Tuesday Crankset meeting? and important event
Morgan Fitzgibbons
So as you all know we have a Wigg Party Party coming up on Thursday the 14th and, as usual, we like to have a meeting before hand to make sure we're all on the same page about what gets addressed at the event. I'm going to include a proposed list of agenda items for the meeting at the end of this email, but we should still meet. BK and I were talking last night and we think Tuesday would be a good night to meet because....
There is also an important event that we should try to get a bunch of people to go to on Tuesday at 6:30 pm. The SFBC is having a "treehouse talk" to discuss their new Connecting the City campaign. The meeting is at their offices on Market and 4th and it's a great opportunity for us to meet with all the major players in an informal way and basically influence the plan they are putting together for the Wiggle. If we can get 4 or 5 people there (I know Ben and I are already going to make it) then we can really affect the future of the space. Below, I'm including an email written by Andy Thornley to Josh Hart detailing their plans for the Wiggle as it stands now.
So the idea is to have a bunch of people make the treehouse talk meeting and then we would come back to the Sunshine Castle for the Crankset meeting. I think we would get back here at 8:30ish but there is no end time for the treehouse talk so maybe we should say 9 to be safe.
Sound ok to you guys?
Morgan
Proposed Agenda Items:
1. Updates on the latest happenings - PARKing Day, Sunday Streets, 10/10/10
2. Sus Biz - Carrotmob detail and build up
3. Wigg Trans - Updates on Duboce/Church and our strategy for Fell St (which might change depending on how strong the SFBC stands against a two-way cycle track on Fell)
3a. Also a new group is forming called City Repair SF which is basically an SF version of the City Repair in Portland. It's basically Permaculture Guild people with a Permaculture Design Course group kick starting the organization as their design project for the class. They decided last night that they want their first project to be a design for either Waller and Steiner or Waller and Pierce. It'll be great to have added support for this aspect of the Wiggle and they want to briefly present what they're about at our meeting. It will bring in like 7-8 young bright permaculture people into our group so I think we should make this happen.
Here's the email from Andy Thornley. Really detailed and interesting. You should really read this if you plan on coming to the Treehouse Talk. Don't tell him I sent it to you - ha!
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Andy Thornley <a...@sfbike.org>
Date: Wed, Oct 6, 2010 at 10:39 AM
Subject: Re: sfbc fell street plan
To: Joshua Hart <joshuanoahh...@googlemail.com>
Hey Josh --
I'll stop one of these days and have a cup of something, just too damned
busy, I'm on a "day off" right now answering loose email before heading out
to the TransForm board retreat for the rest of the day . . .
As you know Fell Street is a stinker, you've got five big driveways (Arco,
Spirit, Ted & Al's, Falletti's, DMV) on the south side between Scott and
Baker, and nine residential driveways in the one block between Scott and
Divisadero. The north side of Fell, which some people insist is the logical
side for the bikeway, has a lot more residential driveways, and carries on
with more driveways even along the Panhandle. But we think there's a nice
protected bikeway to try on the south side of the street, from Scott to
Stanyan and into the park.
As a plan, it's conceptual and feasible, we've worked it out with some
private-practice planners and some agency staff and some SFBC staff and
longtime members. But it's still got plenty of details to work out, and many
of those might be best resolved via trials. We're just starting to talk with
members and others about the positive transformative benefit to the city
from a growing system of complete crosstown bikeways, comfortable and
inviting to all. Showing people a feasible Fell Street cycletrack, with
their friends and neighbors and in-laws riding on it, is a powerful rallying
device -- people who don't think of themselves as bicyclists, but
might/would be if there were safe comfortable continuous bikeways to travel,
are the market for the visuals. There's a feasible concept underneath the
vision, with particulars to resolve, and nothing is going to happen without
SFBC members and neighbors and agency types all picking and pecking on the
plan.
Basically we think the city can bring Fell from three travel lanes down to
two west of Scott Street, maybe further upstream. Taking the dimensions on
either side of Broderick Street as a typical segment, 48' 9" wide with 10'
sidewalks*, here's our proposed lane layout (north to south):
8' 6" parking
10' travel lane
10' travel lane
8' 6" parking lane
4' buffer
7' 9" cycletrack
Just like the Portland trial (Broadway) with the one-way polarity reversed:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bikeportland/3875708026/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bikeportland/3875707146/
Of course you could give that last 9" of cycletrack width to the parking
lanes to get them closer to 9', or otherwise allocate the spread
differently, many ways to slice the pie. Presently the travel lanes are 9'
6" (the northern/righmost lane is actually a combined 17' 6" parking/travel
lane, effectively 8' + 9' 6"), so Muni express bus operators deadheading
back to their western start points should be happier.
We suggest continuing the cycletrack along the Panhandle portion as well;
some say this is redundant to the Panhandle Path but we think it's worth
pulling the cycletrack along the whole way and leave the path for families
and wheelchairs and strollers (and of course the path should be widened and
repaved and otherwise improved for its own good).
The SFCTA is starting to look at circulation issues around post-Central
Freeway / Octavia Boulevard conditions, and Fell Street is a natural and
central part of that. I know the prospect of road-dieting Fell will freak
out the straights, but neighbors along the Fell corridor want their
neighborhood street back and we'll push for the road diet (with accompanying
tactics like signal timing and parking management) as Plan A for civilizing
Fell. Plan B would be to strip parking from the southern curb from Scott to
Stanyan, but apart from the considerable political challenge of that
proposal it'd probably make a better bikeway to keep a barrier of parked
cars, and not just a painted buffer.
The Fell St cycletrack would be one-way westbound and mated with an
eastbound Oak Street cycletrack, likewise on the left side, similar geometry
and lane layout (though perhaps the track shifts right/south at Baker, it's
an open question). Some have proposed examining prospects for a
bidirectional cycletrack on Oak, avoid Fell altogether and rationalize the
desire line, but we've looked at it and it just runs into different gas
stations and driveway conflicts without adding much benefit. But I'm
definitely open to further thoughts on a consolidated Oak St alignment.
Speaking of which, one of the big obvious details to work out for a Fell
cycletrack is driveway and intersection treatments -- as I said, it's not
just the blasted Arco station that needs containment, there are other big
and little driveways along the route, and permitted vehicular lefts at
Divisadero, Broderick, Baker, and Masonic. We can, as a city, brick over the
Arco driveways, and we might yet (or they might follow dozens of other
gasoline shops around the city and go out of business of their own accord,
that could happen sooner than a legal condemnation proceeding), but there
are numerous other conflict points to work through. We've got ideas,
starting with a continuous and unbroken stripe of green pavement designating
the bikeway, no dashing or dropping, to set out the priority and visibility
of that right of way, and obviously all conflict points must be daylighted
to maximize (peripheral and direct) sight lines. It's certainly possible
that some or all of those vehicular left turns could be prohibited, but
Faletti's driveway has a fairly fresh permit and Ted & Al aren't going to
shut their garage without a fight, so we'll have to work out some
accommodation as we work towards gradually closing each of those breaches.
Okay, that's plenty for now, I've got to get rolling to Oakland. I'm eager
to have your help with this, nothing's been decided or settled except that
we all want a safe, comfortable, dignified, inviting, 8-to-80 bikeway from
the Ferry Building to Ocean Beach, and Fell Street is central to that, and
we're ready to call for a big meaningful pilot/trial on Fell Street in 2011.
The particulars are all open and in play, it's not a back-room deal-cutting
affair, and the conversation is starting in earnest. Come out for next
week's Treehouse Talk <http://www.sfbike.org/?chain#4188> and we'll get on
with the game . . .
Ding ding,
--Andy--
at 53' 9", with a 15' sidewalk on the north side
Jeffrey Yasskin
be touring Montreal on a Bixi instead :), but I wanted to send you
guys my arguments so they can make it to the meeting. I sent the
following email to Andy Thornley so he feels like there's an extra
person with these opinions even if I'm not at the talk:
-------
I won't be in town for the treehouse talk about the crosstown bikeways
proposal, but I'd like to send you my thoughts so you can take them
into account. (if they're good, of course)
I think it makes sense to remove the parking between Scott and Baker
(about 50 spaces, counting on google maps), remove one traffic lane
between Baker and Stanyan, and put a 2-way cycle-track in its place.
So, from north to south in the first section we'd have parking,
traffic, traffic, traffic, barrier, cycle-track; and in the second
section we'd have parking, traffic, traffic, traffic, parking,
barrier, cycle-track. Since the cycle-track would be 2 ways, we
wouldn't need a matching bike lane on Oak.
Even though I don't own a car, I think removing a traffic lane on that
section of Fell is unnecessarily mean to car-users, will slow down
taxis (which I do use), and may divert traffic onto Haight, Hayes, or
Fulton/McAllister where it'll conflict with transit. Obviously
removing the parking will be controversial too, but I suspect cutting
Fell down to 2 traffic lanes for a section will be worse. The MTA's
traffic modeling program may say that I'm wrong about the impacts, but
I think you should check that before proposing to remove the traffic
lane.
The section of Fell by the Panhandle is different: it's currently 4
lanes for no apparent reason. Narrowing it to 3 to match the rest of
Fell shouldn't affect capacity at all, and so should be less
controversial. That lets us save parking there, reducing controversy.
If you do want to narrow Fell to 2 lanes, I'd definitely narrow it
before Scott. Narrowing it exactly at Scott would cause lots of turns
there, exactly where they'll conflict with bike traffic turning left
into the cycletrack. The next major north-south car-street before that
is Webster, if I recall correctly, so it'd probably make most sense to
narrow Fell all the way back to there.
If Oak turns out to be easier to put the 2-way cycle-track on, that
seems equivalent, except that at the GG Park end the weird Shrader
bike crossing wouldn't work from Oak.
I'd be interested in trying to separate the cycletrack from the
traffic lanes with planters, possibly like the long narrow ones used
at the Mojo parklet. The Mojo planters feel like a safe, solid barrier
even when cars are whizzing by on the other side, and they're pretty
narrow so they might let the barrier take up less of the roadway.
Thanks for your time,
Jeffrey Yasskin