Streetsblog San Francisco

Screenshot from ImproveSF.com

Bringing safe bike infrastructure and shared, pedestrian-priority streets to San Francisco are just a couple of popular ideas among users on ImproveSF.com, a city-sponsored website which features a platform for residents to provide input on the Planning Department’s “Green Connections” project.

Planners are fielding ideas from the Green Connections section of the website to help shape the developing plan for a citywide network of park-to-park routes, asking questions like, “How can we make it easier and safer to walk or bike to parks?” The most popular answers to that question are, “Safer intersections the Dutch way,” traffic calming, greening and landscaping, and “WOONERFS! Paseos! Living Streets!“

Any visitor can “like” an idea or suggest their own — the Planning Department is listening. “This is a 20-year long project, and in order to better connect individuals and their families to enjoy natural areas and public amenities in their community, it’s important that we hear what residents really want in their neighborhoods,” said Planning Department Director John Rahaim in a statement.

Seen any other successful ideas you’d like to see adapted from other cities? Got new, imaginative ideas for streetscapes of your own? Head over and share them with the city.

Photo: NewJeffersonStreet.com

Crews began work yesterday on an overhaul of Jefferson Street in Fisherman’s Wharf that will expand pedestrian space, reduce the number of cars, and create a more welcoming public realm for the throngs of tourists that regularly crowd the street. Improvements on the first two blocks of Jefferson, between Jones and Hyde Streets, were fast-tracked for completion in time for America’s Cup, which is set to begin on July 4. Construction was originally scheduled to begin in October, but it was pushed back to January for unspecified reasons.

The project, designed with the help of Danish architect Jan Gehl, is expected to transform Jefferson into the kind of popular pedestrian-oriented streets that are found many in cities across the world, but are few and far between in San Francisco, as the San Francisco Business Times noted back in June:

Photo: DPW via Facebook

The remade Fisherman’s Wharf will recall — but not try to copy — other noted areas where strolling and biking are the main way to get around a shopping/eating district, like Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade or Miami Beach’s Lincoln Road.

“It’s not being done to make it like Disneyland,” said Troy Campbell, executive director of the Fisherman’s Wharf Community Benefit District. It was important to shopkeepers and other longtime residents of the area that Fisherman’s Wharf maintain its character, Campbell said.

“On a busy day, it should feel like an outdoor plaza, an urban living space,” said Neil Hrushowy, project manager in the city’s Planning Department.

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Buildings in San Francisco would be required to include more bicycle parking under legislation being developed by the Planning Department.

Bike parking at AirBnB's office. Photo: SFBC/Flickr

The proposal [PDF] would set consistent guidelines for the number of bike racks required for different types of buildings — covering both on-street bike parking for visitors or in an enclosed area for residents and workers. The Planning Department’s Kimia Haddadan told the Planning Commission last week that the move would bring SF’s standards more in line with cities like Portland, Vancouver, and New York.

Providing sufficient space to lock bicycles will be increasingly important for the city to attain its official goal of 20 percent of trips by bike by 2020. “Clearly these bike parking amendments are a great way to show the ability for someone to ride to and from work, play, shopping, and whatever it might be,” said Marc Caswell, program manager for the SF Bicycle Coalition. “Bike parking is obviously a very important component to the bike network beyond simply bike lanes. With approximately 86,000 bicycle trips each day, and approximately only 3,000 sidewalk racks currently in existence, these people need a safe and convenient place to park their bikes.”

Haddadan said the proposal would be the city’s first “holistic update” to its bike parking requirements since they were first adopted for city-owned and leased buildings in 1996. They have been expanded “on a piecemeal basis” to most other types of buildings in the years since, which resulted in some inconsistencies in the planning code.

The proposed overhaul would apply to new construction and expansions of all types, with city-owned and -leased buildings and parking garages being required to retrofit existing facilities to conform to the new law. Bike parking requirements would continue to be set according to a building’s size and type.

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Update 3/5/13: This bill was finally approved by the Board of Supervisors.

Developers would be allowed to skirt limits on car parking if they devote the extra spaces to car-sharing, under a proposal approved unanimously by the SF Planning Commission yesterday. The bill [PDF], which advocates warn could be abused as a loophole to expand private parking, would apply to residential and commercial buildings. The legislation must still be approved by the Board of Supervisors.

Even as demand grows, car-share parking spots are disappearing as gas stations and parking lots are redeveloped. A proposal would allow developers to exceed parking maximums to add car-share spots, but advocates say it could be abused to expand private parking. Photo: Lacy Atkins, SFGate

Under the proposal, developers who want to build the maximum number of private parking spots permitted by the planning code but aren’t willing to devote any of those spots to car-share would be allowed to add up to five extra car-share spots in a building of 50 residential units or less. For buildings larger than that, which are required to provide at least one car-share space, up to eight could be added. To be eligible for the exemption, a developer cannot apply for a conditional use permit to exceed the maximum allowance for private parking, according to Andres Power, an aide to Supervisor Scott Wiener, who introduced the proposal.

Advocates say that letting developers exceed parking maximums undermines the purported spirit of the bill. “Car-share is meant to reduce demand for residential parking, so car-share spaces ought not be over and above the maximum number of residential spaces,” said Livable City Executive Director Tom Radulovich. “Using car-share to justify excess parking is cynical greenwash, and nothing more.”

Proponents argue that the bill would make it easier for car-share companies to provide spots evenly distributed near residences, which is becoming increasingly difficult as sites like parking lots and gas stations, where many car-share spots are located, are redeveloped for housing and other uses.

Power cited studies showing that, on average, every available car-share vehicle replaces eight to ten privately-owned cars while encouraging the use of transit, walking, and biking. Essentially, he argued, car ownership would be more effectively reduced if developers build extra spaces for car-share than no car-share spaces at all.

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Click here for full PDF.

City planners continue developing a vision for a network of lush, pleasant streets prioritized for walking and biking between the city’s parks and waterfronts. Staff from the SF Planning Department plans to present its draft network [PDF] for the ”Green Connections” project at an open house next Wednesday, October 3, and the public is invited to weigh in on the selected routes.

Photo: SFMTA

Coincidentally, one tool that could be used in Green Connections was recently implemented, at least temporarily, downtown and along the Embarcadero: Wayfinding signs listing estimated walking times to major destinations. Walk SF Executive Director Elizabeth Stampe said they’re an important way to help encourage walking, since many visitors (and residents) may be surprised to learn how quickly they can hoof it from one neighborhood to another.

“A lot of people might take the bus to North Beach, but they don’t know that they could get there in 15 or 20 minutes from downtown,” said Stampe. “Showing how easy it is to get from one place to another will help get more people walking.”

The idea of Green Connections is to lay out a plan of street routes connecting parks and waterfront destinations to prioritize for greenery, pedestrian and bicycle improvements over the next 20 years. In addition to the Planning Department’s community meetings, Walk SF has been leading park-to-park walks along with Nature in the City, and the SF Parks Alliance over the year to field residents’ thoughts on how the corridors can be improved.

The signs at the Embarcadero were put in by the SF Municipal Transportation Agency to help point visitors to, from, and along the waterfront during the America’s Cup yacht races this year and next summer. They were recommended in the People Plan, which is aimed at making it easier for visitors to walk, bike and take transit to the crowded events.

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A bill allowing many residential parking spaces to be rented to residents citywide was passed unanimously by the SF Board of Supervisors yesterday despite criticisms that it could encourage car commuting and discourage property owners from converting garages to housing units.

Supervisor Scott Wiener. Image: SFGovTV

At a board meeting last week, D5 Supervisor Christina Olague proposed postponing approval of the legislation for further analysis in response to a letter from Jason Henderson, a geography professor and chair of the Market and Octavia Citizens Advisory Council (and occasional Streetsblog contributor).

Henderson, along with Livable City’s Tom Radulovich, argued that the measure had not been properly vetted by advocates and staff from the Municipal Transportation Agency for the impacts of allowing most residential parking to be rented to anyone in the city, eliminating the existing requirement that renters live within 1,250 feet of the parking space.

But the bill was pushed through after other supervisors said they felt further consideration unnecessary. The provision removing the 1,250-foot rule was one piece of a larger, generally popular proposal to simplify procedures for collecting the parking tax from property owners who own five or fewer parking spaces.

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This now-normal scene at a parklet on California and Fillmore Streets in Pacific Heights shows how far parklets have come from the originally "radical" interventions of Park(ing) Day. Photo: Aaron Bialick

When Park(ing) Day started in San Francisco seven years ago, setting up camp on a sliver of street space normally reserved for storing cars was a somewhat radical idea. But these days, evidence of the movement’s continuing success can be seen year-round with more than 35 (and counting) semi-permanent, city-sanctioned parklets around the city.

Park(ing) Day returns again tomorrow, and dozens of parking spaces around the city will be reclaimed as public gathering spots. San Franciscans have embraced the event over the years, and the city’s parklet program is wildly popular among merchants, who clamor for a permit to bring a vibrant public gathering space in front of their store. It seems a world away from the first time Rebar, an art collective, decided to introduce Park(ing) Day by plugging a parking meter for a place to lay down some few rugs, plots of sod, chairs and art pieces.

A Park(ing) Day spot in front of Ritual Coffee on Valencia Street in 2009. A parklet being installed there will exist year-round. Photo: Tristan C/Flickr

“What has been really gratifying is that Park(ing) Day, which began as a guerilla art project, has been adopted by cities and integrated into their official planning strategies,” said Blaine Merker, a principal at Rebar. ”A relatively modest art intervention has changed the way cities conceive, organize and use public space.”

By now, parklets are a uniquely ubiquitous institution in San Francisco. The SF Planning Department’s Pavement to Parks program continues to grant permits through a streamlined permit application process, resulting in dozens of uniquely designed spaces popping up around the city. The city also installed a “mega parklet” promenade along three blocks of Powell Street, San Francisco’s most crowded pedestrian thoroughfare. A multi-agency website launched in May, sfbetterstreets.org, even lays out a simple guide for merchants (and residents) to apply for parklets, among other street improvements.

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A proposal to allow residential car parking spaces to be rented out to anyone living in San Francisco has drawn fire from livable streets advocates who say it would encourage more car commuting and discourage property owners from converting parking spaces to housing units.

Under a new proposal, residential parking garages in small buildings could be rented to anyone in the city, potentially drawing car commuters. Photo: Rahim Rahman/Flickr

The proposal is part of legislation [PDF] headed to the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday. The provision would remove an existing requirement that anyone who rents a residential parking space live within 1,250 feet of it, opening such spaces up to car owners citywide. The change would apply to buildings with five or fewer parking spaces, clearing the way for residential buildings near workplaces to be used, essentially, as commuter parking. It’s worth noting that 70 percent of downtown rush hour driving is done by SF residents, according to the SF County Transportation Authority.

“Those spaces would no longer be residential spaces. We’re changing the use of them entirely,” said Livable City Executive Director Tom Radulovich. “Five [spaces] or fewer is pretty much every residential parcel in this city… We’re a city of small apartment buildings.”

Supervisor Scott Wiener, who introduced the ordinance, said the current limit is impractical to enforce, and that allowing property owners to rent parking spaces to a broader market would make it easier to “unbundle” them from apartment rentals.

The larger part of the legislation, which is meeting with little opposition, would reform payment procedures for a parking tax that has gone almost completely uncollected on non-resident rentals since it was put in place in the 1970′s. The entire bill was passed by the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee within the last week.

In an email to the Board of Supervisors, Radulovich argued that removing the 1,250-foot rule would go against the city’s policies which “maintain that existing neighborhood parking should be prioritized for residents and for local businesses, and that parking policies should discourage drive-alone commuting in favor of sustainable transportation modes.” His statement reads:

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