On Thursday night, the SFMTA held an open house at George Peabody Elementary School to showcase their California Street Safety Project.
The project is focused on calming traffic along California Street from Arguello all the way out to 18th Avenue.
One part of the project includes several pedestrian safety changes like daylighting (adding red painted curbs at intersection approaches to improve visibility for all road users), continental crosswalks (painting crosswalks with thick white lines), advanced limit lines (adding a line where a car should stop that is set back from the crosswalk), signage, and signal timing adjustments to increase walking time for pedestrians.
Another more controversial proposal in the project is to reduce California Street from 4 lanes of traffic down to 2, with a third center lane for turning. This new configuration would stretch from Arguello Boulevard to Park Presidio.
Many attendees at the meeting, which included both residents and business owners along the California Street corridor, expressed concern about the impact the a lane reduction would have on traffic.
With half of the lanes being removed, one attendee said she was concerned about being stuck behind buses who often don’t pull over into their bus stop, or who are forced to block the roadway by existing bulb-outs.
At Thursday night’s meeting, the SFMTA, Vision Zero and WalkSF displayed boards around the room detailing the project and its objectives. Roughy 70 attendees were encouraged to walk around the room to educate themselves, and to provide their feedback via 1:1 conversations with SFMTA staff.
Around 6:30pm, Supervisor Sandra Fewer got on the mic and welcomed attendees, called out the various city agencies at the meeting, and introduced two SFPD officers that were part of the traffic enforcement unit. After one officer finished speaking, Erin McMillan, Public Information Officer for the SFMTA, got on the mic.
It quickly became clear that the evening’s program would not include a question and answer session with the SFMTA. After repeating several times that attendees should walk among the boards and talk to SFMTA staff individually – or fill out a comment card – to provide their feedback, the crowd grew impatient and angry with McMillan.
Supervisor Fewer had to return to the mic several times to try and calm angry attendees, who were eager to engage in a question and answer session with McMillan and the SFMTA. Many attendees said they had never heard about the project until just a couple of days ago, and they were concerned about where in the process the project was with regards to approvals. One man shouted “Motorists have rights too!”
Fewer and McMillan explained that the pedestrian changes proposed in the project – daylighting, continental crosswalks, advanced limit lines etc. – were already decided upon and would be implemented in the next few months.
The “road diet” as it’s called in urban planning terms, aka the reduction from 4 lanes of traffic to 2, with a third center turn lane – is still in the proposal stages. So while this change is not set in stone, it is the recommendation of the SFMTA that it happen.
The SFMTA said it will review the feedback they received in person at the meeting, as well as comment cards that were filled out on Thursday night.
If you would like to submit feedback about the California Street Safety project, contact Victoria Chong, Transportation Planner, at victoria.chong@sfmta.com. UPDATE: A reply from Ms. Chong revealed that any feedback sent to her, the on record planner on the California Street Safety Project, will not be part of the public record: “If you are submitting public feedback in regards to the California Street Safety Project, please send your input to TellMuni@sfmta.com in order to be part of the public record.”
The next target for the SFMTA in the Richmond District is Fulton Street. If you haven’t already, please take this online survey to provide your feedback on how to improve traffic and pedestrian safety along Fulton.
Sarah B.
Glad to see Mrs. Stuckbus was in attendance!
same shtick that they pulled at the geary open meeting. they dont allow for questions. and they will do to the comment cards the same that they did after the geary open meeting…right into the trash they go.
what wasnt talked about is that there are about to be two major construction projects on california, which is going to impact traffic.
what was also not discussed is the real reason they want to do this…and it has nothing to do with safety
the goal of the mta is to make driving private vehicles in this city impractical and almost impossible
and im sure they havent and will not do an economic impact study..
As the proposal notes, and anyone who’s spent anytime as a driver/bus rider or pedestrian on this section of California St can attest to, the buses don’t fit in the existing lanes. It’s fact, not debate.
Buses straddle the lanes. Drivers routinely cross the double yellow to pass, often speeding in the process. We can all again agree that’s dangerous and illegal.
I’m really not sure what the debate here is. The change was done to 25th Ave a decade ago and it’s worked very well. For as much as a lane of traffic is lost, so is getting stuck behind people turning left.
The bus stops regularly, giving plenty of opportunity to pass. This is a long overdue change.
The MTA has nothing to do with it. Driving private vehicles in SF is already impractical and almost impossible. Remember SF is a city built BEFORE the invention of the automobile. Our traffic grid is not going change. Like Boston, or New York, San Francisco will NEVER be a good place to drive a car. The question is, what about the rest of us? Those who walk, cycle or take transit deserve safety. If private autos are inconvenienced, then tough luck. If you want to talk about inconvenience try using the MUNI on a regular basis.
I attended the meeting, and though of course there were people shouting, I feel like they suck all the oxygen out of the room. People who are supportive generally don’t shout, and policies shouldn’t be driven by the noisiest people. I left my feedback on the comment cards.
One suggestion which I forgot to mention at the time– people object to the daylighting of intersections because of the loss of parking, as well as the bikeshare stations. But I do think daylighting is quite valuable, especially when you have big SUVs and delivery trucks parked there which turn intersections into blind corners. I’d suggest combining the two, and putting bikeshare stations (and other shorter uses like motorcycle parking) at corners, so that you can see over them fairly easily.
Classic bureaucrats with their heads up their asses. Leave the 4 lanes on California!
Check out today’s article in the SF Examiner. https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/traffic-looking-for-a-shortcut-will-get-steered-off-page-street/
Page Street has become an unintended freeway entrance ramp and they are trying to fix it now, the California Street project should look at what happened on Page Street. Drivers will avoid traffic by going down other streets.
Even with 4 lanes, California is clogged in the early evening. It will be an unmitigated disaster they narrow it.