Everyone Loves Repaved Streets: Broderick in NOPA Going Smooth

Broderick: Hayes to Grove streets, northbound

Broderick: Grove to Hayes streets southbound

Broderick: Golden Gate to Turk to over the hill

It's hard to get much quarrel with clearing a street for re-paving, especially if done one to two blocks at a time. Today three blocks of Broderick street were car-free -- cleared of traffic and on-street parking. But this was no Sunday Streets-style celebration with pedestrians, strollers, skaters, and cyclists enjoying unrestricted use of public spaces. The road crews for the Department of Public Works (DPW) took to the streets and got down to business: scraping and grinding the roadway to get it ready for re-paving.

This week's work on Broderick is ahead of schedule according to the city's Five Year Plan: re-surfacing from Haight to O'Farrell had been slated to begin in early January 2011. The crews are hop-scotching some of the blocks now so a continuous new smooth ribbon of asphalt may still be weeks away.

Why re-pave Broderick street? With the city's woefully limited funds for upgrading its streets, preference usually goes to transit or bicycle routes or to main arterials. But DPW also tries to take care of the "local" streets, like Broderick, that are less-used but worn down nevertheless. When the blocks don't require sewer restoration -- the source of NOPA's re-appearing sinkholes -- a "mill and fill" paving operation is fairly easy to coordinate for the road workers.

In the next few days, take a walk or ride on Broderick and enjoy the difference. And then imagine if Masonic, Market, Polk, Folsom, and Mission were just as smooth.