Tomorrow: Your Voice Needed to Support a Safer Polk Street

An important reminder: The SFMTA is presenting its latest proposals for a safer Polk Street tomorrow morning and Tuesday evening.

The proposal diagrams aren’t available to post yet, but SFMTA staff went over them at a press briefing, and explained that the safest proposals are still on the table, but they’ve added new options that would minimize the removal of parking at the expense of protected or buffered bike lanes on some stretches. They also said that all pedestrian safety measures like sidewalk extensions will be added in any scenario. And because of the parking spaces that would need to be removed for those safety improvements, taking out the protected bike lanes doesn’t seem to gain back many spaces. In other words, the new proposals would trade away a lot of bike safety for just a marginal gain in parking.

Meanwhile, the leaders of the so-called “Save Polk Street” faction — the people mobilizing against safety improvements — are sticking with their call to prioritize parking on a street where 85 percent of people arrive without a car. Their rallying cry: “Without your vote we will lose Parking on Polk Street forever!”

If you think safety should take precedence over a few parking spaces, head over to the meetings, which will be held at the First Congregational Church Fellowship Hall at 1300 Polk St (at Bush):

• Saturday April 27th from 10 a.m.  to 1 p.m.
• Tuesday April 30th from 5 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.