SF's debates about street design and car usage get testy
San Francisco - Powell Street (1959). Image by Roger W
There's a rising resistance to The City’s ongoing efforts to prioritize train and bus service over personal vehicles. And it's getting nasty. SF Chron reports.
The tension comes at a precarious time as the city tries to balance the competing needs of drivers, business owners and pedestrians. As complaints about public transit and the scarcity of parking reach a boiling point, BART and Muni are facing financial troubles that could spur cutbacks in service. Those cutbacks could give more ammunition to drivers who say it’s already impossible to take public transit around San Francisco and insist they should be allowed to use private vehicles to get where they’re going.
While city officials are accustomed to some measure of pushback, many told the Chronicle that transit projects seemed to generate not just furious debates but also threats of violence toward city employees.
They were careful to specify that the enmity generated by transit and streets projects goes beyond the usual criticism, and that much of it appears to be an outgrowth of the city’s conflict over street usage.
Some drivers and merchants believe San Francisco is waging a “war against cars” in part by eliminating parking spaces, adding bike lanes and prioritizing public transit. Meanwhile, Muni is increasing fares amid looming budget cuts that could lead to cuts in service as soon as summer.
The list of recent projects that have inspired vitriol is lengthy. Merchants argue that the center-running bike lane on a section of Valencia Street has hurt business. Proposed changes to the streets surrounding Muni’s West Portal Station have angered drivers. The push to make Golden Gate Park’s JFK Drive car-free and the network of Slow Streets has prompted criticism from seniors and people with disabilities. The closure of the Upper Great Highway to cars angered families who said it made their lives more difficult. The scuttled expansion of parking-meter hours into the evening and on Sundays upset residents and businesses. Meanwhile, bus-only lanes on the Richmond District’s Geary Boulevard sparked fights over who gets priority on the city’s roads.
Supervisor Joel Engardio, facing a backlash and potential recall over his support of a controversial proposition to close the Great Highway to car traffic, said he has received multiple threats since the measure passed. In late November, a man approached Engardio at Lakeshore Plaza, screamed “a string of profanities and threatened physical harm” over Prop K, the supervisor said.
Videos of confrontations over agency projects have circulated on social media, including one in which a man filmed himself angrily yelling at construction workers he said were making noise on his street before dawn on a September morning last year. In the accompanying post, the poster said the outburst was prompted by his anger over SFMTA’s removal of “parking spaces of the residents who fight tooth and nail daily to live here.”
A common criticism levied at the SFMTA is that it undervalues or ignores community feedback — an assertion that the agency tries to counter by conducting online surveys, pop-up events and town halls. But citywide priorities often outweigh criticism, and city policy has privileged public transport over cars since 1973, when the Board of Supervisors adopted “transit-first” guidelines.
Several opponents of recent transit proposals told the Chronicle in interviews that they believed the agency’s community meetings are not sincere attempts to understand public sentiment. Fabris said this belief has a tendency to morph into conspiracy on online forums.
Read the whole thing here.
Follow Opportunity Now on Twitter @svopportunity
Opp Now enthusiastically welcomes smart, thoughtful, fair-minded, well-written comments from our readers. But be advised: we have zero interest in posting rants, ad hominems, poorly-argued screeds, transparently partisan yack, or the hateful name-calling often seen on other local websites. So if you've got a great idea that will add to the conversation, please send it in. If you're trolling or shilling for a candidate or initiative, forget it.