Reconnecting the Grid in Potrero Hill

According to Curbed SF, the plans for replacing the Potrero Terrace-Annex housing projects on the Southeast side of Potrero Hill call for re-establishing the street grid on the hilly property.

The maps above compare the street grid as it was planned from the 19th century and the streets that exist today. The map on the left was made in 1907, but doesn't differ significantly from earlier maps. North-South streets were named for states, and East-West streets were named for the original counties of California (most changed to the numbers they currently bear when the Potrero Hill grid was merged into the existing grid of the Mission District in 1895. The weird little jogs many streets make as they cross Harrison show the boundary between these two almost-aligned grids).

Breathing Room

Powell Street near Union Square was the latest street to get a temporarily more livable trial project over the weekend, just in time for the holiday shopping rush.

The parking lanes on both sides of the street were removed to create an expanded pedestrian walkway from the cable car turnaround to Union Square (the block of Powell between the turnaround and Ellis Street is already pedestrian- and transit-only).

Space in the Heart of the City

Rachel Gordon has a piece in today's Chronicle Comical on a plan to do something with Hallidie Plaza, that expansive void in the middle of downtown SF.

I imagine anyone with any amount of urban awareness has had their own ideas of what to do with this space as soon as they first laid eyes on it. It's clear the first time you visit that the plaza is just not working right. Crowds choke the area around the cable car turnaround and pedestrians avoid the relatively broad walkways along the old Bank of America building and along Market Street. BART and Muni riders hurriedly pass through the sunken area in the middle, and the area West of Cyril Magnin is an afterthought if it's thought of at all.

And any amateur urbanist's bright ideas for the plaza would probably be an improvement. The plan discussed in Gordon's article, which is apparently being seriously considered by the city, calls for that Western segment to be decked over and converted to a reservoir. That's a very practical use of the existing volume, and it would improve the plaza, to be sure. One disadvantage is that the plan would cut off access to the Powell Street Station from West of 5th Street. Riders coming from, say, the Warfield theater would need to cross either Market of 5th Street to get underground.

I confess to having my own daydreams of what Hallidie Plaza should look like. I can't say I've ironed out the details yet but in response to Gordon's article I'd like to mention some things I think are important to consider in any overhaul plans, vaguely in order of importance.

Article 5: Section 96

This is a personal response to the bicyclist who literally hit me on my walk to work today, as well as his friend. It is illegal to ride your bike on the sidewalk in San Francisco. You asked me to show you the law, here it is:

ARTICLE 5: SECTION 96. BICYCLE RIDING RESTRICTED.

It shall be unlawful to ride a bicycle upon any sidewalk area, except at a permanent or temporary driveway or on bikeways heretofore or hereafter established by resolution of the board of Supervisors; provided, however, that juveniles under the age of 13 and riding a sidewalk bicycle, exercising due care and giving the pedestrian the rightof-way, may ride and operate their sidewalk bicycles upon the sidewalk, except such sidewalks as are in front of schools, stores, or buildings used for business purposes.

(Amended by Ord. 394-78, App. 8/29/78)

Better Practices

Somewhat recently, Streetfilms did a short piece on where we plant our street trees. Specifically, why don't we plant them in the road?

Without question, street trees fundamentally improve the pedestrian experience along city streets. Their canopies provide shade and shelter from the wind and rain, but they take up a small amount of valuable street space. This space is almost always taken from the sidewalk. Pedestrians can maneuver around tree trunks better than cars, so this makes some sense.

But cities around the world (the Streetfilms piece is about Melbourne, Australia) and those close to home are trying something that might be a lot better, at least along streets with narrow sidewalks.

SF is a Cheaper Place to Live than the Suburbs

Well I could have told you this! I cringe when I hear people say San Francisco is such an expensive place to live. Yes, rents are higher on average and there are a lot of pricey restaurants around. But, as the Urban Land Institute reports today, you will save around $500 per month if you move from Livermore to SF.

This is something a lot of us know implicitly. I lived for almost three years making no more than $18,000 per year and I always knew I could only do that in a place like SF, where I didn't need a car. Sure, my rent was around $75 or $100 per month higher than friends' in the East Bay, but they ate through those savings and then some on insurance, gas, and maintenance of their cars - to say nothing of parking.

Muni Announces Upcoming Service Changes

The SFMTA has released its planned changes to Muni service. The changes are scheduled to begin on December 5th. Click the link to view each of the changes, including maps of affected routes.

Scenic Route

The Chronicle Comical has a piece in today's Datebook section about a new web application called Scenic Route. The app lets you pick a starting and ending point, as well as the amount of time you have for your stroll. Then it spits out something of a walking tour that leverages the comments of other users to find interesting hidden gems along the way.

There's historical trivia and architectural points of interest, as well as some bizarre entries like this one from user 'paugsburger,'

sometimes I drive, I love the view from 280 (at 6th and Townsend)

Whatever.

The more time you give yourself, the more meandering the route this app returns. It's definitely designed to be used on an iPhone's web browser, but you can also launch it from your computer.

Check it out!

A Vision for the Future

There's an interesting model of downtown SF at SPUR's new building on Mission Street. The model shows the proposed or approved new development in the Transbay and Rincon Hill areas.

But upon closer inspection, the elevated freeway to and from the Bay Bridge has been removed Southwest of 4th Street. Now that's 'urban renewal' I can get behind!

A Better Market Street

The six-week trial program to reduce car traffic on Market Street begins today. So far, according to the folks as SFist, things are pretty alright.

I'm stuck in an office in SoMa, so I have no eyewitness account to add. Any comments with your own experiences are appreciated!

The Middle of the Road

When Jim Hightower says, "There's Nothing in the Middle of the Road but Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos," he's talking about centrism in American politics, but I'm instantly reminded of the real-life streets down which we all travel. Armadillos are rare in San Francisco, of course, but yellow stripes are also missing from far too many of our streets.

The city of Minneapolis is about to return two of its downtown streets to two-way traffic after nearly 30 years of one-way flow. Those streets, like many in downtowns across the country, were converted to one-way couplets by auto-centric traffic engineers in the middle of the last century.

Their goal was to squeeze more cars through older, narrow streets as fast as they could. And that's exactly what happened. The problem is that the fast, thick traffic along these one-way streets has proven to be dangerous to vulnerable road users, especially pedestrians, and has often pushed away much of the street life.

Breathing Room in Chinatown

Via Curbed, apparently pedestrians in Chinatown are getting some much-needed space along Wentworth Street. Nice!

Bikes on the Sidewalk :-/

SFist touched on a hot topic yesterday. Experientially, there seem to be more bicyclists riding on the sidewalks these days. I've mentioned it before, but it's not a subject I feel comfortable going off on because

• Tempers get hot, which is bad for reasoned debate
• I like people who ride their bikes instead of driving cars, and I want more people to do more of that

But I'm 100% of the opinion that bicyclists should not ride on the sidewalk. Apparently so are a lot of SFist readers, and you can read what they have to say without getting mad at me. One comment, however, roughly sums up my opinion:

So you don't like cars, therefore you punish pedestrians?
Your logic is infallible.

I like walking around San Francisco, and I like not dying. It directly follows, then, that I want fewer people to drive, and for those that do to drive slower and more carefully. Riding a bicycle legally in the road encourages safer driving, improves bike and ped safety, discourages some driving trips and encourages other people to bike.

Riding your bicycle on the sidewalk does more to encourage the status quo of driving than would not riding a bike at all.

Laying Better Plans

The Planning Department's City Design Group has been working on its Mission Streetscape Plan for some time now. They've just released the presentation materials from the fourth Public Workshop and the concepts they outline are very encouraging!

I think the grid of the inner Mission District is one of the most pleasant environments for pedestrians in the city. Most intersections have four-way stops, the streets have wide sidewalks, low car traffic and are lined with trees and beautiful houses. But there's definitely room for improvement, especially along the streets that were handed over to cars during the 20th century (So. Van Ness, Guerrero, 16th and especially Potrero).

Check out the PDF, and continue after the jump for my first impression.

Oh Chuck

Walnut Creek resident Chuck Nevius has one of his typical poorly-researched and poorly-attributed column in today's Chronicle Comical (newspaper columns are not newspaper articles, and columnists are not reporters, Jon Carroll's breaking cat news not withstanding).

This blog cares, however, only because a third of this column is about vocal neighborhood opposition to the Mason Street plaza/horseman-of-the-apocalypse in North Beach. The plaza is formed by a temporary closure of a short block of Mason Street, which is part of a Branch Library Improvement Program project in North Beach.

Central Subway Perspective

Ah, the Central Subway.

What more can be said about the Central Subway? Conceived in some form at least 80 years ago, and put into motion by a vote of the people 20 years ago, the project seems like a done deal despite protests from some transit activists and NIMBYs alike.

One major concern is that the CS as currently planned is less than optimally designed, and way too expensive. Opponents point to the price tag of $1.58 billion for 1.7 miles of rail as ridiculously prohibitive.

Without disagreeing on those points, I'd like us all to pause, stand back and get a little perspective.

Sign of the Times

Over the weekend I noticed this notice on a telephone pole at 17th and Potrero. Click through the jump for the complete list of improvements to be discussed.

Development Oriented Transit

I read Streetsblog New York's piece on BRT yesterday, and thought about mentioning some arguments in opposition to BRT, but held off.

Good decision, it turns out, since The Overhead Wire can be counted on to make the case against BRT far more passionately than I can. That post and the comments it generated are definitely worth a read, but one remark in particular struck me:

Less Median, More Sidewalk

Work is about to begin on the Valencia Streetscape Improvements project. There are a number of elements of the Better Streets "Plan" that will be installed along the four-block stretch in question, but the biggest single change will be the removal of the 13-foot wide center parking lane median and the addition of 6 to 9 feet of sidewalk (half on each side of the street, of course).

According to Streetsblog, Liveable City Executive Director Tom Radulovich "was hopeful that Valencia could serve as a model for many of the ideas that are in the Better Streets Plan." And indeed we all should remain hopeful that more of our street space is turned over to pedestrian use.
Unfortunately, not all street improvement projects currently underway are quite so admirable.

The project to redesign notorious traffic sewer Cesar Chavez Street will not include wider sidewalks but will instead add 14-foot-wide center median to the expressway. Thus ensuring that cars will continue to speed to and from the "hairball" of on/off-ramps below Highway 101 and the street will continue to divide Bernal Heights from the Mission - albeit under the shade of pretty new trees.

Divisadero will also be "improved" without doing much to address the public pedestrian spaces along the street.

July Sunday Streets

Let's none of us ever buy gas again

I hope everyone had fun at Sunday Streets today. This months fete took the same route through the Mission District as last month's. My impression, however, was that the crowd was slightly different. Last time, there seemed to be more people present along the Easter half, down 24th Street. The crowd then seemed to be simply walking/biking/jogging/what-have-you down the street.

This month, the crowd seemed just slightly smaller but more engaged. I noticed an awful lot of roller skaters, and more people with music systems on their bikes or blasting out the apartment windows above the route.

Last month I left right at 2pm, when the street was reopened to cars. This time I waited until the last possible minute to leave the street. It was a little perplexing to hear the cops yelling, 'The street is now open, please get off the street,' or, 'The street is open, look out for yourselves!' After all, aren't they supposed to look out for us?