This Thursday at 6pm, the SFMTA will hold a public meeting at George Peabody Elementary School to review their plans for traffic improvements on California Street from Arguello to Park Presidio Boulevard.
The most significant change that the plan includes is to reduce the number of traffic lanes from 4 to 2 along California Street, with a third center lane that can be used for turning. The same configuration is currently in place on 25th Avenue.
The SFMTA states their background for the changes on the project website:
On California Street from Arguello Boulevard to Park Presidio Boulevard, a roadway reconfiguration from four lanes to three will be implemented to improve safety for all road users. On this stretch of the corridor, there have been 57 injury collisions in the past five years, including 4 pedestrian-involved collisions. This segment of California Street also has a high rate of Muni-involved collisions, with 35 transit collisions in five years. At 8 to 9 feet wide, the travel lanes are not wide enough in this area for Muni vehicles, which are 10.5 feet wide. As a result, Muni vehicles must straddle multiple lanes, leading to sideswipe collisions. In addition, having multiple lanes in each direction can encourage higher traffic speeds and can make crossing the street more challenging for pedestrians.
Other changes as part of the project include upgrading crosswalks, daylighting (adding red painted curbs at intersection approaches to improve visibility for all road users), continental crosswalks (those crosswalks with thick white lines), advanced limit lines (when the line where a car should stop is set back from the crosswalk), signs, and signal timing adjustments to increase walking time for pedestrians.
SFMTA estimates that construction will begin at the end of 2019, and be completed in Spring 2020.
The California Street Safety Project will be reviewed at a public meeting this Thursday night at George Peabody Elementary School (251 6th Avenue). The meeting begins at 6pm.
Sarah B.
Now we’ll all be stuck behind the bus.
What about bike lanes (like on Lake st.) ?
There are so many other ways to fix this. I wish I could be at the meeting. They did a version of this on 9th and in the Excelsior and it’s a mess. And if you look at the new Masonic crossing at Geary, despite lots of space MTA chose not to do a cut in for the bus and a major intersection is reduced to one lane when the bus stops. Crazy
A big problem is that to enter the Presidio you have to go to Lake Street & 14th Ave. This already has that area full of congestion because many people jump on Park Presidio at Lake Street. Bad idea to cut the # of lanes there, the people that live in the Presidio in the Washington loop area are going to be impacted and they are the ones that should show up to the meeting.
I’m curious why on Geary/Van Ness, buses get their own lanes, but on California, we jutted out the curb and bus stops now hold up traffic behind them? It takes longer now to go east on California than ever and we’re considering a lane reduction? Geary is already backed up now going east due to the bus only lane; Euclid has more traffic going east because everyone is trying to get off California and Geary. I don’t have a city planning Ph.d but the logic makes no sense. How about reducing the width of the Muni Buses instead so they fit; cracking down on people using their cell phones will driving maybe?
I am 100% against reducing or changing existing lane usage on California St.
There are a lot of injuries and fatalities on California. I get that drivers (like me) would rather have more lanes, but how can that outweigh the safety of the Richmond residents trying to cross?
SFMTA could care less about input from the public, as evident by what happened w/ Geary Blvd planning. Feedback I heard was the Peabody meeting was a stonewall.
david, there are ways of dealing with safety that dont include cutting the number of lanes.
protected intersections…with lights used only for pedestrian crossing
flashing lights built into the crosswalk….this was implemented in west hollywood with great success…poopooed by the millennial engineers of the mta because they claim the flashing unbreakable lights get broken
there is absolutely no evidence that turning 4 lanes into two decrease traffic incidents…in fact the opposite is true, as people rush to beat traffic
I hate the SFMTA. Here’s another reason. Why won’t they just go away?
Pave the GD streets instead of this waste of time, please.
Don’t forget the Google buses that also take the same route and are even taller than the Muni buses.
big mistake