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 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.

Trial traffic diversions on Market Street. Photo: sfbike

Planners said they would focus on prioritizing the needs of pedestrians, transit riders, and cyclists, while allowing for necessary vehicular traffic, such as deliveries.   

"We want to increase transit performance and make bicycling comfortable for the 8 to 80 group," said Timothy Papandreou, Assistant Deputy Director for Planning and Better Market Street project manager for the Municipal Transportation Agency (MTA). Papandreou's reference to the "8 to 80 group" alludes to former Mayor af Bogotá, Colombia, and livable city luminary Enrique Peñalosa's refrain that a city must design its bicycle network so an 8-year old child or an 80-year old senior would feel safe riding through it.

Though it would be premature to speculate whether cars would eventually be banned on Market Street or whether bus and transit lines would be moved to neighboring streets, Papandreou said the city team was looking at best practice examples from around the world, including Melbourne, Australia, where Swanston Street was recently re-designed as a transit and pedestrian thoroughfare without private cars or taxis. He also pointed closer to home and said they had been monitoring the success of similar experiments in Portland and Seattle.

Papandreou noted that one quarter of all transit trips in San Francisco either happen on Market Street or traverse Market Street, so the importance of the project from a transit perspective couldn't be underscored enough.

"Market Street really is the main everything," he said. "Whatever we do [there] is going to impact the whole transportation system. "

Another guiding principle will be improving the pedestrian experience and enhancing destinations along the corridor. As with the transportation trials, the public space interventions will inform the public realm changes that will be part of the long-term vision.

In addition to the Art in Storefronts initiative, the city has experimented with trial Green Pods, where tables and chairs have been set up on sidewalks surrounded by plants, and small open-air concerts Through the People in Plazas program.

"It’s not just about curb to curb," said Astrid Haryati, Mayor Newsom's Director of Greening, in reference to the repaving of the street between curbs. "We’re looking into the kind of consultant that would work with us comprehensively, not just mobility but all aspects of placemaking."

Art on Market Street Mural. Photo: Matthew Roth

Addressing Systemic Challenges on Market Street

Of course, the sum total of trials won't add up to an improved street and public realm without addressing vital questions about economic development and the negative public perception of the Mid-Market portion of the street between Van Ness and 5th Street.

Haryati said the Mayor's Office of Economic and Workforce Development was talking with the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency about revisiting a redevelopment plan for the area, which would allow for increased bonding to spur development. Despite the difficult history and politics of redevelopment on this portion of Market, Haryati struck an optimistic tone, referring to the street and public space changes as a complement to "impactful development in the area."

Balancing development, streetscape beautification and transportation improvement with social issues like homelessness will likely be one of the more difficult challenges the planning team faces.

Dina Hilliard, Associate District Manager of the North of Tenderloin Community Benefit District (CBD), said that while she was encouraged by the Art in Storefronts pilots and the three People in Plazas jazz concerts the CBD funded, improving the lives of homeless people was a "root issue" that would be much more difficult to address.

"It is a balance and that’s why we’re saying let’s deal with the root problems," said Hilliard. "You can’t just put up a chair and a table and the issue is fixed."

Kit Hodge, Director of the San Francisco Great Streets Project, said the city was aware of the bigger challenges and would focus on them while making infrastructure changes.

"The city recognizes that this is a street with a lot of discussion about improvements," she said. The city is focusing "on the bones of the street, to some extent the blood, but recognizing that this project can’t solve all the issues with the street."

Though none of the planners said the process would be easy, they have taken heart with the general acceptance of the trial automobile diversions.

The Union Square Business Improvement District (BID), one of the groups wary of the traffic diversions last summer, was pleased that the changes hadn't hurt business.

"Our organization was concerned about what the diversion of automobiles off of Market Street might mean," said Linda Mjellum, Executive Director of the BID. Mjellum said her businesses hadn't noticed any negative impacts as a result. "We had no complaints," she said. "Zero."

Several interview subjects mentioned possible further additions to the traffic diversion trials, such as replacing the Parking Control Officers who have been directing private vehicles off the street at 10th Street with self-enforcing engineering changes that would further solidify the driving restrictions, though when that will happen is uncertain.

Mjellum noted that the merchants along Powell Street were also enthusiastic about the pilot that expanded pedestrian space, which is sorely needed, especially on weekends.

"I think the businesses on Powell Street are wide open to doing something more extensive," said Mjellum. "They would like to see the sidewalks widened on Powell, assuming we could accommodate passenger drop-offs."

Cyclists were also quite happy with the traffic diversions, which have made the experience of riding less stressful, according to the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition (SFBC).

"For a street as important and iconic for bicycles as Market Street we’re encouraged to see the city planning ahead for such a large project. This is the most important street in San Francisco," said SFBC community organizer Neal Patel,

In the end, the DPW will still repave Market Street in three years, regardless of the politics that help or hinder the design and implementation of the larger vision.

TA Deputy Director for Planning Tilly Chang said the weight of the decisions being made for the next few decades on San Francisco's most iconic street were not lost on anyone involved.

"We all know the expectation of the public, the advocates, the Board, the Mayor, is that we have to make the most of this opportunity," she said.

Photo of Showplace Triangle Plaza, formerly a street and parking lot. Photo: Captin Nod

Rebar's John Bela at the press conference. Mayor Gavin Newsom and Planning Director John Rahaim speak to each other in the background. Photo: Bryan Goebel.

The author communing with a tree in Showplace Triangle. Photo: Myleen Hollero.

22nd Street and Bartlett "Parklet"

Click to enlarge, photo simulation of the new Rebar 22nd Street Parklet. Images: Rebar.

Mayor Newsom admitted he was initially concerned that “maybe five or six people would pay attention” to the plaza announcement at 17th and Castro last year, but explained with contentment that 17th Street and those following it were so popular he and his agency staff started looking for smaller interventions in parking spaces.

As Streetsblog reported, the first of the Parklets, or wooden sidewalk extensions in parking spaces, will be implemented at Mojo Café on Divisadero Street, with a second to follow on 22nd Street near Bartlett Street, in front of Revolution Café, Escape From New York Pizza, and Loló Restaurant.

Newsom said the purpose of these Parklets was "to slow down the day and allow people to pause and reflect and connect with one another. It’s about bringing community together, bringing people together, and slowing down the pace of life in this frenetic urban environment we call home."

The 22nd Street Parklet will be built by Rebar and the design is intended to be "modular, portable, elegant, durable, and clearly a step above the standard streetscape," said Rebar's Bela. The Parklet will take up three parking spaces, or approximately 60 feet in all. The seating elements will vary along the length of the platform, with different sizes, shapes, and vertical orientations. As with the Mojo Café project, the restaurants will be responsible for maintenance and upkeep of the space, though it will be open to everyone whether or not they frequent the establishments.

According to the Planning Department's Andres Power, the total budget for the project will be $15,000, none of which will come from city coffers. The primary donation for the project comes from Streetsblog San Francisco principal supporter Jonathan Weiner, as well as some funds from the restaurants it will front. Planners still need to get approval from all the agencies responsible for street closures and special events, and the duration of the trial is expected to be six months initially, with extensions if the space is successful. The project will likely be built in late spring, or early summer.

"Widening sidewalks costs millions," Bela said, adding that Rebar was trying to answer the question: "How do you get safety and place-making without moving underground utilities" and at a cost that is reasonable?

Mayor Newsom also acknowledged the work that Rebar and other designers were doing was donated, for which he was grateful. "We’re taking the creativity of the city and all the talented folks, and they’re stepping up and helping support the city," said Newsom. "In this economic environment, we can’t write big checks, so we’ve got designers that are providing the design and the artistic expression, and they’re doing it pro bono."

Michael Rhodes contributed reporting for this story.

Click image to enlarge.

Click image to enlarge.

Click image to enlarge.

With the success of San Francisco's Pavement to Parks trial plazas, the city is about to unveil its newest plan to use its streets for something other than cars when it converts parking spaces to public space by extending sidewalks into the street with durable wood platforms.

City planners acknowledge that the inspiration for these new pedestrian spaces came from the success of Park(ing) Day, an international sensation developed by Rebar, where people in cities around the globe occupy parking spaces for one day a year and build pocket parks and other innovative facilities.

The first iteration of the loosely dubbed Pavement to Parks 2.0 projects, which could happen in the next few weeks, will be the transformation of two parking spaces in front of Mojo Bicycle Café on Divisadero Street, in coordination with the massive construction project that is remaking the Divisadero corridor.

"The idea is essentially to build a cheaper bulbout, to get the same effect as a $100,000 [concrete] bulbout at a fraction of the funds," said the San Francisco Planning Department's Andres Power, project manager for Pavement to Parks. "We will take the occupation of a sidewalk off the sidewalk and move it into the parking lane."

District 5 Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi said he was an early champion of the project and, after seeing the impact of Park(ing) Day, he began talking with merchants along Divisadero about trying something like the temporary parking space interventions, but making them more permanent.

"I think San Francisco loves innovation," said Mirkarimi, adding that his district was a perfect location for the first trial of this kind given how many cyclists and pedestrians frequent the area. "There is a hipness that's part of Mojo's DNA as well as others on the Divisadero corridor."

As for the innovation of taking curb space that has been used for parking cars for more than half a century, the project is only possible because it is a trial, said Power. There was considerable debate about how to build a durable and attractive platform that wouldn't interfere with drainage and sanitation. The Department of Public Works (DPW), Planning, and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (PUC) landed on a solution they believe will be sturdy and safe, said Power.

The platforms will extend 7 feet from the curb, slightly less than the width of most cars, so vehicles that are parked at either end will serve as a buffer to passing traffic. Each parking space is approximately 20 feet long, so the Mojo platform will be just over 40 feet in length. Power said his department encouraged the designer to build a platform that would be modular and replicable, with the hope that more projects could be added in other parts of the city if this one is successful. Though the Chronicle reported that similar sidewalk extensions could be possible in North Beach, at Park(ing) Day sites like Caffe Greco and Caffe Roma, no one contacted for this story would confirm future locations.

Image: RG Architecture

Mayor Gavin Newsom's Office of Economic and Workforce Development provided a $5,500 grant to cover half the cost of the project, said Power, while the design and building costs were donated. The platform materials come from Bison Deck Supports, a company based in Boulder Colorado that traditionally builds roof decks, and the overall design came from RG Architecture. In addition to tables and chairs, the space will have bike racks and planter boxes, which will likely be filled with bamboo.

According to RG Architecture's Riyad Ghannam, nothing like this has ever come through his firm's door, which inspired him to offer his services gratis. "To me, in my business, it's 100 percent unique," he said of the project.

As for the age-old concern of merchants losing parking spaces, the businesses on Divisadero were more concerned about sidewalk space and bicycle parking, according to Remy Nelson, owner of Mojo Café and vice president of the Divisadero Merchants Association.

"I think it's really great," said Nelson. "My shop is in the middle of a block and when I look out my front window, I'm usually looking at parked cars."

Nelson explained that a shift had occurred with the merchants on his block and along the corridor in the past few years, as the perceived need for parking garages was replaced by calls for more pedestrian space and bicycle parking. Referring to the sidewalk extension in front of his business as a "no-brainer," Nelson predicted the transformation would catch on and other businesses would clamor for them.

"The public is going to see it and they're going to forget there ever was a parking lot there," he said.

The space will be maintained by Nelson and staff at Mojo, though the chairs and tables are open to the public, similar to the arrangement at the 17th Street and Castro trial plaza, where the movable tables and chairs are maintained by a business that fronts the pedestrian space.

The Mojo project received a similar six-month permit from the city as part of the Pavement to Parks trial plazas, which will have to be renewed if it is successful. Planners are waiting for the Department of Public Works (DPW) to finish the final elements of the Divisadero reconstruction before proceeding, though that could happen in the next few weeks, according to Power. All of the materials to build are in a warehouse and will be built as soon as the street is ready.

While Mayor Newsom has yet to announce the second generation of Pavement to Parks projects, Power said swift movement on the project and the coordination of all the agencies came from Astrid Haryati, the Mayor's Director of Greening, and Ed Reiskin, the Director of the DPW.

The speed of developing the project especially impressed Ghannam. "I have not seen anything like that procedurally," he said. "I think the city is taking a little bit of a chance, but sometimes you take a chance like this and you reap the rewards."

For Nelson, the project couldn't come quickly enough. "We need more emphasis on sidewalks, a place that's pleasant and fun to be in," he said. "How can we get it more sidewalk centric, less car-centric?"

Click to enlarge. Image RG Architecture.

Click to enlarge. Image RG Architecture.

The Bison deck supports with adjustable heights will be important for negotiating the curve of Divisadero Street at the sidewalk. Image: Bison Deck Supports.

Image: RG Architecture.

Concept for Mission and Cesar Chavez intersection redesign. Image: Planning Department

It appears 2010 is the year the stewards of San Francisco's streets have marked to figure out how to cooperate with each other to design and build a better realm. While the much touted Better Streets Plan synthesizes best practice principles and standards for street design, the release of a new City Controller report (weeks early!) outlined how the city family has historically failed to work together to better our streets [PDF], reminding us of the distance each agency has to bridge before the public sees any concrete improvements.

The Controller's report recommended the city shoul "create and institute an efficient and thorough project design process to increase the consistency of proactive outreach by project managers to City experts and public stakeholders during the project concept phase." The report also recommends consolidating streetscape planning and delivery resources to inform developers and community partners.

Perhaps anticipating the Controller's study, project managers from the Planning Department, MTA, Department of Public Works (DPW) and Public Utilities Commission (PUC) yesterday gave a progress report at SPUR's weekly lunchtime forum on the redesign of Cesar Chavez Street between Guerrero and Highway 101, arguing that the past two years of coordination on the project was the new standard for designing, funding, and building a world class street.

"Each agency has its charge and our projects get programmed that way, they get planned that way with that mission in mind," said Kris Opbroek, project manager for the DPW. "One of the things that's shifting is all the agencies are thinking of the public right-of-way as a whole, not just a sewer project, or just a transit project."

Staff reiterated that the process of reconstructing Cesar Chavez, the first phase of which begins later this year with drainage and sewer renovation under the street, had taught the city valuable lessons in cooperation between agencies that seldom look to each other for advice in project design. This coordination, according to the Planning Department's Andres Power, enabled the project to go after more grant funding that each individual agency would have been unable to secure on its own, including a recent $1.2 million grant from the EPA for innovative greenstreet treatments meant to capture runoff at the street level.

That the street is currently a disgrace is beyond question, particularly for pedestrians, cyclists, and transit riders. As the MTA's Mike Salaberry said, "If you like barren streetscapes only good at one thing, then you probably have no problem with Cesar Chavez."

The six-lane street moves between 30,000 and 50,000 cars daily and is designed to meet level-of-service capacity during the evening rush hour. Essentially, said Salaberry, Cesar Chavez is optimized for two hours of traffic each weekday, which is roughly 6 percent of a week. This privileging of peak-period traffic over all other users for the rest of the week is a relic of a different era, when traffic engineers expected to convert the street and neighboring Guerrero into freeway feeders.

For pedestrians, the primary issue is crossing Cesar Chavez in the north-south direction, given the width of the street. At Mission and Cesar Chavez, for instance, pedestrians have to cross seven lanes with numerous turning vehicles, many of which don't slow down to make the turn. The new plan for the intersection, paid for in part with developer fees from the 555 Bartlett condo building and Walgreens, will include pedestrian refuges in the new median island and bulbouts that will cut down the crossing distance. Similar treatments will run the length of the proposed reconstruction in an attempt to mitigate the barrier that the street is currently, dividing the neighborhoods on either side of it.

Another concern during the redesign is accommodation of day laborers, who routinely line Cesar Chavez sidewalks waiting for work from passing vehicles exiting Highway 101. One option being considered by the city would move the Day Labor Program office from its current location just off Cesar Chavez to a new building on Bayshore Boulevard, near the Lowes. While the proposal could improve safety for both day laborers and drivers by preventing unsafe stops on the busy Chavez corridor, some neighbors say the new location is not ideal.

Fran Taylor of the community group CC Puede pointed out that the city's plan for the new site by the Lowes would require a shuttle bus from the Mission, where many of the day laborers live, in no small part because it is nearly impossible to walk through the Highway 101 and Cesar Chavez interchange nicknamed the "hairball."

While applauding the agency efforts for the street redesign, Taylor reminded the audience that she and her neighbors had been agitating for changes to the street since 2005, well before the city came around to the prospect of rethinking the street. Taylor noted that they had collected more than 600 signatures in favor of traffic calming and street improvements and that they had conducted numerous outreach meetings to respond to concerns about lane reductions and cut-through traffic on residential streets in the Mission and Precita.

Folsom Street simulation with elements of the Better Streets Plan. Photo: SF Planning Department

As San Francisco's Better Streets Plan (BSP) street design manual nears environmental certification, many questions remain about financing street maintenance and how all of the agencies responsible for the city's streets will work together to improve conditions for transit, walking, and bicycling, one of the primary goals of the three year BSP planning process.

The baseline problem of inter-agency cooperation is clear to the city, as evidenced by a Controller's Office study, commissioned in conjunction with the BSP, which is expected to be finished by February. In the Controller's memo announcing the study [PDF], the office acknowledged the lack of a formal framework "to allow and encourage City departments to negotiate project prioritization and project designs and make necessary compromises (at the department level) to support citywide goals. The Transit First Policy, Better Streets Policy and the Complete Streets Policy provide direction on the balance of transportation modes in the public right of way however guidance regarding the implementation of these policies is absent."

For Tom Radulovich, Executive Director of the non-profit Livable City, a lack of coordination among the city family responsible for the streets is one of the major obstacles to making our city more livable. Citing reports on the failure of the agencies to cooperate and improve the streets going back to the Willie Brown era [PDF], Radulovich said that even the boundaries of certain neighborhoods are different for different agencies. "SoMa to the Department of Public Works should mean SoMa to the MTA, and to Planning and to the San Francisco County Transportation Authority."

Some city leaders are confident the BSP will resolve these problems. At a forum hosted by the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR) this week, David Alumbaugh, Deputy Director of the San Francisco Planning Department, acknowledged that San Francisco's streets have fallen behind other world-class cities. "Our streets have simply become so degraded that we can’t consider ourselves leaders any more," he said.

One of the solutions, however, is formalizing the BSP and making sure that it is used diligently by all agencies when streets are renovated or repaved.

"There's been a trend in the past few years toward cities putting together and creating these street design manuals," said Planning's Adam Varat, one of the lead writers of the BSP, at the SPUR forum. "[They] are guiding documents for all users who make changes or improvements in public ROW (Right of Way) for how streets ought to be designed."

Varat pointed to a number of U.S. cities that have street design manuals that inspired San Francisco's. In Chicago's Streetscape Guidelines Booklet, Varat lauded the straightforward and consistent guidelines that ensure streets must be improved during construction and renovation, though he also cautioned the uniformity of those guidelines reflects Chicago's needs and might not be a fit for San Francisco, given the tenor of public involvement in street design and implementation here.

From Seattle's Right of Way Improvement Manual, Varat praised the simple online user interface with extensive data on street treatments and individual components. In New York City, Varat noted, the Street Design Manual looks at full ROW, not just sidewalks, though he said its high level guidelines don’t drill down to specifics and it's not codified and specific enough to make sure streets are built as recommended in the guidelines.

Good plans aside, how the city delivers street improvements will depend on the agencies all working together and thinking creatively, particularly with the current budget crisis. One of the first challenges the city will face is figuring out how to finance routine maintenance, let alone innovative street treatments that make up the BSP.

Mayor Gavin Newsom and Board of Supervisor's President David Chiu yesterday announced the creation of a Street Resurfacing Finance Working Group to identify a long term, sustainable and viable plan to fund the city’s street infrastructure.

In San Francisco, the average Pavement Condition Index (PCI) score is 63 of out a possible 100. The city needs $515 million over the next 10 years to prevent a decline and $751 million to improve the condition of the streets. If the city can't identify funding, the PCI will drop to 57 over the next five years and to 53 over the next ten years.

“This is an extremely critical time for the future of our infrastructure," said Ed Reiskin, Director of the Department of Public Works (DPW).

Assuming the working group identifies funding, the next hurdle will be how to rebuild the streets without relying on old standards. As the Controller's study memo notes, "existing purchasing and contracting systems reinforce traditional design and materials motivated by risk and maintenance cost reduction. The city has a limited capacity for weighing the costs and benefits of a specific design, particularly novel designs."

DPW's Reiskin also pointed to the economic impact of good streets, saying, "San Francisco’s economy is dependent on our streets and public rights of way; we must work together now to find a sustainable solution to improving the condition of these valuable public assets."

On the west side of Valencia between 16th and 17th Streets, a widened but unfinished sidewalk is now open to pedestrians. The original sidewalk and the blacktop will be replaced with shiny new tiles. Photo: Michael Rhodes

Construction on the Valencia Streetscape Improvement Project started in early August, and is bringing wider sidewalks, additional street trees, additional street lighting, sidewalk bulb-outs, and art elements to Valencia between 15th and 19th Streets. While bicyclists are still waiting for the bike lane to be repainted, pedestrians are starting to see the fruits of the DPW's work, and multiple business owners on the block between 16th and 17th Streets were feeling relieved this week as customers returned from holiday travel and no longer found narrow sidewalks and construction barriers.

During construction, "our sidewalk was barely two-and-a-half feet wide, so people were not coming to this side," said Adam Hernandez, a design consultant at Z-Barn Interiors. When the construction barriers were cleared from the sidewalk recently, that all changed, he said. "I'll tell you, since they took this off just before Christmas, it's been a huge difference."

Between 17th and 18th Streets, Valencia's western sidewalks aren't quite ready for foot traffic.

Suresh Parmar, who owns Bombay Bazar, was also thankful to see the construction barriers come off the sidewalk for now. "Nobody was visiting here during construction, it was too hard to get here," said Parmar. He estimated business was down by as much as fifty percent.

"The last two months, business was very bad," he said. But as of early this week, it's "back to normal."

This segment, on the west side of Valencia between 16th and 17th Streets, will be the first to be completed, followed by the west sides of the other blocks in the project scope, and then the east side of each block. It should all be completed in late spring.

In fact, even this block isn't out of the woods just yet: later this week, DPW crews will begin demolishing and rebuilding the old portion of the sidewalk on this block, said the DPW's Alex Murillo. That will take about two weeks, but pedestrians will have full access to the new portion of the sidewalk during that period. Each building entrance will have a bridge between it and the new sidewalk while crews demolish the old sidewalk and pour in the replacement.

The old sidewalk tiles are being replaced because the sidewalk is getting refinished with a nicer material, said Murillo. "It's a lamp-black type of concrete finish with a sparkle." The new trees and lights won't go in until later in the project, but the sidewalk surfacing on the west side of Valencia between 16th and 17th Street should be finished after two more weeks of work.

Unexpected utility work involving PG&E set this segment back by about a month, said Murillo, so business owners asked DPW to continue working through their holiday moratorium between Thanksgiving and the New Year, and DPW agreed to do so. Santiago Rodriguez, who owns Frjtz Fries, said he wishes the city would have kept the moratorium, since December is a busy month at his restaurant.

"We're actually at the end of our rope," said Rodriguez. "I see what they're doing, I think it's very positive, and I understand that they encountered some problems with PG&E, and the city has been very communicative about what happened, but money is the bottom line, especially with the economy."

This evening will be the first test of how business fares now that residents are back in town and the sidewalk isn't obstructed, he said. "I see the light at the end of the tunnel, but the process has been really painful for most of the business owners here."

A brand new mid-block bulb-out in front of Bombay Bazar.

Bombay Bazar's Parmar and Z-Barn's Hernandez agreed. "They're excellent, they're very good," said Parmar of the new sidewalks. "They did a good job."

"We're looking forward to it," said Hernandez. "Once they finish the trees, lights, everything, and finish this side of the sidewalk, it's going to be beautiful."

"I feel bad for the other parts of Valencia that aren't getting it," he added.

Hernandez estimates that half Z-Barn's customers arrive by foot or bicycle, so improvements to the bike lanes and sidewalk are a welcome enticement to customers. "We get tons of bicycle customers," Hernandez said. "Some even with their little trailers and stuff. It's that kind of community."

The bike lane hasn't been repainted between 16th and 17th Streets yet, though nothing's stopping bicyclists from riding where the lane will be.

Construction isn't as far along on another block of Valencia.

Now's a good time to find an open table at some of Valencia's most packed restaurants.

Click image to enlarge: Leland Avenue intersection overview.

The Planning Department's Andres Power lauded the Leland Avenue improvements, and said the reconstruction of the street was the first step in a process the city hopes will become codified in every street redesign moving forward through the Better Streets Plan. He pointed to a new project, however, in neighboring Bayview as the benchmark for how San Francisco is innovating street design. Power is the project manager for the Model Block pilot on Newcomb Avenue in the Bayview, a project designed around stormwater treatment. The Newcomb project is situated on the 1700 block, just off of 3rd Street between Newhall and Phelps, and will employ a cocktail of street treatments, including stormwater planters and bulbouts, planted traffic calming chicanes, permeable pavement at on-street parking spaces, landscaped sidewalks that absorb runoff, raised crosswalks, and new street trees.

"Newcomb will be the first true green street in San Francisco," said Power, who noted that over the last few years movement from within the city on these matters has been quite positive. "From a policy and design perspective, there has been a sea change; it is infinitely easier to be able to talk about this stuff. Good design feels much less like an impossibility."

The cost to remake the Newcomb is $1,251,421, half of which comes from the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, nearly $500,000 from the U.S. EPA, and the remainder from San Francisco Mayor's Office of Housing Community Challenge Grants. The Redevelopment Agency, as part of the expansion of its Model Block single-family home rehabilitation program, will provide financial assistance to low-income families on Newcomb in conjunction with the renovation to refurbish their dwellings.

Click image to enlarge: Newcomb Avenue overhead with stormwater and traffic calming treatments

"Our drivers are different," said Jencks, referring to the Clean Water Act lawsuit that compelled Portland to clean up the Willamette River. "We don't have rivers with Salmon in them and we addressed the Clean Water Act with storage facilities.  We're in full regulatory compliance."

Jencks said the storage facilities brought raw sewage overflows into the bay and ocean down from an average of more than 80 per year before adding the tanks to fewer than 10 a year currently, most of those small. But, she acknowledged, "The public is not happy with combined sewage overflows any time," so her agency is working with Planning, the Department of Public Works, and the MTA to address upstream storm water through street design. Jencks noted that any reduction in storm water entering their facilities saves the city money by reducing pumping and processing volumes.

Looking forward, Planning's Power highlighted the Cesar Chavez Street redesign, which is slated to begin construction in 2010. Power said Caltrans awarded a $250,000 grant to the Planning Department to begin planning charettes for the Highway 101 interchange at Cesar Chavez, commonly known as the "Hairball," and the portion of Cesar Chavez that stretches from 101 east to 3rd Street. Furthermore, the U.S. EPA just awarded the $6 million project an additional $1.2 million for greenstreet treatments from the Hairball west to Guerrero Street. The EPA grant doubled the funding that had been planned for greenstreet facilities and gives the project leaders the opportunity to make the street the showcase for green design citywide.

"From a planning perspective we're moving to make sure all street projects have these treatments," said Power. "It hasn't been part of the standard approach in the city, but the Better Streets Plan will change that."

UPDATED: 11/19, 9:43 a.m.

Building off Jane Jacob's maxim that more eyes on a street make the street feel safer, the San Francisco Arts Commission has commissioned numerous artists to display their projects in abandoned storefronts as part of the Art in Storefronts program, and as the photo above illustrates, some of those eyes are literally watching you.

Rather than feeling any Orwellian tremors, I found the eyes mural, called The Color Therapy of Perception by Chor Boogie, and the other projects, such as Bayly and Miller's Find Your self in Natural History, a warm and welcoming visual addition to an otherwise bleak stretch of plywood-covered store fronts along Market Street between 5th and 6th Streets. And I wasn't alone. People stopped, took pictures, and shot video of the artists as they put the finishing touches on their work, in preparation for the official public launch ceremony this afternoon.

Find Yourself in Natural History Mural. Photo: Bayly and Miller

Art in Storefronts reaches beyond Market Street to several locations in the Tenderloin, the Mission, and the Bayview. It is a collaboration between the San Francisco Arts Commission,  Mayor Gavin Newsom's Office of Economic and Workforce Development, Triple Base gallery, and the Department of Public Works (DPW). The pilot project will continue until at least February 1st, when its extension will be re-evaluated.

The Art Commission and the MTA's new paintings in the Art in Kiosks program have also started showing up on Market Street, including beautiful watercolors by Pamela Wilson-Ryckman. The paintings depict subjects in various city parks, taken from archival photographs, which, according to Wilson-Ryckman, “suggest experiences of isolation and loneliness but also of affirmation within the densely populated city.” The Art in Kiosks program runs through December 31st.

A celebration featuring live bands will begin with an unveiling ceremony today from 5-7 pm at 989 Market Street (at 6th Street) followed by a reception next door (979 Market Street) where the public can pick up a map of the newly-transformed storefronts. The public will also have the opportunity to meet the artists who will be stationed at their installations discussing their work.

More of Chor Boogie's mural and Kiosk watercolors after the jump.

Photo: Matthew Roth

Photo: Matthew Roth

Image: SFAC

Image: SFAC

Widening the median on Divisadero Street. Photo: Janel Sterbentz

Many residents from the neighborhoods Divisadero connects are relieved to see any pedestrian improvements, given the long neglected state of the street.

"I think that street has been so beleaguered and so worn down for so many years, people are going to be happy just to get any improvement," said BIKE NOPA's Michael Helquist. Leela Gill, former president of the North of Panhandle Neighborhood Association, called the project "a welcome improvement."

Wider sidewalks were high on the list of requests at community feedback meetings, but DPW ruled them out during the planning process, said Walk SF's Manish Champsee. "It comes down to a cost issue," said Champsee.

Whenever the city widens sidewalks, it must also move fire hydrants within two feet of the new curb; utilities and sewers also must be moved. Champsee would like the city to find a way to simplify the process, which might mean simply leaving everything in place when the sidewalks are widened and moving it all later when when individual components are scheduled for regular maintenance.

Coordinating scheduled work between DPW and the Public Utilities Commission is not always easy, said Livable City's Tom Radulovich, because the PUC does not publish a road map of scheduled maintenance like DPW does. The result is that DPW often prefers median widening to sidewalk widening when there's excess roadway space and funds available to make upgrades, since median widening is much simpler and cheaper.

Before installation of a pedestrian refuge island. Photo: Janel Sterbentz

On another block of Divisadero, after installation of a pedestrian refuge island. Photo: Janel Sterbentz

Neighbors, desperate for any pedestrian and aesthetic improvements, were willing to compromise. That might preclude an eventual road diet, said Radulovich, who would have preferred to "do fewer blocks but do them right," like the four-block Valencia Streetscape Improvement Project. Since expensive new lights are being added to the widened Divisadero median, the city might be hesitant to tear part of the median out later, a near-necessity if Divisadero were ever to receive a road diet. To do that, said Radulovich, the city would need to remove a travel lane in each direction and install a left-turn-only lane at intersections, cutting into the expensive new median.

Divisadero's nine-foot-nine-inch sidewalks don't comply with the draft Better Streets Plan guidance on commercial thoroughfares like Divisadero, and until that plan is completed and implemented, it's a shortcoming that could be repeated often. In the case of Divisadero, it means that while there's no shortage of draws bringing foot traffic to the street these days, an end to its 90-year legacy of skinny sidewalks is still a long way off.

DPW landscaping crews who've been working on the Pavement to Parks plazas are among those being cut. Flickr photo: Jamison

"This was our share and it's unpleasant," said DPW Director Ed Reiskin. As a result of the city budget crisis, the department was forced to slash its street cleaning budget by $2.7 million and trim its landscaping budget by $800,000. A reduction in street sweeping services was announced last month.

The cuts come right as San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's office embarks on a number of new projects to green space and improve the public realm. The landscaping positions being eliminated include crews who've been heavily involved in the Pavement to Parks projects. Reiskin predicted the cuts wouldn't have a direct impact on those efforts, but rather, would affect the agency's ability to maintain landscaped medians, trim trees and respond to service requests.

"Nobody was spared and this just challenges us more to figure out how to be more efficient and use more in the way of low-maintenance planting, which we're trying to move more towards, so we need less gardening."

He said behavioral changes must also be made in the city to reduce the amount of litter and garbage.

"When I say landscape maintenance, and even when it's a gardener that we send out there, a skilled journey-level gardener, a lot of what they end up doing is picking up garbage," he said, adding that graffiti removal also takes up a huge chunk of the agency's budget, meaning less money for beautification projects. 

"The greening of the city remains a priority. It's in our department's strategic plan and there's a very clear and strong directive from the Mayor so the fact that our resources are tightened doesn't really detract from the goal, it just makes it more challenging for us to reach it."

A DPW spokesperson said the agency will do its best to minimize the impacts of the cuts "by increasing our community partnerships, through programs such as Street Parks, Adopt A Street, Community Clean Team, and Graffiti Watch." 

The layoff notices were sent out this week and are expected to take effect in mid-November.

While San Francisco Department of Public Works (DPW) Director Ed Reiskin has quietly pushed behind-the-scenes to accelerate Pavement to Parks plazas, the recently announced Market Street trial changes, and other visible projects that reclaim street space for green space and people, some advocates are concerned with how well his agency is coordinating around an arcane, but important process: DPW's five-year repaving plan.

Livable City Executive Director Tom Radulovich said that at a meeting last month about capital planning he attended at the SFCTA, only four people gave feedback and he was the only one that addressed the problem with inter-agency coordination around the repaving schedule. He believes the city needs to do more to successfully build complete streets under the Complete Streets ordinance and the Better Streets Plan.

In your five-year planning, you have the Complete Streets ordinance, which says if you're doing major street rehab and it's on a transit street, a bike street or a ped street, you ought to have the complimentary project, you ought to build it out as a complete street. Unfortunately they're not dealing with the Complete Streets Ordinance in the way that they ought to, which is coordinating the bike, ped and transit improvements at the same time as they do the repaving.

MTA spokesperson Judson True defended his agency's record, saying that "there is constant coordination looking at the paving schedules. Not just at DPT, but Muni as well." True pointed to Cesar Chavez, Divisadero, and now Market Street as positive examples.

DPW's Ed Reiskin conceded that the advocates' concerns are relevant, and that historically the city has not done enough to coordinate regular repaving with Complete Streets projects.

"I don't think we've [coordinated] as systematically as we should. In the past it has happened ad hoc," said Reiskin, though he has made it a fundamental priority to change the process within his agency to meet the obligation under the ordinance. "What I'm trying to do is institutionalize it. Any time we go do a street, we want to evaluate the potential to fix it, not just repave it. We're training all of our street design folks and making sure they are well versed in the Better Streets Plan design standards."

In reference to the Better Streets Plan, Reiskin said a director's level inter-agency body was convened to prepare for the expected adoption of the plan later this year or early next year.

"What we're talking about is advanced capital planning to leverage our dollars to get the most bang for the buck," he said. "We want to identify the best candidate [streets] based on citywide criteria and use an integrated planning and design process to capture all the needs early on."

In addition to tasking staff of each agency with coordinating long-term capital planning from the beginning, Reiskin said they have asked the Controller's Office to develop solutions to streamline delivery of those capital plans. He expected those results from the Controller imminently, at which point the agency directors would integrate them.

"For the projects that are already in the pipeline, we're doing everything to make sure that we're working together -- we're checking with the pedestrian and bike teams at the MTA."

Photo: Arul Prasad

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

DPT workers striping lane markings on Mission Street. Photos: Matthew Roth

Work crews from the Department of Parking and Traffic (DPT) at the MTA have been re-striping portions of Mission Street recently, the old lane markings having all but disappeared as the street crumbles with age.

When I snapped the photo above, the air along the corridor redolent of oil and the machines that churn out our roads (there was also a waft of concrete production from a new building nearby), I was intrigued by the powder thrown on the wet thermoplast by the man in the rear of the frame. 

Assuming it was a drying agent, I was surprised to learn from MTA spokesperson Judson True that the "powder" is actually small glass balls that adhere to the thermoplast and give it a reflective quality when headlights hit it at night.

A number of other questions came up, such as what will become of the runoff from the glass beads that don't adhere to the street paint or the other chemicals sprayed immediately after the beads? Or when are we going to see those same crews striping all those new lanes not for cars? 

Or when are they going to repave Mission Street altogether? I don't see it in DPW's five year repaving plan, but with sections like the photo below the jump, I'd imagine Mission will more resemble a dirt track five years from now than a city street. And given the ailing budget and the death of the street paving bond, is this lane marking operation just lipstick on a pig?

At 16th Street and Valencia, the first signs of streetscape improvement work. Photo: Bryan Goebel

Businesses are "basically looking at a double-whammy over the next nine to twelve months," said Daly. "The double-whammy being, obviously, the economy that's down, tough times for everybody here in San Francisco, and then looking forward to living through a construction project. So, I wanted to come here and help put this together to put the word out that Valencia Street is open for business, that you're going to find no better commercial corridor in all of San Francisco."

The enhancements on Valencia, from 15th Street to 19th Street, will include sidewalk widening, additional street trees, additional street lighting, sidewalk bulb-outs, and art elements. While business owners expressed concerns about maintaining access and parking during construction, there was broad support for the project on the whole.

With Supervisor Chris Daly and business owners looking on, the DPW's Alex Murillo vowed to keep access to businesses open, and bike lanes clear of work materials. Photo: Michael Rhodes

"Certainly any kind of disruption to the street affects us, but it's all the more reason to come out," said Deborah Cullinan, executive director of Intersection for the Arts. "At the end of this process, which is only about nine months, it's going to be even more gorgeous. There are going to be more trees, wider sidewalks, it's just going to be a better place to come to. So we hope that people continue to come out."

Supervisor Chris Daly. Photo: Michael Rhodes

Sean Quigley, who owns Paxton Gate's Curiosities for Kids, also sought to remind people to shop the Valencia corridor during construction. "They're going to do their best to not be disruptive, but we still people to come down and support the local businesses."

The DPW's Murillo vowed that he would do everything in his power to respond to concerns. "We're also going to be very, very aware during construction," said Murillo. "I want to let everyone know that we will be aware of the needs of pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists in the area. So if there are any concerns during construction, I'm your point of contact, reach out to me."

Murillo said the DPW has "a partnering session" tomorrow "where we're meeting with the contractor, myself, other city officials, police captain [Stephen] Tacchini, Pedro Tuyub, who's with the Mission Merchants Association," and Neal Patel of the SFBC.

"We've got a partnering session where we're meeting with them, strategizing just how we can try to streamline the project and address any concerns. The reason I invited them out there is because I need them to add emphasis to what I've been saying, which is, keep the bike lanes open, keep the housekeeping tight, we don't want any trash out there."

Sean Quigley, owner of Paxton Gate's Curiosities for Kids. Photo: Michael Rhodes

To minimize disruption, DPW will work on one block at a time, first on the west side of all the blocks, and then on the east side of each block. Work will also be suspended from Thanksgiving through New Year's Day, so businesses will not be hit during the holiday season.

Supervisor Daly, who arrived by bicycle, said he was there "to do my part, bicycling up and down the corridor, frequenting the small business and the arts organizations, supporting the non-profits here over the next year of construction."

Bicyclists are encouraged to contact both DPW's Alex Murillo and SFBC's Neal Patel if they encounter an obstructed bike lane without proper signage during the nine months of construction. Murillo can be reached by phone at (415) 437-7009 or email at alex.m.murillo (at) sfdpw.org. Patel can be reached by phone at (415) 431-BIKE x312 or email at neal (at) sfbike.org.

When the 17th Street and Castro Street trial Pavement to Parks plaza was implemented in San Francisco, Mayor Gavin Newsom said at the press conference that he would expedite two more plazas immediately, and if the public used them and clamored for more, he would instruct his agencies to build them. Apparently, he wasn't grandstanding.

The first three plaza locations were selected strategically because they had years of community planning behind them and the city expected there would be little resistance to making the changes. In fact, they hoped to see the exact results they are seeing.

"People are banging down the doors, community groups and professionals are clamoring to make more happen," said Ed Reiskin, Director of the Department of Public Works (DPW) and one of the central catalysts in moving the projects forward. "That to me is a sign of something good. That's a good problem to have."

Reiskin pointed to the Mason Street park as an example of community groups taking advantage of a trial traffic closure to green their neighborhood. "It was just meant to be a street closure, throw up some orange plastic bollards and measure the traffic impacts. But the community rose up and in a few hours turned an otherwise undesirable space into a community space."

There is so much interest in opening up unused street space and turning it into public open space that the city agencies involved in selecting the projects told Streetsblog that they are getting lobbied at City Hall by supervisors and by the general public at community meetings around the city.

"I haven't solicited any design input," said Andres Power, project manager from the Planning Department for the trial plazas at San Jose/Guerrero and 16th Street/8th Street in Lower Potrero. "But I have a list of 25 landscape architects willing to do the next design."

Click to enlarge schematic for plaza. Image: Rebar Arts Collective

"There is a coalescing from the highest levels of city government," said Power. "There is a clear and consistent message from both the mayoral and supervisorial sides of government."

Rebar Arts Collective was one of the designers who approached the city to design a plaza shortly after they heard about the imminent 17th and Castro project from colleagues at Public Architecture, according to Rebar's John Bela. "We've been exploring turning street-space into public space for years. We had been following what was happening in New York and the first pavement to parks project in San Francisco and we called up Planning to see if we could help."

Rebar was chosen for the Lower Potrero project and will donate its time and labor, just as Public Architecture did for 17th and Castro and Shift Design Studio is for San Jose and Guerrero. Rebar has ambitious plans for redefining the user's experience with these new spaces.

"You walk into the space and you recognize that it's not a street anymore but it's not a park either. It's a street park or street plaza," said Bela. "It's a new category of spaces that is being created and we want to create a new language to explain that. One of our interests is taking the vernacular of street markings -- bike lanes, turn arrows, lane markings, crosswalks -- and re-mixing them into the plaza space and street surface."

"The streets represent 25 percent of the city's land area, the biggest component of the public realm. We're only now able to take advantage of that," added Bela. "We call this user generated urbanism, participatory urbanism. People are getting involved in space making, defining the properties of their space."

Along these lines Bela said Rebar intends to provide space in the plaza for user-generated art and sculpture, a nod to the California College of the Arts campus that sits three blocks away. The materials Rebar uses will also be more industrial to reflect the history of the neighborhood, including using old NorCal metal debris boxes as planters, which enables them to be movable should the city want to use them elsewhere.

As far as the next plaza is concerned, both Reiskin and Power indicated they were looking at Naples Green, on the south side of Geneva Avenue at Naples Street in the Excelsior. After that, Reiskin indicated that they hope to add plazas in "every corner of the city, especially those that are underserved by public space."

Reiskin added: "I see this as a spectrum of things. At one end there are full massive street changes, like we're doing on Valencia Street. At the other end is Sunday Streets. I hope that we end up with a wide palette of what we can do. I think we've disproven people's conceptions of what gets done in this city. Good things can happen quickly and at low cost."

A rendering of the Potrero Plaza from 8th Street facing southeast. Note the PARKcycle on the billboard. Image: Rebar Art Collective

Cross sections of tree stumps for seating on Mason Street. Photo: SurfaceWork

The Mason Street trial closure is meant to test in real time what the traffic models and transportation engineers predict will result in minimal traffic disruptions should the city decide to close the street permanently. The traffic studies are required for environmental review of the expansion plans of the North Beach Branch Library, with one of the build options compelling the removal of the roadway to transform it into park space.

"Everyone thought there would be a real advantage from moving away from computer models and theories," said Julie Christensen of the Friends of Joe DiMaggio Playground, a public playground that abuts Mason Street here. "We said if you are going to have this road closure for two months, and there is so little public space in the area, why not create a new public space?"

"I think we had three weeks to prepare once they decided on the closure date," said Christensen. "What do you do with a tight deadline, you look to your strengths. Rec and Park and DPW bent over backwards to put their staff at our disposal to get this done."

When city traffic managers settled on closing the street for the trial from August 1st to September 28th, they called on Rebar Art Collective to help them with the design. Rebar is probably best known for starting Park(ing) Day and coordinating the construction of the Civic Center Victory Garden, among other projects.

"I just have to say how enormously grateful we were for Rebar's involvement," Christensen added. "Their familiarity with urban scale, and their understanding of the materials and their ability to assess the assets at their disposal were so important to make this happen."

John Bela of Rebar (left) oversees construction of the plaza on Saturday, August 1. Photo:SurfaceWork

Rebar's John Bela said this was an "opportunity to make a new public space and use it to demonstrate what a permanent space could look and feel like." He also said that the turnaround for the project was remarkably fast, with Rebar's design concept presented to the city agencies only four days before implementation.

"There were 20-30 volunteers with DPW and Rec and Park, all there working together, busting ass and pitching in to make this thing happen," said Bela.

And just as quickly as the plaza went in, it is expected to be taken out by the end of the trial.

"Everything on that street is begged or borrowed," said Christiansen. The rice straw wattle used to contain the saw dust beds will be used on a soil erosion project in October; the plants from Rec and Park will be dispersed at various parks; the trees will go back to the Rec and Park nursery in Golden Gate Park; and the planters demarcating the street boundary will be used by DPW in future Pavement to Parks projects.

Andres Power of the Planning Department said the only way the trial could remain beyond the deadline is if the community asked loudly enough for it. "If the community comes around and asks for it to stay, we can go back to ISCOTT and ask for an extension, but right now the permit terminates at the end of September."

Christensen said there would be light programming, such as musicians and library-sponsored crafts days. The local Gino and Carlo Bar planned to hold its weekly Bocce tournament in the space for several Sundays in August.

"We were standing out there yesterday and the world was not coming to an end. North Beach was not hopelessly snarled in traffic," said Christensen. "People have these Christmas faces on, like it's Christmas day and this present has been dropped on them."

She sounded hopeful that there might be an extension, but said she was thrilled just to see the reactions from the neighborhood no matter how long the trial lasts:

It's not just turning pavement into parks, it's a nexus that creates a place for people to be, to run into each other. It was causing neighbors to talk to each other, and not just between like-minded people. It was the little Chinese kid playing, the homeless guy, the families with kids, the crotchety old neighbors. It caused them to be happy, to be open to each other. It's what the placemaking people tell us will happen when you open up the street this way.

Rice straw wattle used for planters. Photo Rebar Art Collective

Maple trees from Rec and Park in planters. Board of Supervisors' Prez David Chiu with work gloves and a shovel. Photo: SurfaceWork

Moving saw dust into the beds. Photo: Rebar Art Collective

Volunteers and agency staff getting face time with BoS Prez Chiu. Photo Rebar Art Collective

A bicyclist waits in what remains of the bike box at Scott/Oak. Photos by Bryan Goebel.

Andy Thornley of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition points out they're not full bike boxes. In the case of Scott, it's really a quarter bike box, and a half bike box on 14th:

A full bike box would look like those in Portland, with colored pavement in the box (as well as color in the bike lane feeding in, and, if appropriate, color in the "receiving" bike lane on the far side of the intersection), "STOP HERE" marked on the pavement before the advance stop line, and a public education program to let everyone know what they are and how they're meant to be used.

Thornley explained the two bike boxes in San Francisco are an experiment, but it's unclear whether the MTA has any plans to turn them into full, colored bike boxes, or add more, once the injunction is lifted:

In MTA's earlier request to experiment with color in bike right-of-way, bike boxes had been one of the senses to test, but I see that the final list of application senses approved by the Federal Highway Administration no longer includes bike boxes. That is, even after going through the years-long and hyper-mannered dance of official experimentation (which had led the sanctioned use of color off into a very limited scope already) the MTA still won't have made any productive codification of color for bike boxes, let alone "ordinary" continuous bike lanes, as experienced in much of the rest of the civilized world.

We've got a request into MTA spokesperson Judson True for more information. We'll post an update as soon as we hear back.

Update:  MTA spokesperson Judson True says the bike box will be repainted next week. "That was the plan all along."

As for colored bike boxes, the MTA does plan to experiment with those "in the next couple of years." 

A car takes over what was a bike box.  

About 6,000 bicyclists, according to the SFBC, pedal through The Wiggle on a daily basis.

Valencia Street at 15th Street. Flickr photo: Iznot

Project area. Image: DPW

The $6.1 million project is funded through a combination of federal Safe, Accountable, Flexible and Efficient Transportation Equity Act (SAFETEA) funds as well as two Transportation for Livable Communities (TLC) federal grants with local matching funds.

The final design is largely the result of neighbors' input, says Livable City's Tom Radulovich, who also lives in the neighborhood. "I and a bunch of neighbors went to some of the meetings," said Radulovich. "We designed the street we wanted, mostly. There's still some things missing from the street, but the good news was we had a design and then a few pieces of funding that nobody had anticipated came forward."

One feature of the project will be unfamiliar to most San Franciscans: mid-block bicycle oases. "On the mid-block bulb-outs and a few of the other corner bulb-outs, we've actually planned bike oases," said Opbroek. "There's an example of this up in Portland, where they've done a space on the sidewalk with rows of bike parking."

If the bicycle plan injunction isn't lifted before the project is completed, however, there's a chance the bike oases could be jettisoned. In that case, "they'll have to be installed at a later date," said Opbroek. "If for some reason that didn't happen - I expect that it will, but if it didn't - that space could also be used for tables and chairs or additional merchants spilling out."

Click to enlarge: Valencia plan for 16th Street to 17th Street. Image: DPW

In other locations, the extra space created by bulb-outs and widened sidewalks will be left with "informal programming," said Opbroek. "Because of the heavy pedestrian activity here, we're not putting in additional landscaping. We're leaving the space kind of free for merchants to use."

Radulovich was hopeful that Valencia could serve as a model for many of the ideas that are in the Better Streets Plan. "We're really hoping we can point to Valencia as, 'well, here's our new standards, here's the city's new commitment to better streets, and here's what a neighborhood commercial street ought to look like," said Radulovich.

Some concerns remain, however. Chief among them are loading zones and enforcement. "It's a poorly-enforced street now, there's a lot of double-parking in the bike lanes, there's a lot of double-parking in the median," said Radulovich.

"We're getting rid of that median, replacing it with left-turn pockets in a few locations, so definitely there's going to have to be an emphasis on enforcement. I'm a little more worried about double-parking than I am about speeding, just seeing how the street works now."

Radulovich would also like to have seen more bulb-outs added, though he said that traffic engineers are reluctant to make improvements that would make it difficult for deliveries by large trucks and trailers. "That kind of giant trucks obsession that a lot of the traffic engineers have compromised the design somewhat," said Radulovich. "We feel like it's a missed opportunity to have done them on the numbered streets."

On the whole, though, the project should bring a streetscape virtually unrivaled in San Francisco, and one that can serve as a model for future design. In the meantime, however, bicyclists may have to contend with intermittent bike lane interruptions.

Rendering of proposed treatments for Valencia at 16th Street. Image: DPW

During other construction projects, DPW's response to bike lane obstruction has "largely been complaint-driven," says San Francisco Bicycle Coalition Community Planner Neal Patel.

Valencia Street will require extra vigilance, because it's one of the most popular routes in the city for bicyclists. "We really need to make sure that it's not a complaint-driven requests, and the city and contractors understand that they need to maintain the bicycle right-of-way. They seem to be on par with that, they agree. DPW has had special talks with the contractors to say, 'make sure that you do everything according to the law.'"

During construction, crews are legally required to maintain all existing bike lanes, or to post signs stating "Bicyclists Allowed Use of Full Lane" or "Bicycle Route Detour" when the lane must be obstructed.

Alex Murillo of DPW vowed to keep the lane open as much as possible and to stay in touch with the SFBC. "Our goal is to keep it open 24/7," said Murillo. "There may be a time or two where we need to detour traffic on that block. I can assure you that we are going to keep it open as much as possible."

Murillo said that any bicyclist who finds that the lane is closed or obstructed without proper signage should call him immediately: "I will be on it like you have no idea, because, trust me, my goal is to keep that lane open."

Bicyclists are encouraged to contact both DPW's Alex Murillo and SFBC's Neal Patel if they encounter an obstructed bike lane without proper signage during the nine months of construction. Murillo can be reached by phone at (415) 437-7009 or email at alex.m.murillo (at) sfdpw.org. Patel can be reached by phone at (415) 431-BIKE x312 or email at neal (at) sfbike.org.