Streetsblog San Francisco

Hundreds of on-street parking spaces across the city will be reserved for car-share vehicles starting in September as the SF Municipal Transportation Agency looks to provide more convenient alternatives to owning a car.

Image: ABC 7

Following a nearly two-year pilot designating 12 curbside spaces for the non-profit City CarShare, the SFMTA is planning a major expansion [PDF] in the next two years. In the first year, up to 150 spaces would be set aside for each car-share organization. An additional 150 would be available to each organization in the second year.

Until now, car-share organizations have generally only been able to procure reserved spaces in off-street parking lots and garages at sites like gas stations, many of which are giving way to redevelopment. Citing studies that found each car-share vehicle typically leads to 10 to 15 private cars being sold, SFMTA Director Ed Reiskin said that opening up a fraction of the city’s 281,000 on-street spots for car-share will make it easier for car-share organizations to place vehicles closer to a broader range of residents.

“It opens up a lot more of the city to car-sharing,” said Reiskin. “Generally, on-street parking will always be here.”

The parking spaces will be available for traditional car-share services like Zipcar and City CarShare, as well as peer-to-peer services like RelayRides, Getaround, and Wheelz. However, one-way car-share services like Car2Go, which operates in other American cities and allows drivers to leave the car in any legal parking space (they’re tracked by GPS), won’t be eligible. Reiskin said the SFMTA has yet to see sufficient evidence that such services reduce car ownership and driving, and that accommodating them would require issuing a new special permit that exempts Car2Go’s vehicles from parking restrictions.

“We have some concerns that it could actually work in the other direction — that one-way [car-sharing] could actually encourage more driving,” said Reiskin. “We’re eager to get more information.”

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A panel of disability advocates, the SFMTA, and other entities has recommended that handicap parking placard holders no longer be given free parking at meters.

Photo: SFMTA

As the SF Examiner and the Chronicle reported, the policy recommendation came out of a committee formed to tackle the growing problem of placard abuse, which deprives legitimately disabled drivers of reserved parking spaces close to their destinations, cheats the SFMTA out of revenue, and lets drivers occupy high-demand parking spots all day with no incentive to limit their stay.

“Current disabled parking placard and blue zone policies are failing to increase access for people with disabilities, and reduce parking availability for all drivers,” said Jessie Lorenz, executive director of the Independent Living Resource Center of San Francisco, in a statement.

As we’ve reported, lifetime free parking for placard holders — an incentive for abuse — is enshrined in state law, and repealing it would require a bill to be passed by the state legislature. There’s no word yet on which senators or assemblymembers might take up such a bill, but city officials said potential legislation could either call for the free parking repeal statewide or for SF only, and that they hope to pass it by 2015.

Carla Johnson, interim director of the Mayor’s Office of Disability, said California is one of only 15 states to have such a law in place. When it was enacted in the 1970s, she said, the limited parking meter technology at the time made payment more physically challenging, and the law was intended to help disabled drivers get around that obstacle. “Back then, we had to use coins, we had to manually turn a dial, we didn’t have curb ramps that allowed you to get up onto the sidewalk,” said Johnson. “Things have changed since then.”

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It looks like Supervisor Eric Mar is ready to make some noise about the need to fund the SFMTA’s vision for a major expansion of bike-friendly streets — which Mayor Ed Lee hasn’t prioritized at all since the agency released its Draft Bicycle Strategy earlier this year.

Supervisor Mar speaking at last week's Bike to Work Day rally. Photo: Aaron Bialick

At yesterday’s Board of Supervisors meeting, Mar issued a request to the City Budget and Legislative Analyst and the Controller’s Office for a report on potential opportunities to increase the abysmal amount of funding currently devoted to bicycle infrastructure — 0.46 percent of the city’s capital budget.

“It’s time that the city walks the walk when it comes to funding bike improvements,” said Mar. “Less than a half of one percent is not acceptable.”

While pro-bike talk from elected officials abounded at last week’s Bike to Work Day rally, Mar noted that ”there were no commitments to step up and deliver the funding that our fledgling bicycle network needs.”

In February, when Mar asked Mayor Ed Lee how he planned to help fund the SFMTA’s Bicycle Strategy – a vision for making bicycling a mainstream mode of transportation – the mayor made it clear that he has no plans to back up his pro-bike rhetoric with a commitment to implementation.

With the SFMTA set to approve its next two-year budget a year from now, “Now is the time where we can start planning and working proactively to make these plans a reality,” said Mar.

Mar pointed to SFMTA Director Ed Reiskin’s remarks at last October’s NACTO Conference in New York, reported by Streetsblog, when Reiskin stated that “the most cost effective investment we can make in moving people in our city is in bicycle infrastructure.”

The efficacy of bicycle infrastructure is already evident in neighborhoods like the Inner Richmond, which Mar represents, where bicycle commuting increased by 167 percent from 2000 to 2010. During that time, bike lanes were installed on Arguello Boulevard and Cabrillo Street. Mar also pushed for the recent implementation of the Fell and Oak protected bike lanes, which now provide a safer commuting route for District 1 residents. “I think the improvements to bike lanes, making them safer for families, has had a real impact in the Richmond,” said Mar.

“We know that improving the bicycle network in San Francisco leads to healthier communities, less car congestion, less pressure on Muni lines already at capacity, healthier commuters, and many other economic benefits,” he added.

Photo: Andy Thornley/Flickr

The SFMTA installed bike lanes this weekend on the Great Highway, north of Fulton Street at Golden Gate Park. The Great Highway continues as Point Lobos Avenue as it runs by the Cliff House.

Point Lobos Avenue. Photo: Andy Thornley/Flickr

The bike lanes are buffered from motor traffic on some stretches, and two of the four traffic lanes on Point Lobos in front of the Cliff House were removed, which should help calm car traffic. The bike lane also disappears on the downhill section of Point Lobos, though sharrows were stenciled in the traffic lane, and there’s a wide shoulder between the lane and the row of angled car parking which it runs by.

The bike lanes were installed as part of a re-paving and streetscape improvement project underway by the Department of Public Works that’s expected to be finished by October. The SFMTA will install plastic posts in the buffer zones “later in the construction period,” according to the agency’s Livable Streets Facebook page.

Thanks to Andy Thornley for the photos — he also pointed out that this is part of the Pacific Coast Bicycle Route, which runs all the way from Oregon to Mexico.

See more after the jump.

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Photos: Aaron Bialick

Seven weeks after the SF Municipal Transportation Agency painted red transit-only lanes on several blocks of Church Street, Muni reports that the J-Church and 22-Fillmore lines are moving faster and more reliably. On the stretch between Duboce Avenue and 16th Street, travel times on the two lines have dropped by 5 percent, and the buses and trains are 20 percent more reliable, arriving closer to their scheduled arrival times.

Before the transit lanes went in, Muni riders were routinely delayed by private automobile drivers blocking boarding islands and waiting to make left turns. “We were losing a lot of time there,” said Sean Kennedy, planning manager for the Muni Transit Effectiveness Project. ”This is the slowest section for both the 22 and the J on their entire stretch, and one of the slowest sections in the whole transit system.”

The Church transit-only lanes are a pilot project of the TEP that allows the SFMTA to measure the effect on transit and traffic, helping to inform plans to use them on other streets.

Sean Kennedy (left), the SFMTA's TEP planning manager, and Camron Samii, SFMTA enforcement director.

SFPD and SFMTA parking enforcement officers have handed out 26 citations to drivers so far for violating the transit lanes, according to the SFMTA. (The SFPD enforces moving violations, while SFMTA can only enforce parking violations.)

While it’s still easy to spot drivers disobeying the new rules, it appears that violators are less likely to enter the lanes in front a Muni vehicle, where they might cause delays. That seems to indicate that even if drivers know they’re driving in the lanes illegally, many seem to know better than to delay Muni vehicles.

“They know,” said Camron Samii, the SFMTA’s enforcement director. On the city’s other 15 miles of transit-only lanes (which, other than Third Street’s light-rail lanes, aren’t colored), Samii said it’s typical to see drivers pick up on patterns and only violate the lanes when there are fewer transit vehicles and enforcement officers are around. The agency tries to mix up where and when enforcement happens, he said.

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As has become painfully apparent on Polk Street, there is a deeply-held belief among certain merchants that car parking is indispensable to their business — even if studies indicate that very few of their customers drive, and that removing parking spaces to implement safety improvements could actually draw more potential customers.

SF Small Business commissioner and former president Luke O'Brien. Image: SFGovTV

So it’s no surprise that when SFMTA officials came to the SF Small Business Commission to discuss its goals to make streets safer and manage parking demand, preserving parking spaces was pretty much the only priority voiced by commissioners.

But Luke O’Brien, the commission’s former president, topped everyone else — he wants to build more parking garages in San Francisco.

O’Brien told SFMTA Director Ed Reiskin that city policies like “transit-first,” which limit the number of new parking spaces in favor of encouraging walking, biking, and transit, “give rise to this feeling that a way of life is being imposed” upon those who would like to drive.

O’Brien didn’t suggest which productive real estate in built-out San Francisco might be sacrificed to construct new parking garages, which come at an average cost of $19,253 per parking space [PDF].

As Reiskin explained, rather than inducing more traffic by building more parking, the SFMTA is instead striving to manage demand for the existing parking supply using pricing strategies under SFPark. As part of that program, the SFMTA is lowering prices on city-owned garages, which have gone severely under-used, to help make them more attractive to drivers than street parking.

“I think our main focus is on being smarter about how we manage parking, rather than increasing the supply,” said Reiskin. “The streets are not getting wider, so for us to build more parking, that would enable more people to drive, which would ultimately have the impact of clogging the streets.”

As the Bay Guardian reported last year, two other commissioners have said O’Brien, a developer appointed to the commission by former Mayor Gavin Newsom, “has been especially aggressive in pushing his ideological agenda.”

O’Brien seemed perfectly fine with the fact that more parking would put more cars on the streets. “I’ve gotta agree with you, if you build more capacity, people generally use it,” he said.

Photo: SF Breaking News/Twitter

After a makeover, the bus loop that serves as a terminal for Muni’s 8X and 49 lines at Phelan and Ocean Avenues, the site of City College’s Ocean Campus, became operational yesterday. It’s part of a larger city project, in the works for ten years, to create a more efficient and attractive transit hub while opening up the adjacent land for a mixed-use, affordable housing development with shops on the ground floor, complemented by a new plaza that will welcome students stepping off or waiting for the bus.

The loop was actually re-aligned: Whereas buses used to take a right turn off Ocean, stop, then take a left turn back onto Ocean in the opposite direction, the loop now takes buses on a right turn towards Phelan, where they use the three new side-by-side platforms to load before making another right turn on to Phelan.

Stops for the 8X/8BX and 49 that used to sit on the south side of Ocean have been moved to the new bus platforms. The project will also include pedestrian bulb-outs at the adjacent crosswalk across Phelan. The plaza and building development will break ground later this year, according to an SFMTA news release.

Check out more images after the break.

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The SFMTA laid down preliminary markings for the Oak Street protected bike lane yesterday, and says it aims to have it ready by Bike to Work Day next Thursday. Photo: Aaron Bialick

Crews erected the bicycle counter on Market Street earlier this week. Photo: SFMTA

The SFMTA expects to have the protected bike lane on Oak Street and the Market Street bicycle counter ready on Bike to Work Day — next Thursday, May 9 — according to agency staff.

As we reported Wednesday, construction on the three-block Oak bike lane has been held up by renovation work at the Kelly-Moore paint shop. However, the agency apparently found a way to work around it, and yesterday laid down the first markings for the bike lane buffer zone on Oak between Baker and Broderick Streets. “Crews are trying to get the work completed by Bike to Work Day,” said Ben Jose, public information officer for the agency’s Livable Streets subdivision. “But at this point we are not certain that given all the work to be done, it will be totally completed.”

Meanwhile, the bicycle counter has been erected on Market between Ninth and Tenth Streets, and is being calibrated. SFMTA spokesperson Paul Rose said it will start counting bicycle traffic at its official unveiling on Bike to Work Day.

Photo: Aaron Bialick

The protected bike lane on Oak Street may not be constructed until some time after May 19, when the permit for renovation work on the Kelly-Moore paint shop on the corner of Oak and Divisadero Street ends, according to planners from the SF Muncipal Transportation Agency. Because the permit allows the paint shop to occupy the parking lane where the bike lane will go, the bike lane can’t be completed until after it’s done, agency staff said.

The project was originally promised this past winter, then delayed to February. SFMTA planners said they are now looking at ways to work around the renovation to start preliminary work on the bike lane, but that the agency’s hands are largely tied until it’s finished. Agency staff also said the paint shop owners have indicated they’re unlikely to need an extension of the permit.

The main cause of the delay seems to be of lack of coordination between the SFMTA and the Department of Public Works, which issues permits to occupy street space for construction.

SFMTA staff has said that unlike the Fell lane, installing the Oak bike lane will require crews to re-stripe all of the traffic lanes on the three-block stretch, in order to fit it into the street’s geometry.

The SF Bicycle Coalition is counting, down to the second, how long it's taking city agencies to install safety upgrades on Fell and Oak Streets.

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The SFMTA said it won't pursue protected bike lanes on most of Polk Street, even though the agency drew up this conceptual plan in the Think Bike workshops in September 2011.

The second open house on the Polk Street safety improvements is tonight. While the agency has said protected bike lanes are not on the table for most of Polk, don’t be discouraged from showing up. This is your chance to tell the SFMTA you support protected bike lanes along the entire street. As we’ve seen, Supervisor David Chiu isn’t going to stand up and make that case for you.

Neal Patel, planning director for the SF Bicycle Coalition, wrote in a blog post today that ”we’ve been told by SFMTA staff that continuous, separated bikeways (including the parking-protected bikeway option presented earlier this year by the SFMTA and an idea the SF Bicycle Coalition developed years ago) are not technically feasible for Polk Street for a variety of reasons.” Patel adds that the SFBC is still trying to “understand if these are truly valid technical issues, or the SFMTA shying away from a hard decision to create one continuous north-south bikeway that’s safe for everyone who wants to bike.”

One explanation is that a continuous protected lane would be feasible if the agency decided to remove more parking. While the anti-bike lane ”Save Polk Street” merchants are sowing fear about removing parking on a street where 85 percent of people arrive without a car, making it a more inviting place for biking and walking will not kill businesses. In fact, since bikes take up so much less space than cars, with a safer bikeway, more people would be able to access Polk than under the dangerous status quo.

While it’s no substitute for attending tonight’s meeting, you can also sign an online petition from Folks for Polk, a group organized in support of the safest options for Polk Street. Currently the petition has amassed 670 signatures. The group is also creating a list of businesses that prioritize safety improvements over a few parking spaces, where protected bike lane supporters can spend their money.

Tonight’s meeting will be held at the First Congregational Church Fellowship Hall at 1300 Polk St (at Bush) from 5 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.