Cesar Chavez Street Update

Just got this update from the C Chav Design Team at the Planning Department:

Thanks to all of you who either attended one of our Cesar Chavez community workshops or sent us an email (or both) over this past year. We appreciate your dedication and concern and willingness to participate in this important community planning process.

As many of you already know, a final design concept was selected by the community late last year. The City then presented final concept drawings earlier this Spring that applied that design concept to the entire corridor. Generally, the design calls for a wider, planted center median, large corner sidewalk extensions at most intersections, bike lanes (per the Bike Plan), two through lanes of traffic, and left turning pockets where left turns are permitted. The street design also aims to be as green as
possible, integrating stormwater planters and other elements to allow stormwater to permeate into the ground instead of flowing into, and overburdening, the city's sewer system.

The Planning Department, the Department of Public Works (DPW), the Municipal Transportation Agency (MTA), and the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) are now working on developing construction drawings, identifying and solving logistical issues, and aligning the capital program. We will continue to advance the design through this process.

As we move through the Summer and into Fall, we hope to finalize our budget and finalize the scope of the actual improvements, and identify, should it be necessary, a phasing program.

There will be plenty of opportunities in the coming months to voice your opinion on the evolving design. We'll keep you updated as opportunities arise.

There will also be formal opportunities to voice your opinions on this
project as it weaves its way through the approvals process at the MTA Board
and the Board of Supervisors. We'll also keep you all updated as these
events are scheduled.

At this point, we are looking to begin construction at some point next year.

Again, we thank you for all your participation. Please don't hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

The Cesar Chavez Design Team
http://cesarchavez.sfplanning.org

Tear Down This Wall

In a thinly-veiled attempt to make me love it, the Transbay Blog has a great article on how to get rid of the Central Skyway. That makes the Transbay Blog the latest voice calling for San Francisco to finish the good job it started when we knocked down the elevated structure North of Market Street.

I've called for this, and Streetsblog SF reported that the MTA has agreed to consider studying alternatives to the elevated skyway at the urging of superheroesque Tom Radulovich. Well, Transbay blog has an alternative worth considering.

I've got my own fantasy map that I'm working on polishing up, and I'm sure there are smart folks out there with their own great ideas for this miserable waste of space.

This is an issue that's important to me, and I hope it takes off!

Pedestrianism Vol. 4

Pedestrianism Vol. 4 from Josh Bingham

This edition is HD by Vimeo's standards. I recommend viewing it full-screen with HD on and scaling off.

This walk circumnavigates one of San Francisco's ugliest warts: the tangled maze of on- and off-ramps that connect Potrero Avenue and Cesar Chavez Street to Highway 101 while separating the Mission and Bayview Districts for car-free residents. Other liveable streets advocates have taken to calling this monstrosity the "hairball," and I'll use that term here as well since my own name for it is unprintable.

We start at Muni's Potrero trolly yard and maintenance facility, recipient of some much-needed Federal stimulus funds and end at the Flowercraft garden center on Bayshore Boulevard. Since the hairball cuts off the most direct route, down Potrero, across C Chav and on to Bayshore, I cut across 101 at the 18th Street Pedestrian bridge and over Potrero Hill into the Islais Creek industrial area of Bayview.

Things to note in order of appearance:

• The steep slope of Mariposa between Potrero and Utah Street results in steps for a sidewalk.
• 18th Street pedestrian bridge
• Potrero Hill community garden is planted on former Caltrans land
• McKinley Square park with its formal Victorian lawn and panoramic views
• The section of Vermont Street adjacent to McKinley Square is curvier than Lombard, but far less famous
• The lack of pedestrian crossings on C Chav, even east of the hairball, forces pedestrians to go out of their way around Kansas and Marin Streets, past the KOFY TV20 studios and Beronio Lumber
• The Bayshore Boulevard traffic sewer with its merge turns and narrow sidewalks encourages motorists to drive recklessly. Note the failure to yield at 2:18
• The Old Clam House is a San Francisco institution; a relic of the days when this area was wetlands surrounding Islais Creek
• The old Whole Earth Access and Goodman's Lumber buildings. Locals remember these places fondly; the latter is the site of the ever-controversial and endlessly reincarnated proposed Big Box Home Center store

Cesar Chavez Design Workshop

The Planning Department's City Design Group will hold its third and final workshop on a redesign plan for Cesar Chavez street between Guerrero and Hampshire:

Tuesday, February 24, from 6:30 - 7:45pm
Leonard Flynn Elementary School, Auditorium
3125 Cesar Chavez Street

I've added this to the calendar of important events in the sidebar. Unfortunately, until someone makes a decent calendar widget for Blogger, you'll have to deal with the narrow columns of text or click through to the full Google calendar. Check the calendar often for reminders about important meetings and deadlines like this.

This is the last C. Chav workshop, which means it's your last chance to weigh in on what will be the first street redesign using the Better Streets "Plan" guidelines. Make it count!

If Traffic is Bad, And Freeways Cause Urban Traffic...

Why don't we remove the freeways?

Yesterday I pointed out a great article in Scientific American documenting the plain, simple reality that removing freeways improves traffic flow in urban areas. That article leads with the example of an elevated freeway in Seoul, Korea that was removed, and the improvement in traffic flow that resulted.

Reading up a little more, I found an excellent website devoted to real-world examples of urban freeways that have been nixed. The Preservation Institute of Berkeley, CA tells the whole story of the Cheonggye Freeway. From river to freeway and back again in less than half a century, the Cheonggye is a remarkable case, but freeway removal in cities around the world are strikingly similar.

Here in SF we have two good cases where freeways were closed and the sky remained firmly up. The Embarcadero and Central Freeways were removed after much hair-pulling and hand wringing, and replaced with surface streets that have proven to be wildly successful.


View Larger Map

Here's a little map of the scars across San Francisco caused by elevated freeways. Blue represents extant freeway, green represents those removed.

These monstrosities cut off neighborhoods and blight the area for blocks around. This map doesn't even highlight those traffic sewers that some of our city streets have been turned into in a vain effort to whisk people on and off these concrete octopuses. Streets like Alemany Blvd, San Jose Ave and Division St.

If we can see that these misguided structures cause tangible problems, and we know that removing them improves traffic flow while eliminating those problems, then why the hell don't we tear them all down?