Streetsblog San Francisco

A mob mentality ruled at a neighborhood meeting last night on safety improvements for Polk Street, where attendees booed any suggestion that removing car parking to make room for pedestrian and bicycle amenities might be worthwhile.

A few hundred attendees packed the Middle Polk Neighborhood Association meeting last night, where any suggestion to change the dangerous status quo was roundly booed. Photo: Aaron Bialick

Fact-based discussion was in short supply at the Middle Polk Neighborhood Association meeting. Instead, hyperbole and misinformation were the order of the day, spread by “Save Polk Street” flyers erroneously claiming that the SF Municipal Transportation Agency plans to remove all parking along a 20-block stretch of Polk.

While the SFMTA has engaged residents in a community-based planning process for Polk from the outset, project supporters were scarce last night. D3 Supervisor David Chiu, who usually talks a good game on street safety, has not taken a position on the project.

Dan Kowalski, who owns the furniture store Flipp, said it was “natural” for the reaction from merchants to go from “alarm to absolute panic” after seeing the SFMTA’s proposals to add protected bike lanes and more public space while removing, at the most, roughly half of Polk’s on-street parking, which makes up just 7 percent of the parking supply within a one-block range of the corridor.

Kowalski and other speakers dismissed evidence that the same kinds of street improvements proposed for Polk have improved safety and boosted business on other streets, even when parking is removed.

Merchants on Stockton Street in Chinatown have lauded the temporary bans on parking during the Lunar New Year. Parklets, bike lanes, Sunday Streets, and other streetscape upgrades that increase foot traffic are in high demand citywide. The sky hasn’t fallen in New York, either, where recent data shows that after a protected bike lane was installed on Ninth Avenue, local retail sales increased 49 percent, compared to a 3 percent increase throughout Manhattan. At the north end of Union Square, which saw a major expansion of pedestrian space, commercial vacancies have dropped 49 percent, at the same time that they have risen 5 percent borough-wide.

“We’ve looked at the statistics that people have presented to us, and they aren’t real. They’re proposing that our business will actually increase,” said Kowalski, eliciting laughter from the audience. “On paper, it might. But what we’ve seen in the real world, what we’ve seen in other cities, when they’ve tried some similar things, is that they’ve had some very negative reactions.”

To make his case, Kowalski claimed that “some of the same projects” have been tried and removed in Brooklyn and San Diego. A little research, however, shows that those cases had nothing to do with streetscape improvements on a business corridor.

In Brooklyn, the only case of a bike lane being removed was on a residential stretch of Bedford Avenue, where politically-influential leaders from the Hasidic community protested the scanty clothing of female riders. In San Diego, green paint on a suburban road was scrubbed off a bike lane merging zone because it failed to cause speeding drivers to yield to riders.

But Kowalski’s claims went unchallenged, and no one mentioned the evidence that merchants tend to wildly overestimate, like the survey on Columbus Avenue which found that just 14 percent of people arrived by car, and those people tended to spend less than people who arrived by other means.

Read more…

Opponents of the redesign want to "Save Polk Street" by maintaining the dangerous status quo. (Note: The meeting location listed on this flyer is outdated.) Photo: Blake Harris

With flyers stuck on storefront windows along Polk Street spreading misinformation about the SF Municipal Transportation Agency’s developing plans to make the street a safer, more inviting place to walk and bike, local supporters of the project are rallying neighbors and merchants to attend a public meeting on Monday. There, city officials including SFMTA Director Ed Reiskin and D3 Supervisor David Chiu are expected to attend.

The flyers, handed out to merchants by an entity calling itself the “Save Polk Street Coalition,” falsely claim that the SFMTA is “planning to remove 20 Blocks of street parking on Polk St. from Union St. to McAllister St.”

In reality, the project’s proposed options, which were developed with input from well-attended community outreach meetings in September and December, would only remove some portion of the on-street parking on Polk, which in total represents 7 percent of all parking within a block’s range of the corridor. Meanwhile, the commercial street would receive the kind of improvements that have been shown time and time again to invite more shoppers.

Madeleine Savit, a 61-year-old mother, architect, and urban planner who lives in the neighborhood, has been talking with shop owners and attempting to debunk misconceptions about the project with a flyer of her own, which reads, “SFMTA’s Polk Street proposals benefit all in our community.” She said the vast majority of upset merchants seem grossly misinformed, and estimates that “Save Polk Street” is led by a handful of people.

Madeleine Savit's flyer.

“People don’t know what’s going on. So the most vocal people are the minority,” said Savit. “The problem is, we’re not dealing with facts. We’re dealing with emotion and fear.”

SF Bicycle Coalition Executive Director Leah Shahum pointed to streets like Valencia, where bike and pedestrian improvements have revitalized businesses by inviting people to spend more time on the street. “It’s very clear that when other corridors in San Francisco have been studied the way Polk Street is right now, there have been great improvements not only to the walkability and bikeability, but also to the business environment and real estate values,” she said.

On Polk, parklets and bike corrals that replaced parking spaces in the last couple of years have drawn more foot traffic. After a parklet was installed in front of Quetzal Cafe on Polk between Bush and Sutter Streets, a study conducted by the Great Streets Project found that more people stopped to talk or window-shop, and overall foot traffic increased.

Read more…

This now-normal scene at a parklet on California and Fillmore Streets in Pacific Heights shows how far parklets have come from the originally "radical" interventions of Park(ing) Day. Photo: Aaron Bialick

When Park(ing) Day started in San Francisco seven years ago, setting up camp on a sliver of street space normally reserved for storing cars was a somewhat radical idea. But these days, evidence of the movement’s continuing success can be seen year-round with more than 35 (and counting) semi-permanent, city-sanctioned parklets around the city.

Park(ing) Day returns again tomorrow, and dozens of parking spaces around the city will be reclaimed as public gathering spots. San Franciscans have embraced the event over the years, and the city’s parklet program is wildly popular among merchants, who clamor for a permit to bring a vibrant public gathering space in front of their store. It seems a world away from the first time Rebar, an art collective, decided to introduce Park(ing) Day by plugging a parking meter for a place to lay down some few rugs, plots of sod, chairs and art pieces.

A Park(ing) Day spot in front of Ritual Coffee on Valencia Street in 2009. A parklet being installed there will exist year-round. Photo: Tristan C/Flickr

“What has been really gratifying is that Park(ing) Day, which began as a guerilla art project, has been adopted by cities and integrated into their official planning strategies,” said Blaine Merker, a principal at Rebar. ”A relatively modest art intervention has changed the way cities conceive, organize and use public space.”

By now, parklets are a uniquely ubiquitous institution in San Francisco. The SF Planning Department’s Pavement to Parks program continues to grant permits through a streamlined permit application process, resulting in dozens of uniquely designed spaces popping up around the city. The city also installed a “mega parklet” promenade along three blocks of Powell Street, San Francisco’s most crowded pedestrian thoroughfare. A multi-agency website launched in May, sfbetterstreets.org, even lays out a simple guide for merchants (and residents) to apply for parklets, among other street improvements.

Read more…

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.

Read more…

Nearly two years after the first parklet arrived in San Francisco, a new study provides an empirical assessment of reclaiming parking spots for public space.

Image: Great Streets Project

The 2011 Parklet Impact Study [PDF], released yesterday by the SF Great Streets Project, measures changes in pedestrian volumes and activity at three new parklets built last year. The study, which also includes pedestrian surveys and business surveys, calls to mind the public space analysis of pioneering urbanist William H. Whyte, who recorded usage patterns of New York City plazas in the 1970s.

Comparing sites on Valencia, Stockton (in North Beach), and Polk Streets before and after parklets were installed, the authors found higher rates of “stationary activities” at all three locations. None of the businesses reported a drop in customers due to the removal of curbside parking. Basically, the Great Streets Project has quantified how carving out new public spaces from parking spots makes for a more sociable city.

Here are the key findings listed in the report:

Read more…

The new parklet on Valencia Street in front of Four Barrel Coffee. Photo: Aaron Bialick

At least fourteen parklets now grace sidewalks around the city in a movement that has taken San Francisco by storm since the first one was created in March of last year. Three of the newest ones have sprouted up in front of Cafe Abir near Divisadero Street, Tony’s Pizza Napoletana next to Washington Square Park, and Four Barrel Coffee on Valencia Street, which has taken a unique design approach.

The construction of new parklets is just starting to catch up with the demand, notes an article on the Great Streets Project’s website. A study done in April found that 72 percent of people surveyed in the Mission, the Tenderloin, and North Beach where more parklets are planned “said that they would come to the area more or much more often if there were more public places to sit.”

In the Mission District, the new Four Barrel parklet provides a standing-only coffee bar area and hanging bicycle parking, features which are intended to have a “less heavier” but more permanent feeling than other parklets, said Four Barrel owner Jeremy Tooker.

“We wanted to add an improvement and beautification to the neighborhood with the Four Barrel aesthetic” with the wood matching that of the cafe, said Tooker.

Rather than being a place to lock up a bike and stay for hours, the arrangement is designed to encourage more short-term use, he said. More bike parking will be added in the center of the parklet for a total of fifteen dedicated spaces, although Tooker estimated it would probably be able to fit over twenty bikes.

Read more…

'Deep's parklet under construction today on Valencia Street near 20th. Photo: Aaron Bialick

Amandeep Jawa (a.k.a. ‘Deep) might be recognized by many San Franciscans as the man who can turn any street into a party as he glides by on his music-booming “Trikeasaurus.” As an organizer of events that inject life into the street like the San Francisco Bike Party, he naturally jumped at the chance to create a beautiful social space outside his Valencia Street home with San Francisco’s first residential parklet.

“Valencia is not a great pedestrian street even though it’s a great public street,” said Jawa. “I wanted the front of my house to reflect the fact that people come and hang out there. In general, that’s a great thing, and that’s what Valencia’s all about. The parklet is a natural extension for that.”

Affectionately dubbed the “‘Deepistan National Parklet,” it will be the first in the city to front a home rather than a business. It’ll bring more breathing room, a social resting spot, and an abundance of plant life to a skinny sidewalk. With the help of Jawa’s friends and colleagues, its construction is well on its way to completion in time for the grand opening celebration this Sunday.

Jawa decided to create the parklet after he consulted with architect Jane Martin on beautifying the streetfront of his house. She suggested expanding the project by applying for the first round of parklet applications last fall. Jawa loved the idea, and Martin helped him design it.

Read more…

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition’s Golden Wheel Awards event last night paid tribute the SFMTA’s Livable Streets staff for the green protected bike lanes on Market Street, and honored the Union Square Business Improvement District for the Powell Street promenade, which began construction this week.

“Both of these projects are connecting our city by making it more enjoyable to live, work, shop, play and visit by bicycling and walking,” SFBC Executive Director Leah Shahum told the estimated 350 people who attended the 19th annual awards ceremony in the green room of the War Memorial Building across from City Hall.

“I need to thank the Bicycle Coalition for bringing fun back onto our streets,” said Mayor Ed Lee, adding that he planned to boast about San Francisco’s new bike lanes at the U.S. Conference of Mayors this week. He said he would tell other mayors that “if you want to be a World Series Champion city like San Francisco, you’d better get working on your bike lanes.”

The SFBC also debuted its latest promotional video (above) for “Connecting the City,” which envisions 100 miles of new crosstown bikeways in the city. The video was beautifully shot and edited by Streetfilms’ John Hamilton and produced and written by SFBC Policy Director Andy Thornley.

For more on last night’s event, see Steve Jones’ nice write-up in the Guardian. And check out some photos below the break, and on the SFBC’s Flickr page.

Read more…

The new parklet in front of Crepe House on Polk Street and Washington. Photo: Bryan Goebel

A parklet movement is springing to life along Polk Street. An installation completed last week in front of Crepe House near Washington has already been buzzing with activity while a second parklet began construction this week in front of Quetzal, a popular cafe with sidewalk seating on Polk Street between Sutter and Bush.

Although it’s surrounded by some of the densest neighborhoods on the West Coast, Polk Street lacks adequate public space. It’s also a major north-south bicycling corridor.

“I’ve been complaining all semester that there’s no place to sit down on the terrace. I’m ecstatic that this is here. I’ll be coming more,” said Claire Toussaint, who lives a block away from Crepe House, and was enjoying her lunch in the new parklet today with friends and fellow students from the Academy of Art.

“It’s great in any neighborhood,” said Lorris Williams, who was sitting alongside Toussaint. “Cars aren’t exactly beautiful on the side of a street. The less cars can park on the street is generally better for the street.”

Read more…

Photo: Actual Cafe's temporary parklet on PARK(ing) Day 2010 could be a real parklet by PARK(ing) Day 2011.

Just over one year after San Francisco’s first parklet was installed outside Mojo Cafe, East Bay streets are conspicuously lacking these popular islands of livable public space. That’s about to change.

This week, Oakland is expected to take the first step toward bringing parklets to the sunny side of the Bay, convening a special cross-department city task force on Thursday. Its mission is to draft a new ordinance that would allow Oakland to permit parklets as a unique type of encroachment.

“We had a lot of staff members who all thought it was a great idea, and they got together to figure out how to do it,” explained Eric Angstadt, deputy director of Oakland’s Planning and Zoning Division.

Representatives of several departments were invited, including Building Services, Planning, Parks and Recreation, and Police, but the heavy lifting, according to Angstadt, will likely come from the Community and Economic Development (CEDA) and Public Works agencies.

The group’s leadership intends to present a draft ordinance to the City Council before the council’s summer recess at the end of July. The Oakland City Council requires at least two months to “agendize” items, a deadline that is less than three weeks away. Angstadt is optimistic that the staff’s personal interest in seeing parklets come to Oakland will motivate the process to keep a brisk pace.

Read more…