Construction on the eastbound 13th Street bikeway is expected to start this summer.
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors on Tuesday determined that a bikeway project on 13th Street qualified for an exemption from the environmental review process.
Resident Mary Miles filed the appeal and said the project should not be exempt from the environmental review process of because of misstated facts on the number traffic lanes the project will remove on 13th Street, and the air quality effects of the project:
“The City has admitted that there may be significant impacts that automatically removes this project from realm of a categorical exemption. You cannot say a project may have impacts … it says it may have impacts to air quality due to congestion.”
Miles also said in the appeal letter that traffic volumes were inaccurately reported and the project would reduce capacity for vehicles on the portion of the project.
The project in question includes installing a protected bikeway on 13th from Folsom to Bryant streets and a parking-protected bikeway on 13th between Harrison and Bryant streets in the eastbound direction, according the SFMTA.
Jennifer Wong, a transportation planner with the SFMTA, said that the project removes a lane of traffic in order to accommodate the new parking-protected bikeway.
The SFMTA Board of Directors approved the project in April.
Christopher Espiritu, environmental and transportation planner for the Planning Department, said the project would not result in significant impacts to the environment.
Espiritu said the data submitted by the SFMTA on traffic volumes within project scope did meeting guidelines of the Planning Department. The SFMTA collected the data on April 19, 2016 between the hours of 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Also, Espiritu addressed the reduction of vehicle capacity of the roadway. He said the appellant misunderstood the data in the Planning Department’s report on vehicle capacity on the roadway for the project:
“The 13th Street roadway would continue to have adequate capacity to handle those traffic volumes.”
The Planning Department report addressed the air quality effects from the project. The report said while the project will not add any additional vehicle trips, the report said the reconfiguration of the roadway may alter travel patterns around the project area, which may result in increased delays leading to increased emissions around the project area.
The report said the impacts are “likely to be minor” and determined there would be no significant impacts to the air quality.
Construction on the eastbound 13th Street bikeway was installed in May, said SFMTA spokesperson Ben Jose.
Jerold serves as a reporter and San Francisco Bureau Chief for SFBay covering transportation and occasionally City Hall and the Mayor's Office in San Francisco. His work on transportation has been recognized by the San Francisco Press Club. Born and raised in San Francisco, he graduated from San Francisco State University with a degree in journalism. Jerold previously wrote for the San Francisco Public Press, a nonprofit, noncommercial news organization. When not reporting, you can find Jerold taking Muni to check out new places to eat in the city.
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‘Resident Mary Miles’ RESIDENT?!? Mary Miles may be a resident, but she was also anti-bike nut Rob Anderson’s mouthpiece in his failed attempt to block the progress of bicycle improvements all over the city for many years. Their theory? It is that bicycles are bad for the environment because they make cars have to slow down, thereby using more gas and creating more pollution. I am not kidding here. How Jerold Chinn could be ignorant of this staggers the mind: it is public information, easily accessed. I have criticized his bad and lazy reportage in the past, but this takes the cake! Either he is the least informed reporter I have ever heard of, or he does not disclose that he is anti-bike too.
Shame on you, Jerold Chinn. SFBay deserves, WE deserve, better information.
But big thanks to our Board of Supervisors for standing up to these two very strange and nasty people. Why is Bob Gunderson…er, uh, I mean Rob Anderson, so anti-bike? There are several theories…
This is a pretty dumb account of our successful litigation against the city. It wasn’t merely our “theory” that, according to the most important environmental law in the state, the city was required to do an environmental review of the 500-page Bicycle Plan before it began implementing it on the streets of the city. That’s what the litigation was about.
Of course if you deliberately make traffic worse you also create more traffic congestion and greenhouse gases. Please explain why there’s something nutty about that and what exactly is “strange and nasty” about those of us who brought that successful litigation against the city.
Mr. Chinn wasn’t providing an historical overview of the issue, just a story on the city’s 13th Street lie, which is the same lie, rejected by the courts, the city made about the Bicycle Plan way back in 2005: http://district5diary.blogspot.com/2006/11/judge-buschs-decision.html
Yawn
Yes, facts and reality are so boring! Personal insults are much more interesting.
YOUR facts, YOUR reality. Not at all the same thing as facts and reality. (cue Twilight Zone theme).
I’ve at least provided a link to Judge Busch’s 2006 decision against the city’s flagrant attempt to ignore the most important environmental law in the state by not doing any environmental review of the Bicycle Plan. Why don’t you provide some “alternative facts”? Was Judge Busch wrong about the facts and the law?
Great to see SFMTA sticking with its commitment to Vision Zero on the Division/13th street high injury corridor. Still not enough, but a good start.
Where’s the evidence that 13th Street is a “high-injury corridor”? The MTA makes that claim, but, as Miles pointed out, it didn’t provide credible evidence for the claim.
Like its lie on the Bicycle Plan in 2005, the city gave this traffic-snarling project a General Rule Exemption under CEQA, which is reserved only for projects that can’t possibly have any impact on the environment. Taking away traffic lanes on a busy street like 13th obviously will make congestion worse in that part of town.
http://district5diary.blogspot.com/2006/11/judge-buschs-decision.html
The myth that removing a traffic lane that at most can handle 300 people per hour and replacing it with a protected bike lane that can handle as many as 1,200 people an hour has long ago been busted by traffic engineers. This city does have crippling gridlock, caused by 10,000 new people moving into this city year after year for the past 10 years with no new transportation infrastructure to handle them. We know that it’s impossible to squeeze more cars on our congested streets. Removing bike lanes or safer intersections wouldn’t put a dent in our traffic congestion. It would only result in more blood being spilled and lives destroyed each time someone makes a split second error in judgement. Our streets shouldn’t be this poorly designed.
The only viable way to fight snarling traffic congestion in a dense urban city is to give people viable alternatives to using vehicles, which is exactly what protected bike lanes do. Everywhere protected bike lanes are built, there’s a surge in ridership and a decrease in collisions.
13th street is deadly for cyclists, and theres never traffic congestion on those streets. 13th street connects the busy bike routes on Folsom to Townsend, which handles thousands of cyclists each day. The idea that building a bike lane should require years of studies and paperwork is just plain stupid. This city already lags behind many other major cities in the US in the construction of safe protected bicycle routes. This city takes years to build what other cities are able to do in months, and people seriously are claiming that we’re going too fast; that we should just cripple every bicycle infrastructure project with red tape? How is this stupid idea remotely defensible? It doesn’t make any sense!
Please provide evidence that 13th Street is “deadly.” According to CEQA, the most important environmental law in California, cities and private developers are required to do an environmental study on any project that even might have an impact on the environment. What exactly is “stupid” about that sensible idea?
Two people riding bicycles have been killed on 13th street, and the city has it listed as a high injury corridor. This means it’s one of a small percentage of streets where the vast majority of injuries in this city occur. It is absolutely stupid to require millions of dollars in paperwork and years of studying to determine what is common sense to anyone who’s ever walked or ridden a bicycle on 13th street; it’s dangerous.
Who were those cyclists, where did they die, how did they die, and who was responsible? The city relies on credulous people like you who accept their pronouncements without question. The city now routinely uses the safety lie to justify bike projects:
http://district5diary.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-big-lie-about-masonic-avenue-lives.html
Wait, are you seriously claiming that 13th street is safe for biking and walking, and that the entire city government is part of conspiracy to publish fake information on people being injured and killed in this dangerous corridor? You’re going to have to try harder than that Rob because i don’t think most people will find that to be a very compelling argument! Aside from the city’s own studies which I linked to previously, anyone who’s ever walked or biked on 13th street can see for themselves that it’s dangerous.
Without a protected bike lane, a driver legally driving the speed limit on that section of road might only have less than a second to see and avoid a cyclist legally riding on the street or a pedestrian legally crossing at a crosswalk. Who’s at fault for the collisions along this dangerous corridor really shouldn’t matter. Nobody is perfect because we’re all human and we all occasionally make mistakes. That’s why we need safer street designs that have a safety margin so that blood isn’t spilled and lives destroyed just because someone made a split second error in judgement.
Requiring CEQA for a bicycle lane is absurd and you know it! The cost of such a study would dwarf the actual construction costs of the protected bike lane that they’re going to build! These protected bike lanes are being built by a relatively small crew of construction workers under the guidance of the SFMTA using NACTO approved design for street safety improvements, which have been vetting by traffic engineers and are being used by cities all over this country, none of which require all of the red tape you’re proposing.
You didn’t link a “study.” You linked a Vision Zero map that supposedly shows where accidents happen—oh, of course I mean “collisions” happen on city streets because there’s no such thing as an “accident,” right?
Of course Vision Zero is bullshit, nothing but a PR slogan, as the city’s own information shows: http://sfgov.org/scorecards/traffic-fatalities
Funny, but 2016 shows that accidents and injuries in the city are much the same as previous years.
The city relies on people like you who accept whatever it says in the name of “safety.” It’s not a matter of a “conspiracy,” which implies secrecy. It’s bad public policy that’s done in the open with the support of people like you who have good intentions but don’t really know how the city operates. The city lied in 2005 about the Bicycle Plan, and it lied the same way about this project. I linked Judge Busch’s decision for you wherein he all but calls city’s court arguments lies. The city then lied about Polk Street and Masonic Avenue: http://district5diary.blogspot.com/2017/02/collisions-report-polk-masonic-not-so.html
Riding a bike in the city is intrinsically dangerous, and people shouldn’t do it. It’s irresponsible of City Hall to encourage it, even for children!
http://district5diary.blogspot.com/2017/05/bikes-and-children-good-intentions-gone.html
If you take away traffic lanes and street parking on busy city streets to make bike lanes, of course it’s going to make traffic worse and cause the emission of more greenhouse gases, not to mention the massive inconvenience to everyone who uses city streets except cyclists, a small minority even here in Progressive Land.
The CEQA law was designed precisely for projects like this, a project that of course is going to have a negative impact on the city’s environment.