In early November, the SFMTA unveiled its California Street Safety Project, which included several changes to the stretch of California Street from Arguello to Park Presidio in the name of pedestrian and vehicular safety.
One of the more controversial parts of the plan is the recommendation to reduce California Street from 4 lanes for cars down to just 2 lanes, with a center turning lane. Known as a “road diet” in traffic planning circles, the SFMTA claims that reducing the number of driving lanes will have no negative impact on traffic.
However many of the residents that came to a November 8 public open house about the project were not convinced.
The meeting quickly grew contentious when attendees were told it was not a forum for discussion about the proposed changes, and that if they had feedback on the plan they should speak to one of the few roving SFMTA representatives at the meeting – or fill out a comment card.
Within a few days of the meeting, the SFMTA began implementing some of the pedestrian safety changes in the plan along California Street like daylighting (adding red painted curbs at intersection approaches to improve visibility for all road users), continental crosswalks (painting crosswalks with thick white lines), and advanced limit lines (adding a line where a car should stop that is set back from the crosswalk).
According to a November 26 email that a blog reader received from the SFMTA in reply to their feedback on the project, the lane reduction plan is temporarily on hold pending further “data collection”.
Here’s what the SFMTA said in their email reply:
In addition to traffic safety concerns, we also heard concerns about potential impacts to traffic, on California Street or nearby streets, due to the “road diet”, or conversion of the roadway from 4 lanes to 3 (including a center turn lane). And while we’ve seen relatively minimal impacts to traffic on other streets in San Francisco with similar traffic volumes where road diets have been implemented, we heard the community’s feedback and are moving forward with some additional data collection to ensure we’re taking the right steps to improve road safety in the neighborhood.
And while the email doesn’t specify WHAT data they’ll be gathering, or WHEN they plan to share that with residents and communicate any changes to the plan, it’s at least an indication that they will take more time to explore the impacts that a lane reduction will have on California St. traffic.
We’ll keep you posted if we hear any more updates.
Sarah B.
Okay, I should clearly just call the police emergency line every time a bus intentionally straddles lanes as a “dangerous driver”, just as I would a private motorist who is unable to maintain lanes.
At the meeting I understood the crowds reaction as being the opposite. No one seemed concerned about the road diet.
Lots of people were very upset that the day-lighting changes would reduce parking and were based on old data that preceded various changes that have already been made (e.g. right turn only restrictions.)
Straver – you do realize that the right lane isn’t wide enough for a bus? With one lane each way, the road will be safer, maybe a touch slower, but easier for _everyone_ to drive on.
“SFMTA claims that reducing the number of driving lanes will have no negative impact on traffic.”
They also claim to time traffic lights. You can lower the speed to zero, put speed bumps and stop signs on every block, but it will not stop until they write tickets.
At least hold off until after they mess up Geary like they did to Van Ness which will force more traffic to California and Fulton for cross town traffic.
Can i just say i hate road diets that restricts our driving to one lane like 25th Ave. We will be going like snails. We will waste gas slowly inching our way. My other pet peeve is speed bumps that ruin our cars. Some speed bump contractor is making money. Is every street in san Francisco going to be speed bumped? Market street will have no cars. Van ness has been an obstacle course for at least 4 years. Someone is making money with bike lanes, ruining Geary street from 3 lanes to 2 lanes, and i hope people stand up to city planners who makes our life miserable in the name of saving lives. They should limit the uber and Lyft drivers who multiple the cars in the city.