Traffic

The crowning achievement for Oakland's new planning and building director so far might be ensuring that cars are being driven through the Latham Square pilot plaza once again.

Balboa Park may be a major transit hub for BART and Muni, but it's hard to tell as you approach the station, which is surrounded by dangerous roads swarming with car traffic moving to and from six nearby freeway ramps. The design of the area around the station -- not to mention the 24,000 people who use it daily -- feels like an afterthought to a freeway exit.

Six-lane Sunset Boulevard is one of the city's most dangerous streets to cross, but that won't change under plans being developed by the SF Public Utilities Commission.

After listening to city planners say there's no practical way to redesign Potrero Avenue with protected bike lanes and two transit lanes, Josh Handel didn't buy it.

Two weeks ago, transportation researcher Michael Sivak brought us the news that there are fewer cars per person in the U.S. now than there were a few years ago – and that the number isn’t expected to rise again.

Most of the space on the busy commercial stretch of central Irving Street in the Sunset serves as a clogged parking lot, with rampant double parking and drivers circling the easternmost block to work around 19th Avenue's left-turn bans. But while the car traffic and angled parking spots that eat up public space may not disappear any time soon, the Department of Public Works held a recent public meeting to field input on how to make the street more livable with new trees, re-paving, a median with greenery, and a few corner bulb-outs.

The plan for raised, parking-protected bike lanes and pedestrian safety improvements on Second Street is shaping up after the Department of Public Works presented new details [PDF] last week.

Transporting folks to and from a new Warriors arena, condo, and hotel development planned for Piers 30-32 along the Embarcadero will require smart planning and the money to fund improvements for transit, walking, and biking to avoid clogging the waterfront with cars.

Population growth in the Bay Area doesn't have to mean more traffic and more suburban sprawl, if it's planned for in a sustainable way. To that end, regional planners at the Metropolitan Transportation Commission recently released a draft of Plan Bay Area, a state-mandated blueprint for focusing housing growth over the next 25 years near transit hubs, where new residents are less likely to need a car to get around.