By Calvin Welch, HANC Board
Work on the SFMTA’s “Quick-build Oak Street Project” has come to the Panhandle with the temporary reconfiguration of the southwest intersection of Oak and Masonic. According to SFMTA, the work will continue until January and will “build new corner ramps, relocate signal poles, and construct a short off-street bikeway segment that will ultimately connect to the future eastbound on-street protected bikeway.” (See https://www.sfmta.com/projects/oak-street-quick-build-project, for all details).
Part of the work has been the institution of “green lighting” of intersections along the area with the removal of some 26 spaces. An additional 23 parking spaces will be removed from Ashbury to Masonic (north side) to accommodate a new (second) left turn lane and the new on-street Oak St. bike lane.
HANC has devoted two full membership meetings to discussing the proposal since its introduction in 2022. While resident concerns over the loss of parking have been predictably ignored by SFMTA, concerns over the conflict between bike, and pedestrians, joggers and pet walkers in the Panhandle raised by HANC members has been has also been basically ignored.
The plan calls for a confusing and absurd “solution” at the south west intersection of Masonic and Oak with two crossings planned for the intersection, one for bikes and one for everyone else, and also two left turn lanes for the same intersection, causing bicyclists to use the pedestrian path in the Panhandle. The same basic conflict between bike riders and pedestrians occurs at the Stanyan and Oak as bicyclists again “share” access to a single pedestrian path before entering the new “street side” bike lane on Oak.
A major stated objective the Project is to “protect” bicycle and pedestrian traffic from cars, but SFMTA seems oblivious the “threat” posed by bicyclists to walkers (often times accompanied with pets and or children) and joggers. The confusing mixture of bikes, walkers and joggers at the Stanyan, Masonic and Baker intersections will make the south pedestrian path, now closed to bikes, a speedway for the entitled white male bike rider who, intent on “making time” will simply stay on the pedestrian path instead of zigging on and off to the “on-street pedestrian bike way” scattering walkers, pets, children and joggers as they go. This has been the experience of the Fell St. protected bike way with the vast majority of bike riders, especially of the entitled class, using the path, not the bike way. Based upon this experience, HANC called for the existing ban on bikes on the southern path to be maintained. SFMTA refused, showing that it too realizes that bike riders will most probably rely on the Panhandle path not the new street side bike way.
Thus SFMTA has, in fact, produced a plan that will protect car drivers from pedestrians and bike riders from cars speeding up the travel time of both. Its only folks who walk and park in the area, that is to say residents, that have been ignored.
As downtown continues to lose its workforce (especially of resident San Franciscans) and folks in western San Francisco drive to locations other than downtown to work, Oak and Fell, the traditional dedicated east west downtown car commute streets continue to evolve. SFMTA (like the rest of the Lurie Administration) seems confused and befuddled on how to deal with that change. Favoring cars and bikes over the needs of existing residents is not a solution and HANC will continue to monitor and suggest better solutions which work for all. The Oak-Masonic Quick Build project will create more problems than solutions. HANC members will continue to offer solutions.