South Van Ness Quick-Build Project: An opportunity to improve our streets
Proposed designs fall short, missing an amazing opportunity
If you support my vision for South Van Ness, please send an email to Supervisor Ronen and SFMTA staff urging them to support it — it will take 10 seconds.
Every block of South Van Ness Avenue is on San Francisco’s High Injury Network (the 13% of city streets that account for over 75% of serious injuries and fatalities) — it is one of the most dangerous streets in our city:
- From 2015 to 2020, there were over 190 reported collisions along South Van Ness Avenue between 14th Street and Cesar Chavez.
- South Van Ness Avenue has one of the worst “killed or seriously injured” (KSI) rates of any street in San Francisco.
- 17% of all collisions along South Van Ness Avenue involved pedestrians. There was one pedestrian fatality in 2015 and one pedestrian fatality in 2019.
- The top three causes of collision along South Van Ness Avenue are red light violations, speeding, and failing to yield during a left turn.
Worst still, South Van Ness between 14th Street and Cesar Chavez is part of the SFCTA’s Communities of Concern, the areas of our city with people who are considered disadvantaged or vulnerable—now and in the future—and have high levels of households with minority or low-income status, seniors, people who have limited English proficiency, and/or people with disabilities.
The South Van Ness Quick-Build Project aims to “help reduce speeding and increase safety for drivers and pedestrians,” but the proposed changes will fall short of that objective and endanger our most vulnerable people.
The proposal (below) creates a dangerously wide driving lane — which will result in more crashes and faster speeds on South Van Ness than they currently do — and adds a center turn lane that is wider than is standard on our streets.
The proposed changes would create more space for speeding cars and reckless driving, and result in more crashes and serious injuries.
The good news is that there are ways to redesign the street to increase safety for our most-vulnerable road users—pedestrians (including kids and seniors) and people with disabilities—that are feasible with Quick-Build materials, like paint and soft-hit posts, and are proven to increase safety.
Proposal A: More space for people to walk/roll with easier and safer ways to cross the street
Proposal A creates more space for people to walk/roll by “widening the sidewalks” using soft-hit posts and moving parking off the curb, while retaining a center turn lane that is 10 feet wide.
SFMTA has used this technique in multiple areas of our city, including along Hunters Point Boulevard in Bayview–Hunters Points and on Jones Street in the Tenderloin. Not only does it create more space for people to walk/roll, it is a more-effective way to slow car speeds and increase safety (or “calm traffic”) and it would decrease the distance that people have to cross the street safely by 24% —from 58 to 44 feet—resulting in less serious injuries and fatalities.
Furthermore, narrowing the driving lanes from 15 to 10 feet will result in a reduction in speeds, crashes, and serious injuries.
Proposal A would make a meaningful improvement to the safety of South Van Ness Avenue and increasing the quality of life for nearby residents.
Proposal B: Protected bike lanes to improve access to the Mission and accelerate our mode shift
Proposal B would create a parking-protected bike lane, giving the Mission it’s first complete bike lane accessible to people of all ages and abilities—safe enough for an 8-year-old, 80-year-old, and mom with her kid.
SFMTA has used this technique throughout our city, most recently in SoMa and along the Embarcadero. Efforts to create protected bike lanes on Valencia Street between Market and Cesar Chavez have stalled indefinitely, and South Van Ness Avenue has the road width to create protected bike lanes between 14th Street and Cesar Chavez, which would connect the Mission and Bernal Heights to SoMa, Portero Hill, Mission Bay, and the Castro via South Van Ness Avenue, Folsom Street, 17th Street, and 14th Street, among other routes.
In addition to the transportation benefits of creating safer, more accessible, and connected bike infrastructure, Proposal B would create safer crossings for pedestrians and people with disabilities through the implementation of protected intersections along South Van Ness.
Finally, South Van Ness is a rare opportunity to add protected bike lanes without removing parking, as is normally required for similar efforts on other streets. Given the goals of SFMTA and our city, and the road width of South Van Ness, adding a protected bike lane is feasible and aligned with our goals.
Proposal B would increase safety and help our city shift to more sustainable modes of transporation.
In response to feedback and suggestions, below is modified design of Proposal B — “Proposal C” — that decreases the buffers by one foot and increases the driving lanes by one foot each, to allow for freight trucks to use South Van Ness more easily and safely.
Separately, people have talked about the need for a turning lane at intersections and it became clear that providing a cross-section for intersections would be helpful for visualizing the entire street design.
By using the space from the parking lane at intersections, a turning lane of 11 feet can be added on each side of every intersection, creating a “turn pocket” for turning vehicles in addition to a 7-foot “pedestrian refuge island” where pedestrians and people with disabilities can wait to cross the street.
These design elements and changes will allow left-turning vehicles to safely queue at intersections while decreasing the crossing distance by 25.5 feet (or a 43% decrease from the current crossing distance of 58.5 feet). We don’t need to decide between safe bike infrastructure and pedestrian safety, and we can allow for a turning lane where it’s needed most — at intersections.
A critical junction: Time to seize an opportunity to improve the safety of our streets
We need our elected officials — in this case, Hillary Ronen (Supervisor of District 9, which includes the Mission) — and SFMTA to implement changes that make meaningful safety and quality-of-life improvements to our streets.
There is an opportunity to improve South Van Ness, increase safety and quality of life for people in our “Communities of Concern”, and help make better use of our public space for generations to come. The solutions are feasible, cost-effective, and proven to be effective.
If you support my vision for South Van Ness, please take 10 seconds to send an email to Supervisor Ronen and SFMTA staff urging them to support it.
Thanks for reading, take care, and please stay safe.
–Luke
