[Carfreeliving] Electronic bollards and the GG park concourse

Tue May 17 16:51:27 MDT 2005

We installed about a half dozen pneumatic bollards on the Stanford University campus to protect the campus' transit mall and pedestrian-only areas.  They are affordable and indestructible.  They're designed to accommodate a 2-ton truck driven at them at 45 mph, and still function.  See http://www.deltascientific.com/bollards2.htm and http://transportation.stanford.edu/parking_info/WhitePlaza.shtml.

On the Serra transit mall, transit vehicles, emergency vehicles and service vehicles all have access, using automatic transponders or gate cards.  They're opened every 2 minutes or so, closing automatically behind.  In their first few years of operations, we totalled a few private vehicles that tailgated buses, but the courts determined that we had signed the bollards appropriately and Stanford has no liability.

/Jeff Tumlin

-----Original Message-----
From: Carfreeliving-bounces at livablecity.org
[mailto:Carfreeliving-bounces at livablecity.org]On Behalf Of David Baker
Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 3:34 PM
To: Andrew Sullivan
Cc: Brinkman, Cheryl; Carfreeliving at livablecity.org; Leah Shahum
Subject: RE: [Carfreeliving] Electronic bollards and the GG park
concourse

Those bollards are very tough.  But they certainly could stop going up and down.  But stone paving is close to indestructible and is actually cheaper over the long run since it lasts so long.

db

-----Original Message-----
From: Andrew Sullivan [mailto:andrew at sulli.org] 
Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 3:29 PM
To: David Baker
Cc: Carfreeliving at livablecity.org; Brinkman, Cheryl; Leah Shahum
Subject: Re: [Carfreeliving] Electronic bollards and the GG park concourse

Will these cause Muni (44 line) delays?  Or be smashed to bits by 
vandals?  Things to think about when placing anything automatic in San 
Francisco...

-------------------
   ANDREW SULLIVAN
h:     415 673 0626
f:     415 673 0686
m:     415 609 8801
e: andrew at sulli.org
w:    www.sulli.org
-------------------
On May 17, 2005, at 15:16, David Baker wrote:

>
> I'm wondering if the loop road is still an asphalt drive with some 
> sort of curb?  Just got back from an epic (for me) bike tour of the 
> south of France and just about every city, town and village seems to 
> have converted it's historic core to a pedestrian zone with lots of 
> those operable bollards.  But the most important thing they do is pull 
> out the asphalt and curbs and do a continuous non-road like surface, 
> such as paving stones (they drain to the middle of the street, which 
> is actually cheaper, so the curbs don't function like our curbs to 
> channel water.) Even when cars are allowed there they are sort of out 
> of place and they behave much better, and the peds feel entitled.  
> Actually Alta Bates hospital in Berkeley did this to a street by their 
> entry with striped concrete and no curbs and it works great.  I guess 
> the entire $50,000,000 budget has already been buried underground so a 
> nice paving surface would be too expensive.
>  
> db
>  
> David  Baker FAIA
> david baker + partners, architects
> 461 Second Street, Loft 127, San Francisco, CA 94107
> v.415.896.6700x101
> f.415.896.6103
> dbarchitect.com
> db at dbarchitect.com
>
> From: Brinkman, Cheryl [mailto:Cheryl.Brinkman at McKesson.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 2:50 PM
> To: Carfreeliving at livablecity.org
> Cc: Leah Shahum
> Subject: [Carfreeliving] Electronic bollards and the GG park concourse
>  
> Hello all,
>  
> At the GG Park Concourse Authority meeting last week an option was put 
> forth to allow drop off traffic from both the south, the band shell 
> side, and the North, the JFK  Drive side.  The good news from this 
> most recent meeting is that no one seems to be calling for the through 
> traffic pattern as it existed pre-construction.  Even the museums seem 
> to realize they gain nothing from 600 cars an hour driving past the 
> museums.
>  
> However, this option, 2A, calls for making the Concourse not a through 
> street by using signs and single arm gates, such as you would find at 
> the entrance to a parking lot.  Many aesthetic objections were raised 
> to the single arm gates, not appropriate for a park, too ugly, etc 
> etc.
>  
> The other option, option 2, is the single loop option, with drop off 
> traffic entering the concourse from the South by the bandshell, making 
> a one way loop to drop visitors off, and exiting by the same Southern 
> route.  There would still need to be MUNI access to JFK in this 
> option, so a traffic control device of some sort is still necessary on 
> the North side.
>  
> I suggested that the aesthetics of the traffic control devices should 
> not determine the final plan - single arm gates are not the only way 
> to go, electronic bollards would also work.  We saw these in use in 
> Bologna last summer.  On weekends the city of Bologna opens the old 
> city center to peds and bikes only.  The electronic bollards can be 
> lowered by emergency service vehicles and busses, and in some areas 
> residents as well. (see attached PDF.)
>  
> Does anyone have any opinions on or experiences with the electronic 
> bollards?  I would love to see them used successfully in San Francisco 
> .  It could open up a whole new world of easy street closure methods  
> - they could be used for Sunday and Saturday closure in GG Park, for 
> our car free downtown zone, and for other weekend closures we may want 
> to ask for - and perhaps for woonerfs in the alleys around Hayes 
> Valley.
>  
> I worry about controlling SF drivers using only signs and delays, the 
> idea is that the gate would open for any car that pulled up to it, 
> after perhaps a short delay, but signs would state that the concourse 
> is for drop offs only and fines exist. I suspect that once drivers 
> find out they COULD cut through - they will.  If I were to support 
> this option 2A it would have to have a back up plan to deal with 
> scofflaws.
>  
> Thanks,
>  
> Cheryl
>  
>
> Cheryl Brinkman
> McKesson Corporation
> Sr. Product Manager
> Generic Rx
> 415-983-7501
> 415-732-2699 - fax
> cheryl.brinkman at mckesson.com
>
>  
>
>
>  
>  
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