Streetsblog San Francisco

Image: sfbetterstreets.org

The San Francisco Better Streets Program launched a new website this week to provide a central source of information to help residents procure street improvements like traffic-calming measures, parklets, bike corrals, plantings, art installations, sidewalk fixtures, and permits for car-free events in their neighborhood.

The website, sfbetterstreets.org, “combines all the city’s guidelines, permit requirements, and resources for public space development onto one site, giving the user a handy step-by-step approach toward improving San Francisco’s streets,” the Planning Department said in a release.

Launched as a collaboration of the Planning Department, Department of Public Works, SF Public Utilities Commission, and the SFMTA, the site should help spread awareness of the street improvements available to residents and guide them through the city’s bureaucratic processes.

“Before this website was launched, this information wasn’t available. For someone to go through the process, someone would have to go and contact various departments around the city,” said Joanna Linsangan, communications manager for the Planning Department. “People may not think they have the ability to do so, but if they want to, they can apply for a parklet, put out bike racks or put out planters in their neighborhood, at their storefront, and we’re trying to give them all the information to make it happen.”

The site follows the spirit of the 2010 Better Streets Plan, which is aimed at streamlining the process for making improvements to the pedestrian environment. Linsangan said the site was launched during Small Business Week since merchants often show interest in improving the areas around their storefronts.

The website features alluring pages that explain the ins and outs of permit processes, maintenance regulations, planning codes, ways for residents to build neighborhood support for projects, funding sources, and more.

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San Francisco's urban forest may look bushy and green, but below ground it's suffering.

In order to pave a street, parking lot or sidewalk, the soil has to be tightly compacted to support the weight of asphalt and vehicles. Faced with hard-to-penetrate soil, tree roots have a difficult time expanding beyond their planting area -- sort of like confining a person to their baby shoes for their entire life.

As a result, city tree growth is often stunted, with a meager canopy, shortened life span, and escalating costs for maintenance and replacement.

And that's why DeepRoot, a national company with headquarters here in San Francisco, invented the Silva Cell.

"It's a modular framework for creating empty vault surfaces underneath hardscapes or paving," explained DeepRoot Marketing Manager Leda Marritz. "You can stack them one, or two or three high -- or higher -- and fill them with high-quality, lightly-compacted soil that's ideal for tree root growth."

The Silva Cell is like a Lego brick of tree-friendly soil, the kind of thing you might find at Ikea if they sold urban infrastructure.

Silva Cells are installed in the ground prior to paving, then paved over. Out of sight, they provide room for trees to expand, gaining water, nutrients, and structural stability.

"The vast majority of the street trees out there are suffering, and you can tell when you look at them," said Marritz. "On Market Street, for example, they're tall but they're in pretty bad shape. The canopy isn't thick or even, the leaves are clustered around the outer branches. They don't look like they would in a non-urban setting."

Unhealthy trees are expensive to treat and replace, but they cause other problems as well. Just last Tuesday, a tree at Fourth and Brannan split into pieces, collapsing onto cars. The tree was surrounded on all sides by an asphalt lot.

There are other consequences to unhealthy trees: They're less attractive to wildlife, which reduces the city's ability to support native species like songbirds and butterflies. And the tree's potential to reduce stormwater runoff is reduced, placing further strain on the city's overburdened sewage system.

One of the PUC's suggested treatments would daylight Yosemite Creek along city streets.

Want to see an unprecedented outpouring of public support for a government agency? Look no further than your nearest sewer.

A Monday afternoon presentation before the Board of Supervisors Land Use & Economic Development Committee by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (PUC) was met with great interest and support by numerous public speakers. The primary topic was the PUC's Urban Watershed Management Program, an ambitious blueprint for cleaning local water, restoring wildlife, and putting an end to beach-closing sewage spills.

Tommy Moala, the Assistant General Manager of the SFPUC's Wastewater Enterprise, explained that the PUC's emphasis has shifted away from building more concrete structures and toward low-impact designs like green roofs, daylighted creeks, rain barrels, and permeable pavement. This represents a massive change in the way cities think about water: For decades, it's been about reducing natural areas and channeling water into treatment plants. Now, for the first time, San Francisco is among a handful of cities experimenting with more ecological alternatives.

These new practices are often met with skepticism. "A few years ago," Moala said, "the most difficult presentation was to our own staff." Engineers often appreciate the measure of predictability gained by getting rid of green space and putting water underground. But gradually, PUC staff has come around.

The PUC's Rosey Jencks explained that the city's sewers are old, and face increasing risk of failure. We have a choice: to rebuild the same way, or to adapt our streets to function more like parks.