City Completes Final Masonic Report, Proposes Bold Changes to Reduce Risks and Increase Neighborhood Livability

Final report contains images of each block with proposed new features

(note: the directional arrow should indicate right-to-left for North)

A possible re-design of Masonic Avenue for safer use by everyone took a significant step forward last week when city planners completed the final report for the corridor. The account follows a six-month community planning process that included three public meetings attended by more than 200 Masonic area residents. Participants evaluated various options for a better Masonic and narrowed their preference to one dubbed the Boulevard as the best value for a complete set of traffic calming improvements. Features of the proposal include a landscaped median, bus bulb-outs, 200 new street trees, a new plaza at Geary, and separated bike lanes. City planners previously described the Boulevard option as a “once in a lifetime opportunity.”

Mark Christiansen, a former Masonic resident and founder of the grassroots group Fix Masonic, has worked on getting a better, safer street since 2003. He dreamed of a green median the length of the corridor with no speeding. Back then, he decided, “That’s never gonna happen.” When Christiansen sold his house a few years ago, he told potential buyers that the neighborhood was one of the safest in the city – “except if you try to navigate that street!” His daily experience of going out onto Masonic motivated him to seek changes. “Every time I thought, ‘It doesn’t have to be like this.’”

Christiansen concluded at the time that Masonic had all the design features that promote speeding and risky street use:

• Lanes that merge mid-block
• Wide intersections
• Tow-away zones along the curb that open the street even wider
• Blind turns against uphill traffic
• A posted bike route with no striped bicycle lanes

He foresees a “quieter, calmer Masonic” if the Boulevard proposal is implemented. “I think it may be an amazing change. We’ve seen other streets in this city take on a completely different feel after being revamped. We know from the plans we see that it will happen here.”

Safety has been a primary concern for many Masonic residents. One father of two young sons told BIKE NOPA last summer that he never allowed his boys to play or stay on the sidewalk outside their residence. When they walked out the front door, he immediately ushered them into the family car. Several months earlier his Cherokee Jeep was parked in front of the house on Masonic. A speeding driver struck it with enough force to push it more than 100 feet into the intersection. Another resident said a motorist struck her car while she was nearing her home at Golden Gate and Masonic. The car was totaled; she was fortunate to have sustained few physical injuries. That collision occurred just one week before Yannick Linke was allegedly struck and killed by a motorist at Masonic and Turk.

The 63-page Masonic report details the process used by city planners* to reduce the street’s traffic risks and transform the corridor into a more livable space. They considered various design options that would help the city meet numerous local, state, and federal standards for “complete streets” that serve all users and enhance community life. The goals and objectives of the process were ambitious and appear to reflect residents’ complaints about the current street design:

• Improve transit
• Enhance pedestrian access to transit
• Make crosswalks safer for pedestrians
• Increase compliance by motorists of rules and regulations
• Reduce the number of vehicular collisions, especially with pedestrians and bicyclists
• Increase quality-of-life features to make Masonic more inviting and accommodating

Leah Shahum, Executive Director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, believes the new Masonic proposal is one that community members and city staff “should feel really proud of.”

“It prioritizes neighborhood safety, livability, and mobility. Thanks to these efforts, families will be able to move around more safely and enjoy their neighborhood more fully. This is a good example of the community speaking up for better streets and the City listening and responding.”

The next steps for the Masonic proposal involve ensuring that it meets environmental requirements, conducting a public hearing, and presenting the recommended design to the SFMTA Board of Directors. Staff will also seek funding and complete the project design. Javad Mirabdal, SFMTA Project Manager for the Masonic study, said “all the next steps will move forward at the same time.” The most optimistic estimate for taking the proposal to a public hearing is by the end of June this year. (The SFMTA will provide a two-week notice prior to the public hearing).

Even those who have followed Masonic developments closely will find the report enlightening. One new feature is a detailed illustration of the traffic calming measures for each block of Masonic between Fell and Geary. Individual addresses are noted along with location of new street trees, new sidewalk landscaping, bulb-outs, and separated bicycle lanes. (See pages 41-48 of report).

* The Masonic Avenue Street Design Study is an undertaking of the San Francisco Planning Department, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), and the San Francisco Department of Public Works.

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

NOPA Gets Its First Bulbout

Bulbouts are cool, and NOPA now boasts one of its own. As part of the street renewal of the Divisadero Corridor, bulbouts will appear at select intersections. First up is the southwest corner of McAllister. The Divis re-design unfortunately retains the skinny sidewalks, but stop by the bulbout and see what some extra breathing and moving space is like.

Bulbouts are all about pedestrian safety. They extend the corner sidewalk and thus shorten street crossing time for pedestrians and permit better visibility of peds by drivers. They also permit more expansive landscaping. With the new pedestrian refuges -- cut-outs in the concrete median -- crossing Divis at a few locations will be decidedly safer. But these sidewalk enhancements don't come cheap. Walk San Francisco estimates that bulbouts cost up to to $500,000 each.

And then there's the law of unintended consequences: bulbouts used for pull-over deliveries with trucks straddling the street and the new extended sidewalk. The fellow in this potato chip truck explained, reasonably so, that the bulbout wasn't there two days ago and it caught him by surprise. Fair enough. But a "surprise" is only good for the first time.

We're already into Week Four of the Divisadero revitalization. Last week the west side of the corridor from Fell to Grove took its turn with the tear-up, and motorists traveling north between Grove and McAllister are perhaps already forgetting how rutted, cracked, and potholed that stretch was just a few days earlier.

The east end of Turk street is about to get its own spiff-over. With the same federal stimulus dollars that cover the Divisadero work, Turk will be resurfaced from Market to Van Ness with sidewalk upgrades and curb improvements as well.