Polk Street survey results

 

A reader writes:

Rob,

A friend from the Polk St. group said June 21,2013 was a policy and governance committee (PAG) meeting. C. Brinkman and J. Ramos (MTA) said there were 1703 responses to the Polk Street survey.

Option A: 49% - keep street parking
Option B: 6% - keep street parking
Option C: 45% - remove parking on one side of street

49+6 = 55% want to preserve street parking. The survey ended May 24, but MTA hasn't posted the results yet on their website.

Brinkman and Ramos might have a hard time spinning the results, which they obviously don't like.

Take a look at the redesigned SFMTA website. There is not a single link to their phone numbers! Every other city department has contact info, phone numbers.

 

Rob comments:

 

Glad to learn those numbers! But that kind of a survey shouldn't be enough to decide the issue. People in the Polk Street neighborhood---including those who aren't computer literate---should get a vote on the issue. It would be even better if all these bike projects on busy city streets were on the ballot for the whole city to vote on, instead of the neighborhoods having to constantly fight off the MTA and City Hall as they try to impose these "improvements" on us, especially considering the MTA's practice of hiring people right out of the SF Bicycle Coalition, while the mayor stacks the MTA board with pro-bike, anti-car appointments, like Brinkman and Ramos.

 

The new MTA website is a mixed bag. I've already complained about all the old studies and documents that have apparently gone down Orwell's Memory Hole never to be seen again. I have hard copies of a lot of the old documents, but it would help public understanding and the people who write about transportation issues to have links for all the old Transportation Fact Sheets, the bicycle counts, the collision reports, etc. Doing that would be no big deal technically. If they don't do that, one has to suspect that maybe the city doesn't want us to be able to put their current reports in a historical perspective.