What’s new on the west side?

What’s new on the west side?
By Andrea Buffa

The west side of San Francisco is home to some of San Francisco’s most beloved recreational destinations — Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, Lake Merced, Fort Funston and Ocean Beach, among others. But many of these natural attractions — and others like Mt. Sutro and Twin Peaks — are also geographic barriers that can make travel to and from the west side of the city more difficult.

This may be one reason why three out of four people traveling within, to or from the west side do so by personal car. It’s also why we need to make sure there are more safe, reliable and affordable transportation options between west side neighborhoods and other citywide destinations.

This month we released an interactive website, San Francisco’s West Side on the Move, describing local experiences, transportation challenges and solutions in neighborhoods from the Richmond and the Sunset to Lake Merced, Parkside and West Portal. The website pulls together our latest efforts to make it safer and more convenient for people on the west side to get where they need to go. Our goal is for people who want to take Muni to have reliable and frequent service; for those who want to walk or bike to have safe streets; and for people who drive to face less congestion.

Beyond the geographic barriers that impede west side travel, other transportation challenges on the west side include street closures caused by construction projects and frequent closure of the Great Highway for sand removal. Street transformations that began during the pandemic, like Slow Streets and the closure of some roads in Golden Gate Park to cars, also altered some residents' trip patterns. We've been listening to and collaborating with community members on the west side about how to better address these challenges and meet their needs as well.

San Francisco’s West Side on the Move describes the solutions we’ve implemented or plan to implement soon on the west side. Our Transit team has already made major strides in improving west side Muni lines like the 38 Geary and 5R Fulton Rapid using tools like red transit lanes, bus bulbs and smart traffic signals. Travel times on the 38 Geary are up to 20% faster than they were previously, and travel times on the 5R Fulton Rapid are up to 12% faster. We’ve also improved travel times on the 1 California and the N Judah.

While the L Taraval Improvement Project is still in construction, it has already delivered important safety benefits. On the completed section of the L Taraval, which finished on time and on budget, pedestrian injuries decreased by 60%. Improvements like this are vitally important in all San Francisco communities, and especially so in this part of the city which is home to so many older adults and families with small children.

When it comes to reducing congestion, we are adjusting signal timing to keep up with changing traffic patterns, adding turn lanes and restrictions in key locations and providing more loading zones in commercial areas to reduce double-parking. We also monitor the network for opportunities to improve bottlenecks, such as the recently re-opened MLK Drive between Chain of Lakes Drive and Sunset Boulevard.

To slow down traffic on residential streets and make walking and bicycling safer and more enjoyable, we’re using traffic calming tools like speed bumps to slow vehicle speeds. In 2021, the SFTMTA invested in a comprehensive package of traffic calming measures in the Outer Sunset to address local concerns. Monitoring indicates that traffic speed and volume was reduced, which ideally creates safer conditions for all road users.

While the Slow Streets program has provided valuable, safe routes for people who walk, bike and roll, we've heard from residents that they're not working well for every community, particularly the Sunset. There, the Sunset Neighborways program is replacing Slow Streets to create a network of safe streets for active transportation. The emphasis of Sunset Neighborways will be on slowing down traffic to improve safety, rather than restricting it. In the Richmond, Anza Street is a key corridor for biking and active transportation, and in response to community requests for a better east-west bike route through the neighborhood, we added bike lanes and safety improvements like speed cushions to slow traffic and create a street that can be easily and safely shared by cyclists and drivers.

By releasing San Francisco’s West Side on the Move, the SFMTA hopes to deepen its dialogue with west side community members about what’s working well and what can be improved when it comes to keeping the west side moving. Please share your ideas by emailing WestsideProjects@SFMTA.com

Should we say how important the decrease in pedestrian injuries is so significant given how many seniors and families with small kids live in the area?

Published October 29, 2022 at 02:49AM
https://ift.tt/F6qJ5eH

Comments

FOX NEWS: 'Lego Master' artist explains his job creating building challenges for contestants It takes almost as much creativity finding a Lego Master as it does to become one.

'Lego Master' artist explains his job creating building challenges for contestants It takes almost as much creativity finding a Lego Master as it does to become one. via FOX NEWS https://ift.tt/3yhaAqx

FOX NEWS: Dog earns Guinness World Record for longest ears This dog can definitely hear it when people say he’s a good boy.

Dog earns Guinness World Record for longest ears This dog can definitely hear it when people say he’s a good boy. via FOX NEWS https://ift.tt/3zKc8tR

MLA hostel in Mumbai evacuated after bomb scare https://ift.tt/3n307dK

An MLA hostel in south Mumbai was evacuated after the city police received a phone call about a bomb being placed in the building, an official said on Tuesday. However, no bomb was found after a search in the premises and the phone call turned out to be a hoax, he said. The incident took place on Monday night when an unidentified person called the police, saying a bomb was placed inside the Akashvani MLA hostel, located near the state secretariat, the official said.

New top story from Time: The Rolling Stones Open Their American Tour, Paying Tribute to Drummer Charlie Watts

https://ift.tt/3o7cVTy ST. LOUIS — The Rolling Stones are touring again, this time without their heartbeat, or at least their backbeat. The legendary rockers launched their pandemic-delayed “No Filter” tour Sunday at the Dome at America’s Center in St. Louis without their drummer of nearly six decades. It was clear from the outset just how much the band members — and the fans — missed Charlie Watts, who died last month at age 80. Except for a private show in Massachusetts last week, the St. Louis concert was their first since Watts’ death. The show opened with an empty stage and only a drumbeat, with photos of Watts flashing on the video board. After the second song, a rousing rendition of “It’s Only Rock ‘N’ Roll (But I Like It),” Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood came to the front of the stage. Jagger and Richards clasped hands as they thanked fans for the outpouring of support and love for Watts. Jagger acknowledged it was emotional seeing the photos of Watts....

New top story from Time: In the Gently Moving Minari, a Korean Family Finds Home in America’s Heartland

https://ift.tt/3ksxkyn Most stories about immigrants adjusting to America take place in cities, environs where a newcomer may already have family or friends, or at least be able to find a community. The family in writer-director Lee Isaac Chung’s Minari takes a different route: Jacob and Monica (Steven Yeun and Yeri Han) have come to America from Korea to seek better opportunities—we don’t know much more than that. But we do learn that Jacob has a dream of growing things, of being a farmer. Jacob, Monica and their two young children, David and Anne (Alan Kim and Noel Cho), have lived for a time in California, but as the movie opens, we see them driving to what will be their new home: A blocky rectangle of a house propped on cinderblocks, adjacent to a stretch of land that looks like paradise to Jacob—but not to Monica. She says little at first, but her stern silence tells us what she’s thinking: Why have you brought us here? This is 1980s Arkansas; there may be a few Koreans ...

New top story from Time: To Build Back Better, Tax Ultra-Wealthy Families Like Ours

https://ift.tt/2Y1lvIB After a summer of speculation, the contours of the deal needed to pass President Joe Biden’s popular “Build Back Better” agenda are becoming clear. To win key votes , Congress will have to find fresh sources of revenue to match new spending. Fortunately, there is an economically sound, overwhelmingly popular path that the President is endorsing: requiring ultra-wealthy families like ours to pay more in taxes. Doing so would mean reforming a tax code that allows the wealthiest to build and maintain fortunes without paying their share in taxes. Ultra-wealthy families further reduce their tax burdens to a pittance by deferring sale of their appreciated assets, borrowing against those assets and structuring their charitable giving. From 2014 to 2018, America’s 25 wealthiest people amassed a combined $401 billion, but in some years paid zero federal income tax, according to ProPublica . The Biden Administration calculates that America’s richest 400 famil...

FOX NEWS: Hurricane Ida forces dogs and cats to be airlifted from Louisiana, Mississippi to shelters across US As Hurricane Ida hits the South, animal shelters nationwide have been helping cats and dogs escape affected areas.

Hurricane Ida forces dogs and cats to be airlifted from Louisiana, Mississippi to shelters across US As Hurricane Ida hits the South, animal shelters nationwide have been helping cats and dogs escape affected areas. via FOX NEWS https://ift.tt/3kHFCmR

New top story from Time: Jasper Johns: “Dying While on Assignment Doesn’t Seem Like a Bad Idea”

https://ift.tt/39PD2WS Jasper Johns, possibly America’s most famous living artist and still plying his trade at 91, launches two retrospectives on Sept. 29; one at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City and the other at the Philadelphia Museum of Art . The exhibitions, known collectively as Mind/Mirror, illuminate the through lines of Johns’ large body of work: his fascination with such everyday symbols as numbers, targets, maps and flags; his sometime habit of limiting his color palette to red, blue, yellow and orange; and his exploration of such techniques as collage, hatching and scale. One section of the Whitney is dedicated to his variations on the motif of a Savarin coffee can crammed with brushes, which is widely believed to be the artist’s way of representing himself. Johns, who famously destroyed all his prior work before painting his first flag, lives in Connecticut and rarely gives interviews. He answered questions from TIME via email. [time-brightco...

New top story from Time: The Overlapping Worlds of Author Amor Towles

https://ift.tt/3AUkxMM Amor Towles had never actually been beneath the vaulted ceiling of an Adirondack lake house when he described the one in his 2011 debut, the best-selling Rules of Civility . He could only imagine the appeal of such an exalted communal space—“this great room where the family gathers”—until, while shopping for a second home with the money from that book, he found himself touring a property an hour and a half north of Manhattan. “I was like, This is it!” says Towles, throwing his arms toward a 30-ft. ceiling that, like the glistening lake outside, now belongs entirely to him. “It was this weird thing where I was kind of buying the living room that I had written about,” he says. “Which, in a Stephen King novel, would end badly.” [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] In the storybook life of Amor Towles, however, the new owner lays down thick Oriental rugs (thicker still where they overlap), sets his laptop on a long oval table by floor-to-ceiling windows and—...

New top story from Time: Here’s What We Learned From Three New Britney Spears Documentaries, From Secret Surveillance to #FreeBritney Infiltrators

https://ift.tt/3m9avBb A flurry of new documentaries centered on Britney Spears and her court-ordered conservatorship have shed more light on the immense hardship that Britney has faced over the course of the 13-year legal arrangement. The three specials—FX and the New York Times’ Controlling Britney Spears , CNN’s Toxic: Britney Spears ‘ Battle for Freedom and Netflix’s Britney Vs Spears —were all released in the week leading up to Britney’s highly anticipated Sept. 29 court date, a hearing at which Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Brenda Penny is expected to address Britney’s petitions to remove her father, Jamie Spears, as conservator and terminate the conservatorship as well as Jamie’s own unexpected petition to end the arrangement . [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Attention surrounding the hearing and the fan-driven #FreeBritney movement has continued to ramp up in recent days as reports of shocking new details regarding Britney’s case, as alleged by t...

My precise view

Search This Blog