Streetsblog San Francisco

San Francisco may be on course to receive significant new revenue for transit and street improvements in the coming years following the passage of SB 1492, which specifically permits the city to vote on restoring its local vehicle license fee to historic levels.

Photo: Aaron Bialick

The legislation, which was signed by Governor Jerry Brown earlier this month, clears the way for the SF Board of Supervisors to introduce a ballot measure as soon as November 2013 to restore the local VLF to its pre-2004 level of 2 percent of the vehicle’s estimated value, up from the current statewide limit of 0.65 percent set by former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The increase, if approved by voters, would bring in about $75 million for various city services, according to the office of State Senator Mark Leno, who introduced the bill.

There’s a very recent precedent for a successful ballot initiative to increase the vehicle registration fee. In 2010, San Francisco voters approved Prop AA, a local registration fee increase of $10 per vehicle, which now brings in $5 million per year. Half of that revenue is required to be used for street re-paving, the other half for pedestrian, transit, and bicycle improvements. As the revenue accumulates, the SF County Transportation Authority is compiling a list of projects to dole out the funds.

The Prop AA increase was permitted under a 2009 Senate bill on the condition that the funds be used specifically for transportation improvements to reduce car congestion, but those strings wouldn’t be attached to the VLF rate increase.

SB 1492 wasn’t the first bid to allow SF to increase the VLF: Since Schwarzenegger reduced the rate in 2004, Senator Leno has introduced six other similar bills, in addition to another one introduced by Senator Leland Yee in 2005. All proposals either died in the legislature or were vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger or Governor Brown. However, the statewide VLF limit was temporarily raised to 1.15 percent from mid-2009 to July 2011 under a bill introduced by Senator Noreen Evans.

A local ballot measure to increase the VLF would require a two-thirds vote by the Board of Supervisors and a simple majority approval by voters.

Third Street. Photo: Aaron Bialick

Take a shot at budgeting San Francisco’s future transportation revenue with the new online “Budget Czar” simulator from the SF County Transportation Authority, and it will quickly become clear: If residents want better transit and safer streets for walking and biking over the next 25 years, the city needs to collect new sources of transportation revenue in a way that effectively reduces motor vehicle congestion.

The SFCTA anticipates having $64 billion to spend over the next 25 years, with 80 percent ($52 billion) going to maintain the existing state of street and transit infrastructure — “not nearly enough to meet projected needs,” the agency said in a statement. With $9 billion already committed to projects in the works, that leaves just $3.14 billion left to devote to projects like pedestrian safety upgrades, a network of protected bikeways, and increased transit service — improvements that the SFCTA believes are in high demand from the public. By seeing how residents would budget that $3.14 billion in the “Czar” simulator, the SFCTA says it hopes to get a better picture of how to prioritize transportation projects in the 25-year San Francisco Transportation Plan, expected to be adopted next spring.

“We need to critically think about, ‘What are some of the best sources of revenue?’” said Egon Terplan, regional planning director of the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR). “One of the really important functions of the Transportation Plan is to put that on the table, and to say, ‘What projects do you want as a city and county? And if you want more investment in transportation projects than we likely have money for, are you willing to pay for it?’”

As funding sources like gas taxes and federal grants shrink, population growth in the Bay Area means the SFCTA expects as many as 412,000 more daily car trips clogging the city’s streets and highways by 2035. But that scenario can be averted if San Francisco institutes a congestion pricing system that provides incentives for drivers to avoid adding to traffic jams while funding improvements to make transit, bicycling and walking more attractive.

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A bicycle left-turn queue will be created in part of the sidewalk on westbound Market Street to the right of the bike lane (where the curb cut is), along with a left-turn bicycle traffic signal. Photo: Aaron Bialick

Construction will begin in October on a fix for the dangerous turn for bicyclists from Market onto Valencia Streets, according to city planners.

As Streetsblog reported last June, a plan [PDF] to install a left-turn bicycle queue lane and traffic signal at the intersection was approved in the SF Bike Plan, but it was unknown when it could be implemented. Ben Stupka, a planner at the SF County Transportation Authority, told the agency’s board of directors yesterday that the SF Municipal Transportation Agency and Department of Public Works are expected to install it next month.

The SFMTA's plan for Market and Valencia. The turn pocket is at the top center of this illustration. "Bicycle signal heads" would be installed at points "C" and "E".

The intersection of Market and Valencia Streets, two of the most heavily-used bicycling streets in the city, saw the second-highest number of car-bike crashes from 2009 to 2011, with a total of 13, according to the SFMTA’s most recent collision report [PDF]. At the top of the list was Market and Octavia Boulevard, one short block to the west, with 21 crashes.

Currently, there are few safe and convenient ways for bicycle commuters to turn from westbound Market onto southbound Valencia. Many bolder riders merge into the vehicular left-turn lane across two traffic lanes, one of which has trolley tracks on it. Otherwise, the only other practical way to cross Market is to walk or ride in the crosswalk.

To provide a smoother link, the project would create a pocket in a piece of the sidewalk (currently an unused curb cut) to the right of Market’s westbound bicycle lane, for left-turners to queue up. Then, on a dedicated left-turn signal phase, bicyclists would cross through an opening that will be created in the existing median island. Similar solutions have been used for decades in cycling cities in countries including Denmark and the Netherlands.

Geary and Fillmore, where the underpass could be filled in and "decked" to make the streets meet at the same grade again. Image: SFCTA (Renderings are conceptual only.)

Just after San Francisco approved a preferred design for its first Bus Rapid Transit route on Van Ness Avenue, the SF County Transportation Authority showcased the latest conceptual proposals for a companion BRT project on Geary Boulevard.

Geary BRT, which has been fraught with delays over the years, is expected to bring relief to riders on Muni’s notoriously sluggish 38-Geary line by significantly improving transit reliability and speeding up trips by as much as 30 percent.

The 38 follows Muni’s first streetcar route, traversing nearly the entire length of San Francisco from the Transbay Terminal to Ocean Beach. With 50,000 daily riders, it is the city’s busiest bus line. The BRT upgrade is expected to further boost ridership on the corridor, which carries as many travelers by bus as it does by car, according to SFCTA project leader Chester Fung.

“The buses don’t arrive when we’re expecting them to arrive, and they tend to bunch up when they get delayed by traffic,” said Fung. “Bottom line, we want to improve bus travel time and bus reliability.”

Geary BRT would speed up trips with features like dedicated bus lanes, off-board ticket machines, signal priority for transit, low-floor vehicles, and upgraded shelters. While all buses could potentially use the transit lanes, BRT buses would run as the 38-Limited and pass local buses in designated areas. Fung said planners are determining exactly which stops BRT will serve. The project will also include pedestrian safety improvements like sidewalk bulb-outs, and a number of left turns off of Geary may be banned.

These improvements have been a long time coming, with the project already delayed by four years. But SFCTA staff say they’ve learned some lessons from planning Van Ness BRT that should help them stay on track to meet their new target of completing the line in 2019.

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Image: SFCTA

A preferred design for Van Ness Bus Rapid Transit was approved unanimously today by the Board of Supervisors, acting as the SF County Transportation Authority Board. Supervisor Mark Farrell, who delayed approval of the proposal a month ago after complaining that he “hadn’t been briefed” on it, said he now stands behind the project after SFCTA staff brought him up to speed.

The project proposal received broad praise from the board and transit advocates as an “elegant solution” to combine the best features of two design options.

“This project is an example of what is critical to the future of transportation in the city,” said Supervisor Scott Wiener. “We have a growing population… and if we don’t start beefing up our transit capacity, we’re going to have a big problem.”

SFCTA Executive Director José Luis Moscovitch pointed out that the project, along with Geary BRT, will go a long way toward reducing car trips as new development arrives along the Van Ness corridor — namely, California Pacific Medical Center’s Cathedral Hill project at Van Ness and Geary.

Brett Thomas of the SF Transit Riders Union emphasized the need to physically separate the bus lanes from car traffic to keep drivers from encroaching on them and delaying transit. Wiener echoed the sentiment, citing his experience on the J-Church this morning, in which “a delivery truck was parked a little too far from the curb, and literally shut down the entire J-Church inbound line.”

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Photo: Google Maps

The SFMTA recently implemented its second green wave on 14th Street, re-timing traffic signals for more bicycle-friendly speeds from Dolores to Folsom.

Following the success of SF’s first green wave on Valencia Street, the 14th Street project was installed in March, said SFMTA spokesperson Paul Rose, adding that the agency is still “evaluating and tweaking it, if necessary.”

“This is a pilot because it is our first downhill green wave, but we do not see it as temporary,” said Rose. “Once we feel that it is working as intended, we will install signs stating what speed the signals are timed for.”

SF Bicycle Coalition Communications Director Kristin Smith said the organization “is very pleased to see the ‘green wave’ tool used on more and more of San Francisco’s key bikeways.”

“It’s a simple but powerful way to prioritize bike traffic and make bicycling even more convenient and comfortable,” she said. “Of course, it’s not just good for bike traffic — by pacing traffic to a human speed, green wave streets are safer for everyone.”

Next month, staff from the SF County Transportation Authority plans to propose “four to six potential new Green Wave corridors along the existing San Francisco Bike Network,” according to an agency document [PDF]. The SFCTA board is expected to approve $71,000 in Prop K sales tax funds in June to plan and implement them, and the document says they could be completed between April and October of next year.

A crucial step in advancing the Van Ness Bus Rapid Transit project was delayed for a month today after Supervisor Mark Farrell, a member of the SF County Transportation Authority (SFCTA) Plans and Programs Committee, complained that he wasn’t comfortable voting on the latest design proposal which he said he “hasn’t been briefed on.”

Supervisor Mark Farrell. Photo: Jennifer Low/Flickr

The committee was expected to approve recommendation of the proposal today, sending it to the full board for a vote next Tuesday. However, Farrell said that it was “absolutely inappropriate” for him vote on it today without feeling adequately informed, and that he still wouldn’t be ready in a week. Although the proposal received unanimous approval from the SFMTA Board of Directors today, the SFCTA committee decided to postpone its vote until its next meeting, in one month.

Staying updated on the project, said Farrell, “is a responsibility of mine, for sure, but it’s also a responsibility of the TA [staff].”

“In my opinion, it is very appropriate and, I think, necessary for all the supervisors and commissioners who get affected by this in their districts to be fully briefed on this before we’re asked to vote on any portion of this, even if it might be non-binding,” he said.

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Image: SFCTA

Planners have settled on a design for San Francisco’s first Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) route on Van Ness Avenue. The result is a plan that combines the benefits of both proposed center-running options to keep construction costs relatively low while allowing Muni flexible use of its bus fleet to serve the line.

In this design, buses would run along either side of a center median, but converge near intersections to load at right-side boarding platforms. That should assuage concerns from Muni management about requiring special buses for the route with doors on both sides to load passengers on a left-side median. It would also forego the expense and disruption of removing the existing planted median while mitigating safety concerns about buses passing each other within a pair of enclosed lanes. The plan would also likely include slightly raised bus lanes and will ban all but one left turn along the corridor between Mission and Lombard Streets.

Some more analysis and planning needs to be done before the final environmental impact report is presented in September and approved by the end of the year, but SF County Transportation Authority (SFCTA) planner Michael Schwartz said the environmental impacts should “fall within the bookends of what’s already been analyzed.”

The line is expected to be up and running in 2016 (here’s why it’s taken so long).

Check out more details on the proposal from the SF Examiner, Transbay Blog, and in this SFCTA Powerpoint presentation [PDF].

Streetsblog readers had a lot to say about the two options presented last time around — what do you think of this hybrid design?

San Francisco agencies are developing a wide-ranging program to streamline the funding and construction of improvements for walking, bicycling, and transit.

Image via SFMTA. See full PDF here.

The Transportation Sustainability Program (TSP) would reform the city’s transportation practices in three key areas: by eliminating reliance on the automobile-centric measuring stick known as Level of Service (LOS), by instituting a system of development impact fees that fund sustainable transportation improvements, and expediting the review process for pedestrian, bicycle, and transit projects. The details are on the wonky side, but if the city delivers on these reforms, SF could be looking at a much more rapid build-out of transit corridors, bikeways, and pedestrian safety measures.

“This program is taking a look at how we manage, regulate, and mitigate for development as it relates to transportation to develop a process that’s more transparent, equitable, and meaningful, and provides a much better nexus between land use planning and transportation,” said SFMTA Director of Transportation Ed Reiskin.

SF Planning Department Assistant Director Alicia John-Bauptiste presented details [PDF] about the TSP Tuesday to the SFMTA Board of Directors. The program, currently planned for adoption in late 2013, is a coordinated effort between the SFMTA, the Planning Department, the SF County Transportation Authority, and the Office of Economic and Workforce Development.

One key component to the TSP is the Transportation Sustainability Fee (TSF), which would replace the current Transit Impact Development Fee (TIDF) that building developers pay to the SFMTA to account for infrastructure costs due to car trips and transit trips made by users of those buildings. The TSF would be based on offsetting car trips added by a project, and its revenues could only be spent according to a spending plan to directly fund projects that improve transit service and bicycle and pedestrian safety. Developers would receive discounts on the TSF for building less car parking, and it would apply to residential buildings (except affordable housing), which the TIDF doesn’t.

According to John-Bauptiste, many developments and transportation projects will also no longer be required to conduct an environmental impact report (EIR) as part of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), which would lead to major time and cost savings. “Individual projects will be relieved of having to study cumulative transportation impacts because the TSP EIR will study those impacts. Project-specific analysis will be limited to site design issues such as loading docks, curb cuts, and pedestrian and bicycle safety,” the presentation says.

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