Get ready for some traffic disruptions along Clement Street for the next year.
Starting March 23, 2015, a SFPUC contractor will embark on a 300 day project to replace the water main lines below Clement Street from Arguello to 14th Avenue. The blocks of Arguello Boulevard from Geary to Lake will also have its water main pipes replaced.
According to the SFPUC:
- The contractor will most likely begin on Clement and Arguello and work west towards 14th, then work on Arguello. For Clement the pipe is to be installed on the north side of Clement Street although parking will be impacted on both sides of the specific block the contractor is working on.
For Arguello Boulevard the pipe will be installed on the east side of the street and the contractor will likely work from Geary to Lake.
The contractor will post no parking signs on the blocks affected, once work begins they will saw cut the street where the new pipe is to be installed; then demolition of the asphalt; installation of pipe, back fill and temporarily paved and the move on to next block. The connections from properties to new pipe will be performed by the water department and will come later in the project. There will need to be a short interruption of water service to make these connections and advanced notice will be given and every effort to accommodate the best time for businesses will be made.
A 30-day notice will be mailed to all business/residents along the project route, and any business/residents that will have their water service interrupted during the project will also be notified.
We asked Roberto Lopez of the SFPUC how this construction will affect the weekly Sunday Farmer’s Market that runs on Clement from 9am to 2pm. His response:
- I’ve been in communication with the Farmer’s Market to discuss this. The contractor is likely to move all equipment/materials off Clement Street on blocks where the Farmer’s market occupies (Arguello to 4th). Any areas where a pipe trench is present and where not enough time to back fill and temporarily paved will be plated over with steel plates.
You all know the drill – old city, old infrastructure that needs replacing. Deep breaths, people!
Sarah B.
Thanks for posting this! We’re working with the Public Utilities Commission and the Department of Public Works to ensure that the constitution is does with as little impact as possible. Everyone is invited to call my direct line (listed below) or email me to report any problems or ask any questions about the work.
Peter Lauterborn, Legislative Aide
Office of Supervisor Eric Mar, District 1
San Francisco Board of Supervisors
City Hall, Room 284
San Francisco, CA 94102
Direct: (415) 554-7411
Peter.Lauterborn@sfgov.org
Quoting Han Solo, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this…”
Nice to have the warning – but…. OK, 18 blocks total, 5 day work weeks, so about 3 weeks per block? Is that realistic? And 300 days of Clement street/ Aguello being even worse of a pothole/country road? Anyone want to lay the odds of some other agency needing to tear up the street 3 weeks after the final re-pave?! From what I’ve seen in other areas they are re-doing water /sewer lines, they also seem to take over the side streets for at least 4-6 parking places to store their supplies & equipment, is that also the case on Clement?
I see this as having basically zero impact since driving down Clement is already (and always has been) a fool’s errand.
Susan, Unlike the olden days when street paving was done by a non-MBE contractor (30+ years ago when MBE was not in City Hall lexicon and the paving work was smoother), my experience with the recent process is that the it takes much longer because the contractor owns or leases a significantly smaller quantity of the heavy equipment and rotates it among many jobs. Thus, it takes weeks to scrape off the entire contract scoped length of the old paving if some other job is falling behind and weeks will pass before an agreement is reached as to whether to remove or ignore the old streetcar and cable car tracks on Clement (and Balboa and Geary as before; they’re still under much of Balboa). Next the curb cutouts (something that also did not exist) have to be replaced even if they are less than five years old just because. Eventually some concrete will be poured around the old tracks and gravel dumped for days before a long pause for asphalt. It also appears smaller asphalt rollers are used than in the past (probably cheaper and less costly to haul on flatbeds) resulting in very uneven paving. Seams between the rolls aren’t leveled together very well and erode quickly causing the surface to degrade rapidly.
Because this is a commercial zone, it is possible that it might be broken into three or four separate jobs, but do not be surprised if work stops for extended periods when something brighter and shinier reaches the attention of City Hall for a spruce up before photo opportunities in non-local press emerge. Rest assured there will be a significant amount of work appearing in the 3-4 weeks preceding November’s election where we will be electing a non-incumbent Supe.
Yes. Good.
They replaced pipes out between 15th-19th and Clement-California-Lake about a year ago and THAT was fun. The contractors left their equipment and pipes in parking spots on blocks that they had finished weeks prior. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad they’re updating the outdated infrastructure, but it was a huge headache for all of us before and now we’ll have to deal with the restricted parking yet again…yikes!
When they did the work between 15th-19th and Clement-California-Lake about a year ago it was a near disaster.
They worked so fast that safety was a joke.
They had generators running on the side walk with hot exhaust manifold that any child could walk up and grab. On our block, that was between the Richmond Rec center and the park. With kids walking by all day long and the little ones getting curious as to the thing making the noise.
They constantly ran heavy equipment onto the sidewalk without a spotter. Again, people with little kids going to the Rec center and the Park and I saw a couple of narrow misses.
They set up cones around open holes in the ground, sometimes 6 feet deep, at crosswalks. Then they would go away and work at the other end of the block. Elderly, kids, and others would use the narrowed crosswalk with nothing to keep them from falling in. A blind person would have gone in for sure.
While using their tractor to move dirt, they destroyed the curbing on several locations on our side walk. After the fact the contractor and The City denied it was them. Even though I personally saw them do it and had photos.
Over memorial day weekend last year I was supposed to drive six Senior Citizen Veterans of WWII and Korea on a memorial day outing. I had to cancel because they blocked my driveway even though I had talked with them about it a day in advance and was told they would make sure I could get out. Then when I called the emergency number, proved on all the flyers, all I got was an answering machine and I never got a call back until the middle of the next week. By the way two of those six men have since died. Thank you contractor.
When the job was finished they left a man hole cover buried in asphalt for the AT&T underground vault. One of those big vaults the size of a car. If any issue comes up in this area with the physical phone line…it will be a while before AT&T will get it fixed as they cannot get down into the vault if they wanted to. This has been this way since last summer.
An the icing on the cake? They have the street sign with the address number pointing the wrong way after they took it out and put it back.
On all of these issues I took it up with the DPW. That did little good. When I asked Eric Mar’s office for help, that did nothing as well.
The contractors are walking on thin ice. Their attention to detail at every level stinks. I can only wonder how good the underground work is given their sloppy above ground work. If I was a business owner on Clement Street I would be worried. If I am a person who shops on Clement Street I would be worried. If you have children. Keep them a block away from these folks.
There is an old truth In Safety Management in the industrial world. For every x number of incidents there is one major injury or death. For most things in the industrial word it is in the neighborhood of 400-800 incidents for each major event. These people are due.
JD.
@Peter Lauterborn – can you see if you can address the issues detailed by sfgirl & JD, and maybe stay on top of the process once work starts too? We have all experienced the “quality” of the lowest bidder around the city.
On a similar note – is the City ever going to “Finish” up the clean up from the Great Sinkhole of 2014 at Lake & 6th? The cross walks need to be repainted, and it just doesn’t look “finished”.
Thanks Peter – we appreciate the work you do on behalf of your boss.
The start date for this project will be March 23, 2015 (was originally March 18 but still awaiting approvals from SFMTA for traffic control). Work will begin at Clement & Funston and work west towards Arguello. After completing the stretch from Funston to Arguello, the contractor (M Squared) will return to finish the portion from Funston to 14th Avenue.
Our contractor will not be storing any materials or equipment on Clement Street and thus will not impact (other than steel plates and temporarily paved street) the Farmer’s Market.
SF Public works is timing their Clement Street Paving Project (from Arguello to 20th) to follow our water work and they are looking to start in October. The paving portion is a separate contract and will be done by another contractor.
Both projects (water, paving, etc.) have to be completed by January 29, 2016 or contractor will incur fines of up $2000 per day for every day they go beyond this date.
Weather and/or construction issues can alter the schedule of the project. Please visit sfwater.org/construction for periodic updates.