The bikeway runs alongside the end of the Central Freeway. Photos: Aaron Bialick

New markings are on the ground delineating the short two-way bikeway linking the Market and Octavia intersection to Valencia Street and the future site of the McCoppin Hub plaza.

SFMTA crews made the improvements two weeks ago, according to the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. The pedestrian and bicycle shortcut has existed for years, but the new center line, bike markings, and signage should help increase its visibility and discourage blockage by parked vehicles.

The bi-directional bikeway is by my count the third to be marked in the city, after the Panhandle and Duboce Street.

The improvements also mark a step towards shaping the McCoppin Hub plaza, which is currently being designed. The project’s latest concept renderings show the bikeway slightly wider than it was in the first draft, and it now includes a public bike pump and an ample row of bike racks.

Construction on the plaza is expected to begin next summer. More pics after the break.

One of the latest concept renderings for the plaza. Image: Boor Bridges Architecture via Facebook

Where the bikeway will run through the McCoppin Hub plaza. Photo: Aaron Bialick

Photo: Aaron Bialick

The Central Freeway in 2003 missing the damaged upper deck. Flickr photo: geekstinkbreath

Eight years ago, the Central Freeway fell, and the sky didn’t. The neighborhood long obscured by the structure came up for a year-long breath of air during its reconstruction.

Author Carol Lloyd described the transformation in a 2003 San Francisco Chronicle article:

The buildings are familiar, but they look brighter, prettier, somehow. There are big swooshes of empty land, open views down Valencia all the way to Market Street, and a lovely glimpse of the new Victorian/postmodern Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Community Center, perched on the corner of Market and Waller streets. Sunlight is falling on asphalt that has been steeping in urine and shadows for decades. The air doesn’t smell anymore, nor does it vibrate with trucks rattling overhead.

“It was awesome,” said resident Alison Miller. “There was sunlight, and people started to really know their neighbors. You’d look at Valencia Street and think, how could they think of covering up this potentially vibrant neighborhood in the middle of the city?”

For fifty years, the motor-dominated streets around the Central Freeway have felt dangerous and forbidding to walk on, leaving a rift in the Market-Valencia commercial corridor. Even naming the ambiguous cross-section of districts has been a challenge for San Franciscans, who have called it “North Mission,” “SoMa West,” “The Valencia Bottoms,” and even ”Deco Ghetto,” though nothing has really stuck.

This year, the neighborhood is finally getting some long-awaited streetscape improvements, including a civic space unofficially dubbed the McCoppin Hub. The name goes back a hundred years to a time when “The Hub” was a major streetcar junction at the intersection of Market and Valencia Streets. It came complete with a cable car powerhouse and railcar repair shops, and even had a drink named in its honor: “Hub Punch”.

McCoppin Street was named after Frank H. McCoppin, San Francisco’s ninth mayor (1867 – 1869) and superintendent of the Market Street Railway.

The cable car powerhouse at “The Hub” existed from 1883 to 1906. Photo: Market Street Railway Archives via Robin Havens

A sign advertising “Hub Punch” just off Market Street circa 1883. Photo: SF Public Library courtesy of Robin Havens

Market and Valencia Streets before the freeway, 1945. Photo: SF Public Library courtesy of Robin Havens

Valencia Street looking north just after the Central Freeway was constructed as a double decker and opened in 1959. The top deck was damaged in the 1989 earthquake and removed in 1996. It was rebuilt as a double-wide freeway from 2003-2006. Flickr photo: Eric Fischer

The powerhouse was removed after the 1906 earthquake, and the double-decker Central Freeway was built one block away in 1959. In its location today are a Travelodge motel, Flax art store and a car parking lot.

After the freeway was damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, the upper deck west of Mission Street was deemed unsafe for use. San Franciscans voted twice to remove the stretch before approving a plan in 1999 to rebuild today’s ramp that ends at Market Street.

Alison Miller protested the freeway’s return along with Lynn Valente with a few other residents under the banner of McCoppin Street Neighbors (the North Mission Neighborhood Alliance has since become more prominent). But Valente said she found it wasn’t easy rallying together a “transitional” community where neighbors have few inviting places to get to know one another.

“It’s no man’s land,” said Valente. ”[The freeway] is our line. The merchants on the other side aren’t gonna get involved.”

“We had this whole ‘Halt the Ramp’ campaign,” said Miller. “We fought really hard to stop them from rebuilding the only freeway to be rebuilt in San Francisco.”

North of Market Street, the freeway was ultimately replaced with the Octavia Boulevard project, leading to a revitalization of the Hayes Valley neighborhood.

But despite the protests of residents and some supervisors, the city rebuilt it south of Market, under pressure from Caltrans, which manages the state’s freeways, and the result of a ballot measure sponsored by a coalition of driving residents, mainly in the Sunset and Richmond districts.

Building the Central Freeway was “a transportation planning decision that resulted in five decades of negative urban design impacts and blight on the surrounding neighborhood,” said a SF County Transportation Authority (SFCTA) [pdf] study of alternative design proposals to remove the freeway.

Today, the freeway sits over the neighborhood twice as wide, rather than twice as high. Its reconstruction, when compared to a boulevard alternative, saves two minutes for drivers, at the most, according to the SFCTA study.

“Nobody wanted to see the freeway end at Market Street. Nobody wanted to see the freeway go back up over Valencia or Mission Street,” said Livable City Director Tom Radulovich, who served on the Central Freeway Citizens Advisory Task Force.

“The reality back then was, from the task force at least, the Hayes Valley representatives who lived north of Market really wanted to see the freeway removed further south of Market,” he said. ”The Mayor’s Office really just didn’t have enough courage at the time to push back against Caltrans.”

Removing the freeway farther back, he noted, may have even garnered less car congestion than the current layout. “The SoMa street network has a lot more capacity than the north of Market Street network, so there’s a bigger opportunity to deal with the freeway traffic,” he said.

The campaign south of Market also lacked political support from then-Supervisor Chris Daly, who recused himself from voting on the issue due to a conflict of interest: he owned a condo at the corner of Valencia and McCoppin Streets, and removing the freeway would have likely increased his property value.

“It was too political, and Caltrans, they wanted a job,” said Miller. “We got shafted.”

Looking north from McCoppin Street across Market Street where the freeway ramp used to extend into Hayes Valley until 2003. Flickr photo: geekstinkbreath

Octavia Boulevard (at Market), which replaced the rest of the freeway in Hayes Valley. The Vision Boulevard Project would’ve extended the boulevard further back. Flickr photo: sfcityscape

Today, the streets around the Central Freeway remain neglected, and neighbors say they have long attracted unwanted activities like drug use, dealing and other crime. Those conditions used to extend all the way into Hayes Valley, said Miller, where “nobody would deliver pizza to your house” before that stretch of freeway was removed.

“Now look at it,” she said. “It’s improved their neighborhood, but ours, I would say, is the same.”

Some McCoppin neighbors may resent – or at least envy – the success Hayes Valley has enjoyed. In Lloyd’s 2003 article, resident Leslie Kossoff said those south of Market Street “got screwed.”

“They’re Oz, and we’re Kansas,” said Kossoff.

“One only need to look at Valencia Street and then cross Market to plainly see the difference,” said Miller. “On one side of Market is a beautiful tree-lined boulevard with a green park, community gardens and a farm, while here we have a dark overpass, filthy sidewalks and nothing but concrete.”

Valente, on the other hand, is pleased by the coming improvements to the neighborhood. The McCoppin Hub, when it sprouts up next year, could finally give neighbors a place to meet one another and help mend the fabric of the community.

“We’re not bitter,” she said. ”I’m proud that a small group of us have been successful in getting funding for amenities that will mitigate the effects of the project.”

“I hope that we can keep our eye on the big picture,” said Valente, “and that outside influences might give those of us who live and work here a chance to realize the neighborhood that we have planned and waited for for more than ten years.”

A preliminary vision for the "McCoppin Hub" at McCoppin and Valencia Streets. Image: Boor Bridges Architecture

Residents just north of the Mission District who have lived in the shadow of the Central Freeway are beginning to see a glimmer of light. The city appears poised to move ahead with plans to bring street improvements and green space to the area, including a public plaza at the end of McCoppin Street that abuts the Octavia freeway onramp.

The neighborhood has long been stifled by a lack of inviting places to gather as well as traffic noise and danger from the domineering freeway.

“Our neighborhood is not cohesive,” said Lynn Valente, resident of McCoppin Street, which lies just south of Market Street and Octavia Boulevard, and runs for a few short blocks from Otis to Valencia Streets before it stops at the wall of the freeway ramp. “It has a lot to do with the freeway.”

The long-awaited improvements were planned after Caltrans rebuilt the damaged stretch of freeway through the neighborhood in 2005.

The Central Freeway over Duboce Street looking toward Valencia Street. Photo: Aaron Bialick

“We had hoped to mitigate some of the things about having the overpass,” said McCoppin resident Alison Miller. “The city said they were going to build all this stuff – a skate park, greening. But look around, you can clearly see we have no greening projects, and it’s been all these years.”

The reason for the delay, according to the Department of Public Works (DPW) website, was a lack of funding from the city’s sale of empty land parcels along Octavia Boulevard where the freeway used to extend. The economic downturn, the DPW says, has made those parcels difficult to sell.

“It’s been six years, and they’re still only just now getting some of the parcels sold,” said Miller.

The South of Market (SoMa) West Improvement Projects, which would include greening, traffic calming, a public plaza, a mini dog park, and a skateboard park, could finally bring some inviting destinations and a stronger sense of community to the area.

“The goal is to enhance the urban fabric, calm traffic, and improve transportation safety,” the DPW said on its website.

The centerpiece of the improvements, unofficially being called the McCoppin Hub, would transform a leftover stub of asphalt at the end of McCoppin Street into an attractive civic space.

Neighbors met with Boor Bridges Architects two weeks ago in the latest planning meeting for the hub. Architect Seth Boor said he hopes to tailor its design to the wishes of residents, who would like it to attract a variety of community activities and serve as a gateway to the community and the Valencia corridor.

“People have said that they want this to be a space that’s worthy of pausing and slowing down and appreciating,” said Boor.

McCoppin Street (2003) looking towards Valencia Street from Market Street, where it intersected before the freeway was rebuilt to touch down there. The "McCoppin Hub" is now the space next to the U-Haul building. Flickr photo: geekstinkbreath

The McCoppin Hub today, looking east across Valencia Street. The freeway ramp runs perpendicular to the street behind the camera. Photo: Aaron Bialick

"Off the Grid" food trucks activate the space every Saturday. Photo: Boor Bridges Architecture

A preliminary design for the park with the food trucks present. Image: Boor Bridges Architecture

The design residents seem to favor would include a “meandering path” and triangular spaces with grass and planters to sit on. Two lanes of open grass would flank the park, providing space for activities like farmer’s markets and the food trucks that have been activating the space every Saturday since last fall.

The hub also serves as a bicycle and pedestrian shortcut connecting Valencia to the intersection of Market and Octavia. Neighbors said they would like to enhance that use with possible bicycle amenities like racks and the city’s first public air pumps similar to those found in Copenhagen, Denmark.

“I really like this as a place for all of us,” said one resident at the planning meeting. “There’s nothing excluding seniors or toddlers or people walking their dogs.”

Other improvements will add greening, traffic calming, and bike lanes along the rest of McCoppin Street and the alleyways adjoining it. A block down Valencia, parking lots underneath the freeway will also be replaced with the skateboard park next spring as well as a mini dog park, once the funding is secured.

Work on the improvements on McCoppin Street is set to begin this fall, and construction on the Hub is expected next summer.

McCoppin streetscape improvements coming this fall. (The flower garden design included for the Hub to the left is outdated.) Click to Enlarge. Image: SF Department of Public Works

Tomorrow, we’ll look back at the history of the neighborhood, including photos of the 19th century streetcar hub the project is being named after.

Photos: Aaron Bialick

52-year-old Dr. Kevin Mack was killed while riding a UCSF shuttle van at about 6:20 am this morning when it crashed with a big rig truck at the intersection of Octavia Boulevard and Oak Street, said San Francisco Police Lt. Troy Dangerfield.

Mack was apparently ejected from the van and killed instantly. His body was removed from under the truck at 10:00 am. The driver of the shuttle van and two of the 15 passengers were also injured.

Mack, an associate professor at the UCSF Department of Psychiatry, was headed to San Francisco General Hospital where he was based.

“He had a strong commitment to global health and to medical education in resource-poor settings,’’ said Dr. A. Sue Carlisle, associate dean of SF General Hospital, and CEO Susan A. Currin in a joint statement. “He was an exceptional role model and inspiration for all of the educational community at UCSF.’’ He is survived by his husband and two children.

Police are investigating the cause of the crash, but the truck was traveling northbound on Octavia and was found at the scene veering across the divider into the local traffic lane. The van was traveling east on Oak Street. It’s the second fatal crash involving a UCSF shuttle since a woman was killed in the Tenderloin last November.

Dr. Kevin Mack. Photo courtesy of UCSF

According to data from SFMTA spokesperson Paul Rose, there were four crashes at the intersection last year and only one in 2009. Those numbers are down from the 14 crashes in 2006 after the Central Freeway ramp opened, bringing high volumes of freeway traffic to the new boulevard.

“Since 2006, we have improved signal timing, provided upgraded signal hardware, provided more striping, better signage and added a red light camera at the intersection,” said Rose. “We continue to see a tremendous amount of traffic there, but the improvements have reversed the spike we saw in 2006.”

Supervisor Ross Mirkarami visited the crash site this morning and told the Huffington Post he gets “complaints about Octavia all the time.”

“I was just elected supervisor when they inaugurated the street after the freeway came down and it was really exciting,” he said. ”But now the street is confusing, especially for people who aren’t familiar with San Francisco or are using GPS.”

Mayor Ed Lee, who also visited the intersection this morning, “wants to get some more information from the SFMTA on what the conditions are out there,” said Christine Falvey, a spokesperson for the Mayor’s Office. “This was an accident. I don’t know if somebody ran a red light, so whether the intersection contributed to the accident, we don’t know but we are looking into it,” she said.

Residents at the scene said the intersections along Octavia, which is a uniquely designed thoroughfare for the city, seem to confuse drivers and that illegal maneuvers are common.

Jason Henderson, a geography professor at San Francisco State University who lives near the intersection, said it points to the need for “a comprehensive re-envisioning of the Oak and Fell corridor.”

Oak and Fell Streets, he noted, are both one-way and expand to four lanes each in that area.

“I think the true long-term solution is to reduce the speeds on Oak and Fell, and use innovative traffic signal coordination and take a lane off Oak and Fell so it’s two lanes in each direction,” said Henderson. “It calms the street incredibly.”

Dangerfield said it was unknown whether any citations would be issued.

The shuttle van sits on the left.

Updated 3:44 pm.

Moving mulch on the old Central Freeway on-ramp that is becoming Hayes Valley Farm. Photo: Matthew Roth

Since the Loma Prieta earthquake made the Central Freeway unsafe for travel, leading to its eventual removal and the re-design of Octavia Boulevard, those ramps have been one of the more poignant reminders of a distant vision of San Francisco, with freeways crisscrossing the urban environment, whisking motorists above the unfortunate city dwellers below. 

The new Hayes Valley Farm (HVF) inverts the paradigm and reclaims the space for city dwellers, if only temporarily. "We call it 'freeway to food forest,'" explained Chris Burley, Project Director for HVF and former organizer of My Farm. Burley was joined by nearly fifty volunteers at a HVF work party Sunday. "We're trying to create a successful, sustainable urban farm in the heart of San Francisco."

Burley and several other organizers were approached by Mayor Gavin Newsom's Office of Economic and Workforce Development (MOEWD) last year with the idea to transform the unused lot into a farm. The HVF received a $50,000 grant from MOEWD for the first year of the project, money that comes from the operation of parking facilities along Octavia Boulevard. Burley expected to work the farm for between two and five years, depending on when the economy turns around and the land is developed.

While the city owns the property, the MOEWD has selected Build, Inc, to develop it when they secure their financing. According to Richard Hillis at MOEWD, the site will be broken into ten parcels and built as 50 percent affordable homes, 50 percent market rate. Because the housing construction market is so bleak right now, said Hillis, the city worked with the neighborhood groups to develop a plan for activating under-utilized lots, starting with this very visible one.

In addition to the community benefit of a farmers market and mobile food vending, the city benefits from having the lots used by the farmers. "It helps us save money on cleaning them and maintaining them," Hillis said.

Opening the fence around the former freeway ramps. Photo: Hayes Valley Farm

Because the project is temporary, Burley said they are not planning to rip up the existing asphalt, which would cost thousands of dollars. Rather, the farmers will plant up to 150 fruit trees in pots that can be moved to other gardens or planted in back yards. Burley also said that in honor of the old Highway 101, they will be planting 101 beneficial plants among the fruit trees to help with pest control.

"A lot of our energy is being spent in creating things that can travel off-site," said Burley. "This is more like a springboard for urban agriculture all over the city."

Burley and other organizers hope to use the temporary farm as an educational resource and are developing a curriculum for schools that are interested in working at the facility. Currently, they are planning to collaborate with John Muir Elementary, the French-American School, and the Hayes Valley Neighborhood Parks Group.

Addressing concerns about growing food on the site of a former freeway, the group has lab tested 64 soil points from the site and found that all parts except for one came back with less than the EPA's standard for lead in soil. The HVF also notes on its FAQs page that using organic soils up to two feet thick generally makes food grown there safe for consumption. Nonetheless, the group will measure lead in the roots and leaves of the food they harvest before it can be eaten.

Though Burley said they were rushing to get plants in the soil and trees in pots while still in the rainy season, the lot will be sustained with water from the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, which donated a line for the plot to set up a drip irrigation system. While no estimate was available for how much food the facility would yield, Burley said their first priority was demonstrating the prospects for urban farming.

"Our main yield is education," he said. "We’re trying to teach folks about growing their own food on balconies, back yards, open-air parking lots and pavement backyards."

The next two HVF work parties will be Thursday, February 11th, at 2:30 pm and Sunday, February 14th, at 12 pm.

A truck delivers steaming pile of organic soil. Photo: Hayes Valley Farm.

Pots to be used for fruit trees. Photo: Matthew Roth.

Former off-ramp for the Central Freeway, now home to tons of soil. Photo: Matthew Roth.

Cars regularly block the bike lane on Fell Street near the Arco Station. Photo: Bryan Goebel

In a city where people and cars regularly jostle for space, it's not uncommon to have speeding traffic just inches or feet from pedestrians, homes, and parks. This spatial conflict is especially pronounced on Fell and Oak Streets, which serve all at once as de facto residential highways, major bike thoroughfares, and densely built-up residential and commercial streets, their sidewalks bustling with people on their way home or visiting the Panhandle.

For years, even decades, residents have fought to calm traffic along the corridor. Cars routinely speed down Fell and Oak, which were converted to three-or-four-lane one-ways half a century ago as a compromise with planners who wanted to build an east-west freeway, linking the Central Freeway to the Golden Gate Bridge, by demolishing the homes between them and wiping out the Panhandle. The compromise saved the homes and the park, but has left the neighborhood plagued with freeway-like traffic.

Now, some neighbors worry that new overhead information signs for drivers, which are being installed as part of the city's SFgo traffic-management program, will encourage speeding on the already fast one-way couplet. Residents are wary of anything that contributes to a freeway mentality on the street. Earlier this week, a 24-year-old San Francisco woman was killed by a driver while crossing Fell Street at Broderick.

"It's been treated as a freeway by the city, much to the peril of everyone who lives along the densely-packed residential corridors that are Oak and Fell," said Michael Smithwick, chair of the Alamo Square Neighborhood Association's transportation committee. "They're obviously not designed for freeway use, and have kind of been force-fed" the high traffic volumes.

Fell Street between Shrader and Stanyan, before it was converted to a one-way street. Photo: San Francisco Public Library Historical Photograph Collection

Because parking wasn't available on the street, Smithwick said, residents parked their cars on the sidewalk in front of their homes. "The sidewalks there were perilous, and sometimes completely impassible, because you'd have a car parked on it, and then the only way to get by was to step out into an active lane of speeding traffic curbside. So, obviously, no one walked on the street, it was just a mess."

"The city removed that fourth lane of morning traffic on Oak, and they predicted Armageddon, and it didn't happen."

Smithwick also points to traffic light changes as a hard-fought victory and improvement. For a long time, stoplights on Fell and Oak were disabled late at night, and simply flashed yellow. Semi trucks rumbled down at high speeds, shaking the buildings in their wake and setting off car alarms. About six or seven years ago, that finally changed.

Neighbors and Mirkarimi said they've struggled to implement the incremental changes, which are improvements, but none have fundamentally changed the streets. "Fell and Oak is a freeway, for all intents and purposes," said Mirkarimi, who fought for removing the tow-away zones, and installing the bike signal at Fell and Masonic. "Unless we are willing to radically calm Fell and Oak down, then we're just dancing around the edges."

It could have been worse: in the 1940s, planner envisioned a Panhandle Freeway. Flickr photo: Eric Fischer

Smithwick also likes the idea of two-way streets, but suggested crosswalk pedestrian bulb-outs as an immediate measure. "Now that you've got parking on both sides of the street" because the tow-away zones are gone, Smithwick said, "there's no reason, other than cost purposes, that you couldn't do a sidewalk extension into that parking lane at each of the corners."

Supervisor Mirkarimi strongly supports traffic calming measures on Fell and Oak, but said the issue needs to be examined in the context of the broader traffic impacts the NoPa neighborhood has experienced as a result of the tear-down of the Central Freeway in Hayes Valley, which was replaced by Octavia Boulevard.

The freeway environment on Oak and Fell needs to be tamed, Mirkarimi said, "but the question can't be answered unilaterally without talking about the blowback of Octavia Boulevard. That's also what's causing the small side streets that are becoming the alternative corridors for people to try to get where they want to go by not being on Fell and Oak."

The Board of Supervisors commissioned the San Francisco County Transportation Authority to complete a study "to assess all the positives and negatives due to Octavia Boulevard," said Mirkarimi, "because of traffic fluctuations and changes that travel westward because of the new boulevard." The study is due in mid-2010, but Mirkarimi said a similar study should have been completed before Octavia Boulevard was built.

The bulb-outs and wider median being installed on Divisadero Street, which intersects Fell and Oak, are part of broader efforts to calm traffic in the neighborhood, Mirkarimi said, but he's frustrated with the MTA's spotty approach to planning in the area. "The challenge I want to spotlight is the way it's incrementally being patchworked, and the way answers have been slow-coming," he said.

Both Helquist and Mirkarimi identified the Fell Street Arco Station, where long queues of cars that spill out onto the street and block the bike lane, and the new Falletti Foods market, which has encouraged dangerous turns into its parking lot, as especially hazardous situations that need to be addressed immediately. The latest concern, though, is the installation of new freeway-style overhead information signs on both Fell and Oak, which are part of the SFgo traffic-management program. The signs are intended to give drivers information like garage parking availability and congestion-causing events to avoid.

Infrastructure for new SFgo signs over Fell Street. Photo: Michael Helquist/BIKE NOPA

"The intent is, one, to get information from SFgo," said Helquist, "but also, finally, for them to get some input from the neighborhood about what these are. We're really hoping the presentation that they give will last about five minutes, and then they will address either some of the questions that I listed on my blog, and certainly questions from the neighborhood."

Mirkarimi said there is some support from neighborhood organizations for the Fell Street sign, but he has yet to hear a strong argument for the signs on Oak Street.

"To be honest with you, I'm not sold [that SFgo signs are] needed both on Fell and Oak," said Mirkarimi. "Some make a better or stronger case for Fell, but nobody's made a good case to me on Oak at all."

Walk SF's Manish Champsee said the SFgo program is moving in the opposite direction of state-of-the-art traffic calming techniques. "Cities are moving away from that whole idea of giving people information and giving them a false sense of security," said Champsee. "Traffic calming is going in the direction of let's give people a sense of danger," so they pay greater attention to their surroundings.

The meeting tonight will give neighbors a chance to discuss the SFgo program with its staff. In addition, Judson True, a spokesperson for the MTA, said the agency is open to hearing ideas from the community about the full range ideas for improving conditions on Oak and Fell. "We're always open to talk to any neighbors about ideas to improve our streets," said True, who cited numerous changes the MTA has already made. In addition to retiming the signals to slow traffic, said True, "We've reduced green light time overall, installed newer pedestrian countdown signals on the street, improved visibility of signs and added more speed limit signs."

True added: "We would be open to conversation about other ideas. We'd be open to bulb-outs."

The Alamo Square Neighborhood Association's Smithwick said neighbors have fought hard for all of those changes. It's a fight for every single bit of accommodation to safety and pedestrian equal access," said Smithwick. "It's a struggle, and it has been for the twenty years that I've been involved in this, all along the way."

Supervisor Mirkarimi echoed that sentiment. Converting Fell and Oak back to two-ways "would be fantastic," said Mirkarimi, "but at the very minimum, in the areas that also intersect Fell and Oak, like Masonic, that's exactly what we're trying to aim towards, is significant traffic calming, and I think the MTA has yet to produce any substantive answers."

The fundamental message for the city," said Helquist, "for DPT and MTA and SFgo, is that congestion is not the problem. Speed is."

The SFgo presentation at the North of Panhandle Neighborhood Association meeting will be held tonight from 7-9pm at Poleng Lounge, 1751 Fulton Street.

Editor's note: This piece was written for Shaping San Francisco and is now incorporated into the new wiki version, your best place to research San Francisco history, FoundSF.org.

Protesters march along Embarcadero in early 1960s, stump of Embarcadero Freeway ends behind them at Broadway.
Photo courtesy San Francisco History Center, SF Public Library

In the 1950s, the California Division of Highways had a plan to extend freeways across San Francisco. At that time the freeway reigned supreme in California, but San Francisco harbored the seeds of an incipient revolt which ultimately saved several neighborhoods from the wrecking ball and also put up the first serious opposition to the post-WWII consensus on automobiles, freeways, and suburbanization.

Early plan for 8-lane freeway to cut under Russian Hill on its way from the Embarcadero to the Golden Gate Bridge.

On November 2, 1956 the San Francisco Chronicle graciously published a map of the proposed and actual freeway routes through San Francisco even though its accompanying editorial was already chastising protestors: "The remarkable aspect of these protests and claims of injury is their tardiness. They concern projects that have for years been set forth in master plans, surveys and expensive traffic studies. They have been ignored or overlooked by citizens and public official alike—until the time was at hand for concrete pouring and when revision had become either impossible or extremely costly. The evidence indicates that the citizenry never did know or had forgotten what freeways the planners had in mind for them."

In the 1940s the California Dept. of Highways came up with various plans to blanket San Francisco with freeways. This is a version proposed in 1948 by San Francisco's Planning Department. Image: San Francisco Planning and Urban Research (SPUR)

James Lick Freeway under construction in 1953: San Francisco's first. Seals Stadium, the old ballpark is visible in center-left of photo. Photo: Ed Brady

Proposed freeway routes for the continuation of the Embarcadero Freeway to the Golden Gate Bridge.

Today, San Francisco's freeways have changed again, thanks to the Loma Prieta 1989 earthquake. The much maligned Embarcadero Freeway has been removed, as has an unsightly spur of the Central Freeway. A raging debate over the future of the Central Freeway ramps that go north across Market was finally resolved and has now been replaced by the surface Octavia Boulevard. The 101-280 interchange was a mess from 1989 to 1996. New offramps were added to I-280 to serve a new waterfront roadway and the planned Giants ballpark at China Basin in 1997, but no new freeways will be built in San Francisco. New transit money goes to BART and MUNI, while Caltrans and SF Dept. of Public Works continue to spend vast quantities of social wealth on maintaining the San Francisco road system. The rapid rise in value in both areas where freeways were removed, along the now open waterfront, as well as the rapidly gentrifying Hayes Valley/Civic Center area, show that profits can be drawn from forward looking urban planning, de-emphasizing cars and re-emphasizing neighborhood, community, and nature. But most U.S. urban planners still adhere religiously to the cult of the car, hence constant efforts to expand roads and parking at the expense of numerous more sensible alternatives, from decent mass transit to ubiquitous bikeways.

Demolition of Central Freeway over Market Street, 2003. Photo by Chris Carlsson

Various freeway plans over the years.

Maps and photos of San Francisco's original freeway plans

Images and maps of many San Francisco freeways that were never built and some that were

A controlled explosion from the filming of the TV series "Trauma," on a closed portion of I-280

"As we saw this weekend with the filming of the new TV series 'Trauma,' we can close a section of 280 and it doesn't back up all the way to San Bruno," said Mayor Newsom.  "I'm committed to actively looking for projects where we can transform our streets into public open space, especially in neighborhoods that have so little of it.  Show me another project that gives back more space to our great city than this."

Mayor Newsom painted a grand vision of a ribbon park in the footprint of the current freeway and said the city would rezone much of the area for residential development, much of which would be affordable housing, he claimed.  "Think Rock Creek Park for the next century," said Mayor Newsom.  "If New York City can convert an old rail line through Manhattan into the Highline Park, surely we can transform our outdated infrastructure into green space."

Caltrans' Kempton said that the agency had considered various freeways that underperformed their transportation function after the successful removal of segments of the Embarcadero Freeway and Central Freeway to Market Street, but said that they weren't seriously thinking about this section of I-280 until Mayor Newsom approached Governor Schwarzenegger late last year. 

"We've understood that it was possible to make changes to further segments of the Embarcadero Freeway," said Kempton, "but we didn't see it as a priority until Mayor Newsom made it so.  Now, we're only committing to study it, but we know the Obama administration is looking for innovative transportation projects, and I wouldn't be surprised if there are unspent federal stimulus funds from other states that we can apply for in six months, a year from now."

"Highway de-construction can be just as shovel-ready as highway re-construction," said Kempton.

Caltrans will study the freeway removal in two phases, the first from the 101 interchange to King Street, a 2.9 mile segment running through the Excelsior neighborhood and the new Mission Bay developments.  Phase 2, from 19th Avenue to the 101 interchange, would include the restoration of Islais Creek and the construction of greenways along each side, funding for which could come from federal Rails-to-Trails monies.   Kempton said Phase 2 was a distant possibility, but that the agency was amenable to "looking at all the possibilities."

Caltrain Director Scanlan said his agency was working with the Mayor to study options for putting Caltrain below grade through the park.  "With our application for stimulus funds for the electrification of Caltrain, we need take the opportunity to improve all aspects of the Peninsula Corridor," he said.

Advocates were very supportive of the project.  Tom Radulovich, Executive Director of Livable City said:

Removing I-280 and placing the rail line below grade will allow the SoMa street grid to connect to Mission Creek Channel, will connect Mission Bay to Showplace Square, and will connect the Mission Creek Greenway to the Mission Creek Channel Park.  I-280 dumps far too much traffic onto the SoMa street grid, and getting rid of I-280 will advance the community-based efforts to make SoMa's streets safer and more livable.

Jason Henderson, Assistant Professor of Geography at San Francisco State University, was more blunt:

It is wonderful that Caltrans is moving forward with this after fifty years of denial. It will liberate the people of the Excelsior from fifty years of being cut off from the rest of San Francisco, not to mention rid the area of excessive noise, soot, and toxins from all those solo commuters. It will also make the potential to redevelop around the Balboa Park BART station much easier and definitely more attractive.

"To think that this mayor could find inspiration in both Washington DC's Rock Creek Parkway and the long lost Burnham Plan for San Francisco to come up with such an innovative and literally groundbreaking concept!" said Chris Carlsson, founder of Shaping SF.  "What a pleasant surprise!"

SPUR Transportation Policy Director Dave Snyder, who had been briefed on the project before it was announced publicly, was supportive.  "With the downtown extension of Caltrain, I-280 becomes a superfluous transportation resource."

SPUR Policy Director Sarah Kurlinsky, who was at the press conference, said, "As we learned in the Market/Octavia planning process, we can extract a lot for affordable housing by using public land formerly occupied by freeways."

Caltrans said it hoped to complete the necessary studies by this fall. Kempton hinted that the precedent set by the state in relaxing CEQA requirements for highway projects slated for stimulus funding could bode well for an expedited timeline.  Mayor Newsom said this was a project he wanted to get started before he left office, which could be as soon 2010, if his nascent bid for governor is successful.

"This is the kind of bold thinking that we need in this city, and this state," said Mayor Newsom with a smile.

Happy April Fool's Day, Streetsblog Nation! But wouldn't it be nice?

Flickr photo: iandhd

Hunter College student and photographer Andrew Lynch recently posted Google Map mashups of the unbuilt freeways that made up many of the master plans in cities around the country in the 1950s and 1960s.  San Francisco, New York City, and Boston avoided the worst of automobility, while the map of Los Angeles freeways was pretty well paved.

The maps are a stark reminder of how devastating the plans would have been to San Francisco's livability had the public not revolted against the master planners.  I'd currently be huffing fumes from the Mission/Bernal Heights freeway, there'd be no Panhandle, and North Beach and the Marina would likely have much lower property values.  But you can imagine the pleasure of motoring past Ocean Beach at 70 mph without forced stops at traffic signals!

Alternately, can anyone tell me why the upper portion of Market Street where it becomes Portola Drive still has elevated segments?  I would think the value of new development with those views would have trumped the convenience of speeding through that neighborhood with limited stop lights.

The Central Freeway over Division Street.

"This feels like progress," said Tom Radulovich, the executive director of Livable City, who has been nudging the MTA and the San Francisco County Transportation Authority (TA) to do a Central Freeway study. "When Caltrans goes to retrofit this sucker we need an alternative project we can hand to them that we've done a study of."

In 2004, at the urging of Supervisor Bevan Dufty, the supes called on Caltrans and the TA to "investigate replacing the elevated freeway with a surface boulevard for all or part of its length" before any future seismic or roadbed replacement projects were undertaken. Caltrans has not set a date for the retrofitting but has said the freeway needs to be fixed. The TA has yet to take up the study and Radulovich has accused the agency of dropping the ball.

A Central Freeway study would examine the option of tearing down the freeway and building a boulevard in the North Mission/West SoMa neighborhoods that would extend from 13th and Division to Octavia Boulevard.  Dubbed the Vision Boulevard Project, Radulovich believes it "could increase the neighborhood tax base, allow for new land uses, including housing, bring sunlight to the area and help many businesses."

Should San Francisco tear down the remaining Central Freeway South of Market?

José Luis Moscovich, the TA executive director, said studying the Central Freeway is a worthy cause but he prefers to include it in the update of the San Francisco Countywide Transportation Plan.

"Something of that magnitude needs to be put in that context. It doesn't mean it would take 35 years to happen," said Moscovich. "It's such a big thing. It would cross half of the city."

His more immediate concern would be a circulation study to take a look at how people are using Octavia Boulevard and the freeway.

"We believe that it's entirely possible that the boulevard and the way the freeway function now are having impacts on mobility and circulation around the city that were not predicted," said Moscovich.

For example, he said there are drivers who commute from the Sunset into Civic Center who used to take the Central Freeway but are now using the Guerrero and South Van Ness corridors "and that has had an impact on those neighborhoods."

Moscovich adds that he isn't so sure about including a Central Freeway study in EN TRIPS: "I think there is some danger in assuming it can all be absorbed into the MTA study."

But Radulovich said the countywide transportation plan is typically ignored:

Most of the traffic and urban design impacts, as well as potential benefits will be on the South of Market and Mission neighborhoods. Since EN trips study is already focused on these areas, it is likelier to foster public participation by those most affected than a citywide study would do.

EN TRIPS will be the MTA's first big chance at integrated neighborhood planning and test whether the agency will stick to the city's policy of prioritizing transit, bicyclists and pedestrians over cars.

Flickr photos: octoferret and dtweney