Daly can't run again - this is his last term. Sometimes ya gotta love term limits :)

EDIT: Didn't realize BT had already brought this up...

They should just turn 2nd St. into a pedestrian only park with dedicated bike/ bus lanes. Has the city ever explored the possibility of closing down certain streets for bikes and pedestrians only?

July 25th and August 6th: Two dates I've already marked on my calendar :) .

Its San Francisco - of course they have considered it!

Not really. San Francsico, despite what people think of it, is more attached to the automobile than many people want to believe. Seattle and Portland have transit only streets, we have huge drawn out fights over Geary BRT taking one of three or four lanes. Manhattan has had limited car access to much of Central Park for decades, we spend years squabbling over making around 10% of roads in GG Park car-free on Saturdays. Can you even imagine the fight that would take place if we talked about making an actual street bike and ped only? Sure, we've closed off a few alleys, but an actual, real street? Keep dreaming...

^^^The reason there are fights over closing streets in GG Park is because the streets they demand be closed are the ones on the downtown end of the park in and around the museums. Offer to close some streets out by the ocean for them and see how they react. They want the ones they want in part because those, and only those, are most disruptive to car traffic. It's as much of a power trip as it is about actually getting a place to ride and skate.

As for 2nd St., it is the heart of what was the "dot-com" district. Whether or not it has car traffic, it is lined with both economically significant businesses, residential lofts and significant development projects including one at 2nd & Howard.

Why, exactly, should they do that?

That is true, though I think the main reason that the streets involved were picked is because they are the same ones closed on Sundays - and the ones with the most attractions. I don't really see a need for ped and bike only streets in most places, except for some of the tourist areas. Powell for a few more blocks from where it already is a ped only area - it's already not really needed for auto traffic with it ending at Eddy - and the sidewalks are always overflowing. Grant Street is another - make it ped only for most of the day with a few hours for truck deliveries. Do the same thing on Jefferson - or at least remove the parking lane - wider sidewalks are desperately needed down there.

To encourage biking (by creating a safe, bike only lane with no speeding cars driven by tourists or other crazies who don't know how to navigate anything) and also to create a pleasant, park like street without noisy and polluting autos everywhere. Why does everything have to be centered around a stupid car, and why can't we have streets that don't have to be for CARS, but for people, pedestrians, for strolling, etc. There isn't enough space like this downtown.

I don't agree with this at all and think that it's an overly reactionary, pessimistic and simplistic assessment (rather like the type that Chris Daly might initially make). The fact that this could happen has been well known for a number of years now and Second Street and its environs still look just fine. I remember walking along the proposed route after first reading about the potential demolition; the article clearly stated some buildings that had just been constructed would have to be removed. That was amazing to me at the time so I can understand your shocked reaction now upon finally learning about this possibility.

Look what happened to K Street in Sacramento when traffic was eliminated and it became the "K Street Mall". It quickly deteriorated and became a great magnet for the homeless population. Businesses also suffered and left. Look also at downtown Seattle, where they reversed their decision and reopened Pike Street to traffic after having closed it and created what I thought was a very attractive place to walk or bike.

I don't think that our Second Street is in the right location to be successful as a restricted street either. Look at how long we've been considering closing lower Market Street to private traffic--it's been proposed several times over many years and nothing has become of the plan. This one makes more sense to me if we want to have a true transit first policy in place.

Yeah, but for your failure examples, there are also successes at well. Look at 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica. That pedestrian only street is a great success. Unlike Sacramento, downtown SF is not just a location where people work 8-5, and drive to the suburbs. It is not an area where people just drive into their parking garage and grab lunch in their building. I believe that the critical mass is there in downtown SF both with residents (and growing rapidly) and with tourists who come into the city.

Then simply don't use that example as what SF should do. Closing down the streets and installing trees, fountains, playgrounds, etc. where potholed pavement raceways once existed could entice more people to shop and play downtown, because, instead of feeling the rush rush, honk honk of walking down a typical cluttered, downtown sidewalk, imagine quiet(er) streets with no cars, just crowds of people, performance artists, public art displays, farmer's markets, etc. Real gathering places, like the kind I've read about in books :haha:

I'm using second street as an example, but I think that there could be something really cool developed if a certain number of streets in the city were closed to cars, and redesigned for pedestrians and LRV/ hi speed busses. This would encourage biking, because it would actually make it safe and convenient, and would be a step forward for us instead of just the constant arguing about how things "SHOULD" be better without any real plan.

This is just one of the ideas I've had to solve a huge problem we have: too many cars, too narrow sidewalks, too much development that is going to create even MORE traffic. What are other people's ideas, proposals about this area?

Note that there will be some discussion regarding raising height limits in the area of the new Transbay Terminal at the July 25, 2007 meeting open to the public. Anyone here on SSP planning to attend? Any opinions here on height regarding the proposed Piano Towers, and how the Transbay and other new towers in the area should relate to them, and the rest of San Francisco's skyline?

Is anyone here also planning to attend the August 6, 2007 meeting?

Is the July 25 meeting open to the public or just to residents of the neighborhood? What exactly goes on in these meetings, are opposing and proposing sides given equal time to debate their arguments, or is there some sort of vote taken, or what?
Since we all know that the NIMBYs are organized as always, it would probably be good for a bunch of pro- height protesters to show up at these meetings.

^^^These will be public meetings. Yes, it may help to have more "pro-height protesters", in case their are a number of NIMBYs present.

So, who's going? I'd love to, but will be out of town on a consulting project.

where would you go to see the public meeting?

^^^From SFGOV listing for "Events for July 2007":
http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:...gl=us&ie=UTF-8
...And from SocketSite:
http://www.socketsite.com/archives/2..._downtown.html

I personally would love to go and lend a hand to the pro-height group. However, I have business in Eureka to take care of, so I wont be there. Perhaps the August 6th meeting will prove better off. I would love to hear what happens at the meeting though. Here's praying we end up with spectacular news.

I'll be there, thanks for the info!

Have you tried catching a taxi at rush hour? Even with an adequate supply of taxi, there would still be long lines as people wait for the people in front of them to board their taxi.

i'm sure he wasn't serious but adding 29,000 taxi trips a day between 4th and king and 1st and mission is probably about the least responsible thing i could imagine from an urban, environmental, aesthetic, and social perspective.

LOL - I like how its a 'stupid car'. Thats cute. Are there smart cars other than the SMART Car?

$2.4 billion is a lot for what doesn't amount to a very significant piece - but I think its a critical thing that needs to happen in order for Transbay Terminal to be a success. For what is planned, it would not be acceptable to have to get off a train, fight your way to Transbay, and get on another train. The whole point is to get TO Transbay Terminal, not kinda near it. It annoys me to see huge projects being half-assed and not really a complete and unified system.

The sad fact is that if the California high speed rail system isn't developed, there won't be another train to board once you get there. I really don't see what the new transit center is going to do to improve mass transit that much. If you think about it, couldn't all the money be better spent in another way, such as expanding the subway system? I know that the center will (or could) be stunning, but...

Might it make CalTrain more desirable to ride? I am not thinking as much about the larger stuff as just improving transit in the Bay Area. These issues are definitely beyond my scope of understanding.

^^^The main argument for the terminal is that it brings CalTrain closer to downtown--that is, 1st & Mission vs 4th & Townsend.

My argument all along, not widely shared I realize, is that:

- "Downtown" is moving south and encompassing South of Market so that 4th & Townsend will not be all that far anyway, but with Mission Bay's offices and labs as a commuter destination also, ultimately 4th & Townsend could be a good spot for the terminal

- If the Central Subway is built, CalTrain riders will have direct access to the traditional Financial District (and BART) via 2 LRV/subway routes (the N to Embarcadero and Montgomery Stations; the T to Powell Station, as well as access to Union Square, Moscone Center and Chinatown. Arguably, this is as good or better access than being 1 or 2 blocks from Montgomery Station (with a tunnel to get there) alone.

- Even if you consider the multimodal TransBay Terminal idea better than a separate CalTrain with the connections I've outlined, is it over $2 billion better?

- I don't consider the proposed TransBay towers as part of the issue because I think developers would be happy to build highrises--as high as they are allowed--in that area. The problem there is simply that the political will may not exist to raise the height limits unless it must be done to raise the money to build the terminal. So, in the end, we are saying that if we want the highrises, we have to spend $2.4 billion on an arguably unnecessary terminal to get them. I just can't accept the notion that we have to waste this kind of money for that reason.

How about this - we don't waste $1.4 billion on the Central Subway (sure to exceed $2 billion anyway) and send that money to help build BRT on all of the major transit corridors in the city and still have a few hundred million left to go towards the TTC?

If that were possible, then we would be having a different discussion entirely. Alas, that isn't possible. The federal funds are earmarked only for the Central Subway. We cannot use a penny of that for any other purpose, and if we don't build the CS then we lose all those funds to some other city.

Oh, I'm well aware of that. But the federal funds are less than $800 million of the total. And my view is: wasting money is wasting money, regardless of where the majority of that money comes from. If the $800 million of Federal money can be used on a better project in another city, it should be. And if the remaining $600 million could be used on better projects here, it should be. Saying that we should build the Central Subway simply because we have earmarked "free" money is like saying I should buy a $50,000 GMC Yukon instead of a $20,000 Scion because GM is giving me a $10,000 rebate.

I don't agree that it is wasting money. We need to think long-term. Its not necessarily what is needed now, but think 50 years from now. More than likely, there will be some form of high speed rail by then. At the very least, there will be commuter rail connections to the east bay, Sacramento and god-willing, Marin and Sonoma County. SF needs a transit hub of this order.

I agree with BT that the 4th & Townsend area is developing rapidly. I do feel that it needs a robust transit infrastructure (which it currently has). However, I just don't foresee it ever having the density (businesses, high rise condos, transit) that we are or will see in the Fremont & Mission area. Therefore, it is a better bet to build the transit center there. It may seem like an astronomical sum ($2.4 billion), but over the long-run, it is a very sound investment.

To be clear - I am VERY, VERY, VERY much in favor of the Transbay Transit Center. My comments were in regards to the Central Subway.

Subway trains can travel significantly faster than BRT and light rail as they do not need to slow down at intersections to avoid absent minded pedestrians or agressive drivers going through red lights. Their relative speed, compared to buses or light rail, makes subway trains an attractive alternative to cars.

It may be time for SF to start thinking like NYC is. A whole new pair of tunnels to link NJ to Penn Station is in the starting phases. SF should be thinking the same, a new tunnel to serve a long distance commuter rail need. SF to Oakland's station then skipping BART territory and connecting Stockton, Sacramento and the like. True long distance commuter rail. Housing may be stagnant, but it isn't getting cheaper, so there is still a strong incentive to build out in Stockton and Vallejo. Plus, if done right, this can bring future HSR into the city of San Francisco. Of course, the Transbay Terminal would be the logical end hub of a CR and HSR system.

And there is no practical way BRT would serve the same need as the Central Subway. The blocks, hills and congestion of the area would make the effort silly. I am a BRT fan, it can work, but dense inner-city is not the place for it.

I wasn't disputing that - that's obviously a fact (except maybe in Muni subways, that is). The point is cost/benefit analysis. Even if we leave out the $800 mil in "free" money from the Feds, is a subway with three/four total stops - and only one in Chinatown the best place to spend $600 mil? Is it better to upgrade service for X number of passengers by 50% or 4X number of passengers by 30%?

If we had loads of money to throw around, I'd say build subways everywhere, but we don't. The Transbay Transit Center is worth the money, IMO, because it improves access to and from the City by such a huge amount. But building the Central Subway sets work on other corridors within the City back not years, but decades. Do you seriously think we gain/keep more riders from their cars by improving one corridor by a lot instead of lots of corridors by a good bit?

Some more info:

http://www.examiner.com/a-833889~One...nly_lanes.html

Yes, I believe that in order to get drivers out of their cars, you need to offer them a public transit experience that comes close to the convenience of their car. If it isn't close, it will be a simple decision for them to just keep driving. An incremental improvement to bus service, while nice for the bus riders, is immaterial to drivers.

Perhaps, but we've got decades before we'll have a good subway system that is more than Market St and Stockton (only to Chinatown). Do you honestly think that the Central Subway will get anyone to give up their car? That isn't even one of the goals of it - it's to provide better service to one of the most heavily used transit corridors. The vehicle trips that might disappear because of the Central Subway are negligible - except for buses.

You only need to look to other cities (LA's Orange line is the closest full-scale BRT to us) to see that a fancy bus with dedicated lanes can get plenty of people out of their cars.

I don't think that's true. It is a true multimodal facility. The existing facility needs to be replaced. There is no downtown train station which could serve either Caltrain or High Speed Rail.

Downtown may be 'moving south' but there is no scenario at any time in the next 25 to 50 years in which there is a density of development centered around 4th & Townsend that comes anywhere near the density of development in the current Financial District. With the exception of a small number of potential air rights parcels, most of that area has already been planned, and most of that has already been developed. Envisinioning King Street as the next Market Street is just silly.

San Francisco needs a commuter rail terminal downtown. If BART served more than 1/3 of the population of the bay area, I would say we already had one... but it doesn't, and it never will. The (optimistic) projected combined ridership at the Transbay Terminal is almost 140,000 per day. Asking even a significant fraction of those people to get off their trains and transfer to a subway (which also has not even been built and can never compete in terms of speed) ignores what many would consider the very first rule of transit : minimize transfers.

I find it hard to understand that anyone who believes in density, urbanism, the environment, and cities in general would prefer to leave San Francisco's main rail connection more than a mile from downtown.... :shrug:

LA's orange line is on a former railway alignment and features therefore a limited number of intersections with surface roads. Its operating speed is probably comparable to that of rail.

If anybody wants to meet up beforehand and plan out some aggressive talking points we can use together at the meeting, PM me!

That's true, but trust me, I've seen many BRT systems around the world work that aren't on former rail lines and have to deal with signal priority (and do quite well) - Curitiba, Paris, Vegas, Vancouver to name a few. Going back to my original statement (many posts ago :)), I would lave to have subways criss-crossing the city. A lot of my displeasure with the Central Subway is personal - I want better transit in my lifetime. As it is now, the CS won't be finished for almost ten years. No other Muni or BART subway in the City will be started until construction on the CS is finished. Bus service will continue to get worse, especially if this "Parking for Neighborhoods" scam passes. I just hope that at least Geary and Van Ness BRT are finished in less than ten years, without too much watering down.

Got an e-mail today saying the proposals will be rolled out on August 6th!!!

I am very excited, lets hope for something TALL

Says it will be streamed live on the cities web site.

Oh nice, what time is the streaming?

Well, I made a suggestion way back in which they should alter the heights of the Piano Towers so as to avoid that "Twin Tower" look people might not want. In my opinion the view from Treasure Island should have the Transbay Tower as the pinnacle of the SF Skyline, being taller than the tallest of the Piano Towers.

Mind you, this is just my own version of this fantasy :)

http://img216.imageshack.us/img216/7...skylineoq7.jpg

The Transbay Transit Tower should be the tallest at 1500' followed by the tallest Piano Tower at 1350'. The second Transbay Tower (or the TJPA Site) could reach 1250' followed by the second Piano Tower at 1200' (as originally intended). The third tallest Transbay Tower would reach 1050' while the third tallest Piano Tower would also reach 1050'. The fourth tallest Piano Tower would be 900' (as originally intended) while the shortest Piano Tower would reach 750'. The towers of course would be built in the slender fashion so shadows and blocked views are not a concern. In addition, the location of the towers will form a "peak" in the skyline. The designs themselves would be nothing short of breathtaking.

Thats a longshot, but when you dream you've got to dream big.

Could you please give us the link?

i like this dream. :tup:

I am not special, I just signed up for the mailing list!

http://www.pbase.com/canonken/image/...3/original.jpg

Awesome. Can't wait to see what comes out of this.

Thanks. Here is the link to the City's website:
http://www.sfgov.org/

Maybe this idea has previously been discussed and discarded, but I've never heard it suggested before: why not piggyback the central subway on top of the Caltrain bore under 2nd Street (a la Market Street subway)?

The subway could have stops at Brannan, Folsom, and Market, then continue up Montgomery with stops near California, Columbus/Broadway/Chinatown, Washington Square. A spur from the northern segment of the line could connect into the Trans-Bay Terminal, again atop or aligned with the Caltrain tunnel.

BRT could serve the Caltrain - 4th St - Stockton route, turning west after Chinatown along Broadway (to van Ness? to Fillmore? to the Presidio?).

Seems this alignment would get more service closer to where it's most needed (West SoMa, Financial District, Chinatown). But... would the funding authorities allow funding for the two projects to be combined?