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. 

The intersection of Van Ness Avenue and Grove Street. Photo: Michael Rhodes

The crash occurred around 6:30 a.m. today, according to SFPD Lt. Lyn Tomioka. It was "not a criminal incident," she said, though the exact location of the crash and the direction of the vehicle and pedestrian were not yet available. The driver, a male who remained at the scene, was not arrested.

Given the scant details, pedestrian advocates were hesitant to point blame for the crash, which occurred several blocks south of where the Van Ness Avenue double-fine zone begins, but expressed concern with the existing crosswalks at the intersection. That portion of Van Ness Avenue was repaved in the last few weeks, but the intersection's crosswalks were not reconfigured.

Manish Champsee, president of Walk SF, said the repaving was a missed chance to improve the intersection for pedestrians by installing high-visibility yellow zebra crossings, which the MTA has been hesitant to do outside school zones, where such crossings are required by state law.

"The Draft Better Streets Plan argued against general use of zebra crosswalks, arguing that they are several times more expensive than stop lines," said Tom Radulovich, executive director of Livable City. "This makes little sense; even at several times the cost, painting ladder crosswalks is a minuscule cost compared to other road improvements. They also argued that frequent use will dull their effectiveness. They, however, don't provide any documentation of this, nor make this argument for any other traffic safety device."

MTA spokesperson Judson True confirmed that MTA prioritizes zebra crossings for school zones because of their greater maintenance expense. He also pointed out that the MTA, DPW and Caltrans have installed bulbouts at two of the corners at the intersection of Van Ness Avenue and Grove Street within the last five years, as well as on many of Van Ness Avenue's intersections.

True said the MTA will review what happened in today's crash. "We'll take a look at the police report and see if we can understand what happened."

Regardless of the circumstances surrounding this morning's crash, the intersection contains many of the usual ingredients for danger that are found in many spots along Van Ness Avenue: drivers traveling at high speeds, and a wide boulevard with short crossing times.

Cars inch across the crosswalk as pedestrians cross on the south side of Van Ness Avenue.

In the past half-decade, the MTA has installed bulbouts at two corners of the intersection, along with many other intersections along Van Ness Avenue.

Just how dangerous is San Francisco for pedestrians?

A new report on pedestrian safety in the 52 largest U.S. metro areas ranked San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont 13th safest for walkers, based on an index that takes into account annual pedestrian deaths and the percentage of workers who commute by foot. San Francisco looks pretty good at first glance, but Walk SF president Manish Champsee said a closer look at the city's record reveals a less favorable state of affairs: 47.7 percent of all traffic fatalities in San Francisco are pedestrians, more than four times the national average of 11.8 percent. The rate of pedestrian fatalities per 100,000 residents is 2.60 in San Francisco, 70 percent higher than the national average of 1.53.

That's partly because far more people walk in San Francisco than in the country as a whole. The rate of pedestrian fatalities per walking trip is still much lower in the city proper than in most metro regions. But a fairer comparison, said Champsee, is between San Francisco and other very walkable cities. "We do rank favorably when you control for the number of people who walk to work. Having said that, I think a truer measure of that would be to compare San Francisco to its peers cities, places like New York City, Chicago, Seattle, and Washington DC."

The report, co-authored by the Surface Transportation Policy Partnership and Transportation for America, only includes regional data, and doesn't break out statistics by city, which would give a more precise picture of how dangerous San Francisco is compared to peers. Regionally, however, San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont is more dangerous than other metros with very walkable cores, like Chicago, Portland, New York, Seattle, and Boston.

"We hope to see a report coming out that will compare San Francisco to other similarly land-used cities," said Champsee.

San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont is safer for pedestrians than most U.S. metro regions, but is more dangerous than most of its walkable peers. (Chart: Dangerous by Design report)

By another measure, San Francisco is definitely trailing in improving pedestrian safety: while the report found an average of 1.5 percent of federal transportation spending is focused on pedestrian and bicycle safety, Champsee said San Francisco is spending only 0.5 percent of its federal transportation dollars on that purpose (MTA spokesperson Judson True said he couldn't immediately confirm that number.)

"MTA keeps saying, 'Yes, this is the amount we spent directly on it, but in all the other stuff we do, like road repair, there's a bunch of pedestrian stuff we roll into it,'" said Pi Ra of the Senior Action Network. "We keep saying, show us."

Champsee and Ra both point to pedestrian safety projects the MTA is currently working on, including the 19th Avenue and Van Ness Avenue double-fine zones, pedestrian countdown signals, and DPW's pedestrian improvements on Divisadero Street, Valencia Street, and Leland Avenue.

Still, Ra would like to see the total pedestrian safety spending figures itemized. "The bottom line is we aren't spending enough money on pedestrian improvements," he said.

For now, many of the cities' most dangerous streets for pedestrians remain untamed.

"If you look at places where there are a lot of lanes, a lot of traffic, and a lot of people walking, I think those are the priority areas," said Champsee. "Places like Market Street, Van Ness, Geary, Mission, 19th Avenue, Sunset Boulevard, Cesar Chavez Street, Guerrero, just places where you have a lot of fast-moving traffic and a lot of people."

True said the MTA has moved vigorously to improve pedestrian safety in recent years. "So much of what we do is about pedestrian safety," he said. "Road diets, ... improving traffic signals, the school crossing guard program, Safe Routes to Schools, Safe Routes to Transit, the accessible/audible pedestrian signals which were installed on Market Street, increasing ladder crosswalks around schools, the speed humps that have been put in as part of traffic calming projects and others. Improving pedestrian safety permeates everything we do every single day."

True said the MTA is advocating for greater pedestrian safety funding in the upcoming federal transportation spending bill.

"The key is that we all know we could use more dedicated resources for pedestrian improvements in the next federal transportation spending bill," said True. "That's really our focus."

Carli Paine, president of Walk Oakland Bike Oakland, said the economic downturn has made it even more difficult to find funding for pedestrian safety. "Oakland has come a long way in pedestrian safety over the past decade, but the city's fiscal crisis has put the squeeze on our public works budget," said Paine. "Federal support for Complete Streets policies and increased funding for pedestrian safety projects are critical to meeting our goals for walkable neighborhoods and safe access to transit."

The San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara region, which was measured separately, fared worse than its northern neighbor region, with 1.3 deaths per 100,000 residents, in spite of only 1.8 percent of residents walking to work, according to 2000 U.S. Census data. San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont had 1.6 deaths per 100,000 residents, but had a much higher walk-to-work ratio of 3.9 percent.

"The data that we have in San Jose shows that the areas in which we have pedestrian fatalities are really more in the suburban areas of the city, where we've got high-speed, four-lane, six-lane arterial streets that are difficult for people to cross," said San Jose's acting transportation director, Hans Larsen. "We are looking to try to transform some of these streets to be more pedestrian friendly."

"It just illustrates how important it is that we have safe facilities for bicycling and walking," said the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition's Colin Heyne. "San Jose and Silicon Valley are definitely making large strides towards those ends, but definitely we'd love to see more done and we'd love to have it done quicker."

"In order to encourage that kind of transportation, you have to have the infrastructure in place that makes it safe and easy and, as a result, enjoyable."

"It's a great way to see the city," said Manish Champsee, WalkSF's president. "It's a great way to see areas of the city you might not have known about. It's a great way to see the beauty of the city."

Gourmet lunch at the Panhandle, a map of the route, and one-year membership in WalkSF are also included. The early bird registration fee is $50, and $65 after tomorrow.

Local architect and SFBC board member David Baker is a veteran of the walk. "This is a great urban hike," said Baker. "It's a mindset-changer to walk from one side of town to another through San Francisco's unique neighborhoods, stopping for breathtaking views from Twin Peaks, Telegraph Hill, and Mt. Olympus."

Nathan Brennan, who has been on the walk, gave another testimonial. "I enjoyed different neighborhoods while discovering pathways and stairways I never knew existed," said Brennan. "During the day each climb rewards you with a panoramic view of the City, bay or ocean."

Champsee said that the walk has drawn many people back year after year. "We have people who've done it every single year," he said. "They find out about it, they do it, and then they keep doing it."

WalkSF's Fifth Annual Peak to Peak Walk, October 24, 2009. Early-registration deadline: October 9 ($50). Regular registration deadline: October 22 ($65).

Host Joseph Pace will be joined by Marc Caswell, the program manager for the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, Manish Champsee, the president of Walk SF, and Gabriel Metcalf, the executive director of SPUR.

The program will explore the Bike Plan and improvements envisioned for the pedestrian realm: "What does the plan have in store to improve and expand San Francisco's bike network, as well as make the streets safer for bicyclists? How will this be balanced with pedestrian safety and improvements to the city's walkability?"

Catch the program tonight at 7 p.m. on 91.7 FM or listen live at KALW.org.

Photo: Arul Prasad

Though much of the media reaction to Mayor Gavin Newsom's Better Market Street Project is narrowly focusing on the traffic impacts of mandatory right-turns at two intersections on Market, the trial project will attempt to do much more to improve the public realm and public perception of San Francisco's most iconic street.

"The new and improved Market Street will rival main streets around the world," said Mayor Newsom. "With input from the community, and the leadership of the five key agencies, we will identify specific solutions that work best for our main corridor."

The traffic changes at 8th Street and 6th Street are intended to reduce conflicts between cars, transit, bicycles and pedestrians, and the success of the restrictions will be measured by a stakeholder group that includes the MTA, the San Francisco County Transportation Authority (TA), DPW, the Planning Department, advocates like the SFBC and Walk SF, and business groups like the the Market Street Association, Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) and the Union Square BID. By bringing all the groups together, the Mayor's office hoped to avoid the pitfalls from previous splintered efforts to improve Market Street.

Kit Hodge, Director of the Great Streets Project for the SFBC, said that some of the more reticent stakeholders concerned about the traffic changes got on board with the project when the Mayor's office broadened the scope to include quality-of-life issues.

"What galvanized the stakeholders is the trial approach and the placemaking approach, which reflects multiple looks on Market Street, not just transportation, but seeing the street as a place," she said. "There are a number of other things happening beyond traffic changes, including ad hoc plazas on the sidewalks, art in buildings, music along the street."

Hodge said the Great Streets Project would continue collecting baseline data through next week and then would help the agencies with public feedback.  She encouraged all interested public to use the many options for communicating with project organizers, including the website, 311, Twitter, and Facebook.

Astrid Haryati, the Mayor's Director of Greening, will oversee temporary greening measures along Market in the pilot area, what are being dubbed Greenpods, and will help to expand the lunchtime concert series People in Plazas that coincided with the opening of the Pavement to Parks plazas.

San Francisco County Transportation Authority (TA) Senior Transportation Planner Zabe Bent said the holistic approach improving the street was important for garnering support from business groups and advocates. She said that with their involvement, the planners and transit operators could consider bold long-term improvements, such as Calm the Safety Zones, which would add high-visibility markings to the street and clearer demarcations between transit, pedestrians, cyclists, and vehicles.

"The goal is to make sure that [we find] ways to improve safety for bicyclists and pedestrians."

Though a Calm the Safety Zone could take many forms, this TA image is an example rendering.

As part of the recent Strategic Analysis Report (SAR) completed for the Board of Supervisors, Bent explained, they have a placeholder in effect for additional pilots, which she said could mean "refining the existing pilot locations - or identifying additional improvements elsewhere."

She listed the intersections of 4th St, Sansome, and Battery as locations where stakeholders were concerned about conflicts between vehicles and pedestrians.

A further consideration for the TA and the MTA is the impact the restrictions will have on parallel streets in SOMA, such as traffic calming on Howard and Folsom to protect pedestrians there, depending on what comes of the evaluation process.

Though Bent said there is no guarantee that they would ban cars on Market Street, she said the TA had studied the scenario and could consider fundamental questions of how the street is used if there was a demand for it. She also said the trial was an important first step before the scheduled repaving of Market Street in 2013, when agencies will need to have any significant engineering changes prepared.

"The TEP has identified Market Street as one of the main priorities for improvement.  As TEP implementation moves forward, we could dedicate Prop K funds to restricting autos altogether, changing how automobiles use the lanes," she said.

Whether or not the approach will fundamentally change Market Street and make it into a grand promenade (as the Mayor hopes) could depend on a number of issues bigger than street changes, according to Bent. "Long-term land use and social services are not going to change in the next six months. Those are things that need a deeper look among the stakeholders."

MTA spokesperson Judson True pointed to the broader issues on Market Street as well, saying the MTA will analyze the impacts of the restrictions on Muni and will use this as an appropriate time to consider the long-term goals for how the street is engineered and how it functions.

"We're really excited to be participating in this effort. The time is right to re-imagine Market Street in its entirety."

A safety hazard on bike route 40. Photo by Michael Rhodes.

The Department of Public Works is proposing a $388 million bond measure to fund street resurfacing and streetscape improvement projects for the next five years. The proposal currently includes $209 million for street repair and rehabilitation, $113 million for streetscape improvements such as corner bulb-outs, sidewalk widening, and pedestrian lighting along commercial corridors and other high-use areas, $24.9 for street structures repair and improvement, $30.6 million for ADA curb ramp repair and construction, and $10.1 for sidewalk repair.

The Budget and Finance Subcommittee of the Board of Supervisors will be discussing a resolution in support of the measure, sponsored by the Mayor and Supervisors Chiu, Dufty, Mar, Alioto-Pier and Campos, at its 10 a.m. meeting tomorrow.

In its current form, DPW’s bond proposal calls for the “presence of transit vehicles and bicycle traffic” to give a street “higher priority for maintenance.” The San Francisco Bike Coalition would like a more detailed, explicit commitment to repairing the bike network, and it is urging the Board to include language that would allocate 30 percent of the resurfacing funds for streets with existing bicycle facilities such as bike lanes or sharrows on them.

Neal Patel, SFBC’s community planner, said he views this as an opportunity to solidify DPW’s commitment to prioritizing the bike route network, and he was optimistic about increasing the proposal’s funding “from around 20 to 22 percent” for bike route repair to 30 percent.

Pedestrian advocates also found much to like about the proposal. “This is a historic opportunity to get a lot of funding for pedestrian improvements,” said Manish Champsee, president of Walk San Francisco.

Some complete streets advocates viewed the measure with greater concern, however. “Borrowing money when you’re in a structural imbalance can be a financial road to hell,” said Livable City’s Executive Director Tom Radulovich. “You’re not only deeper and deeper in terms of your infrastructure deficit pileup, you’re paying interest costs on the money you borrowed, so there’s actually less money available.”

“The logical way to pay for street improvements is the pay-as-you-go system, so the income you’re bringing in every year matches your expenditures over the long term,” said Radulovich. “It looks like a solution, but in reality is actually is digging us further into the hole.”

In addition to his concerns about finding sustainable sources of income for complete streets, Radulovich said that in the absence of finalized complete streets standards, the measure could lead to auto-oriented projects. “We have these horrible street standards in San Francisco – skinny sidewalks, wide roadways, no pedestrian amenities – our concern is that … they won’t be rebuilding incomplete streets as complete streets, but they’ll be rebuilding these auto-oriented, skinny sidewalk, dangerous streets as the same thing.”

Radulovich cited the repaving of Divisadero Street as a cautionary tale of. “Divisidero would be a great candidate for a road diet: take out that median, do one lane in each direction, then you could have wide sidewalks, you could have bike lanes, you could have all kinds of amenities,” said Radulovich. The median greening and repaving, he said, “mean quite likely when they put them in it actually took us further away from implementing a complete Divisidero solution.”

Still, SFBC and Walk SF view the bond as likely to go forward regardless, and thus as an opportunity to set a complete streets standard in practice that can be replicated in future projects.

Also at issue is a revision to the original proposal that adds $20 million in streetscape improvement funding to be used specifically for utility “undergrounding,” the process whereby pole-mounted, overhead wires are placed under the street to improve aesthetics and reliability. DPW would like to establish a policy in the bond that “any major streetscape improvement project will include undergrounding (where overhead wires exist),” according to its revised draft proposal. While utility undergrounding is popular with property owners for aesthetic reasons, the SFBC is urging the Board not to include this provision, since it could slow down safety-enhancing projects and increase their costs.

The proposed bond measure has strong support from the Board of Supervisors. So, regardless of their views on what Radulovich calls the “boom and bust cycle” of funding that bonds can create, advocates will want to make sure it doesn’t turn into a one-time infusion of money towards rebuilding roads to antiquated, auto-oriented standards.

Budget and Finance Subcommittee discussion of Safe Streets and Road Repair General Obligation Bonds, Wednesday June 17, 11 a.m., City Hall Room 250.

San Francisco’s Richmond District is blessed with stunning vistas of the Golden Gate Bridge and the Pacific Ocean, but its street grid has turned its roads into feeder freeways, a fact that bedevils residents and pedestrian and bicycle advocacy organizations and has prompted calls for traffic calming and beautification.

To that end, this past Saturday District One Supervisor Eric Mar convened a town hall meeting with residents, city planners, DPW employees, Richmond District Police Captain Richard Corriea, and representatives of the SFBC, Senior Action Network, and Walk SF to discuss traffic issues and suggestions for streetscape improvements. 

Though there were suggestions from participants for streetscape improvements, which staff for Supervisor Mar collected and hope will be incorporated the Planning Department's Better Streets Plan and the Department of Public Works' Great Streets Program (GSP), the overwhelming concern was dangerous traffic.

“We need to start doing something to make the city more pedestrian friendly and more family friendly, “ said Anthony Lazarus who lives near 24th and Anza. “I’m not patient anymore.”

"When I think about better streets, I think about making them safe for my 9-year-old daughter," said Supervisor Mar.  "I also think about my close to 90-year-old mother.  I want to make sure the streets are safe for her when she's walking."

Another town-hall participant, Pam Tau-Lee, said, “Every morning I take my life in my hands to cross [Fulton Street] to catch the bus,”  “There are rear-enders because people are not looking as I’m crossing the street.”

SFPD Captain Corriea noted that a decision had been made decades ago not to put commercial enterprises on Fulton Street, leaving it for Golden Gate Park, residences and four lanes of traffic – which led it to become what resident Karen Willman described as the “Fulton Freeway.”

Another street of concern, according to Corriea, is 43rd Avenue, a steep, recently repaved hill that links Geary Boulevard and Chain of Lakes Drive, used frequently by motorists traversing Golden Gate Park. There was a hit-and-run collision on 43rd not long ago. The young victim is still hospitalized, and a warrant has been sent out for the arrest of the driver, who may have been intoxicated at the time.

MTA traffic engineer Adam Gubser explained three “E’s” for improving safety for pedestrians and bicyclists: education, enforcement, and engineering – obstacles that might slow down traffic while beautifying the streetscape at the same time. Corriea noted that officers have issued 4,200 traffic citations in the Richmond so far this year, up about 1,000 over the same time last year.

“I think the traffic stops are educational,” he said, noting that people slow down when they see other drivers pulled over. He was also open to moving his station’s speed trailer – an electronic sign that flashes the speed limit – around to where people thought it was necessary. “We think people slow down when the see it,” he said.

A rendering of the 1900 unit Trinity Plaza development at Market and 8th Street

As we reported last week, several city agencies have begun to look at ways to improve Market Street when it is repaved, including an inter-agency process spearheaded by DPW and the Planning Department.  Yet, we've still heard nothing from Mayor Gavin Newsom that suggests he'll make the transformation of San Francisco's most significant street an urgent priority. 

Given the political capital he's willing to spend on six car-free Sundays this summer, which we applaud wholeheartedly, we don't understand why he wouldn't marshal all the Market Street principals together, especially when his allies are calling for change and his political nemeses are rallying their troops to do it in spite of him.

Streetsblog San Francisco obtained a copy of a letter sent to Mayor Newsom several weeks ago by a group of signatories that don't always see eye to eye on street issues (PDF).  In the letter they urged the Mayor to bump Market Street to the top of his list of priorities for this year. 

"Unfortunately today Market Street does not live up to its potential as a landmark boulevard.  Transit performance, vehicle traffic congestion, pedestrian and bicycle accessibility and safety, and economic vitality all are in a poor state along much of the Market Street corridor."

While it's little surprise that advocates like SFBC, Livable City, and Walk SF would want the Mayor to act, we were heartened to read that the Chamber of Commerce, San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Central Market CBD, the North of Market/Tenderloin CBD, and the Market Street Association were all on board.

Though the letter is clearly more middle of the road than one coming exclusively from the advocates, it does list a number of targets:

• Decrease transit travel time and improve transit reliability
• Improve pedestrian circulation and safety
• Create a safer, more inviting bicycle route
• Accommodate necessary motor vehicle trips
  

Market Street Association Executive Director Carolyn Diamond said in an interview that she has heard less resistance to change from merchants over the last couple years.  She did insist that merchants are opposed to a total ban of cars on market street, but they are more and more amenable to time-of-day restrictions.

Diamond and other parties involved in the tumultuous battle over the Mid-Market Redevelopment Area Plan still feel the sting of a ten-year planning process that ended up shelved at the Board of Supervisors after vociferous protests from affordable housing and transit advocates, and the crucial resistance from Supervisor Chris Daly. 

Despite the the current economic situation, the death of the the redevelopment area proposal and the attached special use district approved by the Planning Department, a great deal of development in the Mid-Market area has been approved over the next five years; some of it is already being built.  A quick tabulation from Planning Department documents shows that at least 3,000 residential units have been approved for the next 4-5 years, the largest of which is the Trinity Plaza development, with 1900 rental units. 

In a precedent-setting deal brokered by Supervisor Daly and the developer, and with the Mayor's support, the developer of Trinity Plaza, Angelo Sangiacomo, agreed to make 360 units of the new development rent-stabilized, relocate the current occupants of Trinity Plaza Apartments during construction, and rent to them at current levels when they move back in.  The development will have multiple ground level uses, including a market, and most expect it to have a dramatic effect on that section of Market Street.

SFBC's Program Director Andy Thornley agreed that economic development is crucial for making the street a success for pedestrians and cyclists.

Mid-market revitalization is the main premise of Market right now.  SFBC knows that the point is not to make this car free and then see what happens.  What’s more important is to have a street that’s vital, interesting, safe, active.  A re-imagined Market works well for transit, bikes, peds and for the merchants who are there and the merchants who aren’t there yet.  We keep turning to the Mayor and saying here’s a great project that needs a leader.

A source in the Mayor's office who insisted on anonymity said that incremental steps could work on Market Street:

Market should be improved and emphasis should be non-automobile trips, service vehicles, but I don’t think we are in any position to remove automobiles currently.  It’s premature until we’ve reached a critical residential threshold, more uses like restaurants, lounges, bars, nightclubs, that cater to evening users.  Some people have this idea that we can have a pedestrian paradise overnight, but you could end up with potentially desolate street life if you don’t allow automobile access. 

There’s no reason that Market Street couldn’t be incrementally converted, with the gradual elimination of private automobile trips.  One can imagine in the long run that it could be transitioned solely to transit, pedestrians and bicycles.  The key is a gradual transition.

Supervisor Daly isn't waiting around for Newsom to take a leadership role.  Explaining why he chose to direct the SFCTA to study a car-free Market Street late last year, he said: "Given the progress we’ve made collectively on issues like climate change, CO2, rethinking our public spaces, I thought it may be perfect to give it one last try before leaving office.  Gavin had done his Sunday Streets thing.  I had the position that I wanted to see Market Street opened up to additional uses other than cars since before taking office."

When asked whether he believed Market Street could be transformed without Mayor Newsom's strong leadership, he said he wouldn't have brought it up if he didn't expect to bring change before he leaves office.

"I’ve done plenty of major initiatives without strong mayoral leadership, it’s actually a specialty of mine.  I don’t know if there are many other electeds who could move a major initiative without the support of the mayor, but I’ve been proven to do it."

Just about everyone who visits San Francisco's grand Market Street is awed by its hustle and bustle, the myriad modes of transportation, and some of the beautiful architecture the city hosts. But just about everyone also agrees that Market Street has a much bigger potential as a people space that accommodates its users in more efficient and human terms. Parts of the street are in disrepair; whole blocks contain more boarded up facades than functioning businesses.

Streetfilms was able to talk to many advocates who would like to see a different configuration of Market Street. Folks who have already invested time in making it better, and thoughts from passerby who use it as a daily commuting option. It's fair too say not all ideas are universal accepted across all with a stake in Market Street, but hopefully their thoughts can serve as a springboard to a bigger discussion on what to do when the street is finally re-examined and re-paved.

DPW says the Potrero median fence will resemble this one on Van Ness

As the DPW and MTA told Streetsblog yesterday in a conference call, they think the fence is needed "to prevent people from making an illegal and unsafe crossing" in the middle of the block.  DPW spokesperson Christine Falvey said there were serious safety concerns and the near-term options were to build the fence or do nothing, and hope for the best.  The latter was not a real consideration for DPW, she said.

Falvey said they had received complaints about pedestrian safety at the median a year ago and presented their project to the East Mission Improvement Association and the Lower 24th Street Merchants Association in January.  There has been a tremendous increase in pedestrian and recreational activity since the reopening of Rolph Playground and Potrero del Sol Park.  

"It is a little disconcerting that they would not do outreach to groups that are specifically concerned about pedestrian safety like CC Puede and Walk San Francisco," said Walk San Francisco Director Manish Champsee.  "I'm just talking about a simple email saying here's what we are thinking, what are your thoughts?"

Fran Taylor of CC Puede echoed the concern that community outreach was inadequate:

Many neighborhood groups concerned with safety in this area had no input into this decision: Rolph Park Neighbors and CC Puede, for example, as well as the park users, including the skateboarders themselves. As with several issues in the neighborhood, such as the proposed helipad at San Francisco General Hospital, different groups may be in direct opposition to one another. Such limited outreach -- not even posting flyers on poles where the affected parties could see them -- biases decision making unfairly.

The fence would be similar to the median fences on Van Ness in front of City Hall and on Geary in front of the Kaiser facility, both of which Falvey said were effective at stopping mid-block crossings.  The proposed fence would be five feet tall (one foot taller than the fence at Van Ness) and would not be a chain link fence or similar quality.

The median fence would run from just south of 25th street to the on-ramp to 101

She said that the Planning Department would share its list of community groups from the outreach it had done on the Mission Streetscape plan to be sure stakeholders could attend the community meeting.

"Even if the fence goes in," said Hagen, "everybody thinks it needs to be a temporary solution.  By having a community meeting, it gives an opportunity for neighbors who are willing to put in sweat equity to come up with short-term and long-term solutions.

Some advocates and community members living on Potrero were doubtful the DPW and MTA would follow through with long-term traffic calming.  Resident Shannon Dodge and Livable City Director Tom Radulovich told Streetsblog that the MTA added traffic calming to Potrero Avenue between 17th Street and 24th Street after four-year-old Elizabeth Dominguez was killed in 2003 by a Muni truck that ran the red light there. 

Radulovich said that the MTA had pledged to find additional grant money to continue traffic calming north of 17th Street and south of 25th Street, but had never completed the work.  "We wouldn't be here with the emergency pedestrian fence if MTA had followed through on its commitment.  They don't keep promises and let everything get to crisis mode before acting."

CC Puede's Taylor was grateful the community outreach would be more extensive.  She hoped to be inclusive of as many neighborhood groups as possible and suggested reaching out to many of the skateboarders at the new skate park in Potrero del Sol.

Building on other mid-block crosswalks, such as the 3rd Street crosswalk by the Yerba Buena Center, she suggested that:

On Potrero, the light could be timed with the one at 25th St, so only the turning traffic and laggards would be caught, southbound at least. Traffic is often backed up down the on-ramp at least as far as a light would go, and this does affect the crosswalk at 25th already, so a light may not make this any worse (in fact, just the other night, I saw several crossers going right through the stopped cars at the foot of the on-ramp). Northbound is another thing, but these cars are mostly coming off the freeway and need to be slowed down anyway.

Photo: Matthew Roth

A group of skaters stopped on the Potrero Avenue median half-way between 26th and Cesar Chavez

The Potrero Ave. median was recently lengthened

Please consider installing a new, safe and legal pedestrian crossing here (such as a red light triggered by a pedestran pushing a button) instead of a fence, which is not an improvement at all.  The slower traffic resulting from a pedestrian crossing would also calm our neighborhood street, reducing noise and making the parks pleasanter places to be.

Walk SF director Manish Champsee was not convinced the proposal would satisfy the city’s commitment to its Transit First policy, which should prioritize pedestrian safety before vehicles.  “We’re all concerned about keeping people safe, but we shouldn’t stop people from walking.”   

And in his formal letter to Fleck, Champsee pointed out a disturbing fact: “As we both are aware, crossing at a signalized intersection is no guarantee of safety, especially in a city where the largest cause of pedestrian crashes is drivers failing to yield to the pedestrian's right-of-way.”

MTA Spokesman Judson True said the agency typically avoids mid-block pedestrian crossings because he says they promote a false sense of confidence and drivers routinely ignore them.  He also said a signal would cost around $300,000 and that Proposition K money only affords six new signals annually.

Within ten minutes of taking pictures of the median, I witnessed more than ten jaywalkers, many of them young skateboarders, riding their boards or darting across the street.  When I asked one skater what he thought of the fence, he said, “what, they’re trying to make us cross the street at the intersections?  That’s a bunch of bullshit!  Why don’t they make a crosswalk?”

A group of three boys who were stranded on the median for more than a minute while cars sped past were equally defiant.  When asked what they would do with a new fence, one started to say he’d go around, then changed his mind.  “I’ll just run out and hop it.”

Correction: The TASC meeting is not open to the public, but is a closed meeting of agency staff.

Photo: Matthew Roth

Top 12 Intersections with Most Pedestrian Injury Crashes - Past 10 years (SWITRS)

One successful pedestrian safety project in San Francisco involved the installation of pedestrian countdown signals. The pilot study found the signals reduced pedestrians crossing on red from 14 to 9 percent, and decreased pedestrian collisions by more than 50 percent. 700 of San Francisco's 1,100 signalized intersections now have these signals. 

While the signals have helped, the streets are still perilous. MTA transportation engineer Christina Olea believes the most effective way to reduce pedestrian collisions is to slow vehicles. Streets with calmer traffic will also make walking and biking enjoyable enough for people to choose these modes over more polluting options.

Some successful calming techniques include roundabouts, lane narrowing, adjustments in roadway curvature, pedestrian refuge islands, and speed bumps. A report by the American Journal of Public Health found that vehicle crashes decreased 25 percent after these types of improvements were installed. Other treatments include pedestrian signal phasing and increased intensity of roadway lighting. For more descriptions check out this UC Berkeley Traffic Safety Center report: (PDF pg 17-22).

The MTA consults collision reports, community plans and public requests to figure out where to focus its pedestrian transportation improvements. MTA media relations manager Judson True noted they also take into account where the majority of crashes occur, however, based on actual improvements, there seems to be a disconnect between where the improvements are installed and where most crashes are happening.

This may be because the MTA prefers to slow traffic in residential areas rather than on arterial streets because they are afraid traffic will divert from arterials to residential streets. Manish Champsee, the President of WalkSF, noted that "traffic engineers like to split streets between arterial, collector and residential streets. However, in San Francisco, just about every street is a residential street and all of them should be treated that way."

The MTA has also been criticized for giving preference to moving cars quickly through the city, over accommodating pedestrian comfort and safety.

"Traffic engineers have to balance between the needs of automobile throughput and pedestrian safety. It is our view that pedestrian safety should trump concerns about vehicle throughput," said Champsee.

Portland Bureau of Transportation Detailed Crash Maps

Other cities are well ahead of us in engineering safer streets. One key is the creation of detailed crash maps and graphs (above), not only showing where the crashes have occurred, but also including information about what type of crash it was, demographic information, who was at fault, and the severity of the crash.

How You Can Get Involved

There are many ways you can encourage city officials to install safer pedestrian infrastructure. Directly request a traffic calming project for your neighborhood through the MTA’s livable streets program. Tell city officials how you want your tax money spent by contacting your elected officials , local transportation agency and regional transportation commission. And you can join Walk San Francisco, which is working to make the city more walkable and livable.

Also, come and voice your opinions at the many community open houses held around the city. Streetsblog San Francisco has an excellent calendar listing nearly all of these meetings. An important one coming up on February 24th is the redesign of Cesar Chavez which calls for a 14’ median in the middle. Medians have been shown to increase traffic speeds and take room from increasing sidewalk widths or physically separated bike lanes.

Next: What San Francisco can learn from the safest cities around the world, and creative ways to fund traffic safety projects.

In 2007, the Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association (HVNA), Livable City, Walk SF, and the SFBC worked with neighborhood and business stakeholders to advocate for the restoration of two-way traffic on Hayes Street between Gough and Van Ness.  Two-way Hayes was included in the Market & Octavia Neighborhood Plan, adopted in 2007, and a resolution calling for restored two-way traffic, along with wider sidewalks and pedestrian safety improvements, passed the Board of Supervisors unanimously in fall 2007.

Today, Supes will get an update on the status of the MTA's restoration of Hayes Street to a two-way thoroughfare pursuant to a Board of Supervisors Resolution. 

We've heard a nasty rumor that the MTA may propose doing nothing to the street except reintroducing a crosswalk at Gough, which would be unacceptable to the HVNA and the entire community planning process.

We encourage you to speak out for a two-way solution in person or to send your comments in writing to Supervisors Maxwell, Mar, and Chiu if you are unable to attend the meeting.

City Hall, Room 263

Meeting starts at 1 pm and this issue is agenda item #6

At-grade pedestrian crossing on Geary Blvd

The solution to avoid this kind of tragedy at intersections with a pedestrian bridge is not to crack down on “jaywalkers,” but rather to allow people to cross at street level. We also need to calm the traffic in this area and make it more inviting to people walking at street level, rather than trying to separate people from the street.

Though papers like the Examiner aren't likely to be sensitive to subtleties, it added insult to death by running an online poll with the article asking readers whether the police should crack down on jaywalkers. 

The jaywalker in question was an elderly man who used a walker, both of which were strewn in the middle of the street in the original grisly photo run by the paper.  No attention was paid to why Cinti would have calculated that the risk of crossing the busy street was preferable to using the pedestrian bridge over Geary Boulevard at the scene of the crash.

Cinti was killed on the west side of the street, while the bridge is on east side. This means that in order for Cinti to have used the bridge he would have had to cross Webster Street twice just to cross Geary Boulevard on the bridge, in addition to climbing up to cross. That’s a lot of extra effort for someone using a walker.

If the intersection of Geary and Webster allowed crossing at the street level, city standards would dictate more time to cross than what is currently the case. They would also dictate pedestrian countdown signals, along with pedestrian refuge islands in the medians, so someone who couldn’t cross the entire length of the street in one light cycle could continue at the next cycle.

Flickr photo: awcole72