New Warriors' arena will create gridlock

In the Chronicle this morning:

Warriors’ proposed arena could clog downtown S.F.

By Matier & Ross

July 26, 2015 

A city report says the Warriors’ proposed arena in Mission Bay could cause backups well beyond that neighborhood.

Most of the debate over the Warriors’ proposed arena has centered around car congestion in Mission Bay, but the city’s environmental impact report also raises the specter of “significant and unavoidable” traffic impacts all the way to the Bay Bridge.

According to the report, the 60-plus “peak” events a year at the arena — basketball games, concerts and the like — could draw more than 3,000 additional cars into the area. Most would be rolling in between 6 and 8 p.m.

About 30 percent of the arena-bound cars are expected to come from within San Francisco. More than a quarter are likely to come from the East Bay, 10 percent from the North Bay and nearly a third from the Peninsula and South Bay.

That would amount to an extra 1,000 cars coming over the Bay Bridge and another 1,000 driving up Interstate 280 and Highway 101 — all converging on Mission Bay.

The result will likely be “a significant impact” on as many as 11 key intersections in the South of Market, according to the environmental impact report.

It will also mean “significant and unavoidable” backups on the already heavily used downtown freeway ramps at Fifth and Harrison and Fifth and Bryant streets, as well as on the ramps coming off I-280.

The report also concluded that “no feasible mitigations are available” to ease the problem — at least from an infrastructure standpoint — because there’s no room to widen the freeway ramps or city streets...

Rob's comment:

You can find links to the EIR on this project on the Planning Department's website.

That darn CEQA strikes again, even though just the other day Planetizen all but announced the impending success of CEQA "reform," which will mean that creating traffic congestion will no longer be an environmental impact. Maybe those 18,000 basketball fans, concert goers, and those attending the 60+ other special events will ride bikes to the new arena.