[Carfreeliving] Complete streets in SF?

[Mike Sallaberry]

This legislation, as you describe it in this email (softened from your 
first email), doesn't seem necessary...the type of language you mention 
can be found in a number of city documents, like the Transportation 
Element of the General Plan:

http://www.sfgov.org/site/planning_index.asp?id=25046

If you simply want something to point to, you can point to that.

Is there a need for superfluous legislation?  Why not save the political 
capital for something of substance?




Emily Drennen <bicyclesf at yahoo.com> 
Sent by: Carfreeliving-bounces at livablecity.org
05/25/2005 04:55 PM

To
Dave Snyder <dave at livablecity.org>, Joshua Switzky 
<Joshua.Switzky at sfgov.org>
cc
Walk SF Board <board at walksf.org>, Carfreeliving at livablecity.org
Subject
Re: [Carfreeliving] Complete streets in SF?






Hi guys,
 
I understand your concerns about picking our battles, and wanting to keep 
up the fight for the "core" network. I am certainly not suggesting that 
that change. The network concept has proved to be a very good for getting 
changes on the street- why give up what has worked? 
 
What I am offering is that there be an new policy that makes the city 
either provide bike and ped accommodations on every street, or provide a 
damn good reason why they can't. Obviously, bike lanes aren't needed on 
every city street- I wan't suggesting that they were- but having a policy 
that the city wants to provide the best ped and bike access it can on all 
of its streets. This could mean a range of "accommodation" from dedicated 
bike paths on one end of the spectrum to wide curb lanes on the other.
 
Were this to become city policy, all we're asking for is that the MTA (and 
other agencies) strive to accommodate bikes and peds in their projects. Of 
course, there will be exemptions that the city can use to get out of 
providing appropriate accommodations. But, if we really want the city to 
live up to its transit-first policy, it would be helpful to be able to 
point to adopted city policy that bikes and peds belong on every street. 
 
I am having a hard time seeing the drawbacks of going for this kind of 
legislation. It would be doubtful that pro-car forces would come out in 
droves to oppose it because it can be framed to be very reasonable and 
non-threatening. "I think the city *shouldn't* care about how their 
projects impact walkers and bikers." is a pretty drastic statement, which 
I'd be suprised to hear at City Hall. There will be people who take it to 
mean that we want to turn all of our streets into ped and bike-only zones, 
but we could re-frame the issue back pretty easily.
 
INHO, supporting this legislation is a very good use of our collective 
political capital. 
 
Thanks,
Emily
 
Dave Snyder <dave at livablecity.org> wrote:
I agree with Josh and Mike. We need a bike network -- facilities 
including exclusive and high quality bike lanes, high quality bike 
paths, and shared lanes where side-by-side slow speed bike riding is 
the social norm -- that is utterly contiguous and reaches to within a 
quarter-mile of every reasonable destination, and wherever possible 
provides the most direct and desirable connection between two points. 
We don't need a bike lane on every street, but the sooner we know 
what a complete bike network will look like, the sooner we can start 
implementing it and put the transit vs. bike fights behind us. As 
noted, the network improvement document will spell out a network, and 
either in the iteration that's before the MTA shortly or in future 
iterations, it needs to express what a complete network will look 
like. That requires a little more conceptual planning and the 
development of minimum quality standards for a "network str! eet." I'm 
looking forward to seeing those projects implemented, now that the 
bike plan process is behind us.

Dave


At 2:59 PM -0700 5/25/05, Joshua Switzky wrote:
>I actually don't agree that bike lanes should be accommodated on ALL
>streets, particularly Van Ness and Geary. These major transit streets 
need
>major transit infrastructure. It will be hard enough to devote existing
>shared lanes to transit only, and to suggest that we ought to either 
reduce
>autos to only one lane in each direction or get rid of the curb parking
>(these are really the only options), I think we would be both butting our
>heads against a brick wall and suggesting somewhat extreme solutions to
>problems that don't necessarily exist. I personally don't think that Van
>Ness or Geary need bike lanes if there are immediately parallel streets
>that are bike-friendly and serve the same corridor. I think there are far
>more important and worthwhile battles to fight than these. Let's focus on
>just completing the bike network and throw our full weight behind these 
key
>transit projects. These streets needs a lot of work just to make them 
good
>transit streets.
>my two cents.
-j


Emily Drennen 

415/863-2248 
bicyclesf at yahoo.com
www.emilydrennen.org

Acting Executive Director, Walk San Francisco
Advisory Council Member, Bay Area Air Quality Management District
Citizen's Advisory Committee Member, Metropolitian Transportation Agency
Past Chair, SF Bicycle Advisory Committee 
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________________
Carfreeliving at livablecity.org mailing list 
to facilitate and promote car-free living in SF
To unsubscribe: 
mailto:Carfreeliving-request at livablecity.org?subject=unsubscribe
or, for all options, go to:
http://livablecity.org/mailman/listinfo/carfreeliving_livablecity.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: /pipermail/carfreeliving_livablecity.org/attachments/20050525/99f9159c/attachment.htm