Streetsblog San Francisco

Despite living in one of the city’s densest residential neighborhoods with one of the lowest rates of car ownership, Tenderloin residents have endured some of San Francisco’s most dangerous streets for walking since traffic engineers turned most of them into one-way, high-speed motorways in the 1960s.

In a BeyondChron article yesterday, editor and Tenderloin Housing Clinic Director Randy Shaw spotlighted the city’s longstanding neglect of safety improvements and traffic calming on Tenderloin streets, even while such projects come to other neighborhoods. The SF County Transportation Authority’s Tenderloin/Little Saigon Transportation Plan, which was adopted in 2007 and calls for two-way street conversions and other upgrades for pedestrians and transit, has seemingly remained a low funding priority for the city, wrote Shaw:

While the city finds money for streetscape improvements on Divisadero, Upper Market, the Marina and other affluent neighborhoods, the city has not funded a single major Tenderloin pedestrian safety or streetscape improvement program in over thirty years…

San Francisco is actively creating more livable streets for pedestrians, bicyclists, local businesses and neighborhood residents. It’s a terrific development.

But what’s not terrific is denying the Tenderloin its fair share of transit funds. It is a blatant example of the city discriminating against low-income residents.

There is hope that most of the improvements in the Tenderloin Plan could be funded by California Pacific Medical Center in a development agreement with the city for its plans to build the massive new Cathedral Hill Campus at Geary Boulevard and Van Ness Avenue. However, with a revised agreement being negotiated behind closed doors that will likely be downsized from the original one, it’s unclear whether the new version will retain a requirement for CPMC to provide nearly $10 million in funding for street improvements to mitigate the impacts of inundating the Tenderloin with car traffic. ”Not only do the traffic impacts caused by the project require it,” wrote Shaw, “but transit planners still have no plans to allocate public dollars for calming traffic, improving streetscapes or doing anything else along Eddy and Ellis Streets” beyond the few blocks that have been converted to calmer, two-way traffic flow.

“Randy is rightly cross about the slow pace of implementing the Tenderloin transportation plan,” said Livable City Executive Director Tom Radulovich. ”San Francisco’s traffic patterns tend to impose the greatest traffic burdens on neighborhoods like the Tenderloin, Mission, and SoMa — generally denser, poorer, and whose residents generate the least car traffic. The bureaucratic foot-dragging around reclaiming traffic sewer streets like those in the Tenderloin is both unjust and unsustainable.”

Read more…

Two pedestrians and one vehicle passenger lost their lives in separate car crashes in the last two weeks, marking the last of 19 pedestrian deaths in 2012, and the first two traffic fatalities of 2013.

Yesterday at approximately 8 a.m., 19-year-old driver David Morales of San Francisco was fleeing from police when he crashed into a car at South Van Ness Avenue and 21st Streets, killing an unidentified woman in the car and causing it to slam into a corner store and kill 26-year-old Francisco Gutierrez as he was walking in, according to SFPD spokesperson Gordon Shyy. The driver of the car that was hit was also hospitalized with life threatening injuries, but has since been upgraded to critical condition.

Morales, who was arrested at the scene of the crash (captured in a video here), allegedly fled a traffic stop after police received calls about a shooting at the Valencia Gardens housing complex at 14th and Guererro Streets, according to the SFPD. Morales was charged with two counts of murder for the fatalities caused by the crash, as well as multiple other charges in relation to the shooting.

Read more…

San Francisco’s world-famous commercial strip on Castro Street, which gained a popular pedestrian plaza in 2009, is poised to become a more inviting destination as the SF Planning Department develops plans to widen the sidewalks and install other improvements from 17th Street to 19th Street.

The sidewalks on Castro, currently 12 feet wide, could reach widths up to 22 feet, according to Nick Perry, project manager for the Planning Department. That real estate would be created by narrowing traffic lanes, which would calm motor traffic and may reduce the rampant double parking that often delays Muni buses on the 24-Divisadero line.

“Right now, it’s a little bit like the Wild West,” said Perry. “Because the travel lanes are so wide, cars and trucks feel free to double-park or speed down the street because there’s the room to do it. And once we are able to make these improvements, it will function as a neighborhood commercial street that has traffic going both ways in a hopefully stately, well-managed pace.”

The project got a boost after D8 Supervisor Scott Wiener announced in the Bay Area Reporter earlier this month that $4 million would be secured from Prop B bond funds. “While the Castro has wonderful parks at its edges, the neighborhood has remarkably little usable public space,” Wiener wrote. “Harvey Milk Plaza is poorly designed and doesn’t honor its namesake with a wonderful and safe public gathering space. Jane Warner Plaza is terrific but small. While the Castro is one of the most pedestrian-focused neighborhoods in the city, Castro Street’s sidewalks are embarrassingly narrow.”

The Planning Department expects to begin developing street designs through public workshops starting in January, but the process was already kickstarted several years ago by a community streetscape vision known as the Neighborhood Beautification and Safety Plan, developed by the Castro/Upper Market Community Benefit District. That plan, adopted by the CBD in 2008, called for widening Castro’s sidewalks and narrowing its excessively wide traffic lanes to accommodate the crowds of pedestrians. It also envisioned the pedestrian plaza on 17th Street, which was built in 2009 as part of the Planning Department’s Pavement to Parks program and later dubbed Jane Warner Plaza (a.k.a. the Castro Commons).

Read more…

While there’s no concrete Pedestrian Action Strategy (formerly the “Action Plan”) for San Franciscans to read over yet, city officials went ahead and held a press conference today to tell the public the document is coming next month.

Mayor Ed Lee, SFMTA Director of Transportation Ed Reiskin, and other officials gathered on the Powell Street Promenade (a.k.a. the “mega-parklet”) to tout the importance of street safety improvements and targeted enforcement efforts to reduce pedestrian injuries by 25 percent by 2016, and 50 percent by 2020, as set out in former Mayor Gavin Newsom’s Executive Directive on Pedestrian Safety.

The press event was unusual in that the officials didn’t have much substance to make public at this time. They previewed the pedestrian safety plan but that was about it. Lee said the plan will help ”lessen the inequality that exists that we know today between neighborhoods, where people literally fear walking on our streets.”

The main piece of actual news to surface today is that SFPD is using a new data-driven enforcement tactic called “Focus on the Five.” SFPD Deputy Chief of Special Operations Denise Schmitt said that under this strategy, each police district is targeting enforcement at its top five most dangerous intersections or areas, as well as focusing on the top five most dangerous traffic violations: drivers running red lights, running stop signs, violating pedestrian right-of-way, committing turning violations, and speeding.

Schmitt said police are targeting corridors like Market Street, Van Ness Avenue, and 19th Avenue, where a disproportionately high number of the 800-900 vehicle-pedestrian collisions occur every year. ”We’ve got to bring these incidents down,” said Schmitt. “Really, what this is all about is saving lives and letting people enjoy this city.”

“The need for action is clear,” said Walk SF Executive Director Elizabeth Stampe, who called “Focus on the Five” and the developing Pedestrian Action Strategy “promising” ways to “use data to prevent traffic crimes just as we do to prevent other crimes.”

Read more…

A man his 40s was killed by a pickup truck driver in a crosswalk at Market and Beale Streets yesterday at about 2:30 p.m, as reported by ABC 7. Police say they’re investigating the crash to determine whether the driver will be cited or charged. The victim has not been identified yet by police.

The story is all too common in San Francisco — the victim is the 18th pedestrian killed this year so far, surpassing last year’s 17, and 14 in 2010.

The SF Municipal Transportation Agency expects to finalize its Pedestrian Action Plan in January, though it was originally expected by late summer, to reduce pedestrian crashes and injuries with targeted street improvements, education and enforcement efforts. The plan is intended to reduce pedestrian injuries by 25 percent by 2016, and 50 percent by 2020, as set out in former Mayor Gavin Newsom’s Executive Directive on Pedestrian Safety.

“We want to see a plan that will actually meet the goals that the mayor set out to reduce injuries, reduce inequities in pedestrian safety, and increase walking,” said Walk SF Executive Director Elizabeth Stampe. “Having clear metrics and timelines in the plan is critical.”

Ambitious pedestrian safety plans have recently been adopted in Chicago and New York City, which set out to re-engineer 60 miles of streets each year, including 20 miles of “intensive safety redesign.” Chicago, which sees an average of 50 pedestrian deaths per year, aims to bring that number down to zero by 2022.

Stampe, who sits on the task force for San Francisco’s developing plan, said the draft plan does lay out mileage targets, but that its goals are somewhat muddled in technical language that could be made clearer to the public. Some community groups who have reviewed the draft plan have complained that it’s difficult to understand, she said.

“I think if it’s unclear what it it’s saying it will do, then it’s hard to have accountability,” said Stampe. “It’s really important to have something that clearly states exactly what the city will do when, and why, and how that will meet the goals.”

Read more…

Planners at the SF Municipal Transportation Agency this Saturday unveiled options for redesigning Polk Street as a better place for walking, biking, socializing, and transit. The proposed concepts [PDF] show different ways to arrange the limited amount of street space for traffic lanes (which serve buses on Muni’s 19-Polk line), bike lanes, expanded pedestrian areas, and spots for vehicle loading and parking.

Planners divided Polk into four sections, each with a set of possible configurations, and listed each proposal’s pros and cons for the different modes of transport. Proposals include curbside bike lanes separated from motor traffic by parklets, buffer zones, and boarding islands (though some proposals include removing the bike lanes or making them part-time only on the calmer stretches). Pedestrian space could be expanded by adding “mega parklets,” like the one spanning several blocks of Powell Street, and re-making intersecting alleys to “activate” them as pedestrianized public spaces. Corner bulb-outs would also be added at the most dangerous intersections along lower Polk. Transit could be sped up with more bus bulb-outs and boarding islands, though one proposal would actually convert Polk to a one-way street and re-route one direction of Muni’s 19 bus onto a parallel street, an idea transit advocates are still debating.

“Polk has been identified by the city as a high-injury corridor for pedestrians,” said Walk SF Executive Director Elizabeth Stampe. “It has many wide, one-way cross-streets whose high-speed traffic poses the greatest risk. There are many opportunities for bulb-outs and other traffic calming. You can see how much more pleasant the street is where there are bus bulbs now. Traffic calming, greening, and more sidewalk space were the priorities our members identified on our walk along Polk.”

Read more…

Crews laid down the first preliminary stripes of the three-block separated bike lane on Fell Street this morning. The SF Municipal Transportation Agency is moving ahead with the safer connection between the Wiggle and the Panhandle, confident that a legal appeal filed against the project will be denied.

As of this afternoon, a few short stretches had preliminary markings, and temporary striping tape spelled out the words “Bike Lane” on each block. Since the SFMTA removed the car parking lane and began grinding off the old street markings two weeks ago, the space had been open for bicyclists but left mostly unmarked.

When complete, the bike lane will be 7’3″ wide, with a five-foot buffer zone separating it from motor traffic. The SFMTA’s designs show that the bike lane will include a green bike box at Fell and Divisadero, and green markings will highlight merging zones at intersections. Some intersections will feature “mixing zones” where bike and car traffic merges, like those seen on the JFK Drive parking-protected bike lanes in Golden Gate Park.

The SFMTA says that by next summer, a similar lane will be installed on Oak Street, and concrete planters will be built in the buffer zone (which will still allow drivers to cross the bike lane to enter driveways). In addition, the sidewalk will be extended at 12 street corners, the synchronized traffic signal speed will be lowered from 25 MPH to 20 MPH to calm motor traffic, and special signals will be installed at intersections to give bicyclists and pedestrians a head start to cross in front of turning vehicles.

The queuing space for cars waiting to enter the Arco gas station, which drivers must cross the bike lane to reach, will not be removed under new bike lane design. The current design for that section, which directs bicyclists around the queue into a dashed green-painted merging zone, will remain.

One more picture after the jump…

Read more…