You've Got to Build Bypasses
Tuesday, October 24, 2006 at 2:10pm 5 comments (last by patrick)
Fighting over cars in Golden Gate Park seems a favorite pastime in San Francisco. Last week there was an Examiner story about drivers using the Music Concourse as a north-south bypass through the Park.
Looking at the map you can easily see why someone would use the Music Concourse to get across the park. There just aren't that many options. I can understand Supervisor McGoldrick wanting to put a stop to it, but adding more prominent signs don't solve the underlying problem and I feel this is a case of treating the symptoms and not the disease.
I think for the most part, people tend to think cars in the park is all or nothing. Cars are all generally seen as the same even though they just a tool to accomplish different tasks.
There are drivers who use the Music Concourse to cut across the park north and south. It's a perfectly reasonable thing to do, especially given how that's the most direct route when you're trying to get to the neighborhood center at 9th and Irving for errands, shopping or dining. It's also the most attractive route.
Then there are tourists and locals who aren't even trying to get across the park, but are just trying to get to a certain place within the park, or from one location to another. Why not take the Music Concourse if you are trying to get from the Conservatory to the Botanical Gardens?
And then there are drivers who use JFK Drive as almost an east-west expressway because JFK doesn't have the traffic lights of Fulton a block north.
You don't want to prevent access to the park itself so people can get reasonable close to the attraction their visiting, but you want to discourage using the park as a bypass. Yes, there are the bike activists who want only bikes allowed in the park. That's not a realistic option for a family of four (plus all the needed accessories) going to a picnic or a soccer game, etc.
The consultant quoted in the story, Marilyn Duffy, explained to me the JFK plan she's been working on. It would have removed 200+ parking spaces along JFK Drive and at the same time, narrowing the traffic lanes by adding a median in the middle and striped bike lanes making it safer for the cyclists who ride the park as part of their commute and would create better crossings for pedestrians. The fallout from that attempt to close the park on saturday is holding it up.
This will discourage some, but still does not really address why drivers use the park.
What I'm getting at is this isn't something that can really be solved by signs and striping. It's a lot more expensive, but roads are going to have to be reconfigured.
Firstly, consider blocking off 8th Ave at Fulton instead of it running into the park to connect with JFK. A bike/pedestrian path would remain and will not effect access to the de Young and Acadamy of Sciences because the parking garage entrance is only a block away along Fulton.
I think we're going to need tunnels. Not underground expressways with entrances outside the park, but partially underground with access to roads within the park. One idea would be instead of cutting off 8th Ave extend it via a tunnel to Middle Drive or all the way to MLK Drive. The multiple outlets between MLK and Lincoln would disperse traffic between UCSF Parnassus and 9th & Irving. And while we're at it, lets make sure the tunnel connects with the garages under the Music Concourse to reduce the amount of driving through the park to get to them and again disperse traffic to the surrounding streets.
Expensive, I know. It would provide an alternative to driving through the Music Concourse and well done would reduce the number of cars in the park without hurting the surrounding neighborhoods and their businesses. I would like to see a car free, or nearly car free, park one day, but that won't be possible without alternative routes. As I've taken to saying, "More carrot, less stick."
5 Comments
Jamison Thursday, October 26, 2006 at 11:59pm
The G-Golden Gate line, for everyone who has never heard of this wonderful idea, is to run a line using mostly existing track from the Ferry Buildingup market, cut over using the track on Church Street to Duboce and use the same N-Judah route to 9th Ave. At that point were the N turns and follows Judah, the G-line would turn north into the park and use the loop around the Music Concourse. This idea comes from before the F-Market was extended up the Embarcadero and when that opportunity came up it it would have been foolish not to jump at it.
On my map, that is would be the roads marked in red except the northernmost little bit connecting to Fulton.
Don't worry Eric, what I wrote about closing off the north end doesn't not preclude a G-Golden Gate line. I'm not a traffic engineer and I don't know if this would actually work, but... if there were a way to disperse traffic so it wasn't all forced to flow in and out through 9th Ave the way it is now, it would be a better situation for the pedestrians, the drivers who would be encouraged to use other cross streets that are not so pedestrian heavy and make it easier to run a future G-Line.
My hope for Golden Gate Park is not to get rid of cars entirely, at the very least you need to let service vehicles and Muni in, but I also think of my brother and his two young children which always involves bringing so much extra. there's food, clothes, diapers, etc. that taking the Judah just isn't as easy as a car. I hope I was able to get across the situation I just described of needing to get into the park to enjoy it is not the same as those driving through it.
What I'd ultimately like to see is the roads reconfigured so the only reason you would drive into the park is to actually go, park and enjoy it.
Steve Boland Thursday, November 2, 2006 at 10:45pm
Can I play devil's advocate for a moment? Why spend substantial sums of money just so drivers can save a couple of minutes getting from the Richmond to the Sunset?
(Mind you, this is a typical Jamison idea--it addresses a real problem that has somehow slipped past other people in a creative manner. I just don't think it's a *large* enough problem to justify the solution. Oh, yes--no one wants to keep that family of four away from the park all the time, or even all of the park part of the time.)
Jamison Friday, November 3, 2006 at 6:59pm
We should never just jump onto a big project like this without someone playing devil's advocate and I've an answer for that one. To keep the neighborhoods connected to each other and the park.
I'm not worried about saving a couple minutes driving time, you'll spend more time looking for parking, it's what route that traffic will take. We can find plenty of evidence removing roads decreases traffic and it doesn't just put the strain on the next street over. Removing the Embarcadero Freeway is a great example. Except with the park we would still have a highway running through the middle of it.
For those who are reading this not familiar with San Francisco, Highway 1 runs on surface streets through the city. It's the left-most blue line on my map. And as you can imagine, safety is an issue and there is a large amount of pedestrian fatalities. One of the worst portions is where it passes through the park and I wouldn't want to concentrate more traffic through there.
I started this off by mentioning the neighborhoods and having to take a highway to cross a park makes either side seem that much further away. That sense of geography can easily become ingrained. When you take one route back and forth all the time, you wear a sort of mental path you'll use over and over, and that is how you begin to see the world.
As for tunnels, when I suggested the idea, I was thinking thinking minimalist. I was thinking of a lot of different options, as the sidewalks veer off a road could sort of sink away and a short tunnel leads to a section of road hidden from the paths and walkways. I'm taking ideas from the Doyle Drive project and scaling them down, way down. I'd mentioned providing additional ways to reach the garage the hidden road could have a three way intersection (again, not a hi speed bypass this needs to be at the scale of a residential street) with a road leading off to the garages.
I'm just thinking of ways not to get cars out of the park, but take away the conflict between cars and other users of the park.
patrick Thursday, November 9, 2006 at 7:38pm
Bravo, Jamison. A creative solution that takes into consideration the needs of everyone; drivers, bicyclists, tourists and neighbors.
I especially like the tunnel idea. A couple of cut-and-cover tunnel from 8th and Fulton to MLK would admirably do the job.
Eric C. Thursday, October 26, 2006 at 10:46pm
Nice post, Jamison. I think so much about productive ways to use money for transit
projects, that I sometimes overlook the fact
that spending money on projects beneficial
to drivers can also be beneficial to the
rest of us, every once in awhile. An
interesting idea you have here, and one I
haven't thought much about; overlooking cost
issues, it certainly seems like a good way
to deal with some of the divisiveness that
the cars-in-the-park issue always seems to
spark. Still, I don't want to abandon hope
for a G-Golden Gate line in the future. :)
Also, I read over on Cityscape you attended
the Central Subway meeting over at SPUR.
I was also at that meeting! Now that I see
your picture here on this site, I think I
remember who you are, but unfortunately I
didn't know at the time, or else I would've
introduced myself.