. The famed Duboce Park, with its renovated playground, is just one block away, and McKinley Elementary School is a block up the hill at 14th and Castro.

When I visited the intersection yesterday afternoon, I encountered large volumes of walkers that reflected the neighborhood’s diverse population: a group of schoolchildren, medical staff from the hospital, seniors with armfuls of orchids, mothers pushing strollers and neighbors carrying satchels of produce from the Castro Farmer’s Market at Noe and Market. At the same time, I witnessed drivers who blew through the intersection, many talking on their cell phones or texting.

“It’s like everybody’s racing to the next stop sign as fast as they can,” said Emma, a resident who lives near the northeast corner. “It’s stupid. I hear a lot of honking and there’s a lot of traffic.”

According to the SFMTA, the traffic volume on the street is about 4,500 vehicles per day. Many drivers are rushing to the freeway. It’s been a known problem area and residents have been fighting to get traffic calming measures in place, said Peter Cohen, who sits on the board of directors of the Duboce Triangle Neighborhood Association. Although ladder crosswalks were recently striped, something that took several months to get, a frustrated Cohen said a lot more needs to be done.

“I’m pretty grumpy about the whole situation and it’s really tragic that someone was killed because we raised this issue several years ago,” said Cohen, who lives just a half-block down and walks through the intersection daily with his children. “The intersection of 14th and Noe and 14th and Duboce are really pedestrian hazard intersections, and it seems like it’s not even really an issue for the city.”

Drivers like to speed down the hill on 14th Street at Noe.

A group of schoolchildren near the crosswalk where Cox was killed.

Cohen said he pointed out to the SFMTA that there is a lot of high-speed traffic coming down the hill on 14th, and felt as if the agency shunned his requests to implement more traffic calming measures. He suggested removing some of the parking around the intersection to daylight it, and get rid of some of the blind spots that currently exist for drivers.

“How many deaths do we have to see for the city to get serious about committing resources to making it safer to walk?” said Elizabeth Stampe, the executive director of Walk San Francisco. “Drivers frequently fail to stop at 14th. It runs like a mini-freeway through a quiet neighborhood. We know how to calm these streets and save lives. The city needs to commit to fixing a certain number of miles of these dangerous streets every year.”

For Douma, and Cox’s close circle of friends, the sadness is mixed with anger. Douma, who used to live on 14th Street and said he was “almost clobbered by drivers a few times,” is furious the driver wasn’t arrested.

“Just on the basis of the fact that that vehicle hit and ran over Bill, the driver should have been detained and arrested on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter, and sort it out later,” he said. “By not detaining that driver now there’s the window of not taking responsibility for one’s actions.”

“And I’m not a conservative,” Douma continued, “I’m a bloody bleeding heart liberal but there are just some things that have to do with justice and doing right by other people that get triggered when something like this happens, and this is a case.”

A cop ticketing a bicyclist on Market Street earlier this year. Photo: SF Citizen

Despite the department’s insistence that officers are not targeting bicyclists on Market Street, new numbers from the San Francisco Police Department confirm that cops are going after people on bikes following two high-profile crashes.

Last Friday, as part of SFPD’s traffic safety campaign [pdf], officers beefed up enforcement at 5th and Market and issued a total of 83 citations, mostly to bicyclists, but not a single driver was cited.

Here’s the breakdown, according to numbers provided to Streetsblog by SFPD:  30 bicyclists were cited for running red lights, 21 bicyclists were ticketed for riding on the sidewalk, 16 were cited for “bikes without brakes,” 3 “skateboarders on the sidewalk” were given tickets, and 1 pedestrian was cited for “jaywalking.” The SFPD said “12 misc. citations” were handed out, but withheld specifics.

Why weren’t drivers given any tickets?

“Because the drivers actually followed the rules of the road during the period that the officers were out there that day,” said SFPD spokesperson Albie Esparza.

In an interview with Streetsblog yesterday, Police Chief Greg Suhr insisted that officers aren’t specifically targeting bicyclists. He confirmed that the department has stepped up enforcement in general on Market Street.

“It’s just vehicle code violations, generally. It’s actually the pedestrians too. You know, if everybody’s a little bit mad at me, but it’s safer, then that’s okay. It’s basically who raises their hand that’s going to get called on.”

He added he thought the enforcement was “going well,” and further explained: “We’re trying to get Muni to run on time, and we have had a series of accidents. I’m not casting any blame, but just more enforcement.”

The numbers were troubling to biking and walking advocates because the enforcement did not yield any tickets for drivers.

“This is a failure to focus on the real threat. We need to see police out there ticketing the people who pose the greatest risk to others. That means drivers who fail to yield, speed, fail to stop, or are on their phones — those behaviors cause the serious injuries and deaths we see in SoMa and that’s what the police need to tackle,” said Elizabeth Stampe, the executive director of Walk San Francisco.

San Francisco Bicycle Coalition Director Leah Shahum also issued the following statement:

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition supports efforts to encourage safety on our streets among all road users, whether people are bicycling, driving or walking. It is the responsibility of everyone using our roads to watch out not only for their own safety but also for the safety of others.

And we encourage the SF Police Department to focus on those behaviors on our streets that are most dangerous. There should be no selective enforcement of the laws on certain road users, but rather equal opportunity enforcement of those actions that are putting others at risk. There is a hierarchy of dangerous types of behavior and those threatening the most people should be prioritized for enforcement.

We will continue to encourage the growing number of people bicycling in San Francisco — from moms to downtown commuters to people taking care of errands by bicycle — to take our free Urban Cycling Workshops, held regularly in neighborhoods throughout the city and to learn about our Give & Get Respect campaign, which encourages safe, respectful bicycling.

The SFPD is continuing to enforce the required right-turn on 10th Street at Market. Yesterday, an officer was seen ticketing numerous drivers who had violated the rule.

An officer tickets a driver yesterday afternoon for violating the right-turn only rule at 10th Street. Photo: Bryan Goebel

Drivers ignore the signs and routinely block the crosswalk and speed at the intersection of Harrison and Main streets. Photos by Bryan Goebel.

On December 10, 2004, Katy Liddell had just stepped off the N-Judah with a sack of cleaning supplies and was walking to her Portside apartment at Harrison and Main in Rincon Hill, when she noticed a cadre of emergency vehicles surrounding the intersection. As Liddell drew closer, she saw something that horrified her.

“I saw a tarp covering a body in the middle of the street,” Liddell recalled. “I found out that one of my neighbors had been hit and killed.”

The violent force of a big rig truck had thrown 63-year-old Beverly Kees out of the crosswalk, killing her. Kees, a popular SF State journalism professor who had recently retired, lived across the street from Liddell in the BayCrest Towers. The dog she had been walking was also hit and injured.

“Beverly saved his life. She saw the truck coming and she picked him up,” said Debi Gould, Kees’ friend and neighbor and owner of the dog who was with her when she died, a rat terrier mix named Harp. As Gould tells it, Kees, who lived two doors down, had been told by her doctor that she needed to walk more. She asked Gould if she could walk Harp one day, and the two formed a close bond.

“She started walking him to the point where he loved being with her, and instead of a couple of times a week, it ended up being every day that I went to work,” said Gould, a retired flight attendant who also walks a lot and feels like pedestrians in San Francisco “are considered an inconvenience.”

Beverly Kees and Harp. Photo courtesy of Debi Gould.

Not long after coming across the aftermath of the crash that killed Beverly Kees, Katy Liddell found out about Walk San Francisco and began advocating for changes at the intersection, along with other residents, including Gould. They formed a committee, organized a petition drive and turned in more than 200 signatures to the Department of Parking and Traffic (DPT). The response was not what they wanted to hear.

“We appreciate the petition that was submitted to DPT’s Livable Streets Program and continue to evaluate and prioritize applications for traffic calming. Unfortunately, your location is not a viable candidate for traffic calming measures,” wrote the agency’s former deputy director of planning, William Lieberman [pdf]. “The current pedestrian issues at the intersection are of a nature that requires active traffic enforcement.”

Although the news was disappointing, the committee kept pressing. Two years later, after urging from the office of former Mayor Gavin Newsom, the SFMTA’s former lead traffic engineer Jack Fleck sent a letter out announcing a series of engineering changes, including repainting crosswalks and adding pedestrian signals, at several SoMa and Rincon Hill intersections, but nothing was planned for Main and Harrison.

On a recent Friday afternoon, Giants fans were forced to maneuver around cars blocking the crosswalk.

A man's motorcycle is tripped by a nasty pothole.

A Mean Intersection

The intersection of Harrison and Main is the kind of place that’s so dangerous by design, it’s easy to see how drivers can lose their sense of humanity. In one of the city’s densest neighborhoods, Harrison serves as a four-lane westbound arterial (there is a fifth eastbound lane) that carries 12,600 drivers daily, most headed to the Bay Bridge. In peak-hour afternoon traffic, drivers routinely speed and block the crosswalk. Since 2003, three people have died there, including Kees, and many more have been injured.

“It’s horrible,” said Sam Kabash, who owns the corner market. “Drivers come by, they go, and they don’t care that people are passing by. There’s been too many accidents, too many crashes and too many people getting run over.”

On a recent Friday afternoon, many drivers appeared anxious and at their worst, frustrated by the blocks-long queue of traffic inching toward the First Street on-ramp. A man who was knocked to the ground after his motorcycle tripped over a nasty pothole quickly rebounded as drivers flew past him. Giants fans walking to the ballpark were forced to squeeze between cars hogging the crosswalk.

“We’re under siege by cars Monday through Friday,” said Jamie Whitaker, a pedestrian advocate and resident of the BayCrest Towers, one of several high-rise residential buildings surrounding Harrison and Main.  Traffic lightens up at night and on the weekends, but that’s not much comfort to Whitaker and other residents who’ve been lobbying for a “radical re-engineering” of the intersection for seven years now.

“Walking through this intersection every day might make you a little crazy,” said Whitaker, standing just outside Habash’s market. Not long after moving into the neighborhood from Detroit five years ago, Whitaker started a blog, and more recently has been documenting the ugly conditions on video.

Other intersections along Harrison are just as problematic, including pedestrian crossings at Fremont and at 1st Street, where drivers are led onto the Bay Bridge in front of One Rincon Hill.

A westward look at the traffic queue on Harrison from Main Street.

Looking eastward toward the Bay Bridge from Fremont.

Rincon Hill Plan

Rincon Hill was once a forgotten “jumble of freeway and Transbay Terminal ramps,” notes this SPUR report, but it’s now a 12-block high-rise neighborhood that could see more than 10,000 new residents by 2025. Its streets, however, are not yet ready to accommodate those new residents, whom the city would like to encourage to walk as much as possible.

In practice, developers eyeing future high-rise residential buildings continue to request a high ratio of parking, which means yet more cars in an already congested neighborhood. There are no parking requirements in Rincon Hill and the maximum is one space per two units, required to be built underground, but exceptions have been granted to some developers to build, in some cases, one space for every unit.

“It would be a shame to build a high-rise neighborhood with close proximity to downtown for people who drive to Silicon Valley,” said Tom Radulovich, the executive director of Livable City. “We don’t need more drivable neighborhoods in proximity to downtown.”

The Rincon Hill Plan, passed in 2005, makes the 55-acre neighborhood “a high-priority housing site” because it’s so close to the Financial District and has a number of vacant or underutilized parcels. It acknowledges the neighborhood’s streets are unsafe and unpleasant for pedestrians. The sidewalks are narrow, the intersection crossings are dangerous, and the noise levels exceed state and city standards. In addition, many walls facing the sidewalk are blank and featureless and there is a general lack of open space.

The streetscape component, currently being revised by the San Francisco Planning Department, envisioned fundamental changes, but it’s been sitting on the shelf for a number of years, due to stagnant development that isn’t bringing in the impact fees required to pay for the improvements. It calls for “extensive sidewalk widenings, tree plantings, street furniture, and the creation of new public spaces along streets throughout the district.”

Some aspects, such as widened sidewalks and landscaping, have already been implemented on portions of some streets, such as Beale and Spear, with the ultimate goal of turning them into living streets. On Harrison, the streetscape plan would widen the sidewalks from 8 to 12 feet, add bulbouts on each block, and narrow the traffic lanes. All the public improvements would cost $26 million. The street components alone would cost $12 million.

Joshua Switzky, a citywide policy planner for the Planning Department, told Streetsblog he is organizing a meeting with residents to unveil the revised streetscape plan and set priorities, given the limited funding. A community meeting has been tentatively scheduled for July 19.

A One Rincon Hill resident walks across the intersection of Harrison and 1st streets, one of the city's ugliest intersections.

A woman and her child cross Harrison and First Street, which was backed up all the way to Market, and along Battery.

The vacant parcel at Harrison and Fremont.

Pedestrian Safety as a Priority in District 6

The advocates working to bring change to Harrison and Main streets have been empowered of late by Supevisor Jane Kim’s efforts to improve pedestrian safety in District 6, which has the highest rate of pedestrian deaths and injuries of any district. Most recently, Whitaker has been leading the charge to improve Rincon Hill’s streets.

“Jamie has been amazing and it’s to his full credit that things are actually happening,” said Matthias Mormino, an aide to Kim. In an interview in her City Hall office last week, Kim told Streetsblog that she is working to push the various city agencies handling pedestrian safety issues to move quicker.

“Without a little bit of attention and visibility given to the issue here at City Hall, work just gets shuffled around,” said Kim. She pointed out that many city staffers who have advocated for pedestrian safety have been grateful for the attention she’s given to the issue.

“It’s not like I had to create new ideas and figure out what our priorities are,” Kim said. “It’s just about implementation. On a certain level, that’s easier and more challenging to do.” Kim said if voters approve a streets bond measure on the November ballot, she will work to get some of that money directed to pedestrian safety improvements in District 6.

SFMTA Measures

While Rincon Hill’s residents wait for streetscape improvements, the SFMTA is finally planning some engineering measures they hope will help at Harrison and Main, thanks to Whitaker’s relentless advocacy. According to the SFMTA, the changes include:

• A head start for pedestrians crossing Harrison Street.  “The head start will allow pedestrians to cross 4 seconds before any conflicting vehicles receive the green.  Thus, pedestrians are given a head start to establish their right-of-way in the intersection, with the intent of making drivers more aware of the pedestrians in the intersection.”
• “The flashing red hand will now count down from 15 seconds (currently 9 seconds) for pedestrians crossing Harrison St before going to a solid red hand.  After the flashing red hand goes to a solid red hand, there are still about 4.5 seconds before the cross-auto-traffic on Harrison Street will be shown their green light.  This intentional delay is extra time that pedestrians can use to complete their crossing.”
• Painting white continental crosswalks at the intersection. They feature a ladder design with “white longitudinal lines at a 90 degree angle to the line of the crosswalk,” according to the Federal Highway Administration’s pedestrian crossings page.
• Pursuing legislation for No U-turns for eastbound Harrison St at Main St.  “During our field investigation, we noticed a number of vehicles traveling eastbound on Harrison and making a U-turn at Main St to cut in the queue of vehicles, increasing the number of vehicles in the intersection, trying to get onto the Bay Bridge on-ramp.”

In addition, the agency is planning to assign a parking control officer to the intersection. While it’s not the “radical re-engineering” advocates had hoped for, “it’s a start,” said Gould. “I realize there’s a lot of red tape involved with City Hall but where pedestrian safety is concerned it’s been a serious frustration.”

“I’m elated. I’m anxious to see these improvements,” said Whitaker. “This is just one intersection in South of Market. There are many more that need help because there’s 30,000 more people that have moved to SoMa since 1990, and there’s more coming.”

Supervisor Kim, on the right, with WalkSF's Elizabeth Stampe and Michael Radetsky, on their way to City Hall on Walk to Work Day. The weather was gorgeous for walking today. Photo: Manish Champsee

You may not have known it, but today is National Walk to Work Day, and pedestrian advocates from Walk San Francisco marked the occasion by walking to work with Supervisor Jane Kim and reminding residents about two important City Hall hearings coming up on pedestrian safety.

Kim will hold a hearing on pedestrian safety at a Public Safety Committee meeting next Thursday, April 7 at 10:30 am in City Hall, Room 250. The following Monday, April 11 at 10 am, D1 Supervisor Eric Mar will hold another hearing to address citywide pedestrian issues.

“Walk SF will be calling for safe-speed school zones, a Pedestrian Action Plan with clear commitments, more funding for street improvements, and police enforcement of laws that protect pedestrians,” the organization said in its newsletter.

Kim, whose District 6 includes the Tenderloin and SoMa — which has the highest rates of pedestrian injuries and fatalities (see graph below the break) — has made pedestrian safety a top priority.

“When she looked at the public safety issues in her her district, she found that injuries to pedestrians was the biggest issue that affected all her constituents,” said Elizabeth Stampe, Walk SF Executive Director. “They found that a lot of people knew people who’d been hit by cars, especially kids.”

As we’ve written on Streetsblog, there is growing momentum around pedestrian safety in San Francisco. A task force is currently developing a Pedestrian Action Plan to meet the goals of an executive directive issued by the Mayor’s Office late last year, which calls for reducing serious and fatal pedestrian injuries 25 percent by 2016, and 50 percent by 2021.

Image: Walk SF

Photo: Myleen Hollero/Orange Photography

Despite a growing political focus on pedestrian safety, a thick layer of city bureaucracy and lack of funding are stalling real change to prevent pedestrian injuries and fatalities on San Francisco streets, including three deaths in just the last week.

The red tape and dysfunction became abundantly clear at a presentation and discussion at City Hall this morning on San Francisco’s efforts to improve pedestrian safety, which was centered more on the challenges than the solutions.

“We are experiencing a little bit of paralysis by analysis,” said Board of Supervisors President David Chiu. “I do think we have solutions and it’s a matter of putting them together and having the will to execute them.”

A report on the city’s pedestrian safety efforts [pdf], requested by Chiu, was presented to the San Francisco County Transportation Authority (SFCTA) Board’s plans and programs committee.

Tilly Chang, the SFCTA deputy director of planning who prepared the report, responded to Chiu: “We do know that there is a demand, a justified demand, for capital improvements that have already been effective: the countdowns, the bulbouts, the crosswalks. To some extent the MTA is working on them. We do need more funding.”

Chang said even though there has been “fragmented responsibility” on pedestrian issues, something that’s not unique to San Francisco, the SFMTA is “arguably” the lead agency on pedestrian safety, as it is in charge of managing the city’s streets. However, for many advocates, that agency is not moving fast enough.

“In some ways having the MTA be the agency where it’s centered makes sense, but in some ways the work that the other agencies are doing gets translated into real action on the streets faster and in a way that satisfies people more,” Elizabeth Stampe, the executive director of Walk San Francisco, told Streetsblog after the meeting.

SFMTA Deputy Director of Transportation Planning Timothy Papandreou delivered a presentation that mostly touted the agency’s accomplishments over the last 10 years, and some of its goals and next steps. He said a Pedestrian Task Force — which has 25 members, including representatives from 12 city agencies — “wants to develop the framework to implement the early actions” mandated by the Mayor’s executive directive on pedestrian safety “as soon as possible.”

Chiu told Papandreou that his agency needs to make it clear who is leading pedestrian safety efforts. “The fact that there are so many different agencies working on this is making it confusing for those of us who are not part of your administration, and it would be great to have a real sense of who is in charge,” Chiu said.

Papandreou did acknowledge reducing the speed of automobiles will be key, a point that was hammered home by Rajiv Bhatia, the environmental health director for the San Francisco Department of Public Health.

“We’ve calculated that serious injuries could be reduced by over 50 percent from a 5 mile an hour reduction in the traveling speed,” said Bhatia, who added that there are legal and traffic design standard obstacles getting in the way of improvements.

Despite the frustration among advocates and some supervisors, Bhatia said all of the city agencies were making “a good faith effort” to address the problem.

Today’s discussion also focused on the need for data integration and better enforcement efforts by the San Francisco Police Department, which had no representative at the meeting. The committee agreed to bring the item back for discussion at a later date.

Stampe of Walk SF said she is anxious for something to start happening on the streets, and agreed with Chiu’s “paralysis by analysis” statement.

“I am concerned about analyzing the problem into oblivion. We need action. We have a lot of good plans for how to change our streets in the city. Where is the implementation? People have been waiting a long time,” she said.

WalkSF Executive Director Elizabeth Stampe. Photo: Aaron Bialick

Pedestrian and livable streets advocates gathered Thursday for WalkSF’s Annual Member Meeting to celebrate the organization’s success and discuss how to improve walking conditions in San Francisco. Though the speakers — including WalkSF executive director Elizabeth Stampe, State Senator Mark Leno and Board of Supervisors President David Chiu — touted recent victories, including funding from vehicle fees via the recently passed Proposition AA and agreements with the upcoming CityPlace retail center, they also argued more action is needed to take on the city’s walkability challenges.

“Right now, 800 people a year are getting hit by cars in San Francisco. That’s more than 2 people a day,” said Stampe. “It’s been that way for several years, and I think we need to change it.”

Last month, the SFMTA released a report modeled on New York City’s Pedestrian Safety Study and Action Plan, though it failed to include the “action plan” part of the model. Stampe called for such a plan to reduce pedestrian crashes, make the streets safer to walk and increase physical activity.

Supervisor David Chiu pledged to push city agencies to fulfill their mandate to improve safety conditions. “What I committed to [advocates in my district] is that in the very first meeting of our County Transit Authority next year, I am going to be calling for a study of what our city has been doing in the area of pedestrian safety to coordinate the efforts to not just think of this not just as a transit issue, but as a public health issue,” he said.

In addition to WalkSF’s pedestrian advocacy around physical safety improvements, the organization has campaigned to raise the visibility of pedestrians in the media. “We’re trying to change the conversation from being about blaming the pedestrian and more into sharing the streets and getting folks to recognize that people who are driving have more responsibility,” said Stampe.

In addition to working with Friends of Monterey Boulevard for a safer Sunnyside thoroughfare, they also led a pilot program for 15 mph school zones in that neighborhood.

“Those kids really want to walk,” she said. “We need to make it safer for them to do that.”

The meeting was very well attended. Photo: Aaron Bialick

Attendees could point out "problems or opportunities" on a city map. Click to enlarge. Photo: Aaron Bialick

"The Boulevard" option, which many advocates have endorsed, would remove all parking and provide a 6-foot wide cycletrack. Image: SF Planning Department.

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s (SFMTA) options for fixing Masonic Avenue, a major north-south traffic sewer that was the scene of the city’s first and only bicycle fatality this year, have been narrowed to two designs. While each option would calm auto traffic in slightly different ways and offer different amenities for bicyclists, both would significantly transform the street into a greener, friendlier corridor for all users.

The “Masonic Avenue Street Design Study [pdf],” a collaboration among the SFMTA, the San Francisco Planning Department’s City Design Group and the San Francisco Department of Public Works (SFDPW), was presented at the third and final community workshop last night, a meeting that drew more than 100 people. City planners said the spirit of cooperation between the agencies has been unprecedented.

The first option, or “The Gateway,” would feature four traffic lanes, parking on the east side of the street, a standard 5-foot wide bike lane and “bus bulb plazas” that would place the bike lane between the bus stop and the sidewalk to eliminate conflicts between buses and bicyclists. “The Boulevard” option has similar features but would remove all 167 parking spaces and add a 6-foot wide raised cycletrack and a landscaped median, an ambitious design that has been endorsed by the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition (SFBC) and Assemblymember Tom Ammiano, among others.

The Boulevard would cost approximately $20 million and take 12-18 months to complete, compared to the $15 million price tag for The Gateway, which would take 6-12 months to finish. Capital funding has yet to be identified, however. SFMTA project manager Javad Mirabdal said most of the funds would be sought from state and federal sources.

While the SFMTA hopes to have a final option selected by the end of the year, it could take until 2012 to begin the capital construction and that’s only if the approval and funding processes go smoothly.  The final option will need to undergo an environmental impact report (EIR) before it winds its way to the SFMTA Board for public hearings and final approval.

Bus bulb plazas would be included in both options. They're designed to eliminate conflicts between buses and bicyclists and would be a first for San Francisco. Signs would be added warning pedestrians and bicyclists to look out for each other. Image: SF Planning Department.

While the conceptual designs in each option have significant streetscaping elements, The Boulevard would create a greener pedestrian environment by adding more street trees, sidewalk greening and “bus bulb plazas.” It would also include more roadway and pedestrian light fixtures.

Both designs also include an 11,000 square foot plaza that would be erected at the southwest corner of Geary Boulevard and Masonic Avenue, across the street from the planned Target store. It would replace the existing triangular median that serves as a bus stop and allows a right-turn for drivers headed south.

“We would take that space and capture a large pavement area and introduce a plaza while still allowing the residents who actually live along there access for their homes and their parking,” SFDPW’s Martha Ketterer told the crowd. “At the same time, of course, that gives us a huge opportunity to have a really nice sculptural art element that we would bring in and work with the Arts Commission.”

Ketterer said the plaza could also be used for recreational activity such as bocce ball or volleyball. A driveway would be included on both sides but limited to delivery trucks and residents. In front of the Target store across the street, the sidewalk would double in size and feature two rows of tree plantings, along with other streetscape elements.

SFBC program director Andy Thornley said he thought The Boulevard option was better from the perspective of bicycle facilities. “It really is the superior option for bicycle traffic and it is equivalently good for Muni.”

“Just striping a regular bike lane is not going to make bicyclists feel safer or be safer being right next to the traffic that way,” said Michael Helquist of BIKE NOPA. “I think the cycletrack and The Boulevard option presents a greater possibility for safety and I think the traffic is going to flow pretty much the same for either option, so I think that’s kind of a neutral factor for the two.”

A new plaza would be installed at Geary Blvd and Masonic Ave. Image: SF Planning Department.

Manish Champsee, the president of Walk San Francisco, liked both options but was concerned about the median in The Boulevard design.

“Medians generally tend to encourage speeding as compared to just two solid lines. The idea being that if you’re a car in the middle lane, you’re likely going to slow down for the car coming the other way,” he said.

Ketterer had a different take. “A median really changes the character of the street. It really changes the sight line, it changes the vehicular traffic, it slows it down,” she said. “It adds a whole other dimension to the street.”

While last night’s crowd featured a large number of advocates and residents who applauded the city’s proposed improvements, there were also a number of residents who were concerned about the loss of parking. In an interview with Streetsblog, one group of residents said they preferred The Gateway option because they feared eliminating all parking would cause drivers to veer away from Masonic and park in their neighborhoods.

“I think we need parking. We can’t eliminate all the parking. The neighborhoods cannot absorb it. We’re all filled up now,” said one man, who nevertheless acknowledged he never parks on Masonic.

Graphic: SFMTA

To address the parking complaints, the SFMTA presented a study that demonstrated scant competition for spaces. The average daily occupancy rate was about 60 percent, and most who parked along the heavily-traveled corridor only stayed for one or two hours, indicating a majority of drivers are people who work in the area or do business, not residents.

“The overall benefit far exceeds the fear of ‘I’m going to lose my personal parking space,’” said Quintin Mecke, an aide to Assemblymember Ammiano. “We can navigate that. I’m very confident about that. If that’s the only objection to this issue then I think we can sit down and fix that.”

When parking was brought up during the question-and-answer period, SFMTA’s Mirabdal said transforming Masonic would be the opportunity of a lifetime and he sought to minimize the concerns.

“In order to get improvements, you have to give up something. We have limited space. We cannot maintain parking and do the other things at the same time. We’re trying to use the existing space as best as possible,” he said.

Image: SF Planning Department.

Several people expressed concerns that no significant near-term improvements were slated, especially in light of the death of Nils Yannick Linke, a German tourist who was killed by a drunk driver while riding a bicycle on Masonic at Turk Street.

“I think there needs to be a series of stopgap measures because planning a long-term vision for the street is going to take several years, but we actually can’t wait for that, and I think that whatever short-term implementations that can be made, the MTA needs to do them immediately,” said Mecke.

The SFBC has called on the SFMTA to immediately install a trial bike lane along the steepest section of  Masonic Avenue from Ewing Terrace to Fulton Street.

“I do think there are benefits to be had from trying some of the changes. We’re certainly seeing this on Market Street,” said the SFBC’s Thornley. “Try it, learn from it, and then make a really great project.”

Although the SFMTA has made some near-term improvements, including the placement of radar speed signs, as well as signal upgrades and signal timing adjustments, the agency feared that a piecemeal approach would diffuse support for the project as a whole.

“This is a complete package. It’s not just about bicycles,” said Mirabdal. “It’s about pedestrians, it’s about transit and we want to keep the whole package together as much as possible and we don’t want to separate them because once you start separating things from the package, the package would lose momentum.”

District 5 Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi hasn’t endorsed an option yet, but he said it was important that community groups keep up the pressure to make sure funding is secured and the long-term vision is realized sooner than later.

“I think there is a political component to this that requires organizing amongst the neighborhood, community and advocacy groups to demand swift response in infrastructure developments on the capital improvements. I know it can happen because it was only blocks away [on Divisadero] that we demonstrated it could happen,” he said.

More than 100 people attended last night's workshop. Photo: Bryan Goebel.

Photo: raludwick

The organizers of Walk SF’s annual “Peak to Peak Walk” October 16th have mapped out a new “North by Northwest” route this year that will take participants from the heart of the Mission to Land’s End, a 13-mile trek along some of San Francisco’s hidden stairways, paths and streets. In all, the walk will span 10 peaks.

“It’s a challenging walk but we hope it will introduce people to the nooks and crannies and pathways and stairways and trails they’ve never seen before,” said Rich Coffin, who helped choose this year’s route.

After a walk through Bernal Heights and Glen Park, according to Walk SF’s website, it will then:

Climb up Glen Canyon and across the high spine of the city. Once we’ve concluded our morning climb of the highest peaks in the city, we’ll reward ourselves with a delicious lunch served in a peaceful meadow on Mt. Sutro.

After lunch, we’ll descend into the Sunset along little-known new trails, and take in stunning views as we head northwest though the peaks of Parnassus, Golden Gate Park, and the Richmond. Finally, at Land’s End, we’ll conclude our trek and celebrate our accomplishment high above the ocean.

The event serves as Walk SF’s annual fundraiser, and the money raised will be geared toward pedestrian advocacy. The early bird deadline to register is this Friday, October 1st. You can register here.

What the view of CityPlace would look like from Mason Street. Image: Market Street Holdings LLC

At the heart of the San Francisco Planning Department’s 328-page Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) for CityPlace, sustainable transportation advocates have pinpointed one glaring flaw. In assessing the impacts of new off-street retail parking, the environmental analysis [pdf] concludes that building a 167-space garage will have the same effect on traffic as building no garage at all.

“This environmental analysis has really pitted this project against pedestrian safety and the livability of this neighborhood,” said Tom Radulovich, the executive director of Livable City.

CityPlace is a 250,000 square foot retail project planned for Market Street that the Mayor has trumpeted as essential for the area, “a key pillar in the continuing revitalization of Mid-Market that will bring hundreds of jobs and new revenues to boost our City’s economy and thousands of new pedestrians and shoppers to activate one of the most blighted blocks of Market Street.”

Radulovich along with attorney Arthur Levy and Walk SF had filed an appeal of the Planning Commission’s certification of the DEIR, arguing that it failed to adequately address and mitigate the dangers to pedestrians and bicyclists. Levy was also concerned the St. Francis Theater, designed by architect John Galen Howard, will be demolished and that the glass structure won’t fit in with the visual and historic character of Market Street.

Supporting the appeal seemed politically impossible for the Board of Supervisors. Instead, Supervisor Chris Daly, who represents the area, with help from Judson True, an aide to Supervisor David Chiu, brokered a deal [pdf] before the supervisors meeting Tuesday.  Market Street Holdings LLC (Urban Realty), the project’s sponsor, agreed to charge a 20 cent per vehicle exit fee at the CityPlace garage that would eventually add up to $1.8 million for “bicycle and/or pedestrian and/or transit improvements.” That pleased the supervisors and the DEIR was certified on a 9-0 vote, giving the final clearance.

The rejection of the appeal followed a public hearing in which the advocates laid out their case, and the project’s sponsors were allowed a rebuttal.

"We need to be a city that does everything it can to ensure the livability of neighborhoods and to ensure pedestrian and bicycle safety ," said Tom Radulovich of Livable City.

“What we are talking about today are really issues of life and death. The fact that this project and this EIR are not mitigating the impacts that they’ll have on this community,” Radulovich told the supervisors.

The neighborhood, he argued, which houses many low-income residents, seniors and children, is dangerous enough and doesn’t need any more auto traffic spilling into the six affected intersections. Sixth Street, immediately adjacent to the project, is one of the city’s worst streets for pedestrian fatalities and injuries.

“In helping Market Street we can’t make 6th Street even worse,” Manish Champsee, the president of Walk San Francisco, testified. “Three of the top five intersections for pedestrian safety are on 6th Street.”

The DEIR analysis, instead of looking at automobiles as the real danger to pedestrians, assessed the impacts to pedestrians based on increased foot traffic and conflicts with other pedestrians.

Radulovich said the analysis flew in the face of the Planning Department’s own parking code, Section 150 [pdf], and the city’s General Plan, “which states that if you have a short-term parking need in the downtown, don’t add more parking, convert long-term parking to short-term parking because adding more parking creates more automobile trips.”

“We do not want to stop the project. We want to improve environmental analysis in this city.” –Andy Thornley, SFBC

“The notion that providing 200 more parking spaces will not create more [automobile] trips is ludicrous, frankly,” said Andy Thornley, the program manager of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, whose offices along with Livable City and Walk SF have been been located in the Mid-Market area for many years.  “We do not want to stop the project. We want to improve environmental analysis in this city.”

Thornley said as San Francisco moves away from using intersection Level of Service (LOS) to analyze transportation impacts and toward evaluating automobile trip generation (ATG) “it’s very troubling to see an environmental document come forward that makes such a flimsy estimate of auto trip generation.”

The advocates argue that allowing CityPlace and other projects excessive parking sets a bad precedent and runs afoul of a Transit First policy and neighborhood plans that are supposed to guide transportation and land use decisions.

CityPlace’s sponsor argues that despite the 4,500 spaces in more than a dozen nearby city-owned garages, parking in the building is needed for the project to succeed because of the type of value-based “household goods, electronics and sports equipment” stores they are seeking. Drivers, they argue, need to transport large purchases. According to the San Francisco Business Times, the stores being sought include TJ Maxx, JCPenney, Ross, Dick’s Sporting Goods and Big 5 Sporting Goods.

Jim Abrams, who presented the CityPlace transportation plan to the Planning Commission, argued the parking in the building would be much less than similar retail spaces in dense, urban areas such as Brooklyn and Queens, and would be setting an example by providing “the lowest amount of parking of any comparable center in the country.”

By contrast, though, some nearby stores including Macy’s, Bloomingdales, Barneys and Nieman Marcus offer no parking in the building for their driving customers. The San Francisco Examiner recently reported that Target wanted to move into the Metreon where there is no on-site parking.

The project rendering of Stevenson Street, where drivers will enter and exit the parking garage. Image: Market Street Holdings LLC

“I think the fundamental decision to drive or not is whether you have a prospect of finding parking,” said Bill Wycko, the head of Major Environmental Analysis for the San Francisco Planning Department.

Wycko, responding to a question from Supervisor Daly, said his office is not able to effectively analyze ATG for shopping trips because there has been no research and surveys conducted on retail auto trips, which would offer some evidence for how retail parking affects driver behavior. Instead, the analysis is based on commuter surveys.

“Intuitive or not, the relationship between supply in parking and how people travel, other than the obvious situation where you don’t have a car, you don’t drive, is not as obvious as you would think and for shopping trips the substantial evidence, the real evidence, is largely non-existent,” said Wycko. “We can all have our hunches and our intuition but that’s kind of not what we use in [California Environmental Quality Act analysis].”

Wycko did acknowledge the city is engaged in a monumental process to overhaul LOS and replace it with ATG, which will presumably require planners to analyze trip generation associated with parking spaces.

“There is an effort to take a different approach and as part of that approach one of the things we’ve been urging is that there does need to be follow-up monitoring because one reason there isn’t data, especially local data, is that there hasn’t been this sort of, okay, if you do this, what’s the behavior pattern? If you do that, what’s the behavior pattern?”

In an interview with Streetsblog, John Rahaim, the Planning Department Director, said he supports eventually transitioning to ATG but feels the issues raised by transit advocates in the appeal probably don’t belong in the CEQA process.

“Whether we should be looking at the safety issues, and the pedestrian and vehicular conflicts is an important question. I don’t think it’s a CEQA issue, however. I would love to figure out a way to get at those issues outside of the CEQA process, which is a cumbersome process, frankly.”

Both Livable City and Levy are considering a lawsuit.

“I think that EIR is a very poor document. I think it’s legally defective. I feel that the Board of Supervisors was under a lot of political pressure to move this project along. That part of Market Street has been neglected and been a problem for a long time,” said Levy, who added that he would like to see the project move forward, but not it until it fully addresses the issues raised in the appeal.

The project is now scheduled to break ground in 2011 and despite the surcharge that will be directed toward bicycle, pedestrian and transit improvements advocates are skeptical they’ll happen quickly.

Radulovich said he was disappointed the letter outlining the compromise “wasn’t water tight” and didn’t include language guaranteeing the money and the improvements would come immediately. True later tried to assure him that the money paid to the SFMTA would secure improvements sooner rather than later.

“We feel strongly that the MTA is well positioned to use the money for this parking surcharge to in some way finance up front improvements for bicyclists, pedestrians and transit riders. So we feel confident that while it’s untested, the parking surcharge is a mechanism that will not just give money over time but provide for some up front money and that’s really up to the MTA to figure out the best way to do that,” said True.

SFMTA spokesperson Paul Rose said CityPlace had already separately paid $200,000 to the agency, $50,000 of which will be used for a study to see what improvements are needed, and the rest will be put toward implementation.

“The full scope will of course need to be developed based on the initial study,” said Rose.

Radulovich said transit advocates were an influential force in getting the sponsor to commit the money, and hoped that mid-block crosswalks — where a majority of pedestrian injuries and fatalities occur in the area — bulbouts and protected bike lanes would be included.

Valencia Street bicycle lane and stencil. Photo:KayVee.INC

MTA traffic engineer Mike Salaberry said the city had a number of roads where lane width was excessive and designed only for cars. Road diets, he said, were primarily "to improve how the road works for a wider range of users."

"Older roadway designs were not efficient for using space," said Salaberry, who pointed to numerous streets where wide travel lanes led to long crossing distances for pedestrians and no dedicated space for cyclists. "Given that space is at a premium, we had to find creative ways to allocating the space we do have."

In some cases, making space for pedestrians and cyclists is as simple as painting lines on the street and reducing the opportunity for drivers to reach high speeds. Walk San Francisco's Manish Champsee hailed the MTA's track record on road diets and said they were doubly beneficial for pedestrians. Slower speeds mean less collisions and less-severe collisions when they do happen, which dramatically increases a pedestrian's chance of survival. Another benefit comes from visibility: On a four-lane road reduced to two lanes, pedestrians don't have to worry about the danger of the car in the lane further from the curb not stopping for pedestrians at un-signalized crosswalks.

Champsee pointed to the Valencia Street road diet as a success story that has become a national model for traffic engineers. Valencia was a four lane road until March 1999, when the former Department of Parking and Traffic (the DPT is now part of the MTA) re-striped the street to its current configuration, with two travel lanes, a center median with left-hand turn bays, and bike lanes.

Despite DPT concerns at the time that bicycle collisions would increase, in the year after the lanes were striped, total bicycle collisions and pedestrian collisions declined, and there was a 144 percent increase in bicycle use. Though some vehicles diverted to other streets, vehicle volume was only slightly lower, and it didn't all move to Guerrero Street, where traffic engineers expected it to go. Fears of negative economic impact were also unfounded. As an SF State study noted subsequently, only 6 percent of merchants surveyed after the bike lanes were installed had negative feedback.

"There is really nothing bad you can say about what happened on Valencia Street," said Champsee, who added that he was at a recent Federal Highway Administration forum on street safety and Valencia was an example the federal agency used to highlight a successful road diet.

Despite the proven positive impacts of road diets in San Francisco, the hurdles to further changes are significant. As the protracted battle over the Bike Plan illustrates, road diets have to undergo significant environmental review and if they impact on traffic flow, they either get scrapped or have to receive an exemption from the city.

"As always, we're up against some of the perverse unintended byproducts of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA)," said the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition's Andy Thornley. Despite San Francisco's long-standing Transit First policy and the unquestionable benefit of slowing vehicle speeds, projects can't be expedited faster than they currently are.

"Over and over again, these projects illustrate what's counter-intuitive to some folks," explained Thornley. "If you take four lanes and make them three, it seems that you're losing something. In fact, by providing a left turn lane, the throughput of the street may remain the same or improve, while the safety improves greatly."

The next big road diet project is the redesign of Cesar Chavez Street from Guerrero Street to the Highway 101 "Hairball" interchange. The city will remove one lane of traffic in each direction, widen the median and install left-turn lanes, and add bicycle lanes. The project will not only represent a new level of city agency vision and cooperation, but if successful, could set a new standard for livable streets in San Francisco.

Thornley said Cesar Chavez and other similar projects like 25th Avenue in the Richmond would further establish the benefit of traffic calming and multi-modal planning. "In spite of what drivers may think, it will make their trip safer and it might make it faster."

• Arguello from Pacific to Fulton
• Valencia from Market to Tiffany
• Polk from Turk to Vallejo
• Mansell from San Bruno to University
• Harrison from 11th to 22nd
• San Jose Avenue, southbound, from Randall to Arlington
• San Jose Avenue/Guerrero from Randall to Cesar Chavez
• Dewey Boulevard from Laguna Honda to Taraval
• Post Street from Presidio to Steiner
• Turk Street from Arguello to Masonic
• Golden Gate Avenue from Masonic to Broderick
• Fulton Street from Baker to Webster
• Fell Street westbound from Scott to Baker (Laguna to Scott PM tow-away later removed also)
• JFK Drive westbound from Shrader to Conservatory Drive East
• Duboce from Buchanan to Church (conversion from roadway to bikes only)
• Fourteenth Street from Dolores to Guerrero
• Howard Street from Fremont to 11th
• Seventh Street from Townsend to 16th
  
• Oakdale from Phelps to Industrial, Bayshore to Industrial
• Battery Street from The Embarcadero to Broadway
  
• San Bruno from Mansell to Campbell
• Folsom Street from 14th to 11th
• Market from 8th to Van Ness
• Potrero from 17th to 25th
• Lake St from Arguello to 3rd Ave
• 14th Street from Market to Dolores
• Alemany from San Jose to Rouseau
• Clipper St from Douglass to Diamond Heights
• 25th Avenue from Fulton to Lake
• 7th Avenue from Lawton to Judah
• Oak Street from Divisadero to Laguna (removal of AM tow-away lane)
• Scott Street from Oak to Fell St
• Gough St northbound from McCoppin to Market

With the MTA proposing deep service cuts to Muni and $5 fares on historic streetcars, transit advocates are concerned about where the city's transit system is headed. Flickr photo: Thomas Hawk.

One proposal would address that very issue. Supervisor David Campos told the Chronicle he hopes to put a measure on the November ballot that would give the Board of Supervisors control over three of the seats on the seven-member MTA Board, which is currently appointed entirely by the Mayor. The proposal is similar to one suggested by Supervisor John Avalos last year, which would have given the Board of Supervisors say over three MTA Board members, with the Mayor retaining control over three members. Voters would elect the seventh member.

Campos has not offered details of his plan yet, including whether the public might elect one member, but he said the proposed service cuts reflect deeper problems with the agency. "There appears to be a systematic problem with Muni and change has to begin at the top with the MTA Board," Campos told the Chronicle.

Susan King, a transit advocate who works at Livable City, said changing the way the MTA Board is chosen is part of the solution. While the current system was intended to "depoliticize" the MTA, said King, transportation shouldn't be removed from the political process. "Transportation should be a political issue. It affects the very core of people's ability to survive," she said. "The voters and the people who use the roads in San Francisco, who also vote, need to have a bigger voice."

The MTA's recurring budget crises have highlighted the agency's long-term need for more stable funding sources, but the current focus is on finding a way to avert this round of cuts. As a near-term solution, King and Walk SF President Manish Champsee both think extended parking meter hours should be part of the equation. "I understand the Mayor is opposed to that, but I think he also has to understand the devastating impact the existing service cuts and existing fare increases have had on a lot of people," said Champsee.

"They need to phase that in," said King. "Maybe not some of the things like enforcing parking until midnight, but they need to do parking on Sundays and they need to do that immediately and say 'our backs are against the wall, we don't have any other choices. It's either you guys or the transit riders.'"

King would also like to see the MTA revise its policies on free disabled parking placards, free parking in parks, the price structure of residential parking permits, and citations for people who illegally drive in transit-only lanes. Another option is to add a tax to downtown parking garages to make up the cost of PCOs who routinely are forced to direct traffic at rush hour.

Supervisor Bevan Dufty, who chairs the San Francisco County Transportation Authority (TA), said he's already directed TA staff to move quickly to assess another part of the MTA's proposal to close its deficit, which would entail the TA transferring $7 million in funds directly to the MTA. "My goal is to try to be as supportive as possible," said Dufty. "Obviously, Muni is hemorrhaging. If we can help fund some of the maintenance, some of the large supplies, some of the hard costs in the maintenance, that's something we need to step up to do. That's kind of the top priority."

Dufty also would like to see a more nuanced approach to the service cuts. "Maybe we should look at the low-performing lines and focus the cuts there rather than the key lines that are carrying the overwhelming majority of riders every day."

As for averting the cuts, Dufty, citing the city's Transit First policy, said he thinks it's time for the MTA to revisit the proposal to sell taxi medallions, which could bring in millions for the agency. Would Dufty now support extending parking meter hours? "Where I'm open to it is, I think the MTA is saying there may be neighborhoods that actually want it, and I would be more comfortable with that," Dufty said.

Though the December 2009 service changes went relatively smoothly, and may have given the MTA Board a false sense of confidence about future service cuts, there are plenty of signs that riders and activists don't see this round of cuts the same way. "I think a lot of people are angry and they're going to show up and tell the MTA Board that," said Champsee.

In a comment on Streetsblog's original story on the proposed cuts, Fran Taylor of the community group CC Puede warned that angry riders and activists should focus on the real forces behind service cuts as they gear up for this afternoon's MTA Board meeting. "The only way to fight this latest assault on public transportation is to work with the union, include all the riders, and develop strategies that transform the disruption these proposals represent to us as individuals into disruptions to business as usual for our attackers," wrote Taylor. "We need sit-ins, pickets, serious actions, and we need the Muni workers acting with us. Stop insulting them -- they've got a tough job and deserve every penny they get."

Livable City's King also thinks a collaborative approach is the best bet for saving Muni from a deep gutting of service. "I think it needs to be a really strong and united force of progressives, social justice advocates, alternative transportation advocates, labor - because the bus drivers are going to get more abuse - and everyone pulling together and saying no, this is not acceptable."

MTA Board meeting, Tuesday, at 2 p.m. in San Francisco City Hall, Room 400. The budget discussion is Item 11 on the agenda, and there will be a chance for the public to comment.

Writes Manish Champsee of Walk SF:

The SFMTA has just released revised budget projections for the current fiscal year.  Due to the Mayor's reluctance to raise money by extending parking meter hours, the proposals to close the budget gap are dire.  This on top of the hike in the Fastpass to $60 per month and $70 per month if you want to ride on BART and the service changes that took effect on December 5.  The proposals include:

-Raising the cost to ride the F-line to $5
-Requiring riders to buy the $70 Fastpass in order to ride the Cable Cars and Express Buses
-Raising the fares for seniors, disabled and youth passes to $30/month.  Triple what it was just 6 months ago
-Reductions in service by reducing the frequency of buses along some lines as well as the operating hours.

Increased fares and reduced service means that people will choose to drive rather than take MUNI. This means increased greenhouse gas and congestion, slowing down buses and endangering pedestrians and cyclists.

Tell the Mayor and SFMTA Board that enough is enough.  If you can please come out to the SFMTA Board Meeting on Tuesday, January 19th at 2pm at City Hall Room 400.  It is Item 11 on the agenda.  If you can't make it to the meeting, please send an email to gavin.newsom@sfgov.org and mtaboard@sfmta.com telling them:

-How the fare increases and service changes have affected you
-Riders should not bear the brunt of the current financial meltdown
-Extending parking meter hours needs to be a part of any solution

We realize that many of you work during the day and we will try to inform you whether it's worth coming after work to testify.

Transit advocate Susan Vaughan has set up a Facebook page, urging people to attend the meeting.  You can check out Streetsblog SF's Twitter feed and Facebook page for updates. 

The Streetsblog SF crew is off today in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day but we'll be back in full force tomorrow.