Monday May 12 6-9 pm
Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy, 4235 19th Street at Collingwood

The Planning Department is holding an open house today to present the draf Upper Market Community Design Plan, the result of several well attended community planning workshops last fall.

The plan, which focuses on Market Street from Church to Castro, includes both ideas for streetscape improvements and new and revitalized plazas and public spaces, and guidelines for development of new high-density residential buildings with ground floor uses that will enliven the street. You can also view the draft plan at the PLanning Department's website for the project, http://uppermarket.sfplanning.org.

The Fix Masonic Coalition, founded by neighbors working to create a safer Masonic Avenue, is conducting a survey of residents and users of Masonic and surrounding streets. This survey will give us valuable information to further advocate for changes on Masonic. If you live or work in the area or even if you like to stroll through the Panhandle and have concerns with the Fell/Masonic or Oak/Masonic intersections, please fill out the survey at http://www.walksf.org/fixmasonic

Thursday May 15
events all day; see the web site for details

A livable city is a bicycle-friendly city, and, thanks in part to the hard work of sister organization the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, bicyling is booming in San Francisco. Bike to Work Day is a great way to introduce yourself to urban cycling, with experienced bike buddies available to show you the basics of cycling in the City, and fun events all day. See the SF Bicycle Coalition's Bike to Work Day web page for bike-related events all week, or to find a bike buddy.

April was a big month for livable city legislation at the Board of Supervisors:

The Transit Effectiveness Project (TEP) is a joint project of the Municipal Transportation Agency (MTA) and the City Controller's office aimed at improving Muni's effectiveness.

This weekend, The TEP will begin a series of 11 community meetings to share draft proposals for Muni service changes (routes and frequencies) and reliability improvements. Changes have been proposed for most Muni routes, ranging from increased frequency and more express routes on the busiest lines, to route eliminations in areas with the fewest customers.

Interpretation in Cantonese and Spanish will be provided. There will be a Fast Pass raffle at each meeting.

All sites are wheelchair accessible. Materials in large print will be available at the meetings. To request assistive listening devices, a sign language interpreter or other accommodations, please call 415.226.1313, TTY: 415.701.2323. Providing at least 72 hours advance notice will help to ensure availability.

Monday, May 12 at 6 – 8 pm
West Bay Conference Center
1290 Fillmore Street at Eddy
Nearby Muni routes:  5, 22, 31, 38 & 38L

Wednesday, May 14 at 6:30 – 8:30 pm
Bessie Carmichael Elementary
375 Seventh Street at Harrison
Nearby Muni routes:  9X, 12, 14X, 19 & 47

Saturday, May 17 at 10:30 a.m. - 12:30 pm
Mission YMCA
4080 Mission Street at Bosworth
Nearby Muni routes: 14, 23, 49 & 67

Are San Francisco's "parking wars" winding down, ushering in a new era of parking peace – or perhaps even parking love?

It seems hard to imagine such a thing – parking has been the subject of contentious debates and the grist of populist demagoguery in recent years, as old and new views on parking collide. Parking worries, together with concern about urban design and building character, is a major source of neighborhood resistance to new housing.

San Franciscans overwhelmingly rejected Measure H last November, which would have increased the amount of office parking downtown, and imposed a uniform set of parking requirements on new buildings across the city. The defeat of Measure H preserved the city's decades-old strategy of limiting commuter parking downtown, and preserved the right of neighborhoods to craft parking solutions that fit their needs and character.

Since our creation, Livable City has advocated better ways of managing parking as a means of advancing livability, affordability, sustainabilty, and vitality. Two important parking reform initiatives are coming forward in the next two weeks that should improve the way we manage parking in the city, and help forge a new consensus on the role parking ought to play in a more livable San Francisco.

On April 10, The Planning Commission unanimously endorsed parking reform legislation introduced by Supervisor Aaron Peskin. The legislation requires that developers unbundle parking – separate the cost of renting or buying housing from renting or buying a parking space – in large new developments. It also gives developers greater discretion to use space-efficient parking – valet, lifts, stackers, mechanized parking, and the like – to meet their off-street parking requirements. Supervisor Peskin and Livable City worked with developers to craft the legisation, and a January 23rd article in the San Francisco Examiner concluded that it "could please both sides on parking issues".

On Tuedsay April 15, the MTA board will hear a report on the MTA's SFpark program. Livable City has long advocated that manage parking better by setting meter rates based on demand, and by creating neighborhood-scale parking programs that address parking for residents and businesses in an integrated way. SFpark, headed by Jay Primus, will include 'demand-responsive' pilot projects in several neighborhoods aimed at using new technologies (sensors that detect when parking spaces are occupied, and 'smart meters' that make it easier to adjust rates and to pay for parking) and better pricing to create available spaces at most times of day, reduce illegal parking, and raise more revenue.

SFpark's pilot projects build on the findings of the San Francisco County Transportation Authority's On-Street Parking Management and Pricing Study. The SFCTA study looked in depth at parking issues in four San Francisco neighborhoods – Cow Hollow, West Portal, Hayes Valley, and Bernal Heights. The study surveyed parking availability, parking turnover, and parking duration, and interviewed merchants and residents. Among the study's findings were that both businesses and residents were willing to pay more for parking in return for greater availability, and that while merchants in the four neighborhoods thought that 72% of their customers "drove exclusively" to the neighborhood, over 70% of their customers walked, cycled, or took transit ( SFCTA's last public presentation can be viewed here).

Art on Market Street explores San Francisco's "Awesome Future"

Wish You Were Here! Postcards from Our Awesome Future is Packard Jennings’ and Steve Lambert’s current project in the San Francisco Arts Commission’s Art on Market Street project. The project addresses ideas about transit and other urban developments that were raised during interviews the artists conducted with Bay Area architects, urban planners and transportation engineers, who were asked the question, “What would you do if you didn’t have to worry about budgets, bureaucracy, politics or physics?”  The interviews provided the artists with the inspiration for six imaginative and humorous poster designs of a future San Francisco. The posters are currently exhibited on the pedestrian side of the triangular kiosks on Market Street between Van Ness and the Embarcadero through June 2008.

The Planning Department has released a draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR) on its Eastern Neighborhoods program. The Planning Department plans to have the neighborhood plans and detailed zoning proposals completed by February.

The Eastern Neighborhoods plans originated nearly a decade ago, with a focus on preserving land for what the planning department calls "production distribution, and repair" (PDR), everything from light manufacturing to printing, wholesaling, and auto repair.

Unfortunately, this Eastern Neighborhoods plans have never had the integrated approach to land use, transportation, streetscape, and open space that characterize the Better Neighborhoods plans and Glen Park plan. The Eastern Neighborhoods process has also bundled several distinct neighborhoods into a single planning process, rather than treat each neighborhood as distinct.

The current zoning proposals for Eastern Neighborhoods include many of the updated planning controls from recent Planning Department efforts like Market & Octavia, including reduced parking requirements in certain transit-rich corridors like Mission and Valencia streets), and pedestrian-friendly building design in neighborhood commercial and mixed-use districts, including required storefronts with lots of transparency and pedestrian interest, and requiring that off-street parking be tucked away from the street.

Unfortunately, the plan offers no solutions for taming traffic on the Eastern Neighborhoods' mean streets, especially South of Market's high-speed, high-volume one-way streets. It also fails to provide any specific proposals for improving public transit, walking, and cycling, or providing for schools, childcare, open space and recreation.

The draft plan also retains the high minimum parking requirements in most of the transit-rich Mission District, despite the neighborhood's historic pattern of car-free, pedestrian oriented buildings, its majority car-free population and its suitablity for walking, cycling and transit.

The Draft Environmental Impact Report is available here.

For more information about what Livable City is doing to improve planning in the City's Eastern Neighborhoods, see our Livable Neighborhoods campaign page.

Election Day 2007: San Franciscans vote resoundingly for transit and livable streets

This Election Day, San Francisco voters made a clear choice between traffic and transit. Voters approved Proposition A, which amends city charter to increase funding for the city's Municipal Transportation Agency and expand the agency's authority over parking and streets. Voters overwhelmingly rejected Proposition H, which would have overrun San Francisco's streets with downtown commuter traffic. Livable City's Transit not Traffic page has additional information about these measures. With 95% of precincts counted, Measure A is passing with 55.5% of the vote, while 67% of the voters rejected Prop H.

With this vote, San Franciscans reaffirmed their support for great transit, livable neighborhoods designed for walking, cycling, and transit, and a livable, sustainable, and transit oriented downtown that provides for new jobs and housing without increasing traffic congestion or pollution.

San Franciscans overhelmingly approve Proposition K, calling for limits on advertising in public places

Proposition K on the November ballot is a policy statement that calls for no further increase in advertising in the public realm – our streets, transit stops, and public buildings, and transit stations. Voters overhwelmingly approved this measure on Election Day.

As steadfast advocates of complete streets, great public spaces, and livable neighborhoods, we don't accept that public spaces need be auctioned off to the highest bidder to finance things like street furniture or public transit. San Francisco should be a city where residents and visitors can behold great views, handsome streets, distinguished architecture, greenery, and public art, not billlboards.

Opponents of the measure argued that privatizing public spaces is the best way to pay for a quality public realm. We coudn't disagree more; advertising is blight, making our neighborhoods less beautiful and distinct, obscuring architecture and views, gobbling scarce space on city sidewalks, and fostering our culture's unsustainable over-consumption. We deserve a quality public realm and a great transit system — and there are better ways to pay for them. Over the years we have brought forward dozens of ways to reduce transit operating costs, raise new revenues, reduce traffic's wear-and-tear on city streets, and get cars to pay a fair share for the public infrastructure they use, and we look forward to working the City to enact them.

Livable City is working with neighbors and businesses to reclaim streets for walking, cycling, transit, and public life across the city. Two resolutions calling for restoring two-way traffic, authored by Livable City, were approved at the Board of Supervisors in late 2007.

Hayes Street

Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi introduced resolution #071097 to convert the block of Hayes Street between Franklin and Gough from one-way to two-way. This improvement, which will improve pedestrian safety and reconnect the two halves of Hayes Valley's commercial heart, was proposed in the 2002 Market and Octavia Neighborhood Plan. Livable City worked with neighbors and transportation advocates to urge the Planning Commission to adopt findings to let this project go ahead, which they adopted in April. This resolution advances the proposal to the MTA for implementation.

Ellis and Eddy streets

Ellis and Eddy streets are a one-way pair that serve as important east-west transit, pedestrian, and bicycle routes through the dense Tenderloin-Little Saigon neighborhood, and serve as a gateway to the Tenderloin from the Powell Street BART-Muni Station. The Tenderloin-Little Saigon Neighborhood Transportation Plan, adopted last year by the San Francisco County Transportation Authority, recommended restoring two-way traffic on these streets, as well as making the streets more walkable, simplifying the twisting and confusing Muni routes, and adding bicycle lanes.

Supervisor Chris Daly introduced Resolution #071394 that calls for restoring two-way traffic on Ellis and Eddy and improving the important pedestrian crossing at Ellis and Cyril Magnin streets next to Powell Street Station. The resolution also tasks the MTA with creating a comprehensive plan for further improvements, including corner bulb-outs, landscaping and lighting, and better transit access. See our complete streets page for more information.

Several bills were introduced in the California legislature which promise to help create more livable and sustainable cities across the state. A many of the bills were signed into law in 2007, while several other important bills carried over to the 2008 session. AB 101, which allows camera enforcement of parking violations in bus lanes and during street sweeping hours, was informed by research conducted by Livable City intern Aileen Carrigan, and became law on January 1. [continue reading]