MTA To Adopt Traffic Calming Urged by Fix Masonic, Traffic Engineer Manito Velasco to Guide Effort

Re-striping faded lanes is one of several traffic calming measures planned

The Municipal Transportation Agency (MTA) will adopt several traffic calming measures on Masonic Avenue in the next few months to reduce speeding on the corridor from Fell to Geary Streets. Traffic lanes and crosswalks will be re-striped, 25 MPH and School Zone advisories will be applied to the street surfaces at a number of locations, and travel lanes will be more clearly marked for merging traffic. The changes are among several proposed last November by the grassroots group Fix Masonic to make the corridor safer during the many months leading up to a re-design of the street. They complement others that the MTA has already implemented.

Javad Mirabdal, project manager for the larger Masonic Avenue Street Design Study, said the re-striping and painting measures could be implemented within a month while other requests, such as installing a red light camera at Fell and Masonic, establishing a double-fine zone for speeding, and adding thumbnail medians with signs posting 25 MPH will take longer or require further review. He added that the interim traffic calming measures will be implemented under the guidance of veteran MTA traffic engineer Manito Velasco.

Fix Masonic representatives met with MTA staff on November 9, 2010 and submitted a dozen recommendations for discouraging speeding and increasing pedestrian safety. Although neither the community group nor the traffic engineers expect the traffic calming measures to eliminate all speeding on Masonic, they do hope the changes will reduce collisions and encourage drivers to stay within the 25 MPH speed limit.

In January city planning staff completed a final report for transforming the Masonic corridor into a safer, more attractive thoroughfare for all users. The document includes recommendations to adopt a set of changes dubbed the Boulevard, an option that resulted from a series of community meetings last year involving Masonic area residents.

In the months ahead the MTA will take the Masonic project to the next level – fine-tuning the design, conducting an environmental review, if needed, and seeking approval of the plan from an MTA public hearing officer and the MTA Board of Directors. Javad Mirabdal is a likely candidate to lead the process since he has steered the Masonic study through the community planning process and the drafting of the final report. Although Mirabdal did not confirm this possibility, he did suggest that "all steps of the approval process will move forward at the same time.” He also added that he hoped the hearing could be scheduled by the end of June.

For previous stories in the A Better Masonic series, check here.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Boulevard...and You Can Too

I'm already there with support for the Boulevard proposal to transform Masonic Avenue into a safer transportation corridor. After seven months of attending community meetings, studying options developed by city planners, discussing concerns with neighbors and traffic engineers, I'm confident that the make-over will be become something accepted by neighbors and valued by future generations of Masonic residents.

There's a lot to like about the Boulevard plan:

• a landscaped median running from Geary to Fell
• 200 additional street trees
• bus bulb-outs at select intersections for easier access and more reliable, on-time buses
• new paving for a street that hasn't been re-surfaced for so long no one can remember when
• new signal lights and lane re-design to keep traffic flowing steady but safely within the speed limit
• a separated bicycle track that will making biking safe for anyone aged 8 to 80
• and, often overlooked, a chance to link neighborhoods along Masonic

I'm not alone. A majority of the hundreds of Masonic residents who accepted repeated invitations to express their opinions believe the Boulevard option will suit them better, as reported here.

Others aren't so sure. Below are responses to questions most often posed by neighbors concerned about the Masonic proposal:

• What's the source of money for this project and why should we decide its merits before funds are secured? People involved with the Divisadero revitalization project remember that the city set a limit on the funds available and advised neighbors to plan accordingly. The Masonic project is different. The money for it will likely be a mix of regional, state and federal funds. The Metropolitan Transportation Commission bundles financing for projects like these from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District to special grants received for categories like Safe Routes to Transit, Safe Routes to School, and others. A percentage of sales tax that is designated for bike improvements will be another source, but very little "car money" will go to the Masonic project. Why support now? The strongest proposal competes the best for limited transportation funds, and universal support from the community makes a proposal more competitive. Divisadero itself benefited from being "shovel-ready" when federal stimulus funds became available. Waiting to design or deferring support weakens the chance for obtaining funds.

• Why is the Boulevard proposal so expensive? Each of the preferred proposals is expensive, and they're both complicated, significantly more so than Divisadero. Much of the expense will go to underground improvements from sewer upgrades to roadway base reconstruction. On the surface, a new wide median, the landscaping, new trees, widened sidewalks, bulb outs, lighting and signal upgrades, and the cycle track all add up. Plus at $20 million, this project is actually cheap compared to many other road projects like the $1 billion Doyle Drive replacement or the Geary Bus Rapid Transit project at about $200 million.

• Why do bicycle lanes need to be on busy streets? Why can't cyclists use a different route? When it comes to Masonic, bicyclists want to ride on it for the same reason motorists do: it's the only direct north-south route between Stanyan and Divisadero. It's the flattest, most direct way to get from our neighborhood to the Presidio or Golden Gate Bridge. San Francisco officially encourages alternate transportation including biking. Opponents can mount a campaign to change the city's Transit First policy, but it's our guide now.

• Why not rely on enforcement to stop speeding instead? There's no way SFPD could afford to monitor traffic and issue tickets along Masonic to the degree required to change motorists' speeding. Former Capt. Teresa Barrett of SFPD Park Station agreed when asked about enforcement for this previous report.

• Why doesn't the MTA install more traffic calming to stop speeding instead of redesigning traffic and removing parking? There are a few more measures the MTA can and should adopt (reported here), but most of the traffic calming tools have already been used or aren't possible on a road like Masonic. The reason the city has worked with the community on this proposal is mostly because the current traffic calming simply has not reduced collisions, red light running, and injuries.

• Won't the proposed Target store at Geary and Masonic bring motorists who will occupy street parking in the Anza Vista neighborhood? No one wants to park on the street when there are six large parking lots positioned much closer to the stores at the San Francisco Center. The whole point of driving to Target will be for convenience and proximity of parking in the several hundred spaces in the lots.

• Won't the Masonic project make it harder to enter and exit Ewing Terrace? No, it will become easier because the MTA agreed to add a new signal at this intersection at the request of Ewing Terrace residents who attended the community meetings.

• Why haven't the neighbors and residents most affected by the removal of parking on Masonic been heard? They have. As previously reported here with a residency map, over 100 neighbors attended the community meetings, and a majority of them live on Masonic or within one block of the corridor. Nearby residents were invited to the meetings repeatedly by the MTA, NOPNA, Fix Masonic, and the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition with fliers and emails. They were also encouraged to contact the MTA directly. We don't force people to vote in this country.
  

• Why can't the proposals make Masonic safer without removing parking? The first goal of a street should be to move people in a safe, efficient manner. Parking should come second to safety and traffic flow. Masonic is a very tight space and to make it safer for all users, something has to give. But the MTA has also indicated a willingness to consider new parking on nearby streets to alleviate the changes on Masonic, possibly with angled parking along the north side of Turk. At some point, advocacy for a safer Masonic coupled with a refusal to make inconvenient changes become nothing more than empty, feel-good lip service. Do those who resist the changes want to tell the families of people killed or injured from collisions on Masonic that safety on the corridor is not important enough to walk an extra 100 steps for parking?

For previous articles in the A Better Masonic series, check here.

A nod to Stanley Kubrick for Dr. Strangelove.

Taxi Driver Complains about New Signal Timing on Masonic: Best Indicator of Change

Southbound drivers on Masonic may notice change in signal light timing

No good reason to speed traveling north on Masonic

When a taxi driver complains that it's no longer possible to exceed the speed limit, you know traffic signal changes are working. That's what seems to be happening on Masonic Avenue after the southbound signals were adjusted late last year to keep traffic moving at the 25 mph speed limit. Javad Mirabdal, city traffic engineer and project manager for the Masonic Avenue Street Design Study, said the complaint was one indication that the changes were having an impact. "Taxi drivers basically know every street," Mirabdal observed. "They know when changes are made." The driver called the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) and reported he was hitting red lights while travelling southbound on Masonic.

With the change in timing, motorists travelling south from Geary to Fell will find generally that when they exceed the 25 speed limit, they'll get more red lights. Mirabdal said the agency adjusted the signals in the southbound and downhill direction because that's where drivers tend to go faster. He added, "Timing will control the platoon of traffic, but it doesn't control speed for the ending (those drivers at the end of the pack)." Mirabdal explained that those in the back may have an opportunity to catch up with the traffic flow and momentarily exceed the speed limit. "It depends where you are in the platoon."

Only the southbound signals have been adjusted since two-way traffic, as on Masonic, poses too many traffic engineering problems to make bi-directional adjustments. "Once you push one direction, you limit what you can do with the other," Mirabdal said. One-way traffic roadways are the ideal candidates for the best outcomes from signal timing changes.

The signal adjustments were one of several traffic calming measures that Masonic area neighbors have asked the SFMTA to study and implement during the period before the full treatment for a better Masonic begins. The SFMTA has yet to respond to the other interim measures. Mirabdal said the final report with recommendations for comprehensive traffic calming on Masonic would likely be completed by the end of next week. The report will be posted on the SFMTA website.

For previous stories in the A Better Masonic series, check here.