On the west side of Valencia between 16th and 17th Streets, a widened but unfinished sidewalk is now open to pedestrians. The original sidewalk and the blacktop will be replaced with shiny new tiles. Photo: Michael Rhodes

Construction on the Valencia Streetscape Improvement Project started in early August, and is bringing wider sidewalks, additional street trees, additional street lighting, sidewalk bulb-outs, and art elements to Valencia between 15th and 19th Streets. While bicyclists are still waiting for the bike lane to be repainted, pedestrians are starting to see the fruits of the DPW's work, and multiple business owners on the block between 16th and 17th Streets were feeling relieved this week as customers returned from holiday travel and no longer found narrow sidewalks and construction barriers.

During construction, "our sidewalk was barely two-and-a-half feet wide, so people were not coming to this side," said Adam Hernandez, a design consultant at Z-Barn Interiors. When the construction barriers were cleared from the sidewalk recently, that all changed, he said. "I'll tell you, since they took this off just before Christmas, it's been a huge difference."

Between 17th and 18th Streets, Valencia's western sidewalks aren't quite ready for foot traffic.

Suresh Parmar, who owns Bombay Bazar, was also thankful to see the construction barriers come off the sidewalk for now. "Nobody was visiting here during construction, it was too hard to get here," said Parmar. He estimated business was down by as much as fifty percent.

"The last two months, business was very bad," he said. But as of early this week, it's "back to normal."

This segment, on the west side of Valencia between 16th and 17th Streets, will be the first to be completed, followed by the west sides of the other blocks in the project scope, and then the east side of each block. It should all be completed in late spring.

In fact, even this block isn't out of the woods just yet: later this week, DPW crews will begin demolishing and rebuilding the old portion of the sidewalk on this block, said the DPW's Alex Murillo. That will take about two weeks, but pedestrians will have full access to the new portion of the sidewalk during that period. Each building entrance will have a bridge between it and the new sidewalk while crews demolish the old sidewalk and pour in the replacement.

The old sidewalk tiles are being replaced because the sidewalk is getting refinished with a nicer material, said Murillo. "It's a lamp-black type of concrete finish with a sparkle." The new trees and lights won't go in until later in the project, but the sidewalk surfacing on the west side of Valencia between 16th and 17th Street should be finished after two more weeks of work.

Unexpected utility work involving PG&E set this segment back by about a month, said Murillo, so business owners asked DPW to continue working through their holiday moratorium between Thanksgiving and the New Year, and DPW agreed to do so. Santiago Rodriguez, who owns Frjtz Fries, said he wishes the city would have kept the moratorium, since December is a busy month at his restaurant.

"We're actually at the end of our rope," said Rodriguez. "I see what they're doing, I think it's very positive, and I understand that they encountered some problems with PG&E, and the city has been very communicative about what happened, but money is the bottom line, especially with the economy."

This evening will be the first test of how business fares now that residents are back in town and the sidewalk isn't obstructed, he said. "I see the light at the end of the tunnel, but the process has been really painful for most of the business owners here."

A brand new mid-block bulb-out in front of Bombay Bazar.

Bombay Bazar's Parmar and Z-Barn's Hernandez agreed. "They're excellent, they're very good," said Parmar of the new sidewalks. "They did a good job."

"We're looking forward to it," said Hernandez. "Once they finish the trees, lights, everything, and finish this side of the sidewalk, it's going to be beautiful."

"I feel bad for the other parts of Valencia that aren't getting it," he added.

Hernandez estimates that half Z-Barn's customers arrive by foot or bicycle, so improvements to the bike lanes and sidewalk are a welcome enticement to customers. "We get tons of bicycle customers," Hernandez said. "Some even with their little trailers and stuff. It's that kind of community."

The bike lane hasn't been repainted between 16th and 17th Streets yet, though nothing's stopping bicyclists from riding where the lane will be.

Construction isn't as far along on another block of Valencia.

Now's a good time to find an open table at some of Valencia's most packed restaurants.

The Congress for the New Urbanism will meet in Portland, Oregon, in early November for the annual Project for Transportation Reform, a summit to further define and clarify emerging urban transportation policies that embrace entire networks, rather than interdependent transportation segments, and that seek to balance modal transportation splits and reduce overall vehicular miles traveled (VMT).

Summit attendees and partners, including Streetsblog, will participate in discussions on emerging network planning and develop a strategy for informing the national transportation infrastructure debate, of particular significance as the climate and transportation bills move forward. As the draft CNU Statement of Principles on Transportation Networks notes [PDF], climate change and infrastructure problems in the US continue to intensify:

The US now has the world’s highest level of VMT per capita, while simultaneously experiencing the highest traffic fatality rates of any developed nation. Per capita traffic delay has more than doubled in the United States since 1982. This deterioration in transportation system performance has occurred in spite of an ongoing public investment of more that $200 billion per year in transportation infrastructure."

CNU President John Norquist said the current focus by transportation professionals on road capacity gives us cities like Detroit, where consistent spending to widen roads has destroyed communities.

"Federal and state DOTs don't understand how cities work. They still want to take rural forms and jam big roads into cities." he said. "Rather than measuring projected traffic flow, they should be measuring how much value it adds to a neighborhood. The US can't afford to be energy wasting and spending money on projects that destroy the value of neighborhoods."

U.S. Representative Earl Blumenauer will kick off the summit and representatives from Oregon Metro will showcase the many innovative transportation and design policies they have implemented in the region that have given Portland one of the highest walking, transit, and bicycle mode shares in the country.

Summit organizers hope to develop the language around network-wide transportation reform so the CNU can persuade lawmakers in Washington DC to incorporate this new urban vision into upcoming climate and transportation legislation.

Marcy McInelly, co-chair of the CNU's transportation reform initiatives and principle of Sera Architects, said, "Reform is about giving more latitude to use highway funds for pieces of the network that may not be for highways. Right now the federal funds have to increase vehicular mobility, which raises VMT. If you had a funding formula that allowed you to count benefits to cost, it would almost always [result in] the other modes besides cars coming out more beneficial.  It would balance consideration of other modes."

Norquist said the CNU is working with the Institute for Transportation Engineers (ITE), the most significant body of professional transportation engineers in the country, to develop transportation standards that ennoble urban streets alongside rural roads and freeways in guides like AASHTO's Green Book for highway and street design.

According to Norquist, reform initiatives should focus on altering "the functional classification system. The current regulatory framework tries to feed future traffic demand, instead of trying to facilitate the network." 

Referring to the traditional advocacy position that tries to chip away at the 80-20 funding formula (80 percent of federal funding for freeways, 20 percent for transit), Norquist said a more fundamental change is needed.

"We're completely for the idea of changing the 80-20 split. But even if the environmental community wins and gets 25-75, you're still spending 75 percent of the money on road capacity. They should focus on creating roads that are useful and pleasant and create a place where people actually want to be."

Norquist also promised the conference would be fun. "This conference will have the most dynamic and exciting traffic engineers in the world," he said, with a laugh. "These are the reform traffic engineers, the recovering traffic engineers."

The Project for Transportation Reform with take place from November 4-6 and registration is still open.  Streetsblog will be covering the summit with regular stories and tweets, so stay tuned.

DPW landscaping crews who've been working on the Pavement to Parks plazas are among those being cut. Flickr photo: Jamison

"This was our share and it's unpleasant," said DPW Director Ed Reiskin. As a result of the city budget crisis, the department was forced to slash its street cleaning budget by $2.7 million and trim its landscaping budget by $800,000. A reduction in street sweeping services was announced last month.

The cuts come right as San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's office embarks on a number of new projects to green space and improve the public realm. The landscaping positions being eliminated include crews who've been heavily involved in the Pavement to Parks projects. Reiskin predicted the cuts wouldn't have a direct impact on those efforts, but rather, would affect the agency's ability to maintain landscaped medians, trim trees and respond to service requests.

"Nobody was spared and this just challenges us more to figure out how to be more efficient and use more in the way of low-maintenance planting, which we're trying to move more towards, so we need less gardening."

He said behavioral changes must also be made in the city to reduce the amount of litter and garbage.

"When I say landscape maintenance, and even when it's a gardener that we send out there, a skilled journey-level gardener, a lot of what they end up doing is picking up garbage," he said, adding that graffiti removal also takes up a huge chunk of the agency's budget, meaning less money for beautification projects. 

"The greening of the city remains a priority. It's in our department's strategic plan and there's a very clear and strong directive from the Mayor so the fact that our resources are tightened doesn't really detract from the goal, it just makes it more challenging for us to reach it."

A DPW spokesperson said the agency will do its best to minimize the impacts of the cuts "by increasing our community partnerships, through programs such as Street Parks, Adopt A Street, Community Clean Team, and Graffiti Watch." 

The layoff notices were sent out this week and are expected to take effect in mid-November.

While San Francisco Department of Public Works (DPW) Director Ed Reiskin has quietly pushed behind-the-scenes to accelerate Pavement to Parks plazas, the recently announced Market Street trial changes, and other visible projects that reclaim street space for green space and people, some advocates are concerned with how well his agency is coordinating around an arcane, but important process: DPW's five-year repaving plan.

Livable City Executive Director Tom Radulovich said that at a meeting last month about capital planning he attended at the SFCTA, only four people gave feedback and he was the only one that addressed the problem with inter-agency coordination around the repaving schedule. He believes the city needs to do more to successfully build complete streets under the Complete Streets ordinance and the Better Streets Plan.

In your five-year planning, you have the Complete Streets ordinance, which says if you're doing major street rehab and it's on a transit street, a bike street or a ped street, you ought to have the complimentary project, you ought to build it out as a complete street. Unfortunately they're not dealing with the Complete Streets Ordinance in the way that they ought to, which is coordinating the bike, ped and transit improvements at the same time as they do the repaving.

MTA spokesperson Judson True defended his agency's record, saying that "there is constant coordination looking at the paving schedules. Not just at DPT, but Muni as well." True pointed to Cesar Chavez, Divisadero, and now Market Street as positive examples.

DPW's Ed Reiskin conceded that the advocates' concerns are relevant, and that historically the city has not done enough to coordinate regular repaving with Complete Streets projects.

"I don't think we've [coordinated] as systematically as we should. In the past it has happened ad hoc," said Reiskin, though he has made it a fundamental priority to change the process within his agency to meet the obligation under the ordinance. "What I'm trying to do is institutionalize it. Any time we go do a street, we want to evaluate the potential to fix it, not just repave it. We're training all of our street design folks and making sure they are well versed in the Better Streets Plan design standards."

In reference to the Better Streets Plan, Reiskin said a director's level inter-agency body was convened to prepare for the expected adoption of the plan later this year or early next year.

"What we're talking about is advanced capital planning to leverage our dollars to get the most bang for the buck," he said. "We want to identify the best candidate [streets] based on citywide criteria and use an integrated planning and design process to capture all the needs early on."

In addition to tasking staff of each agency with coordinating long-term capital planning from the beginning, Reiskin said they have asked the Controller's Office to develop solutions to streamline delivery of those capital plans. He expected those results from the Controller imminently, at which point the agency directors would integrate them.

"For the projects that are already in the pipeline, we're doing everything to make sure that we're working together -- we're checking with the pedestrian and bike teams at the MTA."

At 16th Street and Valencia, the first signs of streetscape improvement work. Photo: Bryan Goebel

Businesses are "basically looking at a double-whammy over the next nine to twelve months," said Daly. "The double-whammy being, obviously, the economy that's down, tough times for everybody here in San Francisco, and then looking forward to living through a construction project. So, I wanted to come here and help put this together to put the word out that Valencia Street is open for business, that you're going to find no better commercial corridor in all of San Francisco."

The enhancements on Valencia, from 15th Street to 19th Street, will include sidewalk widening, additional street trees, additional street lighting, sidewalk bulb-outs, and art elements. While business owners expressed concerns about maintaining access and parking during construction, there was broad support for the project on the whole.

With Supervisor Chris Daly and business owners looking on, the DPW's Alex Murillo vowed to keep access to businesses open, and bike lanes clear of work materials. Photo: Michael Rhodes

"Certainly any kind of disruption to the street affects us, but it's all the more reason to come out," said Deborah Cullinan, executive director of Intersection for the Arts. "At the end of this process, which is only about nine months, it's going to be even more gorgeous. There are going to be more trees, wider sidewalks, it's just going to be a better place to come to. So we hope that people continue to come out."

Supervisor Chris Daly. Photo: Michael Rhodes

Sean Quigley, who owns Paxton Gate's Curiosities for Kids, also sought to remind people to shop the Valencia corridor during construction. "They're going to do their best to not be disruptive, but we still people to come down and support the local businesses."

The DPW's Murillo vowed that he would do everything in his power to respond to concerns. "We're also going to be very, very aware during construction," said Murillo. "I want to let everyone know that we will be aware of the needs of pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists in the area. So if there are any concerns during construction, I'm your point of contact, reach out to me."

Murillo said the DPW has "a partnering session" tomorrow "where we're meeting with the contractor, myself, other city officials, police captain [Stephen] Tacchini, Pedro Tuyub, who's with the Mission Merchants Association," and Neal Patel of the SFBC.

"We've got a partnering session where we're meeting with them, strategizing just how we can try to streamline the project and address any concerns. The reason I invited them out there is because I need them to add emphasis to what I've been saying, which is, keep the bike lanes open, keep the housekeeping tight, we don't want any trash out there."

Sean Quigley, owner of Paxton Gate's Curiosities for Kids. Photo: Michael Rhodes

To minimize disruption, DPW will work on one block at a time, first on the west side of all the blocks, and then on the east side of each block. Work will also be suspended from Thanksgiving through New Year's Day, so businesses will not be hit during the holiday season.

Supervisor Daly, who arrived by bicycle, said he was there "to do my part, bicycling up and down the corridor, frequenting the small business and the arts organizations, supporting the non-profits here over the next year of construction."

Bicyclists are encouraged to contact both DPW's Alex Murillo and SFBC's Neal Patel if they encounter an obstructed bike lane without proper signage during the nine months of construction. Murillo can be reached by phone at (415) 437-7009 or email at alex.m.murillo (at) sfdpw.org. Patel can be reached by phone at (415) 431-BIKE x312 or email at neal (at) sfbike.org.

By a unanimous vote, the Board indicated its support for the ordinance, though the supervisors reasons differed. The vote only authorizes creating a parking plan for Golden Gate Park, not its implementation, which the MTA will need to seek later.

The Recreation and Park Department, the MTA, Board of Supervisors President David Chiu, and Supervisors John Avalos and David Campos have expressed strong support for the measure in the past, since it will generate funds for the MTA and the Rec and Park Department, and is consistent with the city's Transit First policy.

After yesterday's vote, Supervisor Sean Elsbernd said he still has "major reservations" about installing meters in Golden Gate Park, including the meters' aesthetic impact on the park. Elsbernd also expressed concern about whether the meters would "create residual parking problems" in surrounding neighborhoods, such as the Inner Sunset, the Richmond, and Haight-Ashbury.

Elsbernd said he also worried that charging for parking could drive park users away. "We want to encourage people to go to parks, we don't want to discourage," said Elsbernd. "I wonder if meters are going to do that."

Supervisor Carmen Chu, who represents the Sunset, also was concerned about parking spillover. Asked whether she could potentially support installing meters, Chu said, "to me there's still a lot of unknowns about what that would look like, what the meters would look like, what the rates would look like, how are we going to deal with disability issues, and also what the surrounding impact on the communities would be. So these would all be the things that I would take a look at when we have the report."

Chu did acknowledge that "there are some individuals who are unfortunately taking advantage of the park," and said the city "should think about what things we can do, what strategies when can do to address that issue."

She remained concerned about neighborhood impact regardless, however. "Whether it is a parker who is parking all day or a parker who is parking there for an hour," said Chu, "the impact of having parking meters installed inside the park will be that there will be an impact on the neighboring community."

Supervisor Eric Mar, while also sensitive to neighborhood concerns with parking spillover, called installing parking meters "a good way to insure that we have more promotion of the Transit First policy for the city," and said he's "open to parking meters in the park."

"I know that the pushback will come heavily in districts like mine, the Richmond District, and the Sunset, and a little bit in parts of District Five, so I'm going to be listening to residents, and trying to minimize the harm to the neighborhoods," said Mar. "But I think that in general, parking in a reasonable part of the park will insure that we have more public transit use. But I don't want to see kind of ugly meters in the park that destroy the environment for people too."

To limit the visual impact, the MTA has said it will use meters that cover 10-15 spaces each, with about 130 meters total.

The Board also gave final approval to putting the Safe Streets and Road Repair General Obligation Bond on the ballot for November. As we've written before, the bond measure would direct $368 million towards rehabilitating the city's aging streets and sidewalks, and would pay for streetscape enhancements, including enhancements to sidewalks and bicycle infrastructure. If voters support the measure in November, funding would be distributed over the next five years, with each issuance requiring Board of Supervisors approval.

Valencia Street at 15th Street. Flickr photo: Iznot

Project area. Image: DPW

The $6.1 million project is funded through a combination of federal Safe, Accountable, Flexible and Efficient Transportation Equity Act (SAFETEA) funds as well as two Transportation for Livable Communities (TLC) federal grants with local matching funds.

The final design is largely the result of neighbors' input, says Livable City's Tom Radulovich, who also lives in the neighborhood. "I and a bunch of neighbors went to some of the meetings," said Radulovich. "We designed the street we wanted, mostly. There's still some things missing from the street, but the good news was we had a design and then a few pieces of funding that nobody had anticipated came forward."

One feature of the project will be unfamiliar to most San Franciscans: mid-block bicycle oases. "On the mid-block bulb-outs and a few of the other corner bulb-outs, we've actually planned bike oases," said Opbroek. "There's an example of this up in Portland, where they've done a space on the sidewalk with rows of bike parking."

If the bicycle plan injunction isn't lifted before the project is completed, however, there's a chance the bike oases could be jettisoned. In that case, "they'll have to be installed at a later date," said Opbroek. "If for some reason that didn't happen - I expect that it will, but if it didn't - that space could also be used for tables and chairs or additional merchants spilling out."

Click to enlarge: Valencia plan for 16th Street to 17th Street. Image: DPW

In other locations, the extra space created by bulb-outs and widened sidewalks will be left with "informal programming," said Opbroek. "Because of the heavy pedestrian activity here, we're not putting in additional landscaping. We're leaving the space kind of free for merchants to use."

Radulovich was hopeful that Valencia could serve as a model for many of the ideas that are in the Better Streets Plan. "We're really hoping we can point to Valencia as, 'well, here's our new standards, here's the city's new commitment to better streets, and here's what a neighborhood commercial street ought to look like," said Radulovich.

Some concerns remain, however. Chief among them are loading zones and enforcement. "It's a poorly-enforced street now, there's a lot of double-parking in the bike lanes, there's a lot of double-parking in the median," said Radulovich.

"We're getting rid of that median, replacing it with left-turn pockets in a few locations, so definitely there's going to have to be an emphasis on enforcement. I'm a little more worried about double-parking than I am about speeding, just seeing how the street works now."

Radulovich would also like to have seen more bulb-outs added, though he said that traffic engineers are reluctant to make improvements that would make it difficult for deliveries by large trucks and trailers. "That kind of giant trucks obsession that a lot of the traffic engineers have compromised the design somewhat," said Radulovich. "We feel like it's a missed opportunity to have done them on the numbered streets."

On the whole, though, the project should bring a streetscape virtually unrivaled in San Francisco, and one that can serve as a model for future design. In the meantime, however, bicyclists may have to contend with intermittent bike lane interruptions.

Rendering of proposed treatments for Valencia at 16th Street. Image: DPW

During other construction projects, DPW's response to bike lane obstruction has "largely been complaint-driven," says San Francisco Bicycle Coalition Community Planner Neal Patel.

Valencia Street will require extra vigilance, because it's one of the most popular routes in the city for bicyclists. "We really need to make sure that it's not a complaint-driven requests, and the city and contractors understand that they need to maintain the bicycle right-of-way. They seem to be on par with that, they agree. DPW has had special talks with the contractors to say, 'make sure that you do everything according to the law.'"

During construction, crews are legally required to maintain all existing bike lanes, or to post signs stating "Bicyclists Allowed Use of Full Lane" or "Bicycle Route Detour" when the lane must be obstructed.

Alex Murillo of DPW vowed to keep the lane open as much as possible and to stay in touch with the SFBC. "Our goal is to keep it open 24/7," said Murillo. "There may be a time or two where we need to detour traffic on that block. I can assure you that we are going to keep it open as much as possible."

Murillo said that any bicyclist who finds that the lane is closed or obstructed without proper signage should call him immediately: "I will be on it like you have no idea, because, trust me, my goal is to keep that lane open."

Bicyclists are encouraged to contact both DPW's Alex Murillo and SFBC's Neal Patel if they encounter an obstructed bike lane without proper signage during the nine months of construction. Murillo can be reached by phone at (415) 437-7009 or email at alex.m.murillo (at) sfdpw.org. Patel can be reached by phone at (415) 431-BIKE x312 or email at neal (at) sfbike.org.

Drivers often take advantage of Golden Gate Park's free on-street parking. Flickr photo: morganthemoth

The first is a measure to begin charging for on-street parking in the eastern half of Golden Gate Park, where many of the park's most popular attractions are located. The plan will turn over responsibility for on-street parking in Golden Gate Park from the Recreation and Park Department to the MTA, which will install meters and charge for some street parking in the park for the first time.

The Rec and Park department, the MTA, Board of Supervisors President David Chiu, and Supervisors John Avalos and David Campos expressed support for the measure on public policy grounds, since charging for parking may lead to reduced driving and increased walking and biking in the park, and is consistent with the city's transit first policy.

Given the impact on transit riders of recent Muni fair hikes, Campos said drivers should "share the pain" of balancing the budget.

The meters will be a financial boon for the MTA and the park department, with the MTA collecting citation revenue and the park department collecting meter fare revenue. Once the meters are installed, as early as next April, they're projected to bring in $500,000 in the fiscal year ending June 30 and $1.4 million in the second year for the park department. The MTA will bring in a net profit of about $379,000 per year.

The area affected is bounded by Stanyan Street, Crossover Drive, Lincoln Way, and Fulton Street, and includes just over 1,800 spots. To limit the visual impact of the new meters, the MTA will use meters that cover 10-15 spaces each, with about 130 meters total.

The mayor has expressed more qualified support, reversing his previous opposition to charging for parking in Golden Gate Park only recently, in light of the budget crisis. Supervisor Carmen Chu, who supported the measure, also expressed reservations, especially regarding parking pricing, and the installation of the meters.

The parking measure ultimately gained the support of the full committee, and appears to have most of the full Board of Supervisors' support, and the support of the mayor.

The second proposal, which Streetsblog San Francisco wrote about last month, is a $368 million bond measure to create a one-time fund to pay for streetscape enhancements, including enhancements to sidewalks and bicycle infrastructure. This measure also had the strong support of the full committee, and Supervisor Avalos was confident it would pass next week at the full Board of Supervisors meeting. If it does pass, it will go before voters in November, and funding would be distributed over the next five years, with each issuance requiring Board of Supervisors approval.

Next of up for both measures: Board of Supervisors meeting, Tuesday, July 14, San Francisco City Hall, Room 250.

A safety hazard on bike route 40. Photo by Michael Rhodes.

The Department of Public Works is proposing a $388 million bond measure to fund street resurfacing and streetscape improvement projects for the next five years. The proposal currently includes $209 million for street repair and rehabilitation, $113 million for streetscape improvements such as corner bulb-outs, sidewalk widening, and pedestrian lighting along commercial corridors and other high-use areas, $24.9 for street structures repair and improvement, $30.6 million for ADA curb ramp repair and construction, and $10.1 for sidewalk repair.

The Budget and Finance Subcommittee of the Board of Supervisors will be discussing a resolution in support of the measure, sponsored by the Mayor and Supervisors Chiu, Dufty, Mar, Alioto-Pier and Campos, at its 10 a.m. meeting tomorrow.

In its current form, DPW’s bond proposal calls for the “presence of transit vehicles and bicycle traffic” to give a street “higher priority for maintenance.” The San Francisco Bike Coalition would like a more detailed, explicit commitment to repairing the bike network, and it is urging the Board to include language that would allocate 30 percent of the resurfacing funds for streets with existing bicycle facilities such as bike lanes or sharrows on them.

Neal Patel, SFBC’s community planner, said he views this as an opportunity to solidify DPW’s commitment to prioritizing the bike route network, and he was optimistic about increasing the proposal’s funding “from around 20 to 22 percent” for bike route repair to 30 percent.

Pedestrian advocates also found much to like about the proposal. “This is a historic opportunity to get a lot of funding for pedestrian improvements,” said Manish Champsee, president of Walk San Francisco.

Some complete streets advocates viewed the measure with greater concern, however. “Borrowing money when you’re in a structural imbalance can be a financial road to hell,” said Livable City’s Executive Director Tom Radulovich. “You’re not only deeper and deeper in terms of your infrastructure deficit pileup, you’re paying interest costs on the money you borrowed, so there’s actually less money available.”

“The logical way to pay for street improvements is the pay-as-you-go system, so the income you’re bringing in every year matches your expenditures over the long term,” said Radulovich. “It looks like a solution, but in reality is actually is digging us further into the hole.”

In addition to his concerns about finding sustainable sources of income for complete streets, Radulovich said that in the absence of finalized complete streets standards, the measure could lead to auto-oriented projects. “We have these horrible street standards in San Francisco – skinny sidewalks, wide roadways, no pedestrian amenities – our concern is that … they won’t be rebuilding incomplete streets as complete streets, but they’ll be rebuilding these auto-oriented, skinny sidewalk, dangerous streets as the same thing.”

Radulovich cited the repaving of Divisadero Street as a cautionary tale of. “Divisidero would be a great candidate for a road diet: take out that median, do one lane in each direction, then you could have wide sidewalks, you could have bike lanes, you could have all kinds of amenities,” said Radulovich. The median greening and repaving, he said, “mean quite likely when they put them in it actually took us further away from implementing a complete Divisidero solution.”

Still, SFBC and Walk SF view the bond as likely to go forward regardless, and thus as an opportunity to set a complete streets standard in practice that can be replicated in future projects.

Also at issue is a revision to the original proposal that adds $20 million in streetscape improvement funding to be used specifically for utility “undergrounding,” the process whereby pole-mounted, overhead wires are placed under the street to improve aesthetics and reliability. DPW would like to establish a policy in the bond that “any major streetscape improvement project will include undergrounding (where overhead wires exist),” according to its revised draft proposal. While utility undergrounding is popular with property owners for aesthetic reasons, the SFBC is urging the Board not to include this provision, since it could slow down safety-enhancing projects and increase their costs.

The proposed bond measure has strong support from the Board of Supervisors. So, regardless of their views on what Radulovich calls the “boom and bust cycle” of funding that bonds can create, advocates will want to make sure it doesn’t turn into a one-time infusion of money towards rebuilding roads to antiquated, auto-oriented standards.

Budget and Finance Subcommittee discussion of Safe Streets and Road Repair General Obligation Bonds, Wednesday June 17, 11 a.m., City Hall Room 250.

FHWA nominee Victor Mendez testified before the Senate today. (Photo: transportation1.org)

Sen. Thomas Carper (D-DE) asked the nominee a simple question: What does Mendez, a former Arizona state DOT director and ex-president of AASHTO, think of recent legislation codifying "complete streets" principles and expanding the "Safe Routes to School" program on childhood bike and pedestrian safety?

Mendez, whose legacy in Arizona centers on a massive Phoenix freeway project, wavered a bit. Both ideas "fit neatly into what I believe is Secretary LaHood's livability concept," Mendez replied, describing Safe Routes to School as a good thing for his state but not addressing "complete streets" directly.

Though Carper was openly dissatisfied with the answer, he moved on to an even simpler question: Given that previous hikes in auto fuel-efficiency standards have ultimately led to more driving (and increased congestion), does Mendez think that lowering carbon emissions from the transportation sector should be a goal of the upcoming climate change bill?

Theoretically, it should have been easy for Mendez to endorse that concept, especially on the same day that his future boss blogged on the benefits of transit. But if the future highways chief encouraged decreasing transportation emissions, then -- horrors! -- he might be open to the transit sector's plea for a share of the emissions allocations in the climate bill.

So Mendez wavered again, deferring to Transportation Secretary LaHood. "I think he's going to yield to you for advice on this," Carper said, asking his question one more time.

One more time, Mendez ducked the query. Finally, he asked the senator if reducing transportation-related emissions implied endorsing a specific policy or a general goal. When Carper replied that a general goal was all Mendez would need to endorse, the nominee did so -- in measured tones.

Perhaps it's too much to ask that a former leader of the highway-building lobby be more openly committed to decreasing the environmental impact of transportation, which accounts for a third of the nation's greenhouse gas emissions.

But if Mendez can't bring himself to openly support the "complete streets" plan backed by President Obama, and if he couldn't sign on to a specific policy for reducing emissions, it's worth asking whether he supports national climate legislation in the first place. And if he doesn't, what's he doing in the administration?

Late Update: It's worth noting that Mendez was first appointed to the Arizona DOT's top spot by a Republican, then-Gov. Jane Dee Hull.

Before he was president, he was a fan of "complete streets." (Photo: whitehouse via Flickr)

Many urbanites remember the last congressional transportation bill as a disappointment that pushed a pro-highways approach while forcing transit projects to compete for a small slice of the federal funding pie. But that 2005 transportation clash brought us some instructive moments that escaped the mainstream media's focus at the time.

As a semi-regular feature on Streetsblog Capitol Hill, I'll be looking back at past transportation debates that have the potential to impact the upcoming re-write. For today's installment, let's look at the "complete streets" amendment that fell six votes short of passage in 2005 but had a pretty crucial sponsor: then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL).

The "complete streets" amendment submitted four years ago was similar to the legislation that was recently re-introduced in both the House and Senate. It would have required state DOTs to account for bike paths and pedestrian access wherever feasible and required metropolitan planning organizations that serve populations of 200,000 or more to appoint a coordinator for bike-and-ped programs.

Obama did not speak in favor of the amendment, but the future president's early endorsement of complete streets principles provides a powerful tool to livable streets advocates working on this year's transportation bill. Few arguments are as effective in Washington as a charge of flip-flopping -- to which the Obama administration risks exposing itself if it doesn't support a national "complete streets" policy in this year's bill.

What's more, if senators maintained their past positions, the Obama "complete streets" amendment would almost surely pass into law today. Since the proposal lost by six votes in 2005, 11 GOP Senate seats have flipped to the Democratic column (including party-switcher Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania).

Of course, "complete streets" may be included from day one in the Senate's next transportation bill, especially now that the House has added similar language to its climate change legislation. But that would open the door to a GOP amendment striking "complete streets" from the bill, and to the same tired and false rhetoric that Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) used to kill the Obama amendment in 2005:

What this amendment says is: If you are planning a highway from Leftover Shoes to Podunk Junction in the middle of a state with nobody around, you would have to plan for a bike path. We have a lot of roads through our Ozark hills and farmland where the danger is inadequate two-lane highways. People are not going to ride bicycles along those highways. They need the lanes to drive their cars. Putting an additional planning burden on agencies that don't want or need bike paths is another unwarranted mandate.

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA). Photo: pbs.org.

In short, the House climate bill officially sets "complete streets" principles as planning goals for state and local transportation officials. The DOT and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would enforce the deadlines for each state and local transportation emissions-reduction plan and hand out grants to help areas implement innovative strategies for diminishing auto dependence.

The funding for those grants would have to come from future spending bills, not from the auctions of carbon-emissions permits to polluting industries -- the so-called CLEAN TEA plan that Transportation for America and other advocacy groups have been hoping for.

Today's deal would auction only 15 percent of the emissions permits, giving the rest away free to coal companies, electric utilities and the auto industry. Why did CLEAN TEA fall by the wayside? Sadly, Democrats from coal- and oil-dominant states were prepared to bring down Waxman's bill unless their hometown industries got emissions permits for free. Even those Democrats who are still fighting to make polluting industries pay for their permits want the revenue to go back to the public in the form of tax credits, rather than to green transportation.