Consider it Done

The San Francisco County Transportation Authority has created a Facebook page in order to relay announcements and gather feedback from the public. If only changing SF's parking policy was so easy.

Eagerly Awaiting the New market Street

Even if it is just temporary. As you've probably heard by now, five city agencies have announced that they will change the traffic patterns on Market Street on a trial basis starting September 29th and lasting at least six weeks, according to the Chronicle Comical.

The traffic changes to be made during this trial are notably stronger that the SFCTA had proposed back in May. The new configuration will leave a virtually car free road Eastbound, East of 8th Street.

Toward a Robust Rapid Transit Network: The H-Potrero Van Ness

Don't expect me to get in the habit of quoting Chuck Nevius, but this excerpt from his June 6th column about 49ers stadium negotiations rang a bell in my mind:

Public transportation is one of the team's major concerns with a San Francisco site.

Niners Chief Financial Officer Larry MacNeil said the Hunters Point proposal would require that 25 percent of patrons travel on public transit.

When asked what the percentage is now at Candlestick, MacNeil said 18 percent of fans arrive on buses.

Well, that doesn't sound so insurmountable. Add a few more buses. Maybe Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who wants the team to stay in San Francisco, would help find the cash for a light-rail line. -SF Chronicle

Big freaking 'maybe,' to say the least. But stadium or no, SF Lennar is building thousands of homes on HP come hell or high water (certainly the latter) and those people will need more transit options than currently exist in that corner of town.

Enter a blast from the past: Muni's old H line

Keep Hope alive

I take sick pleasure in reading posts like this. They keep alive a dream that will almost certainly be dashed by the intellectual giants at the SFCTA.

One point that The Overhead Wire touched on that I think is important is that a proper setup for this corridor involves grade separated rapid transit (subway) in addition to an improved surface line.

The SF Chamber of Commerce's New Clothes

Rachel Gordon reported last week that the SF County Transportation Authority has decided not to pursue a car-free Market Street, favoring instead a plan to "discourage" driving by "managing traffic." That management amounts to restricting some turns at a couple of intersections.

(The SFCTA is the same institution of brilliance that's pushing a 'shovel ready' Doyle Drive replacement and maybe Geary BRT in, well, not your lifetime)

According to Gordon's piece, the meek plan is in response to concerns that "businesses don't suffer" (Quote from Ken Cleveland, director of government affairs for the Building Owners and Managers Association of San Francisco. Apparently he's qualified to discuss this because Market Street is a building).

This pro-car = pro-business attitude is nothing new, so why bring it up? because it was apparently enough to sway the Transportation Authority's decision makers despite the TA's own study, which proved that cars traveling down Market are not major contributors to economic activity.

SFCTA Prefers Wrong Option for Geary

What a week for any agency called SF_TA!

The Examiner reports that the SFCTA (San Francisco County Transportation Authority, not to be confused with the MTA) has surprised nobody and chosen center-lane BRT as the preferred option for the Geary corridor. I'm inclined to agree with what The Overhead Wire says about this conclusion: that it's based on unrealistically high estimates of the cost of rail, and unrealistically high estimates of the ridership of BRT.

It evokes a point frustrated transit advocates repeat like a mantra - Why is building a road with extra room considered to be planning for the future, whereas building a transit route with extra capacity is considered a waste of money?

Transit is just as susceptible to the if-you-build-it-they-will-come of induced demand as roads are. If you build a robust, rapid rail line underneath Geary, you will get more riders than you think (as Phoenix did) and your investment will pay off as population and retail activity along the corridor increases.

SFCTA Agrees to Study Car-Free Market Street

Rachel Gordon of the (soon to be extinct?) SF Chronicle reports that the SF County Transportation Authority voted yesterday to study the effects of restricting cars on Market, between Van Ness and the Embarcadero.

According to Gordon the study is to be finished in three months and will provide a comprehensive analysis of the effects of banning cars outright, or of limiting their access in other ways.

The comments on that article on SF Gate are as divorced from reality as comments on that site usually are, so I wouldn't recommend reading them unless you want to frustrate yourself. But I would definitely encourage everyone who reads this to write a letter to the editor of the Chronicle expressing support for the study, and for a car-free Market Street. You can email your letters to letters@sfchronicle.com. From experience I can tell you that your letter stands a decent chance of getting printed, and it will influence the dialogue about the issue.

Just for fun, here are a couple of simulations of what Market Street could look like with fewer cars or no cars. These simulations were created by a transportation engineer named Gregory Riessen, but it's not clear if they were done as part of any specific plan or study, or just for fun:

Houston to SF: Light-Rail-Ready BRT Ain't Worth It

By 2012, only nine years after voters narrowly approved the plan, Houston will have gone from one Main Street light rail line to a network of six rail lines. This is Texas, people. Here in nominally transit-friendly San Francisco, it has been 20 years since the passage of Prop B (by a much wider margin, i might add) called for "fixed guideway capital improvements in the Bayshore, Geary and North Beach corridors," and we are still years away from breaking ground on the Central Subway.

Of special interest, given the specific language of Prop B calling for "fixed guideway" (rail) improvements along the Geary corridor, is the decision by the Houston Metropolitan Transit Authority to build light rail, rather than BRT. It seems that back when Houstonian, Republican House Majority Leader and die-hard rail foe Tom Delay has a finger on the purse strings, he cut any funding for light rail expansion. This led the city to consider BRT on some of the lines instead of rail.

In 2007, after Mr. Delay’s dramatic fall from power and the takeover of Congress by more transit-friendly Democrats, Metro reversed its decision, deciding finally that building light rail from the start would make the most sense. -The Transport Politic

I'll resist the urge so many transit advocates feel to point out that the SFCTA does not consider things like "sense" when planning projects. But the fact remains, a city in Texas is planning to seriously expand its transit infrastructure in a cost-effective and permanent way, while San Francisco wastes money and time on a half-step (at best). What's wrong with this picture?