"Bulb-outs", or curb extensions, like this one at 7th Avenue and Irving Street could be installed more easily under a new proposal. Image: Google Maps

The proposal, sponsored by Supervisor Scott Weiner and Mayor Ed Lee, was moved forward by the SF Board of Supervisors Land Use and Economic Development Committee today. It would streamline the bureaucratic process for building sidewalk extensions (a.k.a. “bulb-outs”) — a street design tool often used by planners to calm motor traffic, improve pedestrian visibility and comfort, and ease transit boardings at stops — by eliminating an outdated requirement for changes to sidewalk widths less than one block long to be approved by the Board of Supervisors.

“This will be a significant improvement in our process in terms of making our city more pedestrian-friendly and safer for pedestrians, improving the vibrancy of our commercial districts, and creating more public space that is not for cars, but rather for people,” said Wiener.

“Upon adoption of the Better Streets Plan, we’ve seen more and more projects come through for minor sidewalk changes such as corner bulb-outs for individual projects that don’t exceed one linear block,” said Nick Elsner of the SF Department of Public Works (DPW), the primary agency responsible for implementing sidewalk extensions. ”This would greatly expedite and make the process much more efficient.”

According to legislative documents [PDF], the proposal would amend an ordinance passed in 1910 requiring project approval from supervisors, which “result[s] in a very lengthy process and often lead[s] to project delays.” It would also establish a speedier approval process for the SF Planning Department, but projects would still need to be approved by other affected agencies like the SFMTA. The change would save the DPW an estimated $2,500 in processing costs for a block of construction, said spokesperson Gloria Chan, and the SF Planning Department would save about $1,375 in reviews.

Bulb-outs, the documents note, are an important tool in pursuing the city’s goals of improving the pedestrian environment. Stephen Shotland of the Planning Department said the proposal is intended “to be able to move projects forward that really are consistent with the General Plan and consistent with the adopted Better Streets Plan,” which, along with several neighborhood plans cited in the documents, call for improvements like widening congested sidewalks, minimizing crossing distances, and discouraging high-speed car traffic on local streets. “Staff would be able to review projects to make sure that, in fact, is the case,” said Shotland.

The proposal passed the committee today without objection and is expected to go before the full board in the coming weeks.

A raised crosswalk and landscaped sidewalk bulb-outs now grace the entrance of this block of Newcomb Avenue. Photo: SFDPW/Flickr

After a six-year-long process, residents of Newcomb Avenue in the Bayview joined city staffers yesterday to mark the completion of the “Model Block” project, a prototype for street design that’s better for the environment and more conducive to neighborhood life.

The block had been characterized by speeding traffic and illegal dumping. With this redesign it should be a safer, more sociable street thanks to the addition of landscaped chicanes, sidewalk bulb-outs, 20 new street trees, raised crosswalks, and other traffic calming improvements. The new landscaped surfaces will absorb rainfall and prevent stormwater from overloading the sewer system.

“To see the finished project, something this great in the Bayview, is unbelievable!” said Newcomb resident Mardina Graham in a press release from the Department of Public Works. “I have lived in the neighborhood all my life and have never seen anything like this before, perhaps in other neighborhoods yes, but not here.”

Residents will organize community cleanup days to keep the street “clean and green,” according to DPW, while the performance of the new stormwater treatment facilities — projected to reduce runoff by half — will be monitored by the city.

Landscaped chicanes along the curbs are designed to slow drivers. Photo: SFDPW/Flickr

See more photos after the break.

Newcomb Avenue before the redesign in May during a press conference for the project's groundbreaking. Photo: Aaron Bialick

Photo: SFDPW/Flickr

Department of Public Works Director Mohammed Nuru speaks with neighbors, the mayor, Supervisor Mali Cohen, and other city staffers at a ribbon-cutting ceremony yesterday. Photo: SFDPW/Flickr

Photo: SFDPW/Flickr

Fixing streets more frequently keeps them in better shape and saves money in the long run. Source: San Francisco Department of Public Works

Last week San Francisco voters approved a $248 million bond to fix streets, which means the city will soon begin the largest repaving expenditure in its history. For the next three years, San Francisco will spend more than three times the amount it has normally budgeted for street repairs. Ninety million dollars will go to bicycle, pedestrian, transit, and infrastructure improvements (we’ll have more on those projects next week).

“There’s a lot of pride from folks in the bike coalition in getting this passed,” said Kit Hodge, deputy director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. SFBC helped draft the proposition, went door to door, and sent out 42,000 mailers on the issue. This support may have been crucial: The proposition exceeded the required two-thirds majority by just under 3,000 votes.

The bond can only do so much, however. It pays for only three years of work and is insufficient to complete the backlog of repaving projects. “This won’t totally fix all the deferred maintenance,” said Department of Public Works spokesperson Gloria Chan. “We still need to find a permanent funding source.”

The problem is that San Francisco has neglected its streets, failing to pay for preventive care since the early 1990’s. Putting things off until later — deferred maintenance — comes at a steep price. It’s actually cheaper to do maintenance more often and keep roads smooth. Engineers have estimated that it costs about three times as much to let streets deteriorate to a broken-down, pothole-scarred state.

Maintaining streets is one of those basic good-government policies that pretty much everyone agrees with. But it’s not sexy. Slurry seals never won fame for a politician. And so far, no one has stepped up to make a permanent solution to this problem.

While the bond is expected to pay for new bike and pedestrian infrastructure in addition to general maintenance, not every livable streets advocate supported the measure. Livable City director Tom Radulovich told Streetsblog in July that a better funding mechanism would reflect the costs that different people impose by using the streets: “As a driver, you’re not going to pay any more to drive, but as a non-driver I’m going to pay more for automobile infrastructure. We’re sending the wrong economic signals by continually hiding the true cost of motoring from drivers.”

San Francisco Supervisor Sean Elsbernd voted against sending the measure to the ballot and thinks the city shouldn’t make a habit of borrowing to pay for road upkeep. “We’re going to get $248 million of work, but we’re going to pay over $400 million because of the interest,” he said.

Even Supervisor Scott Wiener, a strong supporter of the roads bond, said that debt financing shouldn’t be a permanent solution. “We’d deferred so much maintenance that this has become a capital expense, and a bond is appropriate for that,” he said. But he thinks that it’s neither rational to use debt to pay for routine maintenance or to ignore the problem. “I think there’s pretty much unanimous agreement that the status quo is unacceptable,” he said.

Much like Radulovich, Weiner believes that the best solution would be for the users of city roads to pay for their upkeep. He’s hoping that State Senator Mark Leno will write a law to enable San Francisco to charge residents a vehicle license fee. This year Governor Jerry Brown vetoed a bill that did just that, explaining that he wanted a solution for the whole state, not individual municipalities, but the governor may be warming to the idea, Elsbernd said.

“Maybe Brown’s recognized that the Republicans just aren’t interested in compromise,” he said.

There’s also a chance that the nine Bay Area counties will institute a gas tax, which, if passed, could help pay for street maintenance.

Crews perform sewer work on Cesar Chavez, a prelude to streetscape changes scheduled for completion in 2013. Photos: Aaron Bialick

Construction on the Cesar Chavez Sewer and Streetscape Improvement Project will be completed a few months behind schedule in summer 2013, according to the SF Department of Public Works.

DPW’s Kris Opbroek said the streetscape portion will begin in the spring as completion of the sewer work moves west. When finished, the project will transform Cesar Chavez Street, from Hampshire to Guerrero Streets, with a wide planted median, bicycle lanes, and pedestrian safety improvements.

City staff and construction crews showcased the site last Friday as Mayor Ed Lee, who formerly headed the DPW, paid a visit to the project. It’s the largest yet under the city’s Great Streets Program, which has completed six streetscape projects since it began in 2005 and has another nine in the pipeline or under construction, according to a press release from the mayor’s office. Cesar Chavez, budgeted at $35.2 million, is the biggest project funded by the Great Streets Program to date.

The SFMTA is also developing plans for bike lanes on the eastern side of Cesar Chavez, just across “The Hairball”, after the mayor’s office pressured the agency into dropping a previous iteration of the plan in June.

Crew members on break.

Staff tour the construction site.

Construction will continue moving west.

The construction's occupation of vehicle lanes has put Cesar Chavez on a de facto road diet.

Photo: ejbSF

Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of occasional stories on the “2011 Road Repaving and Street Safety Bond.”

A $248 million streets bond measure being pushed by San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and other electeds is on its way to the November ballot after being approved this week in a 9-2 vote by the Board of Supervisors. The “2011 Road Repaving and Street Safety Bond” would provide funds over three years to repave the city’s crumbling streets and fix cracked and buckling sidewalks. Streets with high volumes of transit, bicycle and pedestrian traffic would be prioritized.

“With more than half of our 850 miles of roadways deteriorating, we must confront the crisis in the condition of our streets now or we will face even greater costs and threats to public health and safety later,” Lee said in a statement released yesterday.

The San Francisco Department of Public Works (SFDPW) recently posted maps online that give a citywide breakdown of which streets stand to benefit from the bond money. The final list of streets would be “geographically equitable” and the SFDPW would “ensure that projects are evenly distributed to all parts of the city” without raising property taxes.

The agency’s outgoing director, Ed Reiskin, recently appointed to head the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, said funding sources to improve street conditions have gradually declined over the years, and the measure is urgently needed to rebuild a growing backlog of streets in poor condition.

“We have a huge need. That backlog is maybe three quarters of a billion dollars, and there’s just no way that we can dig out of that hole using the operating dollars that are funding police and firefighters and library services and health and human services,” Reiskin told Streetsblog in a recent interview.

General fund money has historically not been used for street resurfacing, according to city officials, and state and federal funding sources have been "volatile and subject to policymaker cuts." Image: San Francisco Capital Plan

The bond measure, which requires a two-thirds vote, would gear $148 million to street repaving and construction (a total of 1,389 street segments), $7.3 million to repair street structures such as bridges, retaining walls and stairways, $22 million for sidewalk repairs (including ADA-compliant curb ramps and repairing up to 75,000 square feet of damaged sidewalks), $50 million for pedestrian, bicycle and streetscape improvements, and $20.3 million for transit and pedestrian signal infrastructure improvements. It would also create about 1,600 jobs, according to the Mayor’s Office.

SFDPW has not released a list of specific bicycle and pedestrian improvements but Reiskin said many of the remaining projects in the Bike Plan could be built and that the city’s Pedestrian Safety Task Force was working actively to identify where the most pressing needs are. Supervisor Jane Kim, who supports the measure, has said that she would work to see that some of the money is directed to pedestrian improvements in District 6, which has the highest rate of pedestrian fatalities and injuries.

“The first thing this bond measure does is to start improving the average condition of the streets,” Reiskin said. “The second thing that is important is bicycle facilities, whether it’s striping or dedicated bike lanes. A lot more streets that serve bicycles will get done if this bond passes.”

Although a similar measure was defeated in 2005 — it failed to get two-thirds — Reiskin pointed out that 56 percent of voters still said yes, without any kind of campaign. This time around, he expects a campaign and seems more confident it will pass. He added that many major cities use debt financing to resurface streets, including New York City, Chicago, Seattle, Minneapolis and Houston, among others.

“We’re supporting it because the city needs money to fix our streets and make them safe to walk on, and this is one good revenue source among hopefully many that we can bring to this important goal,” said Elizabeth Stampe, the executive director of Walk San Francisco. “The bicycle and pedestrian improvements are investments in long-term, permanent improvements in our city streets, and that is exactly what a bond is for.”

“It’s not only about the repaving but investing in better bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure that is above and beyond maintenance,” said San Francisco Bicycle Coalition Executive Director Leah Shahum. “There’s a lot of really important projects that are building momentum that this will give real legs to, just in the next three years. It could be a really big boost to great streets.”

 Some Transit Advocates Opposed

The vote to support the measure on the SFBC’s board was 10-1, with Amandeep Jawa casting the lone dissent. In an email to Streetsblog, Jawa explained that he feels the measure is “irresponsible” and a “bad deal.” He argues the lifetime of the debt could last longer than the repairs and construction.

“If we are to sign on to such a stop gap, it is only responsible to do so if it buys us time to fix the real problem.  But this proposal has no such long-term solutions in it,” Jawa wrote. “We are just signing on to ‘borrow money and hope for a better tomorrow.’ In effect, all we are doing by supporting this measure is kicking the can down the road so that in 10-15 years we will have the same crisis, but we will be in worse shape financially as a City.”

Tom Radulovich, the executive director of Livable City, shares Jawa’s concerns. Livable City is officially opposed to the measure, citing several reasons. For one, Radulovich is frustrated that SFDPW is not adhering to the city’s livable streets policies when it repaves most streets because of a lack of funds.

“When they’re rebuilding city streets, per city law, per the Complete Streets plan ordinance and the Better Streets ordinance, they’re supposed to be using the major streets rehab to do pedestrian improvements, but they’re failing to do that,” Radulovich said. “I love fresh asphalt. I just want less blood on it.”

Radulovich said the city shouldn’t conceal the costs from motorists, and ought to consider a user fee — such as congestion pricing, a gas tax, adjusting the price of residential parking — to help fund street and parking maintenance.

“As a driver, you’re not going to pay anymore to drive, but as a non-driver I’m going to pay more for automobile infrastructure. We’re sending the wrong economical signals by continually hiding the trust cost of motoring from drivers,” Radulovich said.

Supervisor Sean Elsbernd, who voted against the measure along with his colleague Mark Farrell, was also concerned there isn’t a long-term funding component “to ensure that 10 years from now we don’t have another backlog. That’s my frustration.”

“I agree with Tom that there is a cost associated with driving a car, owning a car and the impact that those cars have on our streets. Absolutely. I get that,” Elsbernd told Streetsblog, adding that he would support “some new fee or some new tax,” such as a hike in the vehicle license fee, to pay for street resurfacing.

A bill by State Senator Mark Leno would allow San Francisco to restore the vehicle license fee to previous levels, which he said could generate up to $44 million annually “to help restore and preserve essential programs.” The legislation, SB223, passed the upper house last month and is scheduled for a hearing before the Assembly Appropriations Committee August 17, said a spokesperson for Leno.

Supporters Say Short-Term Funds Needed

Supporters of the measure agree there needs to be a long-term funding solution, but argue that until there’s a consensus SFDPW cannot let the city’s backlog get worse.

“The fact that the cost of repairing a street gets exponentially more expensive over time means that rather than spending four dollars down the road we can spend a dollar now and save money in the long-term even if we’re borrowing to get that dollar. It’s still cheaper in the long-term,” said Reiskin.

“The streets are in such bad shape that even if this not long-term we need to do it,” said Bob Planthold, the chair of California Walks who is also the pedestrian coordinator for the Senior Action Network (SAN). “Otherwise, things get worse and the city assumes a great financial liability for injuries caused by broken jumbled pavement so that neglect, inactivity means greater litigation and damage costs that the city will incur in the future.”

Although Planthold supports the measure, SAN has not taken an official position on it. He said he planned to encourage SAN’s board to support it.

“We have been negligent, you know, for about 30 years and have systematically underfunded our roads and the chickens are coming home to roost,” said Supervisor Scott Wiener. “This bond will allow us, for three years, to really do what we need to do on our roads and start bearing the backlog and that gives a three-year period to establish a sustainable funding stream.”

Next: We’ll take a look at some of the long-term funding solutions that have emerged to pay for street maintenance and repaving, and the political realities of implementing them.

A staffer for State Senator Leland Yee presents signatures to the SFMTA Board opposing Nat Ford's severance package.

In a unanimous vote, the SFMTA Board of Directors this afternoon approved a $384,000 severance package for outgoing Executive Director/CEO Nat Ford, and announced that the agency will accept applications for the top job until July 1, when he is scheduled to depart.

The vote came without any discussion among board members. The only person to testify against the payout was a staffer for State Senator and mayoral candidate Leland Yee, who said he was presenting 1,200 signatures to the board from San Francisco voters opposing what the campaign has been calling a golden parachute.

Yee showed up at City Hall after the meeting to tell reporters he was disappointed with the vote.

“This is not really about Nat Ford. It’s about the MTA commission,” Yee said. “The fact that they arranged this particular deal whereby someone who is now going to get this humongous amount of money, and at the same time, we’re looking at not enough money to provide for the basic services for many riders throughout San Francisco. It’s rather disheartening.”

Yee has been claiming that with $384,000 “the entire city of San Francisco could park free of charge for 3 days. Or MUNI could be entirely free for a whole day. Or we could stripe 7 miles of new bike lanes.”

Yee’s figures might resonate with some voters, but they don’t exactly add up. Considering Muni has 700,000 daily boardings, $384,000 would not cover a free day of Muni, nor would it cover 3 days of free parking considering the SFMTA generates about $200 million in annual parking revenue.

Numbers aside, Yee’s press releases mention free parking before free transit, a troubling sign that he thinks good public relations is pandering to drivers, despite the city’s Transit First policy. Yee has also voted with state legislators to cut funding for Muni, and other Bay Area transit agencies.

Deputy Director Carter Rohan Resigns

Carter Rohan at Transportation Camp, sponsored by Streetsblog's parent non-profit, OpenPlans. Photo: transportation camp

The agency was caught by surprise this morning when Carter Rohan, the deputy director, announced his resignation. Carter had been seen as a possible replacement for Ford, and has been at the agency for 5 and a half years.

In an interview with Streetsblog, Rohan said he made the decision with his wife over the weekend, and was officially leaving for “personal reasons.” It apparently had nothing to do with the rumor that Ed Reiskin, the head of the San Francisco Department of Public Works, has emerged as the favorite to replace Ford.

Despite the recent turmoil at the top, Rohan said he believed SFMTA staff was enduring the changes well, and that morale was not down because of the uncertainty.

“We’ve got some of the best professionals in the industry in this agency,” Rohan said. “It’s mired with political connections and problems, and being a city department, and not an authority like most agencies around the U.S., but it survives and it survives because of the people.”

Rohan will remain with the agency as interim executive director until July 22.

Call for Applications

After today’s meeting, SFMTA Board Chair Tom Nolan announced the agency would open up the applications process, and consider candidates from outside San Francisco, even though a number of board members continued to indicate it should be a San Franciscan.

“Personally, I would hope to see someone who is wedded to the city. Someone who believes in the city, and for whom the city is sentimental,” Director Joél Ramos told Streetsblog. “We’re a visionary city. We’ve got visionary people here and I’m looking forward to the opportunity.”

“Two of the things I’m looking for are someone who can be a good day to day manager and at the same time inspire the core of our agency, which is of course our workforce,” said Director Malcolm Heinicke.

Nolan said the agency was not considering hiring a firm to conduct a nationwide search. He said the board would hold a special meeting July 19th to tackle hiring a replacement, and that he would appoint a subcommittee to hash out a contract with the new director, something he believed was required by the city charter.

Ford is one of the city’s highest paid employees. His salary this year, after a small pay cut, was $315,000. As the Bay Citizen pointed out, the city was not required to pay Ford a severance, but the directors opted to to avoid a potential lawsuit and because “he’s done a very good job under extremely difficult circumstances.”

Nolan was asked today what the salary should be for the next SFMTA chief.

“The job deserves a really good salary because it’s a 24/7 thing, for sure,” Nolan told reporters. “Even when Nat was out of town, he was texting all the time, and emailing and was never very far away. It really is that kind of job where you’re called in the middle of the night, you know, if there’s an accident or something happens, and you need to pay for the right person to do that.”

If the board does not name a permanent replacement by the time Rohan leaves, Nolan said SFMTA Sustainable Streets Director Bond Yee, or SFMTA Director of Administration Debra Johnson would step into the role on a temporary basis.

“It behooves us to act as quickly and responsibly as we can to fill it,” Nolan said.

One proposal for re-purposing Mason Street as a park between the new North Beach Branch Public Library and Joe DiMaggio Playground. Courtesy Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects

Nearly two years after San Francisco reclaimed a short block of Mason Street in North Beach as a trial plaza, the SF Board of Supervisors yesterday approved the environmental impact report for the planned expansion of the North Beach Public Library.

The unanimous vote came as a relief to the majority of neighbors and some city supervisors who were eager to see the project come to fruition after being stalled by a handful of opponents.

“The tortured path of this project is in many ways symbolic of the dysfunctionality in land use in San Francisco,” said Supervisor Scott Wiener. ”We have a highly popular, beautifully designed project to replace an outdated and inaccessible structure with a beautiful, usable and accessible new library; to create additional, much-needed open space in a densely populated neighborhood.”

“Any community would embrace and celebrate this project. Instead, a small group of opponents has stymied the broad community every step of the way,” he added.

The project involves creating a permanent open space on a 200-foot block of Mason Street that lies between the library’s current location and the triangle of land where it is expected to be moved. Doomsday traffic jam scenarios predicted by the persistent opponents were effectively debunked when traffic managers studied the impacts of the “closure” with a two-month long plaza trial in 2009.

“It 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,” said Ed Reiskin, the director of the Department of Public Works.

Wiener railed against attempts by the opponents to get the library nominated as a landmark, calling it a “disservice to historic preservation.”

“At some point, you come to the end of the road. We’re at the end of the road.”

Photo: Myleen Hollero/Orange Photography

San Franciscans are dreaming big as Market Street’s transformation approaches in 2015, when the city’s most important street is scheduled to be redesigned and repaved. City planners are engaging with citizens to answer a century-old question: How can we make Market Street the glorious thoroughfare that it needs to be?

Better Market Street, a collaborative project of five city agencies, has held public meetings and webinars the past two weeks to field input from people who walk, bike, ride transit, and even drive along the street. The effort is being informed by a large swath of research brought to the table by city staffers, which is now available on the Better Market Street website.

“Market Street is San Francisco’s civic backbone, connecting water to hills, businesses to neighborhoods, cultural centers to recreational opportunities,” the site’s about page states. “The movement of people and goods, from the very earliest times, has dominated its design and use. But Market Street needs to be more than a transportation route. It needs to be the city’s most vibrant public space and many San Franciscans feel it falls far short of this ideal.”

Block-by-block, hour-by-hour data documenting the urban environment were collected by researchers to help inform input from attendees at recent workshops. Researchers note everything from fluctuations in pedestrian and bicycle traffic along the street, to the conditions plaguing its extremely high volume of transit trips, to the placement of trees and how the usage of plazas is impacted by the sun and wind. Comparisons and best practices from major streets abroad help put it all in perspective.

Pedestrian activity on Market Street is most highly concentrated in the retail districts during the weekend. Photo: Myleen Hollero/Orange Photography

“The BMS Project is expected, at a minimum, to result in a major revitalization effort, with plans for a number of strategic and significant public space improvements,” the project materials explain. “These improvements will be supported by sustainable urban design and mobility principles that facilitate promenading opportunities and an enlivened sidewalk life; reliable and efficient transit service; and a safe, comfortable and appealing bicycle facility along its entire length.”

The project is an effort led by the Department of Public Works along with the SF Municipal Transportation Agency, the Planning Department, and the Office of Economic and Workforce Development, among others.

One of its highest priorities is to make Lower Market more inviting to people who will want to spend more time along all of the street throughout the entire day.

Walking is already the predominant use of the street, making up nearly half of all trips, according to the research. But pedestrian volumes were found to vary drastically throughout different areas, different times of day, and for different seasons. While the mornings and afternoons see commuters fill sidewalks in the Financial District and weekend shoppers swarm the retail district, they stay relatively empty west of Seventh Street.

That low level of activity can inhibit a sense of “urbanity” and contribute to a feeling of insecurity, researchers found. Most people who do walk or linger on Market are just passing through or waiting for a bus.

The public spaces along Market lack certain features needed to promote healthy pedestrian activity, and “gathering spaces and edges that activate the street” such as cafes, public seating, and storefronts within a comfortable distance of pedestrians, are key to reaching that goal, say researchers.

In many of the open space destinations along Market, lingering is limited to weekends and events, according to the research, and Market Street is the city’s regularly chosen stage for civic parades and celebrations. But on most days, many of its public plazas suffer from design flaws such as a “lack of differentiation from the street” and “visual and physical barriers to the majority of the occupiable space”.

Much of the pedestrian activity that does happen seems to be connected with transit use. Of all transit boardings in San Francisco, Market Street hosts nearly a quarter, carrying one-third of all Muni lines and most BART lines for a total of 250,000 daily boardings. On the surface of the street, buses and streetcars pass at an average of every 40 seconds at peak times, yet they travel “relatively slowly” at 4 to 8 mph despite the traffic lights being timed for an optimal 11 mph.

The thoroughfare has seen a sharp growth in bike usage over the past few years, notes the research, with bikes outnumbering cars three to one at rush hour. But project members say they would like to see that ridership grow beyond the predominantly male, commute-based traffic.

The growth seems to have partly resulted from a “safety in numbers” snowball effect, although separated green bike lanes west of Eighth Street seem to help. But hazards like neglected pavement, turning motor traffic and incomplete bike lanes are well-documented deterrents, and a continuous separated bikeway was a markedly high priority in workshop attendee responses.

"Half of those riding along Market Street do so because other people on bikes use the same route." Photo: Bryan Goebel

The disproportionate impact of private autos on all uses of Market Street has been a concern shared by many, but the data makes a strong case for doing away with cars on Lower Market altogether.

Up to 85 percent of the car traffic at intersections is crossing Market Street, rather than traveling along it, according to the research. The majority of the relatively few cars that do use Market are traveling only two blocks ”circling around looking for parking.” Meanwhile, the 30,000 spots provided to store automobiles in garages and parking lots within one-quarter of a mile of the street sit underused: city-owned garages average 45 to 73 percent of their capacity.

Going car-free could be crucial in designing a truly unique grand boulevard for the city that invites people from all over to experience it every day.

The Better Market Street Project is accepting community input via a survey on its website. Two more workshops are expected to be held in September and November 2011.

Project timeline. Click to enlarge.

“Regular citizens are suffering from our inaction on this,” Lee said at a City hall press conference. He was flanked by backers from the Board of Supervisors along with pedestrian, bicycle, disability and labor advocates.

“The statistics will continue to show that of the 850 miles of streets we have, almost half of them are in deterioration, and they get more expensive over time,” the Mayor said. “That affects the people who ride bikes, the people who drive, and the pedestrians that use our streets.”

The Road Repaving and Street Safety Bond [pdf] would gear $50 million to pedestrian, bicycle and streetscape projects, $148 million to repaving roads, $22 million to provide accessible curb ramps, $20.3 million for transit priority traffic signals, and $7.3 million for improvements to other structures such as bridges, tunnels, viaducts, and stairs.

The bond would prioritize street projects by providing advanced funding and making it easier to obtain grants from federal, state, and local agencies.

Improvements to the pedestrian realm would include constructing visible crosswalks, fixing broken sidewalks, expanding public space, and installing new curb ramps to comply with the American Disabilities Act. New transit-priority traffic signals would speed up Muni along with repaving projects that would create safer roads for bicycling. Other bike projects could help appease the growing demand for separated bikeways.

“To the extent that our public rights of way, our streets and sidewalks are not in good condition, not safe, or not accessible, we are not as mobile as a society as we need to be,” said Department of Public Works Director Ed Reiskin.

Reiskin said $50 million that would be dedicated to pedestrian, bicycle, and streetscape improvements would not be subdivided.

The measure needs to be approved by the Board of Supervisors as well as by voters in November, but it already has the sponsorship of Supervisors Eric Mar, Ross Mirkarimi, David Campos, Scott Wiener, John Avalos, and Board President David Chiu.

“I have to tell you, it’s a normal routine existence for any one of us on the Board of Supervisors to be fielding complaints literally every single day about the conditions of our streets,” said Mirkarimi, noting the piecemeal way in which streets are typically fixed. “That reactive strategy has got to stop. Now it’s time the city gets ahead of the game.”

SF Bike Coalition Executive Director Leah Shahum pointed out that members complain about the dangers of potholes to the same extent they do speeding motor traffic.

“This is a great opportunity to not just bring our streets back up to par, but to actually bring some of our good streets to great streets, because there is funding here,” said Shahum. “We have the opportunity to spread that throughout the city and make sure that walking, biking, and transit are wonderful experiences in all our communities.”

Mayor Ed Lee speaks at the groundbreaking. Photo: Aaron Bialick

Construction began on a model for sustainable streets in San Francisco today when Mayor Ed Lee and city officials broke ground on a block of Newcomb Avenue in the Bayview District, promising a much friendlier streetscape for residents and the environment.

“You see a vision right in front of your door,” Mayor Lee told an audience of residents and agency officials who collaborated on the project. “A vision that’s going to bring about slowing the traffic, trees, permeable landscaping – all kinds of things that you see other neighborhoods get.”

The treatments in the Model Block project [pdf], such as greener sidewalks and bulbouts, over twenty trees, raised crosswalks, and chicaned street parking with permeable pavement, aim to treat stormwater as it falls, enhance the public realm, and create a safer street by calming motor traffic.

“This is one block of our many streets of San Francisco that altogether cover 25 percent of our city,” said Department of Works Director Ed Reiskin. “But they were designed more for people to drive through than to be on, and to cover up the environment rather than to work with its natural processes.”

The innovative practice of treating stormwater with streetscape plantings, known as greenstreet treatments, has been commonly used in Portland, Oregon. That city lacks more expensive infrastructure like San Francisco’s rainwater storage facilities and controlled combined sewage system, which are not always able to handle loads of rainwater that fall on the streets.

Elements to be installed for the Newcomb Avenue Model Block Project. See full PDF here.

“Since the Gold Rush, 90 percent of the wetlands in the bay have been filled in,” said U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Regional Administrator Jared Blumenfeld. “Those wetlands act as a filter for all the water that goes into the bay. When you don’t have that filter, you need to recreate one.”

The EPA provided $500,000 of the project’s $1.6 million cost. Mayor Lee and other officials praised the coordination between agencies all the way up to the federal level.

“I think this will really push the conversation forward in how we ought to be designing our streets. This really is a complete neighborhood street,” said Andres Power, the project manager for the SF Planning Department.

“[This project] brought together things that we’re not supposed to want as people of color in the community. We’re not supposed to care about ecology or storm drainage containment. We’re supposed to be complacent and not feel like we can be activists and make a change.” -Resident Michelle Mouton

“In the Bayview, we’re coming up with a strategy to spread these types of improvements out as much as we possibly can as part of the work the SF Redevelopment Agency’s doing at roughly half the cost,” he added.

Stormwater runoff on the block is expected to be reduced by about half, showing the huge potential for the city to save on expensive management costs.

Located near Third Street between Newhall and Phelps Streets, the block of Newcomb Avenue will put to the test a template on which future streetscape redesigns could be based in a neighborhood historically neglected for street improvements.

Power said the block was chosen after neighbors organized in response to the SF Redevelopment Agency’s Model Block Project request for proposals, which sought to invest in existing Bayview communities for its pilot program.

“They really sold the city on why this block is the best to move forward with,” he added.

“I finally feel like we’re kind of being noticed,” said Newcomb Avenue resident Michelle Mouton, who praised designer Eric Hale for his volunteer work in the initial planning of the project with the community.

“Why his and his colleagues’ work was so important was that it brought together things that we’re not supposed to want as people of color in the community. We’re not supposed to care about ecology or storm drainage containment. We’re supposed to be complacent and not feel like we can be activists and make a change.”

From left: Eric Hale, Ed Reiskin, Mayor Lee, Jared Blumenfeld, and Michelle Mouton break ground. Photo: Aaron Bialick

The block of Newcomb Avenue as it is (during the press conference). Photo: Aaron Bialick

Several months ago, this was an under-utilized swath of asphalt that often saw drivers stunting, doing donuts or speeding through the neighborhood. Photos: Matthew Roth

Community groups, city staff and elected officials celebrated the opening of the final Pavement to Parks plaza this weekend, a new 7,500 square foot space that months before was a wide asphalt expanse notorious for speeding traffic and more than a few drivers doing donuts amid smoking tires and revved engines.

City Attorney Dennis Herrera hailed Naples Green, a square in the Excelsior on Naples Street between Geneva Avenue and Rolph Street, as a “testament about what happens when community and government work together.”

Herrera invoked the history of the plaza, which in 1915 was turned into a temporary park to celebrate the Pan-Pacific Exposition and herald San Francisco’s recovery from the 1906 earthquake.  “This park is a testament also to what it means for San Francisco values and community history,” said Herrera. “I can’t think of anything better to commemorate what San Francisco is all about–a phoenix, a city rising and being everything that it can be–than the reestablishment of this park and bringing green space to this wonderful neighborhood.”

For years a group of merchants had been working through the Outer Mission Merchants and Residents Association (OMMRA) to improve the former slab of asphalt, first succeeding to get traffic calming and medians to slow speeds and reduce stunting, then finally convincing District 11 Supervisor John Avalos to cobble funding together through the city budget process and separate agency coffers. In all, the project cost $150,000, much of it coming from the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), which controls the streets and runs Muni, the San Francicco Public Utilities Commission, the Department of Public Works (SFDPW) and a $10,000 grant from the Wells Fargo Foundation.

Avalos applauded the community and OMMRA for their steadfast commitment to transforming the space, referring to the frequent donuts and reckless driving that occurred there previously. “This is a community that has seen too much grass, too much greenery, paved over, so to reverse that in such a magnificent way, in such a large way is really great to see,” he said. “We know we’re going to have more people using the space, that will be an inhibition to the kinds of activities that were going on here before.”

A mural with Jerry Rice, Willy Mays and numerous other icons, including the old pergola constructed during the 1915 Pan-Pacific Exposition.

In addition to a plaza with trees and seating, which was not installed at the press conference but should be this week, the community groups and merchants were proud of a giant new mural painted on the side of the Cordova Market facing Naples Green. The mural depicts numerous sports heroes, with two large pictures of Jerry Rice of the San Francisco 49ers and Willy Mays of the San Francisco Giants, as well as the current World Series Champion Giants team, replete with fearsome beards.

Aslam Ali, the owner of Cordova Market who made his wall available for the mural, was shocked by how quickly muralist Max Erhrman and the San Francisco Clean City Coalition had transformed his blank wall into a beautiful piece of art. “The people who did this mural, unbelievable. I cannot believe this was done in four or five days,” said Ali, who recently purchased the store with his son. “We’re trying to clean up this neighborhood and this mural is part of it. We’re going to turn this store around and serve the neighborhood.”

A photo of Naples Piazza from 1915, built for the Pan-Pacific Exposition. Source: SF Planning Dept.

Most of the organizing for the project came from OMMRA, which formed 13 years ago to coordinate improvements to the neighborhood. In the process, OMRRA was happy to discover the unique history of the space. OMMRA’s Steve Currier noted the similarity to the first Naples Piazza, which was also built as a temporary installation, though he was proud they had secured enough funding to make it semi-permanent. The community will likely continue seeking grants to add to the plaza in the future.

“It was said this week that it took the San Francisco Giants 52 years to bring the World Series to San Francisco. It’s taken us 90 years to get this park back,” said Currier. After joking that DPW Director Ed Reiskin should be appointed interim mayor once Gavin Newsom moves to Sacramento in January, Curier thanked the merchants and the community for embracing the project. “This was a collaborative effort with our community, our merchants. There was tremendous support from our merchants,” said Courier.

In addition to reflecting on the history of the space, Courrier was excited for the calming effect the park would have on the neighborhood. “We wanted a quiet space. To put in this space and when the plants and trees get bigger, it will quiet the neighborhood.”

Supervisor John Avalos, at the lectern, hands out commendations to the people who designed the park and mural.

Jane Martin, who also designed the San Jose/Guerrero Pavement to Parks Plaza, contributed to the design of the space. Martin said the orientation of the space, essentially a long rectangle with a slight grade and streets around it, made it difficult to create programmed activities for kids, which she had initially hoped to do.

“I tried to make it like a maze, so that there is a lot of exploring, some of the sectional property of the street, try to maintain that rather than creating a flat space,” explained Martin, who said the plaza would be a sight to behold in a year to eighteen months, when the bushes and trees had grown. “The angles are to get rid of the street grid. It’s to give you a place to meander.”

Though the Naples Green project marks the final official Pavement to Parks endeavor, DPW’s Reiskin said the agency would continue to look for more projects like this and seek innovative ways to fund them. “Twenty five percent of the area of San Francisco is covered with our public rights of way, which means mostly asphalt and concrete and it was largely built just to convey vehicles, for people to pass through. What we’re here today seeing is just one more transformation of public space, giving it back to the community. It’s part of a transformation of our public realm.”

The DPW and the San Francisco Planning Department will focus in the coming months primarily on the implementation of the more than 40 parklet applications they received in response to their request for proposals in September. Reiskin credited Mayor Newsom for institutionalizing the commitment to reclaiming under-utilized streetspace to create open space, and vowed the city would continue after Newsom moves on.

“We still have a lot of under-utilized hardscape in the city that was built for cars that we want to give back to people,” said Reiskin. “We don’t have funds available for a lot of them, but a lot of these started without funds and once you have a good idea and once you have a strong community behind it, you’ve got a plan, sometimes the money comes.”

Ironically, when I went to take photos of Naples Green under construction on October 4th, I got to see a yahoo doing donuts first hand.

Hopefully images like this will be a thing of the past.

"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.

The incredible design and data teams at SimpleGeo and Stamen, known among other things for Polymaps and Cabspotting, recently teamed up to tackle a data set only the wonkiest of us could love: San Francisco's Pavement Condition Index. I assume Neal and Michael at the San Francisco Bicycle Coalitions's Good Roads pothole fixin' Superhero HQ have already checked this out and gushed over the results. 

For best results, click through to the Polymaps website to utilize the fully interactive map feature that allows you to zoom in to your block. While there is some lag in PCI data on Data SF, i.e. Valencia Street from 19th to 15th and Divisadero's face lift don't show up accurately smooth, this is nonetheless an amazing map.

I wonder if the SimpleGeo and Stamen team would consider an even bigger challenge: How about mapping the real-time NextMuni data set? I don't know nearly enough about programming, but I would imagine it's geometrically more complicated. Tell us what you think of this map and what other hypothetical maps you'd like to see in the comments.

It's not transportation related, but Doug McCune's topo map of San Francisco prostitution as elevation is amazing as well.

Mayor Newsom and Blick's Edward Ogorzaly. Photo: Mayor's Press Office.

Newsom joined the owner of Blick Art Materials in a ribbon cutting yesterday for a new flagship store at 979 Market, near 6th Street, and announced a weekly arts market as part of a Central Market Arts District. The new market opens today at U.N. Plaza and will be co-sponsored by Blick, in what the city hopes will anchor a new art and theater corridor. The city pointed to a recent survey by Theatre Bay Area that found approximately 75 performing arts groups in the Bay Area are interested in expanding or relocating to Central Market. Newsom's administration hopes to lure them to the corridor by establishing a $11.5 million loan fund for commercial projects catered to artists and by providing assistance with identifying space, feasibility studies, and other financing opportunities in the arts district.

"Blick’s opening on Central Market and the weekly Arts Market at U.N. Plaza are major new milestones in our efforts to foster the growing cultural arts district in Central Market," Newsom said in a statement. "Blick and the Arts Market will be cornerstones in attracting artists and arts entrepreneurs to the area and continue its economic and physical transformation."

The current initiative catalyzes several trials to bring art to Market Street storefronts that have been shuttered because of a down economy and is part of the broader Better Market Street Project, a joint effort by the Mayor's Office of Economic and Workforce Development, The DPW, The Planning Department, the San Francisco County Transportation Authority, and the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), which runs Muni. The Art in Storefronts trial combined with the People in Plazas concert series were instituted to fight the perception the neighborhood is dangerous and depressed and bring levity at a low cost. The trials also coincided with private automobile traffic diversions meant to speed Muni and improve safety for bicycle riders with separated green bike lanes and reduced traffic conflicts.

Lest the Better Market Street Project become merely a collection of interventions, the team has recently put out a request for queries (RFQ) to develop a broader vision for the transformation of the street, which will coincide with the scheduled repaving in late 2013 or 2014. The DPW is also coordinating a 15 person CAC to help the multi-agency collaborative liaise with the public and contribute to the visioning. The CAC will meet regularly for three years and will aim to promote interaction between the public and the city agencies as work progresses.

"The Better Market Street Project provides the City an opportunity to enliven one of the most vital corridors in San Francisco through comprehensive public realm improvements," said DPW project manager Kris Opbroek. "The formation of this committee will help ensure broad participation and community feedback throughout every stage of the Better Market Street Project."

The CAC is accepting applications until Tuesday, September 7th, and Streetsblog readers with a keen interest in shaping the future of the street should consider applying here.

The meeting was hosted by the SFMTA, the Department of Public Works, and the Planning Department, and project manager Javad Mirabdal explained the great potential for improvement along Masonic in a lengthy presentation that included solutions to mitigate the problem conditions.

The presentation was influenced by community feedback from a meeting several weeks ago where neighbors were asked to assemble "game pieces" onto model cross-sections of the street based on the solutions they preferred. The four streetscape options are as follows:

• The first option features one parking lane, 4 traffic lanes, and 1 bike lane that winds behind bus bulbs.
• In the second, parking is only available at night, with shifting bike lanes similar to those on the Embarcadero
• There's no street parking at all in the third option, which features four lanes of traffic and an elevated bike track.
• And the fourth option features parking on both sides of the street, four lanes of traffic, and a bike track on the sidewalk.

Each option attempts to strike a balance between various modes on the heavily-used avenue. As many as 1,500 cars per hour travel northbound during both rush hours, with about 1,400 traveling southbound in the evening. Muni's 43 line carries 1,461 daily riders between Geary and Fell. Figures on pedestrians and bicyclists were not available.The street also has 157 parking spaces, all short-term.

The SFMTA showed this cycle track from Vancouver, BC, as one option for Masonic.

Through signal timing or by changing the phase of crossing signals, SFMTA planners believe that they can mitigate some of those delays.

Concerns voiced by participants at the meeting, however, focused less on vehicle delay than on improving pedestrian safety. Upgrades like prominent crosswalks and countdown timers were cited as the street's best features, followed by planters and landscaping. Top dislikes included a lack of safety for pedestrians and bicyclists.

Though some groups advocated a full rebuild of the street, smaller changes seemed far more likely. Existing mature trees, unusual sidewalk grading, and extensive underground utilities make a full rebuild complicated and expensive.

"[A full rebuild] is not a great option for now," said Mirabdal. "maybe 50 or 100 years from now."

But there are plenty of opportunities for shorter-term upgrades. The DPW's Martha Ketterer described the potential for sidewalk planters, stormwater gardens, street furniture, and large public plazas on the south side of Masonic and Fulton.

As Streetsblog has written, San Francisco street trees are often stunted by inadequate access to uncompressed soil. Ketterer described some low-cost techniques that could accommodate new trees on the street, such as longer sidewalk planters.

Along Embarcadero, Ketterer oversaw the installation of cantilevered platforms near trees that support pavement weight while giving roots room to grow.

Most attendees were generally encouraged by the SFMTA's plans. Attendee Ben Kaufman expressed concern that the designs pitted bikes, Muni riders, and pedestrians against each other, and favored a design with bike tracks behind bus bulbouts.

Vehicle speed was also of concern. Bike NOPA's Michael Helquist advocated for signal re-timing to conform traffic to the posted speed limit of 25 miles per hour. Another audience-member expressed shock that the speed limit was so much lower than drivers' actual speed of travel.

For their third community meeting, likely in October, planners will fine-tune two different options and solicit further feedback. The study will likely conclude in December. The timetable for construction depends on the cost of the final design, but Mirabdal estimated residents would see changes in a year or two.

Photo: SFBC

This interview originally appeared on the SFBC's blog.

San Francisco is experimenting with a number of innovative ideas to help create more public space to hang out and enjoy the city. New parklets and street plazas are sprouting on streets around the city, welcomed by local businesses and neighbors. The process of thinking about streets differently and making public space benefit everyone is only in its infancy in San Francisco, but like a healthy baby it’s growing fast right before our eyes.

At first guess, the Department of Public Works might not seem like the place to look for innovation, but San Francisco has a different approach. DPW’s website spells out a particularly environmental and community-minded mission: “The Department of Public Works is committed to making 
San Francisco a beautiful, livable and sustainable city. We design, build, operate, maintain, green, and improve the city’s infrastructure, public rights-of-way, and facilities with skill, pride, and responsiveness, in partnership with the San Francisco community.”

I had the opportunity to sit down with Ed Reiskin, the Director of the Department of Public Works recently, to talk with him a bit about the way he sees our city. The Department of Public Works has special relevance for people who regularly walk and bike as the keeper of our streets.

What is your experience bicycling in the city?

“As the guy who’s responsible for the city’s streets, there is no better way to get a flavor of the condition of the streets than to be on a bicycle. I think every Public Works Director should have to ride around their city on a bike. It’s a great way to know your roads.”

“I enjoy biking because it’s the best way to get around. Last week on my day to do kid drop-off I took my five-year-old on the back of my bike. And she was really excited: ‘can we do this every morning?’  But as we rode in, my wife and her sister (who works at the school) were also driving in. We all left at the same time—and the bike got there first on top of how pleasant it was.”

“I’ve also started to use bikes for meetings during the day—there’s a bike for use by employees at City Hall. After this I’m going down to our maintenance yard at Cesar Chavez and I’m going to bike.”

What do you see as the key to getting more people on bikes?

“My main job is to make the streets smooth so they’re safe. We work to get bike routes re-paved as soon as possible. I want to encourage anyone who’s seen something to call 311 or send a direct message to twitter: sf311. If you want to report a pothole, anything—we can’t fix it if we don’t know.”

“The implementation of the bike plan is really important and we support other departments on this. Separated lanes or demarcated lanes help, like the one on Market Street.”

“Perhaps, bike sharing, like in Paris—I wish I could run down the steps at City Hall and hop on a bike—not deal with stairs and locks and everything. And I wish I could bike to work more often but do it just one-way. When I’m doing multiple kid drop-offs on the bus in the morning, I could use a bike to get home at night, just one leg of the journey. So, more flexibility.”

“And we need more public realm improvements to make the city generally more welcoming for people so it’s less that the city’s built for cars and everyone else is an afterthought. We want to flip that around. The more this happens the more welcoming it will be for bikes. It will all slow traffic and improve safety for everyone—it’s indirect but that’s the long-term change.”

How can you continue to make public space a priority?

“When I sit and talk with Nat Ford (Head of Muni) and John Rahaim (Head of City Planning), we’re all coordinating well and we’re all interested in this stuff. The Board and the Mayor too. There’s critical mass (no pun intended). And the Castro plaza pilot and the parklet in front of Mojo Café: these are all attempts to create innovation on the fly and on the cheap leveraging the community’s expertise. And now by all accounts it works so now it’s a great candidate for other funding.

“My goal is to get the process right so it’s easier and simpler to do a lot more. I see these projects as part of a spectrum from block party permits to parklets to Sunday Streets to Pavement to Parks to public space to the Streetpark program—putting these all in a coherent framework and having the city processes to support them. Right now a lot of these are kind of one person or a small group busting their butts to make it happen. So to regularize that and to even re-think permitting it so people can easily request it, it’s not a hassle. That is the next step. Institutionalizing it.”

Are there other cities you look to for inspiration?

“New York is the inspiration for lots of this—Janette Sadik-Kahn is incredible. She gave a talk not too long ago and all the San Francisco department heads just said “there’s no reason we can’t do this.”  Sometimes we all think new things are difficult to get done in San Francisco. The best ammunition I have is, well—you think we can’t shut down fifty feet of 17^th street and Mayor Bloomberg has shut off Broadway in Midtown Manhattan?  I would love to be able to do more projects along these lines.”

“I was just in DC and that city has a ton more bike lanes than when I was last there. They’re also doing this incredible streetscape project where they’re putting in light rail along a pretty run down street in a low-income community — it’s going to be serving folks who generally don’t benefit from these improvements.”

How about repaving Market Street—what will happen there?

“Well it seems like everyone was kind of scared to touch Market because it’s such a challenge—a big job and disruptive to work on it. It needs to be repaired but it would be crazy not to improve it while we have it torn up too. I don’t know what the answer is but it has to be done right. Pulling together all the folks, Muni, fire stuff, sewer work—infrastructure but really we have to figure out how to serve everyone who uses it to commute, to move around the city. Nobody seems to think it works now: we’ve got to put it back together much improved.”

What are your markers of success in this job?

“A lot more people enjoying the public realm, that the infrastructure is solid and that the city’s neglect of the infrastructure over the past many years is turned around. Better coordination of all of the work and projects: departments, commissions. But it all comes back to the public realm.”

To complement the many projects the agency is working on, it has significantly redesigned its website, from a sometimes difficult-to-navigate beast to a user interface that's more intuitive and helps the public navigate the many projects affecting city streets and public space. It's not exactly corporate, but it certainly improves upon the former iteration.

If you've been reading us for a while, you know that DPW is one of the agencies most significant to your perception of the streets and one of the best at responding to 311 service requests for such things as fixing potholes on cycling routes, so streamlining their information flow to the public is no small matter.

Some of the new features on the website worth noting include an interactive map that allows users to read about projects that are happening in their neighborhood and around the city, better navigation and quick links to access specific services, permits and to make service requests, a video streaming component, and because its San Francisco and we know of Mayor Newsom's penchant for tweeting, the obligatory social media portal where users can interact with the department and receive regular updates in real time.

"Public Works is a 24 hour a day, seven days a week operation and we hope this new site will allow residents to conveniently access a broad range of information and services we provide," Ed Reiskin, Director of the DPW, said in a statement. "Whether you’re accessing the internet from your home, business, or handheld device, this new Web site will provide streamlined information relevant to the needs of San Franciscans."

The DPW welcomes your feedback about the newly designed website, which you can provide in their online survey by visiting www.sfdpw.org. You can also follow them on Facebook and Twitter.

Now that the Valencia Street sidewalk reconstruction between 15th Street and 19th Street has given us sparkly new pedestrian space, the Department of Public Works (DPW) has begun putting on decorative touches. The DPW has planted two types of trees as well as pedestrian and roadway scale lighting, all of which reflects the decision from the community outreach process that began in 2004.

The DPW said the two types of trees are the deciduous London Plane (platanus acerifolia) and the evergreen Brisbane Box (lophostemon conferta). The DPW is planting 96 new trees across the length of the project, which project manager Kris Opbroek said were "just a hint of things to come."

The streetlights are two different heights: The teardrop shaped fixtures are approximately 27 feet tall for roadway scale and the harp-shaped pedestrian scale fixtures are approximately 14 feet high.

Now if they could just clear the bike lanes of gravel and fix that dangerous pavement edge near Mission police station!

The pedestrian scale light fixtures.

Trees waiting to be planted. Notice the roadway scale light pole without the fixture.

San Franciscans don't often spend their days contriving ways to spend more time near freeway off-ramps, especially when proximity to freeways can be a risk to your health, but the city's newest park along the I-280 exit at Sixth and Brannan Streets may make you think twice about it.

City leaders officially launched the park with an opening ceremony this afternoon, and with the success of the Pavement to Parks program, which reclaimed underused street space for public parks and plazas, the Department of Public Works and Caltrans have now embarked on a series of upgrades across the city on what we'll unofficially dub, "Off-Ramps to Parks."

"Creating beautiful, livable, vibrant, and sustainable spaces is an important part of our work, however, we cannot do it alone," said DPW Director Ed Reiskin. "These types of partnerships are critical in an era when we are seeking the most efficient way to clean and beautify the city."

On this sunny Wednesday afternoon, it appeared the demand for green space was strong -- even along a freeway off-ramp. Several groups of people lounged along the paths, and the hum of the exiting cars could almost be mistaken for the babbling of a creek (the exhaust of the cars was less mistakable, though a strong breeze and the trees helped mitigate that.) The park includes walking paths, new trees, flowers, and other landscaping upgrades like boulders, which serve as the only seating at present.

"Before, it didn't have all the greenery. All it had was a bum," said Megan Bluxome, an art student who used to live nearby, but hadn't returned to the area recently. "It looks like it's not part of the city, a very short natural walk -- right next to the freeway."

"It's an escape," she added.

Bluxome was lounging on the decorative boulders with a friend, Ken John. "It needs a bench -- or more comfy rocks," said John, who quickly pointed out the major upgrade had made him prone to demanding even more.

The park, which runs as a linear strip between a newly built apartment building and the off-ramp, was paid for and coordinated by DPW's Street Parks Program, Caltrans' Adopt-A-Highway Program, UMB Construction, and a group of neighbors who wanted to see less graffiti and illegal dumping in the space.

Over the summer, more spaces along freeway off-ramps will be cleaned up and greened by participants in the Jobs Now program and DPW's Summer Youth Landscaping Apprenticeship Program, including the Eighth and Harrison street off-ramp, the entrance to I-280 at Cesar Chavez and Kansas, and the Mission and Duboce off-ramp.

While the intersection of Sixth and Brannan may always be an unpleasant space to be a pedestrian, in a part of the city that lacks green space, the new park provides a small refuge.

DPW Director Ed Reiskin, Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, and Mayor Gavin Newsom standing in what used to be two parking spaces. Photos: Matthew Roth

"This is a change in philosophy and how we think of the public rights-of-way," said Department of Public Works Director Ed Reiskin, who noted that approximately 25 percent of the public space in San Francisco is taken up by streets.

"There's an extraordinary amount of the public realm that is not park space, that's actually in the public rights-of-way, that's actually the streets," said Reiskin. "Unfortunately most of it is covered with concrete and asphalt and it was designed for cars and not for people."

The Mojo Cafe parklet is the first of several forthcoming parklets, which are technically part of the Pavement to Parks initiative spearheaded by Mayor Newsom. Though the projects are pilots, they have proven very successful and have quieted some of the early critics in neighborhoods where they've been implemented.

Newsom prefaced his remarks by assuring those critical of the parklet that Divisadero and the North of Panhandle neighborhood had not in fact lost any parking because an old bus stop that was removed nearby is now parking for two cars.

"This is all about taking the narrative of the 25 percent of our land mass that [is] streets, and begin to take a little bit of that back and open that up for the community and create a framework where there is a stronger community connection, a stronger sense of place and a better community environment as well," said Newsom.

District 5 Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi said that the parklet and the greater reconstruction of the Divisadero Street corridor were finally realizing a pledge he made when he became a supervisor: "When I came into office in 2005, I declared that Divisadero would be one of our comeback corridors."

"This parklet right here, this 44 feet, is really the first template that is going to have a citywide impact," said Mirkarimi. "It's an exciting 44 feet."

Reiskin thanked a host of advocates for their hard work, such as the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition (SFBC) and the San Francisco Great Streets Project, as well as city, regional, and federal agencies for their fiscal sponsorship of both the larger Divisadero project and the parklet, including the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and the San Francisco County Transportation Authority. 

A special acknowledgment went to Riyad Ghannam, principal of RG Architecture, who donated his design services to create the parklet. Ghannam, who thanked the many volunteers from the Great Streets Project and SFBC, said parklets were both community amenities and challenges to the design community to get involved in innovative projects.

"I want to congratulate the city on taking a chance on something like this," said Ghannam, who explained that they had turned "two anonymous parking spaces" into a destination. Previously, said Ghannam, you couldn't have said to a friend, "meet me at these parking spaces."

Representing the North of Panhandle Neighborhood Association, Leela Gill praised the Divisadero reconstruction project for helping to bring the Alamo Square neighborhood closer to the North of Panhandle neighborhood, and with inspiring the creation of the Divisadero Merchants Association. Gill said the rapid turnaround of the street and the commercial corridor had improved safety.

"Twenty years ago, you wouldn't catch me walking down Divisadero, and now I would bring both of my children anytime, any day, down Divisadero," said Gill.

DPW's Reiskin, who noted that his daughter goes to school two blocks from the Mojo parklet, said he walks, rides his bike and takes the 24 down Divisadero almost daily, so the improvements had personal significance.

"This is part of a trend, this is not a one-off episode," Reiskin assured the crowd. "We really do see it as emblematic of a lot more to come."

 Future Pavement to Parks Plazas and Parklets

In order to keep the momentum going, Andres Power, Pavement to Parks project manager for the Planning Department, said they hope to have the next parklet at 22nd and Bartlett in the Mission built in early April.

"My goal is to get a project on the ground every three to four weeks," said Power, a schedule necessary to meet the Mayor's pledge to create twelve plazas and parklets in 2010.

Following the installation of the Mission parklet, planners will turn to the Inner Richmond, where they will install a parklet in front of Toy Boat Cafe on Clement Street, near 4th Avenue. Power said the Planning Department had just selected a pro-bono designer for the project, which could be in the ground by early to mid-May.

Unlike the initial Pavement to Parks Plaza at Castro and Market Street, where the novelty of the project left other city departments skeptical, Power said there was no resistance whatsoever to the new projects, in part because of the positive publicity they have engendered.

"At the end of the day, in the scheme of things, they are cheap. You get a lot of bang for the buck," said Power, who noted that the Mayor's presence at recent press events raised the profile of the work.

By this summer, Power and other project managers hope to move on two more parklets on Columbus Avenue, possibly in front of Caffe Roma and Caffe Greco as well as another plaza in Noe Valley on Noe Street near 24th Street, though Power said that still depends on community negotiations.

Funding for the plazas is coming from a combination of private donations and a large pot of economic development money assembled by the Mayor's Office of Workforce and Economic Development (MOEWD). According to Power, each plaza cost approximately $30,000 to construct and each parklet is less than $15,000.

"$30,000 is leveraging a bunch of resources," he said "Because we're able to leverage the good business savvy of local businesses and local project developers, we get these at much lower prices than say, New York City."

Power was quite proud to note that, rather than following the livable streets lead of cities like New York and Portland, Oregon, planners in those cities were consulting him.

"We've gotten calls from New York City, Portland, Boston, Seattle, and Washington DC inquiring about how we are making these happen."

The view of the parklet from the street, showing painted black planter boxes, shrubbery and bike parking.

Mayor Newsom enjoying the new seating.