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Posts from the "DPW" Category

Wednesday, May 22, 2013 1 Comment

Ped Safety Fixes on Sloat, Where Girl Was Killed, Moved Up to This June

by Aaron Bialick

Pedestrian safety fixes on deadly Sloat Boulevard will be installed beginning this June — much sooner than originally proposed.

Photo: DPW

At the intersection of Sloat and Forest View Drive, where 17-year-old Hanren Chang was killed by a drunk driver in a crosswalk in March, the Department of Public Works will install bulb-outs, more visible crosswalks, street lights, an extended pedestrian refuge median, and a button-activated pedestrian beacon, according to the agency’s website. Those improvements are scheduled to be finished by August.

The second phase of the project, which includes similar improvements at Sloat’s intersections with 23rd Avenue and Everglade Drive, would be in place by June 2014, DPW’s website says.

Previously, a city memo on the project had indicated that safety improvements might not be on the ground until June 2014.

Elizabeth Stampe, executive director of Walk SF, said “this rapid action on Sloat safety improvements shows a real change.”

“It shows that city leaders are listening to the community, to take action to make our streets safer,” she said. “For too long, it’s taken years to get small fixes. Now that the voice for safe, walkable streets is growing, we look forward to seeing street fixes happen faster to prevent more tragedies.”

“This is the kind of action we need to see on the new Pedestrian Strategy, to fix five miles of streets a year,” she added. “This isn’t rocket science. We need funding and political will to fix the city’s most dangerous streets, where people get hit by cars every single day.”

A community meeting on the Sloat improvements with DPW, Supervisors Katy Tang and Norman Yee will be held tonight at 6 p.m. at the San Francisco Zoo.

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Thursday, March 28, 2013 17 Comments

Potrero Safety Upgrades Could Include a Wider Sidewalk, If Car Parking Goes

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by Aaron Bialick

Potrero Avenue looking north at 23rd Street. Image: Google Maps

Four blocks of Potrero Avenue, from 21st to 25th Street at SF General Hospital, could be made safer under proposals from the Department of Public Works to extend sidewalks, narrow the roadway, and plant existing median space. But whether the street’s narrow 9-foot sidewalks will be widened to 15 feet on the east side depends on city officials’ willingness to re-allocate public space from car parking to people.

DPW staff presented street design proposals for Potrero at a public meeting at SF General on Tuesday. The project would add greening and pedestrian safety upgrades to coincide with a street re-paving, sewer replacement work, and a hospital rebuild scheduled for completion in June 2015.

Residents said safety improvements to slow drivers and protect pedestrians on Potrero are sorely needed.

“I always think, when I’m crossing the street, this is the way I’m gonna go,” said Potrero resident Deborah McKnight, who said she gave up her car two years ago. “If there’s a way we can balance, respectfully, the rights of people who feel like they need to be in their cars 24-7, and the rights of people who would like to walk a little bit more and use public transportation, I think we can find it.”

Fran Taylor, a neighborhood pedestrian advocate, pointed out that February 11 was the ten-year anniversary of the death of Elizabeth Dominguez, a four-year old girl who was killed by a Muni maintenance truck driver who jumped the curb when she was waiting with her mother at a Muni stop on Potrero and 24th Street.

“Drivers are not the only people who have the right to get around,” said Taylor. “The sidewalk widening would be very helpful… It’s a lot of people who have crutches, who have helpers walking with them who have to be side-by-side. It’s a hospital,” she said, eliciting broad applause from attendees.

Potrero currently has four traffic lanes, two bike lanes, and a bus-only lane that only runs northbound for just over three blocks between 21st and 25th. Under any of the redesign options, the transit-only lane would be removed, and the outer two traffic lanes widened to 12 feet. DPW project manager Cristina Olea said the existing transit lane, at 10 feet, isn’t wide enough to fit buses on Muni’s 33-Stanyan and 9-San Bruno lines, and that the project wouldn’t preclude any future plans for Bus Rapid Transit on Potrero.

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Wednesday, February 27, 2013 38 Comments

Bikeway on Mission Street Would Cost More Than One on Market

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by Aaron Bialick

Constructing raised, protected bike lanes on downtown Mission Street would cost more than building them on Market, according to SF Municipal Transportation Agency Director Ed Reiskin.

A possible vision for Market Street with a raised, protected bikeway.

The Mission bikeway proposal, which recently surfaced as an option to be studied in the repeatedly-delayed Better Market Street project, would entail abandoning long-sought bike safety improvements on Market, which is where bicycle riders naturally tend to travel. The Department of Public Works and the SFMTA have said the Mission option, which would also re-route Muni’s 14-Mission buses on to Market, would be simpler to engineer, allow the 14 to use Market’s wider bus lanes, and could include a “green wave” for bikes on Mission.

The proposal for protected bike lanes on Mission instead of Market. Images: Better Market Street

But even factoring in the cost of reconstructing Market Street’s granite curbs to build raised bike lanes, the Mission option is projected to be more expensive, Reiskin told the SF County Transportation Authority Board (comprised of the Board of Supervisors) at a hearing yesterday. Though the cost estimates for each option aren’t immediately available, Reiskin said that even if protected bikeways weren’t included at all, construction costs on Market Street would only be cut by an estimated 10 percent. The total cost of the project is estimated to be as high as $450 million, up from the $250 million figure provided last year.

Supervisor Scott Wiener, who, along with Supervisor John Avalos, called for hearings to scrutinize the Mission bikeway proposal and project delays, noted that “ten percent is not a dramatic increase,” and that debates about whether or not to build a protected bikeway on Market should focus on policy outcomes, not cost.

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Tuesday, February 5, 2013 58 Comments

Delayed Again, “Better Market Street” Could Move Bikeway to Mission Street

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by Aaron Bialick

Better Market Street project managers announced today that construction will be pushed back another two years to 2017, and one of the three options to be studied will include protected bike lanes on Mission Street instead of Market Street. Images: Better Market Street

The latest news from the Better Market Street project could be a setback for implementing a safe, accessible bike network in San Francisco — not just because construction has been pushed back to 2017, four years past the original date — but because one of the three proposals that planners will study involves building a protected bike lane route on Mission Street instead of Market, while re-routing Muni’s 14-Mission bus line on to Market in the downtown stretch.

The SF Chronicle reported on the proposal today, saying that protected bike lanes on parallel Mission would be easier to engineer and “far safer” for bicycle riders compared to Market. Routing the 14-Mission onto downtown Market, meanwhile, would allow more room for buses than the 9-foot-wide bus lanes on Mission, where Muni drivers today must often occupy two traffic lanes to squeeze through.

But by abandoning Market as a priority bike route, the Mission Street option would go against a primary principle of bike planning: Improving the most direct routes, which people are naturally drawn to use. Market Street, the city’s wide, main thoroughfare, serves as the most convenient and direct east-west bicycling route from downtown to the Wiggle. And with bicycles comprising a significant share of the vehicles on Market, it’s been claimed as the busiest bicycling street west of the Mississippi.

“Bikes are a critical part of the current and future economy, social safety and transportation on Market Street,” said Kit Hodge, deputy director of the SF Bicycle Coalition. “The companies that are now moving to mid-Market depend on great bicycling access. It would be odd for the city to roll back its own mid-Market revitalization efforts back by limiting biking.”

As Department of Public Works spokesperson Mindy Linetzky told the Chronicle, “This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to rethink and improve San Francisco’s premier street. Market Street is San Francisco’s main street. It should look and work like one.”

So will the vision for San Francisco’s “premier” street include bicycles?

Read more…

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Thursday, November 29, 2012 3 Comments

Planners Refine Ped Upgrades, Protected Bike Lane Designs for Second Street

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by Aaron Bialick

One of three options for the height of the bikeway would raise it to a "half-step" between the curb and the roadway. Images: DPW

The developing plan to overhaul Second Street with protected bike lanes and pedestrian safety upgrades took another step forward yesterday when staff from the SF Municipal Transportation Agency, the Department of Public Works, and the Planning Department presented more refined design options to the public.

Under the proposal, the entire one-mile length of Second Street would be rebuilt with 6-foot-wide bike lanes next to the sidewalks, separated from motor traffic and car parking by a 4-foot raised buffer, which would be planted in some areas and widen to an 8-foot boarding island at bus stops. It would be the first street to feature bicycle traffic signals at each intersection, creating separate signal phases to reduce conflicts between bicyclists and right-turning drivers. Planners presented three options for the height of the bike lanes: they could be level with the sidewalks, level with the road, or raised about halfway between (which is the norm in Copenhagen).

“It’s exciting to see hundreds of Second Street residents and workers developing the plans for the one-way separated bikeway and pedestrian improvements being proposed for Second Street,” said Leah Shahum, executive director of the SF Bicycle Coalition. “It’s especially encouraging that DPW’s survey results show clear preference for this proposal from people who live and work here. This project is sorely needed for Second Street and we hope the city works hard to prioritize getting this project in the ground.”

It will be some time — three years — before the safety overhaul is completed. Construction, originally scheduled to begin in July 2014, was pushed back to January 2015, and is expected to take a year. The estimated project cost, which includes the total reconstruction of the street, has also increased to $13.2 million from the original $6-8 million.

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Wednesday, November 14, 2012 10 Comments

DPW Begins Work on Market/Valencia Left-Turn Bike Signal

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by Aaron Bialick

Market and Valencia. Photo: Aaron Bialick

Construction has begun on a left-turn bicycle traffic signal and queuing lane that will help bicycle riders turn on to Valencia Street from westbound Market Street, according to the SF Department of Public Works.

Originally expected to begin last month, work on the project started yesterday, said DPW spokesperson Rachel Gordon, and it should be completed by November 30, depending on weather.

The project, which is being implemented by both DPW and the SF Municipal Transportation Agency, will create a left-turn “pocket” for bicycle commuters to queue up by the curb along Market, where an exclusive bicycle signal will indicate when to cross onto southbound Valencia. To make that possible, DPW crews will also remove a piece of the center median on Market.

When completed, it should bring some major relief for commuters connecting between two of the city’s busiest bicycling routes, who must currently merge over three lanes of traffic, one of which has streetcar tracks on it.

For a visual of what the treatment could look like, check out a similar example used at the Harvard campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts after the break.

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Tuesday, November 6, 2012 13 Comments

Supes Grill Planners for Repeated Delays on Better Market Street Project

by Aaron Bialick

The Better Market Street project, a multi-agency effort to overhaul San Francisco’s main thoroughfare for walking, bicycling and transit, may have trouble staying on schedule, to the frustration of some city supervisors.

At a recent hearing of the SF County Transportation Authority Board, which is comprised of the Board of Supervisors, staff from the SFCTA and the Department of Public Works said the project is currently “on hold” while planners re-assess the timeline and coordinate efforts between the various agencies before moving full speed ahead. It’s unclear if the city will meet its target to begin construction in 2015, and it’s not the first time project managers have told the board they need more time to organize the effort.

Supervisor David Chiu grilled DPW Project Manager Kris Opbroek about the project’s repeated rollbacks. ”Given how many issues have come up, I don’t have much faith that this project is going to see any real progress in the near-term future,” said Chiu. “This is Groundhog Day, I don’t really know what more we can say other than that the process has been very disappointing thus far.”

In regular updates to the board, planners on the project said they underestimated the complexity of coordinating efforts between DPW, the SF Municipal Transportation Agency, the SFCTA, the Planning Department, the Office of Economic and Workforce Development, and a number of consulting firms. In March, the SFCTA Board granted $170,000 in additional consultant funds for the project, though board members worried that might set project costs on a rising trajectory.

Opbroek noted that the Planning Department hired a Better Market Street project manager, who began last month. ”Yes, we are not on the schedule that we had committed to earlier this year, but we think that some time spent now will result in savings later,” said Opbroek.

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Tuesday, October 23, 2012 25 Comments

Protected Bike Lanes Selected as Preferred Option for 2nd Street Project

by Robert Prinz

A conceptual plan for protected bike lanes and pedestrian islands on Second Street. Image: SF DPW

Following a public process that revealed a strong preference for protected bike lanes, the SF Department of Public Works yesterday announced the selection of the preferred option for the Second Street Improvement Project. And yes, the design includes one-way protected bike lanes on each side of the street. The redesign will extend from Market Street to King Street, connecting downtown San Francisco to the SOMA district.

The bike lanes will be separated from auto traffic by a four-foot, planted buffer, creating a safe and comfortable space for cyclists to travel through this important corridor.

From SF DPW:

The preferred One-Way Cycletracks option envisions protected bicycle lanes in both directions,
increased opportunities for landscaping and retiming traffic signals to separate bicycles from turning
vehicles. It also would entail removing parking on one side of the street between Market and Harrison
streets; removing all parking between Harrison and Bryant streets, and retaining parking on both sides
of the street south of Bryant Street. Left-hand turns may need to be restricted at some intersections
during certain hours of the day.

We’ll have more information as it becomes available, but for now you can read up on the Second Street Improvement Project and take a look at conceptual renderings of the bike lanes on SF DPW’s project website.

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Wednesday, October 10, 2012 10 Comments

Eyes on the Street: Bike Lane, Raised Crosswalks, and More at McCoppin

by Aaron Bialick

Photos: Aaron Bialick

The ongoing streetscape transformation on and around McCoppin Street in recent weeks has brought a new bike lane, raised crosswalks, planted bulb-outs and medians.

Crews installing cobblestone pavement on Stevenson Street today.

The planted bulb-outs and medians being added to McCoppin and nearby alleys (Stevenson, Pearl, Jessie Streets, and Elgin Park) will help absorb rainwater and lighten the load on the city’s stormwater systems. Such treatments, which are called for in the city’s Better Streets Plan, also help narrow the view of the street, signaling drivers to slow down, as do the cobblestone pavement treatments in the alleyways.

The new westbound bike lane on McCoppin (which was included in the SF Bike Plan but coordinated with the Department of Public Works’ project) connects the one-block bike lane on Otis Street to Valencia Street and the McCoppin bikeway, which runs through the future site of the McCoppin Hub plaza toward Market Street and Octavia Boulevard.

Read more…

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Tuesday, October 9, 2012 6 Comments

The Sky Didn’t Fall: Block of Mason Street Now Permanently Closed to Cars

by Aaron Bialick

Photo: Tony Wessling

Putting another nail in the coffin of falsely-predicted traffic jams, a block of Mason Street has been permanently closed to motorists for the construction of a plaza as part of the expansion of the North Beach Public Library.

North Beach resident Tony Wessling sent in the above photo, noting that “the predictions of Traffigeddon have not materialized, and the speed of traffic heading up and down Mason above Columbus has slowed considerably.”

That confirms the conclusions found in a trial plaza study three years ago aimed at assuaging fears voiced by an opposition group formed under the banner “Save Mason Street” (whose website no longer exists). When the Board of Supervisors approved the enrivonmental impact report for the library expansion project in June of last year, Ed Reiskin, head of the Department of Public Works at the time, said the trial “not only helped to validate the analysis of the traffic impact, but really supported the notion that there was significant positive impact for the public for the increased open space.”

The plaza is expected to be completed in the first half of 2014, said DPW spokesperson Mindy Linetzky, although she noted that “the Recreation and Parks Department may be making additional improvements to the Mason Street section as well as the surrounding Joe Di Maggio Playground that could run after this date.”

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