Reimagine Potrero Yard with Us – Summer Milestones

Reimagine Potrero Yard with Us – Summer Milestones
By Adrienne Heim

A rendering of the future modernized Potrero Yard

A potential rendering of the future modernized Potrero Yard

The Potrero Yard Modernization Project will rebuild the existing Potrero bus yard to ensure we maintain our bus fleet as efficiently as possible and enhance the facility’s resilience to climate change and other natural disasters. The Project will also ensure our staff is able to perform their work in a safe and efficient way and address the City’s broader goals for new housing and affordable housing. The Project has issued a Request for Qualifications (RFQ), an important step for modernizing the yard.

The Project Concept

The modern yard will be able to store 213 buses, increasing capacity by approximately 50%.

In addition, the facility will include the following features:

LEED Gold Certification
An elevated structural and seismic building standard
Infrastructure for battery-electric buses
Centralized location for Street Operations - Muni’s “first responders”
Centralized, modern space for Muni operator training
Active ground floor uses on Bryant, and possibly 17th streets

“This exciting project will help fix two of the city's most pressing issues: lack of affordable housing and unreliable transit service,” said Alexander Hirji, Potrero Yard Neighborhood Working Group member and San Francisco Youth Commissioner. “The yard portion of the Project allows the SFMTA to maintain buses effectively, send them out to the riders, and it allows for future bus technology innovations in years to come. Up top, the affordable housing portion allows this city to make strides toward its goals for providing quality affordable housing to residents. This project will shape the Agency for many decades, and in a good, sustainable, and equitable way.”

An image showing a three level bus yard with mixed-use housing on top

A modernized Potrero Yard would have multiple uses.

Housing on Top of the Yard

An image of the Potrero Yard

Potrero Yard is home to much of Muni's trolleybus fleet

The SFMTA is proposing up to 575 rental units of housing with an initial affordability target of 50%. The city’s committed to addressing the shortage of affordable housing and is therefore challenging potential developers to seek additional funds to maximize the affordability percentage, up to as much as 100% affordable. Many factors informed the proposed project’s size and unit count, such as building height, massing, financial feasibility and shadows on Franklin Square.

Two months ago, virtual community conversations were hosted to provide a refresher about the project and discuss where we are in the process. If you were unable to attend, please listen to the June 6 conversation to hear the project team and members of the community discuss the project.

We’re excited to announce that we’ve achieved three major milestones last week:

The Project’s Request for Qualifications (RFQ) was issued to begin the developer procurement process followed by a press release.

The RFQ is the first of a two-step process to bring a developer partner under contract with the city. This stage is to pre-qualify a group of professionals who have the experience and financial backing to successfully complete this project. Ideally, we will end up with three qualified developer teams.

The second step is to ask those pre-qualified teams for project proposals as part of the Request for Proposal (RFP) stage, which will end up in the selection of a single developer partner.

Special legislation was introduced by the Board of Supervisors last Tuesday, August 18, to set rules for a long-term agreement with a developer team that would design, build, finance, operate and maintain the new yard.

The legislation obligates the project to prevailing wages, a Local Business Enterprise (LBE) program, the city’s local hire policy and first source hiring ordinance. The ordinance also allows payment of a design stipend for up to two unsuccessful respondent development teams. This special legislation will first be heard by the Budget and Finance Committee consisting of Supervisors Walton, Fewer and Mandelman.

A meeting to introduce all the topic areas that will be covered in the environmental impact document (referred collectively as the “project scope”) will be held by the San Francisco Planning Department on Wednesday, September 2, beginning at 6:00 p.m.

You may also view a video presentation by SF Planning for the project and provide comments to cpc.PotreroYardEIR@sfgov.org concerning the scope of the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) until 5:00 p.m., September 18.

The meeting event will take place on Zoom: https://swca.zoom.us/s/92577630432/ Meeting ID: 925 7763 0432, or join by phone at 1.888.475.4499.

The purpose of the meeting is to collect comments from other regulatory agencies and the public on the draft scope. This is an opportunity for the public to add topic areas that SF Planning may not have included in their initial scoping process. More information can be found at the Planning Environmental Review Documents page under Potrero Yard Modernization Project – 2019-021884ENV.

Community Outreach

We will be tabling on Labor Day weekend, September 5 and 6, from noon to 5:00 p.m. at John O’Connell High School (Harrison Street between 18th and 20th streets) for the Carnaval San Francisco Latino COVID-19 Healing & Recovery – Salud es Poder event hosted by CANA-Carnaval San Francisco in partnership with the San Francisco Latino Task Force, community based organizations, health providers, and San Francisco City Departments.

We’re also planning to host English- and Spanish-language virtual community events to discuss the second step of the developer procurement process, the RFP, which we hope to issue in early 2021.

Learn more about the project by visiting www.sfmta.com/PotreroYard.

For more information, please email PotreroYard@sfmta.com or call us at 415.646.2223.

Published August 27, 2020 at 06:53AM
https://ift.tt/34OCz63

Comments

New top story from Time: How 3 Key In the Heights Scenes Were Reimagined From Stage to Screen

https://ift.tt/3iIBhAh When director Jon M. Chu first saw the musical In the Heights on Broadway in 2008, his imagination whirred to life with possibilities. “Imagine if this was in a tunnel and the tunnel lights up?” he remembers thinking while sitting in the theater. “Imagine if you could look through a window of somebody dreaming, and the community could be reflected in the reflection?” More than a decade later, Chu is bringing these reveries to life as the director of the musical’s film adaptation, which arrived in theaters and on HBO Max on June 11. While other recent film-to-stage adaptations — like Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and One Night in Miami — have leaned into the intimate, contained aesthetic of theatrical performances, Chu’s In the Heights has the ambition and scale of the most epic blockbuster films, complete with hundreds of extras and dancers, vibrant animated graphics, gravity-defying Fred Astaire-inspired dance numbers, and plenty of slick camerawork ...

New top story from Time: Germany Has Officially Recognized Colonial-Era Atrocities in Namibia. But For Some, Reconciliation Is a Long Way Off

https://ift.tt/3fVRkaO The German government formally recognized colonial-era atrocities against the Herero and Nama people in modern-day Namibia for the first time, referring to the early 20th century massacres as “genocide” on Friday and pledging to pay a “ gesture to recognize the immense suffering inflicted.” “In light of the historical and moral responsibility of Germany, we will ask Namibia and the descendants of the victims for forgiveness,” said German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas in a statement , adding that the German government will fund projects related to “reconstruction and the development” of Namibia amounting to €1.1 billion ($1.3 billion). The sum will be paid out over 30 years and must primarily benefit the descendants of the Herero and Nama, Agence France-Presse reported . [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Although it’s a significant step for a once colonial power to agree such a deal with a former colony, there’s skepticism among some experts and ob...

'Situation not normal, don't lower guard': Delhi's 1st COVID patient cautions people https://ift.tt/35GmCxs

As many continue to take leeway during the festive season, Delhi's coronavirus patient has cautioned people to stay indoors as much as possible because "situation is not back to normal". Rohit Datta, who was diagnosed with the infection on March 1, appealed to the masses to "not lower guard" by getting into a casual festive mode.

New top story from Time: The Security Perimeter Around the Capitol Starts to Recede — and Washington Feels a Little More Normal

https://ift.tt/3ssgaEo This article is part of the The DC Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox every weekday. Washington isn’t a city particularly known for its rationality. We do overreaction better than most, and that talent is rivaled only by underreaction. Passions fuel far too much public policy, personalities dictate what is possible and personal relationships often triumph over pragmatism. It’s something I usually bemoan and curse under my breath — or, increasingly, in this newsletter. So you’ll forgive a moment of indulgent irrationality and some merriment. For, you see, the fencing around the U.S. Capitol has come down. Well, not all of it. And the barriers that remain don’t have an expiration date and may never get one. But at least some of the garish barricades that went up in response to the deadly failed insurrection on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6 have been dismantled. The razor-wire on its top is gone, too...

New top story from Time: Our Eyes on the Virus: Why We Still Need Widespread Rapid Testing Even With Vaccines

https://ift.tt/3i5MoTN The vaccines are here. Why do we still need testing? Testing is our eye on the virus. Without testing, we can’t see where it is or where it is going. As fall and winter set in, outbreaks will again occur, sparked by the unvaccinated. And most people become infectious before they know they are infected. Frequent and accessible rapid testing is a tool that if deployed last summer and fall would have saved 100,000 lives. The U.S. missed the opportunity to use frequent rapid testing to stop individuals from unintentionally spreading the lethal SARS-CoV-2 virus to our most vulnerable and avert the horrific winter surge. By rapid tests, I mean the tests that an individual can conduct without a laboratory (ideally in the privacy of their own home) with results given in real-time. There are two types: rapid antigen tests, which look for the virus’s proteins and detect infectious levels of virus. The other lets you know you’ve been infected: rapid molecular...

FOX NEWS: Toddler admitted into American Mensa has an IQ of 146, makes history as youngest member A 2-year-old girl has just made history as the youngest member of American Mensa.

Toddler admitted into American Mensa has an IQ of 146, makes history as youngest member A 2-year-old girl has just made history as the youngest member of American Mensa. via FOX NEWS https://ift.tt/3yHFGc7

New top story from Time: The Most Powerful Court in the U.S. is About to Decide the Fate of the Most Vulnerable Children

https://ift.tt/34relNF When child custody cases come before family courts, judges endeavor to base their rulings on the best interests of the child. Overall, the court is less interested in which parent might have the most right to the children than in how best to help the children thrive. The Supreme Court might now be walking a very similar line. It is on the verge of deciding a landmark case that could have a profound impact on the more than 400,000 vulnerable children who find themselves in the U.S. foster care system. Its ruling could also have major implications for LGBTQ rights, religious liberty and nondiscrimination laws across America. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The case, Fulton v. City of Philadelphia , was sparked when the city said it would no longer contract with a faith-based agency, Catholic Social Services (CSS), to provide foster services after a 2018 Philadelphia Inquirer article revealed that it would not certify same-sex couples to be foster pare...

New top story from Time: 2021 Could Be the Biggest Wedding Year Ever. But Are Guests Ready to Gather?

https://ift.tt/3wC3WKU I was supposed to get married in September. Well, technically, as my husband would be quick to correct me, I did get legally married in September 2020 in the courtyard of our New York City apartment building in front of our parents, a handful of friends who lived nearby and a naked guy standing in the window of the building next door, who, I am told, cheered when we recessed. The 13 people in attendance wore masks I’d ordered with our wedding date printed on them, sat in distanced lawn chairs and sipped gazpacho I’d blended and individually bottled that morning in a frenzy of health-safety panic. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] This was not the wedding of 220 people that we had originally planned. A few months into the pandemic, we made the call to delay our big celebration until 2021. We were hardly alone. In a typical year, Americans throw 2 million weddings, according to wedding website the Knot. Last year, about 1 million couples in the U.S. post...

New top story from Time: Constance Wu and Jenny Han on the Power of Inclusive Storytelling

https://ift.tt/3wFvLCm In conversation with senior editor Lucy Feldman as part of TIME’s “Uplifting AAPI Voices” summit , actor Constance Wu and To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before author Jenny Han discussed their groundbreaking work both in front of and behind the camera, the need for nuanced Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) representation and their love for a good rom-com. TIME: When the film adaptations of Crazy Rich Asians and To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before first came out, there was a whole generation of Asian Americans who had never seen ourselves reflected like that. What did those films mean to you? And how did they change things? [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Wu: I was in a unique position, having that happen to me with two big-profile projects: first there was Fresh Off the Boat, which was seeing yourself represented on network American TV. That was something that really hadn’t happened in a long time. Crazy Rich Asians was on a bigger sc...

New top story from Time: How Distrust of Donald Trump Muddled the COVID-19 ‘Lab Leak’ Debate

https://ift.tt/3utwzbH This article is part of the The DC Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox every weekday. Around this time a year ago, then-President Donald Trump and his administration started to pivot away from their early defense of China’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. They abandoned their chase of an election-year trade deal and adopted a more critical posture that laid blame for the fast-spreading virus on Beijing. Deploying patently anti-Asian rhetoric , Trump and his team started a systemic—and roundly condemned —campaign in April suggesting that the virus leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan, the city in which it was first identified. Trump routinely referred to COVID-19 as “the China virus,” “the Wuhan virus” and even “Kung Flu.” [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Most mainstream voices in the press and in labs ignored Trump’s rhetoric, rightly predicting it would spark a wave of anti-Asian hate cri...

My precise view

Search This Blog