DPW

Community groups, city staff and elected officials celebrated the opening of the final Pavement to Parks plaza this weekend, a new 7,500 square foot space that months before was a wide asphalt expanse notorious for speeding traffic and more than a few drivers doing donuts amid smoking tires and revved engines.

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency's (SFMTA) options for fixing Masonic Avenue, a major north-south traffic sewer that was the scene of the city's first and only bicycle fatality this year, have been narrowed to two designs. While each option would calm auto traffic in slightly different ways and offer different amenities for bicyclists, both would significantly transform the street into a greener, friendlier corridor for all users.

The incredible design and data teams at SimpleGeo and Stamen, known among other things for Polymaps and Cabspotting, recently teamed up to tackle a data set only the wonkiest of us could love: San Francisco's Pavement Condition Index. I assume Neal and Michael at the San Francisco Bicycle Coalitions's Good Roads pothole fixin' Superhero HQ have already checked this out and gushed over the results. 

On the same day San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom announced yet another intervention along central Market Street aimed at rejuvenating the beleaguered section between 5th and Van Ness, the Department of Public Works (DPW) announced it was convening a citizens advisory committee (CAC) to help steer the long-term vision for remaking the city's most iconic street.

At the city's second community meeting to discuss Masonic Avenue streetscape improvements, attendees debated options for redesigning the street from its current configuration into what could be one a model complete street. There was consensus among the roughly 70 community members in attendance that the thoroughfare from Geary Boulevard to Fell Street needs significant work, and among various problems, the most pressing were lack of enforcement of speeding, slow transit, a history of crashes and overall lack of vitality.

This interview originally appeared on the SFBC's blog.

Of the many agencies in a city, a department of public works (DPW) isn't usually the flashiest or most interesting. In San Francisco, however, under the leadership of Ed Reiskin, the DPW has taken the lead on a number of high profile projects like Pavement to Parks plazas and parklets and the Market Street trials, thrusting the agency's work in front of the cameras and into the public view.

Now that the Valencia Street sidewalk reconstruction between 15th Street and 19th Street has given us sparkly new pedestrian space, the Department of Public Works (DPW) has begun putting on decorative touches. The DPW has planted two types of trees as well as pedestrian and roadway scale lighting, all of which reflects the decision from the community outreach process that began in 2004.

San Franciscans don't often spend their days contriving ways to spend more time near freeway off-ramps, especially when proximity to freeways can be a risk to your health, but the city's newest park along the I-280 exit at Sixth and Brannan Streets may make you think twice about it.