SF’s First ‘Protected Intersection’ Breaks Ground At 9th & Division This Week

by Allie Pape : hoodline – excerpt

The city’s ongoing Vision Zero initiative to prevent pedestrian and cyclist deaths has led to a variety of infrastructure changes around San Francisco, from concrete bulb-outs to revamped bike lanes. This week, the city plans to break ground on another experiment: its first “protected intersection,” set to go in at the busy crossing of Ninth and Division streets in SoMa.

Ninth and Division is one of the intersections in the city’s “high-injury network,” the 12 percent of streets where severe and fatal crashes are most likely to occur…

A rendering of the planned changes at the intersection.

As part of the project, Ninth Street will become two-way from Division to Brannan, with a new sidewalk and angled parking on the south side to narrow the roadway. The parking-protected bikeway on Division, installed between Bryant and Folsom last year, will also be extended between Ninth Street and Potrero Avenue in both directions.

The project will also entail some street improvements: roads will be re-paved not only at the intersection itself, but on Ninth between Brannan and Division and Division between Ninth and 10th.

SF Public Works is starting construction later this week, and hopes to wrap up the changes by the end of the year.

Interested in how protected intersections work? Here’s a video guide:… (more)

Go ahead. Do your worst. Create the biggest traffic jam you can. Piss everyone off who is not already pissed off.
Slow traffic on major streets leading to freeway access just as the city is bringing back shipping on the South Side of the Bay. How are all those 200,000 cars going to get to San Rafael from Pier 80? Are you planning to deliver them by drones? Not too many routes to the bridge from Pier 80 that a big truck an take. This is one of them.
This plan along with the Van Ness and Lombard plans, should push the residents over the edge and end the rule of this regime. As long as they know it is coming before the November election.

Bay Area Public Transit Agency To Subsidize Uber, Lyft Rides

By Ian Wenik : thestreet – excerpt

NEW YORK (TheStreet) — The Livermore Amador Valley Transit Authority (LAVTA), a public transit agency that operates in the California Bay Area suburbs, is testing out a new initiative: subsidized ridesharing trips.

LAVTA, which operates buses in cities such as Dublin, Livermore and Pleasanton, is set to roll out the service on a one-year trial in mid-September. The plan will offer riders in certain areas of Dublin subsidized Uber and Lyft fares to local destinations at prices ranging from $3 to $5, according to the San Jose Mercury News.

LAVTA Executive Director Michael Tree explained the reasoning behind the program in an appearance on CNBC’s “Squawk Alley.”… (more)

If you didn’t need more proof that the plan is to privatize transportation systems after the government takes away your right to own your own transportation, this is it. It is the classic”Bait and Switch” scheme.

• First they convince you that “parking isn’t free so they can charge you to park on the public streets.
• Then they claim they can provide the transportation system you need while “calming traffic”.
• Next they claim they need more money to “improve service” and raise the taxes fines and fees.
• Next they “improve service by removing bus stops and seats, forcing more people to stand so they can fit in more people.
• Then, when they have millions of people depending on them for service, they tell you to take the new “smart” corporate car service that they will subsidize so you can afford it.

The joke, if it was a joke, is that we had the private car service when we started on this journey, but now instead of owning our own homes and cars, we rent them from the corporation that can control our every move, and the worst traffic nightmare imaginable.

If this picture bothers you support the Prop L, the SFMTA Charter Amendment: stopsfmta.com

 

Well-Paid SFMTA Employee, Andy Thornley), Proposes Limiting “Access” on JFK Drive – Westbound Travel Banned, 15 MPH Speed Limit

sfcitizen – excerpt

…(A pay package of about $130k a year (TCOE – Total Cost of Employee), well that’s pretty well-paid for a low-stress job, non? It’s not like being a coal miner or anything. Correct me if I’m way off on this, of course.)

This proposal certainly would reduce traffic, overall, by a very slight amount. It would also increase westbound traffic on Fulton, and Lincoln too I suppose, by a significant amount…
(more)

Fix JFK Drive

Posted by Andy Thornley 32.20sc on July 28, 2016

It’s time to civilize Golden Gate Park roads : Golden Gate Park is San Francisco’s crown jewel of public open space and everyone’s backyard. The eastern portion of JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park has enjoyed a marvelous state of car-free happiness and harmony on Sundays for the past 49 years, as well as Monday holidays for the past 29 years. Parking-buffered bike lanes help to tame JFK Drive between Stanyan Street and Transverse Drive on the other days of the week.

However, it’s been clear for a long time that the western extent of JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park needs serious intervention to make if safe and welcoming for bicycle traffic, for people of all ages and abilities. There’s no separated space for bicycles and the roadway is a hilly winding slalom course, and motor traffic often speeds along carelessly, bullying bike traffic, or worse…(more)

Andy is running for Supervisor in District One. So far Sandra Lee Fewer is winning that race. Maybe Andy’s lack of popularity stems from his radical anti-car approach. People in the Richmond like their life the way it is and don’t appreciate the disruption his department is thrusting on us.  The last thing we need is Andy on the board.

If you have any parking complaints, Andy is the person you need to reach out to after you file a 311 complaint.  Details here: https://metermadness.wordpress.com/sfpark-compaints/

 

SFMTA approves changes to Mission Street transit improvements in response to merchant complaints

By Bay City News : kron4 – excerpt

SAN FRANCISCO (BCN)—The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency today voted to partially roll back changes intended to speed up public transit on Mission Street in response to complaints from merchants and drivers.

The agency’s board voted unanimously today to approve changes including the elimination of two forced right turns at 22nd and 26th street and an exemption allowing taxis to make a left turn at 21st street…

“We’ve heard this conversation multiple times,” Heinicke said. “That doesn’t’ mean we’re not sympathetic to what’s happening in this neighborhood. ‘Transit first’ doesn’t mean cars never.”

Board members suggested the SFMTA might look at ways to better manage parking in the neighborhood to help merchants, including encouraging the use of parking garages that are currently underused…(more)

 

Study shows bad roads, traffic jams are costing Bay Area drivers

by David Louie : abc7news – excerpt

SAN JOSE, Calif. (KGO) – A new study shows just how much bad maintenance and traffic jams are costing Bay Area drivers.

Nonprofit transportation research group TRIP says 79 percent, or nearly 8 out of 10, major roads in San Jose can be classified as being in poor condition or worse. That’s costing drivers nearly $900 a year in added costs for things like fuel, repairs, depreciation and tire wear.

It all adds up – congestion delays, potholes and accidents. TRIP says Bay Area drivers are paying for it right out of their pockets. Statewide, it costs well over $53 billion yearly – nearly $2,500 per driver in San Jose…

And if commuters are hoping public transit is the best alternative, that’s not always the case.

“Our buses are traveling on the same infrastructure that everybody else is on. They’re in the same traffic as everyone else is in, and so it’s critical to try and fix some of the problems that we have with our transportation infrastructure,” VTA spokesperson Stacey Hendler Ross said…(more)

We heard there is an economic downturn. This waste of money is taking
a lot of discretionary income out of the consumers pockets so they are
spending less on everything else. The perfect storm of stagnant incomes
and higher housing costs and transportation costs is dragging down the
economy just as many predicted it would.

Is the solution to keep doing the same thing or change direction and
retreat? Hopefully the voters will make the right decision in November
and demand some changes at the local legal.

That would be YES on L in San Francisco. No more taxes until the transit agencies change their spending tactics. Why are transit agencies spending money on sidewalks and street treatments instead of fixing the streets and potholes?

Data versus merchants: Do shoppers drive or take Muni?

By Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez : sfexaminer – excerpt

From Mission Street to Geary Boulevard — and even sleepy Taraval Street — parking spaces are disappearing, new turn restrictions for vehicles are coming to fruition and transit-only lanes are popping up on the concrete.

As pushback from local businesses and homeowners heats up on key transit corridors, a pattern is emerging within every project: Merchants are decrying available transit data as false.

As Gabriel Medina, policy manager at the Mission Economic Development Agency, put it: “If [Republican presidential candidate] Donald Trump did a survey himself about himself, would you trust the results?”

Merchants say their customers are mostly drivers. But transit planners contend their data shows most San Franciscans actually take public transit to these neighborhoods, and a new SFMTA survey of Mission Street-goers found most take the bus or train to shop… (more)

What difference does it make what percentage of shoppers arrive by car to access your shop if your business fails after the SFMTA creates a traffic and parking nightmare to discourages ANY of your customers from returning?

What percentage of your income would you like to give up? Would you like a 10, 20, or 30% cut in pay while your rent and taxes go up?

This kind of survey proves that the SFMTA “experts” know nothing about running a business and that explains why they are millions of dollars in debt even though they have one of the highest budgets in the country.

I have an idea. Why don’t we limit them to three projects at a time that they have the money in the budget for instead of allowing them to start dozens of projects that they are financing through “leveraging” programs?

Maybe then they will feel the pain they are inflicting on the merchants who don’t have unlimited funds to cover their losses.

If you want to reign in the SFMTA support the Charter Amendment: stopsfmta.com

 

SFMTA offers compromise over Mission Street red lanes

By Jerold Chinn : sfbay – excerpt

After anger erupted from merchants and residents from traffic changes made on Mission Street between March and April of this year, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency now has a compromise it hopes will ease concerns from the community.

The project called the 14-Mission Rapid Project included changes on Mission Street between 14th and 30th streets that included a red-transit only lane for the 14-Mission and 49-Van Ness/Mission routes, a number of restricted left turns and forced right turns at some intersections.

Officials said the goal of the project was to improve the reliability of the two Mission Street Muni routes and to improve traffic safety in the corridor.

Since the implementation of the traffic changes, merchants have said that patrons are having a harder time accessing stores, which has led to a decrease in sales for some merchants. Drivers have also said that they have harder time accessing Mission Street merchants and finding parking, according to a survey conduced by the transit agency.

After a community meeting held in June with the SFMTA’s Director of Transportation Ed Reiskin and District 9 Supervisor David Campos, the transit agency has come up with a slightly different plan… (more)

SFMTA has a trust problem. The voting taxpaying public does not trust them to make wise decisions that will benefit the public. After 5 solid years of street diets and parking games, no one anticipates the SFMTA personnel on staff now to solve the traffic problems. We just want them to go away and leave us alone, starting with the boss. We are still waiting for the public apology.

 

Rose Pak Vows City Hall Blockade To Stop Stockton Street Pedestrian Mall

by Caleb Pershan : sfist – excerpt

Chinatown organizer and activist Rose Pak is much to thank for the Central Subway project, a $1.5 billion, 1.7-mile undertaking to connect Chinatown to Market Street that was pitched in part as compensation for the removal of the 1989 earthquake-damaged Embarcadero Freeway, which was a conduit to her sometimes isolated neighborhood. But to build the Central Subway, Stockton Street has been closed to cars, damaging Union Square surrounding businesses. To make up for that fact, for the last two years the city has paused construction annually and created a pedestrian space between Market and Union square covered in astroturf called the Stockton Street Winter Walk..

Just one problem: Rose Pak is a major obstacle to the plan, having written to SFMTA Director of Transportation Ed Reiskin to criticize the idea in a letter obtained by Examiner at the end of last month. On behalf of the SF Chinese Chamber of Commerce, she claimed that a permanent pedestrian mall would “make permanent all the problems we’ve experienced,” which would be “unacceptable to our community.” As she told the Examiner with finality, “I consider the issue closed.”

“We have about 300 family associations, district associations, temples, churches,” Pak told CBS 5 with regard to the pedestrian mall. “Everybody is here. 100 percent of our businesses rely on delivery trucks. Look at Chinatown any hour. You can’t move.” Speaking of which, Pak will negotiate with a similar force. “Wait until I have my blockade of the MTA for a week and see how they like it,” she said. “We’ll have thousands of trucks and cars blockading the whole City Hall and MTA area for one week and see how they like it when no one can get in and out.” To clarify, “that’s a promise, not a threat,” Pak added…

However, “A lot of the merchants, a lot of the pedestrian activists and bike advocates are all saying this is something that would work,” the MTA’s Paul rose countered to CBS 5. Streetsblog appears to agree, pushing an effort to mobilize with a petition to move the pedestrian mall project along.

And, to touch on bicyclists, one prominent pro-bike voice, the parody account Bob Gunderson, has been “critical” of the Winter Walk, which is to say he’s clevelry promoted it. Gunderson’s blog, Dearest District 5, lampoons the likes of Rob Anderson, an actual opponent of bikes, by insisting that the Winter Walk has been a “carless nightmare.” In fact, “The Pedestrian Plaza was supposed to be all fun and games and a “relief from cars”, but it’s done nothing but tear apart families, ruin children’s dreams, and tank the Disney, Apple and Ferrari stores,” writes Gunderson. How long, surely he wonders, can this be permitted to endure?..(more)

 

SFMTA Plans to Tweak Mission Street Transit Changes

By Laura Wenus : missionlocal – excerpt

San Francisco’s transit agency is proposing to roll back some of the traffic changes made along Mission Street when the city installed red bus-only lanes from 14th Street to Cortland Avenue.

The Municipal Transit Agency announced on Monday that its board would consider removal of two forced right turns at 22nd and 26th streets in order to give drivers four blocks of through traffic to make businesses along the corridor more accessible.

The agency will also allow taxis to turn left on 21st Street to give cab drivers a more direct route to their destinations, according to the announcement.

Finally, the agency will move a bus stop on Cortland Avenue to the northern end of its intersection with Mission Street to make it easier for passengers to board the bus.

One of the most controversial changes that came with the transit improvement projects, requiring a right turn at Cesar Chavez Street, is not being considered for removal. Concerns from the public that the forced turn needlessly separated the Mission from Bernal Heights, the agency said in its announcement, should be addressed by allowing right turns on 22nd and 26th streets.

But opponents of the project are not satisfied with the suggested changes and say they will continue to put pressure on the agency to make broader changes at an upcoming agency board meeting. One called the right turn at Cesar Chavez “disruptive,” and another told the Examiner that the turn was like a “wall” separating the two areas…

“SFMTA’s objective was to reduce cars on Mission Street, but does not actually reduce cars or traffic overall. The largest population of Mission transit riders (36%) use Mission buses like a jitney within the Mission,” Medina wrote. “But the red lanes have been tailored to rocket ‘choice riders’ over the Mission straight into downtown and reduce bus stops 50 percent.”

The SFMTA board hearing takes place on August 16…(more)

Mission Warriors will be out in force with concerned citizens intent on stopping the redlining into other neighborhoods. This project was the one that broke the camel’s back. The Supervisors, overwhelmed with complaints, placed a Charter Amendment on the ballot to allow voters an opportunity to vote to cut repeal the overreach of the SFMTA. Come to the meeting on Tuesday the 16th and let the Board hear your complaints.

 

 

Rider wants Muni Service Restored

Herbert Weiner response to Conor Johnson oped in San Francisco Examiner:

Dear Mr. Johnston:

As someone who rides MUNI on a near daily basis, I feel compelled to respond to your recent opinion piece in the San Francisco Examiner. Please excuse this belated response.

MUNI, potentially the best transportation service in the country, falls dramatically short of its potential.

For too many times, there have been late, missing, switchbacks and breakdowns of buses. MUNI celebrates Halloween each day, because each day has a horror story.

This problem has not been sufficiently addressed, because the internal operations and communication, control and command structure of MUNI are ignored. Even with the grandiose visions of MUNI Forward, the system will not function well if internal problems of MUNI are not addressed. There has been little, if any transparency, about these elements of MUNI.

Instead, the problem has been externalized with consolidation of bus stops and the elimination and modification of bus runs that have served the neighborhoods. It will take as much as one quarter of a mile to walk to a bus stop, adversely impacting seniors and the disabled; the Municipal Transit Agency gives lower priority to bicyclists who are hail and hearty and, on the average, under 50 years of age. Can you imagine individuals with arthritis, emphysema or other disease, who are barely able to climb the steps of a transportation vehicle, walking such a long distance? Some MTA managers, with tongue in cheek, will say that walking is good for you. But the Turks must have said that to the Armenians before their death march. There has never been a medical opinion about such a hardship that has been sought by MTA administrators which might very well be a violation of the American Disability Act. MTA can counter that Paratransit is the answer. But that service is already overloaded with its own unreliability. Why substitute Paratransit for bus services that presently meet the needs of senior and disabled passengers?

Will elimination of bus stops result in faster MUNI speed? This is debatable because, with the internal problems of MUNI and the unreliability of buses as a primary problem, there is no guarantee. In addition, the proclaimed advantages of bus stop elimination and consolidation are offset by longer walking time which can result in the missing of a bus and the increased boarding times.

Bus services are being decreased and removed from the neighborhoods. The 2 Clement line, a perfectly good line, has been morphed into the 2 Sutter line which will cover only two blocks on Clement Street. This will affect merchants and shopping along that corridor with decreased access to businesses and services on that street. The 26 Valencia bus which ran directly to St. Luke’s Hospital, served the Merced Extended Neighborhood Triangle District bordering Daly City and traveled to San Francisco State University has also been axed. The 18 bus line which previously ran directly to the Cliff House, a San Francisco landmark, has been altered. The 33 line, a bus in District 5, will no longer run to San Francisco General Hospital which could be life threatening to severely ill patients. And the 47 line will no longer run to the Hall of Justice which will be detrimental to jurors and the legal process itself.

Citizens have been pointing out these problems to the deaf ears of MTA for some time with no redress. Instead, MTA formulates its plans and dumps them on the public which are forced to cope with these poor decisions and policies. The outreach of MTA is basically a ritual and joke, because that agency hears but does not listen. This is supposed to be a public service.

You have noted the density of the city in your article. According to MTA, San Francisco’s density is second to New York. In previous decades, the coverage of MUNI services embraced the whole city, reflecting its density and the needs of the neighborhoods. The problem then, as now, was making this comprehensive system work in order that buses arrive on time with good frequency. This core problem has never been addressed sufficiently by MUNI. The internal problem of MUNI is now being externalized with MUNI Forward which evades the above issue.

Transportation services are being stripped from the neighborhoods on the grounds of supply and demand. Market system economics are being applied to a public service which is supposed to address need. It is equivalent to the police saying that, because only one crime occurs in a part of town in contrast to other neighborhoods, services should be reduced to certain areas of the city. Every neighborhood needs services which are constantly being taken away to the detriment of the public.

One of the reasons for slow travel time is the city’s density. This underlines the need for more buses and drivers. I noted that when I was in London in 1991, the underground trains were backed up behind each other which meant that, if you missed one coach, another train would be available.

The argument that MTA trots out is that there are limited funds. But this falls flat in light of the proliferation of six digit salaries of MTA management, ever expanding bike lanes and the boondoggled Central Subway. 1.5 million dollars has been paid to Barbary Coast, an advertising agency to promote MUNI Forward. This agency is not poor and constantly asks for more money which it will do perpetually after you and I are gone.

$2.25 per ride is a bargain on the face of it. But now trouble is no longer free. The service is actually worsening. I have waited too many times in the dead of night for the 1 California line, one of the showpiece lines of MUNI.

While the slogan of MTA is “Transit First” it should be “Bicycles First”. The Bicycle Coalition gets royal treatment to the neglect of passengers. You might say that they remove cars from the streets. But so do I when I take MUNI. What do we get? Less service and accessibility!

These are my impressions which you may or may not agree with.

And I hope that you have not worked for MTA or plan to. This would certainly affect your thinking and article that you have written.

Just remember one of the mottos of MTA: “We break it. You own and ride it!”

                                                                                                            Very truly yours,

Herbert J. Weiner