[Carfreeliving] BoS Land Use -- Market/Octavia freeway ramp
Joshua Switzky
Joshua.Switzky at sfgov.org
Thu Nov 3 15:52:25 MST 2005
I suppose I don't need to reiterate this, but I disagree -- and I think
your two points below are contradictory. You first say that if Duboce is
made really nice for drivers that they won't use Market even if the
right-turn were legal because they're so logical and follow functional
design cues, but yet you state we can't possibly conceive of design cues
and constraints on Market to discourage or prevent drivers from turning
right onto the on-ramp because we can't fight human nature to do things
regardless of what the environment tells us.
This is the whole crux of the discussion, and it's a critical one in how we
approach the design of our streets and "traffic engineering": does design
matter?
You're exactly right that you can't throw up a "walk your bike" sign on a
bike path and expect cyclists to do it, just as we can't just throw up a
simple "no right turn" sign on Market and excpect drivers to obey it out of
goodwill. But that's exactly my point -- a sign (or even a couple signs)
is NOT design! You're right that human nature dictates that we will not
obey signs that tell us to do the opposite of what the physical environment
allows or encourages us to do. Just like putting up a "25 mph" sign on a
street designed to easily drive 40 mph will not lead to drivers limiting
their speed to 25mph. This is exactly the point of physical traffic
calming. So, if we're serious about prohbiting the right turn, we ought to
use our human ingenuity and design experience to prevent it from happening.
Intersection designs for Market/off-ramp that would all but make it
impossible (and incredibly obvious and awkward) to make the right turn are
not only totally possible, they have been discussed. And I don't think it
would take bollards or mechanical arms, but it would take a bit of
reworking a curb and throwing in a very short median, extending into the
crosswalk, between the bike lane and the righthand traffic lane.
Ok, this subject has occupied a disproportionate amount of my brain
already, I'm now purging it...
-j
Mike Sallaberry
<Mike.Sallaberry@
sfgov.org> To
Sent by: Carfreeliving at livablecity.org
Carfreeliving-bou cc
nces at livablecity.
org Subject
Re: [Carfreeliving] BoS Land Use --
Market/Octavia freeway ramp
11/03/2005 11:59
AM
Josh, I don't think you are accurately conveying what may happen if the
turn is allowed by saying that there will be "hundreds of cars queuing."
That won't be the case, especially if there can be improvements made to
Duboce to make that a better route for freeway-bound motorists.
Unfortunately, it looks like the decisions which lead to the current No
Right Turn at the intersection fail to acknowledge human nature and the
limitations of what facilities and enforcement can accomplish. Designing
in a way counter to these realities is pointless. It would be like
installing a "Bikes walk bikes across crosswalk" sign at the Fell-Masonic
path crossing.
Mike
Joshua Switzky
<Joshua.Switzky at sfgov.org>
Sent by:
Carfreeliving-bounces at livableci To
ty.org A P Thornley <apt at thornley.com>
cc
Carfreeliving at livablecity.org
11/02/2005 09:21 AM Subject
Re: [Carfreeliving] BoS Land Use
-- Market/Octavia freeway ramp
the right turn is even greater than a bike or ped issue -- it's about
encouraging and facilitating the use of Market as a freeway on-ramp. If the
right-turn movement is allowed, this won't be one or two incidental cars
and hour, this will be hundreds of cars queuing on market street that
aren't there now, that will not just back up across the bike lane, but into
the travel lane, and onto the F-line tracks. All these cars now use Duboce
(not a transit route, not a bike route), and have been doing so for 50
years. Why invite all these cars to stay on Market for two or three more
blocks and queue on Market Street, where the impacts are 100 times greater?
-j
A P Thornley
<apt at thornley.com
> To
Sent by: Carfreeliving at livablecity.org
Carfreeliving-bou cc
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org Subject
[Carfreeliving] BoS Land Use --
Market/Octavia freeway ramp
11/01/2005 11:01
PM
Good people of all modes, but especially you Pedestrian Advocates --
Tomorrow (Weds 11/2) the BoS Land Use Committee will be hearing from
DPT and others on the Market/Octavia freeway ramp, a status report,
what's dangerous, what needs fixing. The banned right turn off EB
Market onto the freeway has been made by some into a bike lane issue,
but much more than that it's a pedestrian issue -- no matter where
the bike lane is positioned (against the curb, to the left of a turn
pocket), pedestrians are imperiled by the fast downhill careless turn
onto the freeway (the most common pedestrian injury/fatality? seems
like there's a superlative statistic I've heard about fast turns and
injuries) . . .
So it'd be great to get a few eloquent pedestrians up for comment at
tomorrow's meeting. It starts at 1:00 pm (City Hall, Room 263) but
the Octavia Market Freeway item probably won't come up till an hour
or two into the meeting (it's #5, the last item):
http://sfgov.org/site/bdsupvrs_page.asp?id=13956
And if you can't come, please send Sup. Dufty a note
(Bevan.Dufty at sfgov.org) . . .
Use your bell,
--Andy--
==== from the SFBC Bike Bulletin, pardon any repetition =====
LAND USE COMMITTEE HEARS MARKET/OCTAVIA/FREEWAY CONCERNS WEDS 11/2
The new central freeway ramp at Market and Octavia has been open for
almost two months, but that gnarly intersection is still missing some
key safety features to help assure pedestrians and cyclists of safe
passage along the street. This Wednesday (11/2) the Board of
Supervisors' Land Use Committee (1:00 pm, City Hall, Room 263) will
conduct a hearing on the Market/Octavia freeway ramp, what's been
done so far and what's left to do. We'll be there to emphasize the
city's commitment to keeping Market Street a transit/ped/bike space
and not a freeway feeder route, and ask that colored bike lane
pavement be installed across mouth of the freeway, as recommended in
the Board's August 2004 resolution banning the eastbound right turn
onto the freeway. (You may notice that a new bike lane has been
striped along a key block on eastbound Market St. near the new
freeway ramp, but it's not a colored bike lane as it should be to
draw more attention to this tricky area.)
Please come to this hearing if you can, and contact Supervisor Dufty
(Bevan.Dufty at sfgov.org) and let him know that you want colored bike
pavement ~now~ as part of the safety treatments for this intersection.
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