This just in: Van Ness BRT project is a fiasco!
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| Public Press |
When construction started on Van Ness Avenue in 2016, the city said the transit improvement project would be completed by 2019. It is now June 2021, and construction is ongoing.
No shit! Construction will keep going for months---maybe years---who knows? The recent stories acknowledging this ongoing disaster in the middle of the city are pegged on the June 21 Grand Jury report listing the failures in pre-project planning, the contract problems, and then poor project management.
The Chronicle:
The report traces the problem to three issues: It says that planning and design processes "failed to capture the scope of the project adequately;" contracting processes did not instill accountability; and ongoing project management "failed to remediate problems efficiently and effectively."
Otherwise, the city got it just right!
The major pre-project "scope" failure: the city had only a hazy notion of the location of the electrical and plumbing infrastructure lines underneath the middle of Van Ness Avenue.
So why put this "improvement" project---it would help, by the way, if the media stopped using the city's happy-talk terminology on its projects---in the middle of Van Ness in the first place? Why not keep all of the traffic on the sides of the street? (Van Ness BRT "will be very exciting.")
More importantly, why was this project deemed necessary in the first place? There are only two minor Muni lines on Van Ness, the #47 and the #49. At least the Geary BRT project is on a major city street and Muni bus line. (The #38 Geary bus carries more than 50,000 people a day.)
The Chronicle:
The Van Ness corridor is a vital connector between neighborhoods. It serves as the main artery between the southern center of the city and Marin, and it's dotted with restaurants, car dealerships and banks, among many other businesses.
One wonders how any business on Van Ness has survived. (See City Hall's contempt for neighborhood business.)
The Chronicle talked to a business:
"Oh my god, since we opened two-and-a-half years ago, we are in the middle of the construction," said Wael Naber, whose son Shadi Naber owns Salty's at 748 Van Ness. "It's really, really, very bad for business." Wael Naber said customers intentionally avoid the restaurant given the construction. Online orders sometimes cancel because delivery drivers don't want to deal with the hassle that is Van Ness. "What are you going to do?" asked Naber.
This blog posted a comprehensive analysis by Mary Miles of the potential problems with this proposed project way back in 2013: Comment on the FEIS and the FEIR on the Van Ness BRT project.:
Once past the verbiage, the Project’s actual “purpose and needs” are twofold: 1) to obstruct and slow all traffic except Muni buses on routes 47 and 49; and 2) to marginally increase the speed of Muni buses on routes 47 and 49.Without all those stops for passengers and by delaying all other traffic, the two Muni lines will supposedly increase their speed to 7 miles per hour, while other vehicles would be delayed not just on Van Ness Avenue but on cross streets and on parallel streets, particularly Franklin and Gough Streets.Thus, the Project’s improper purpose is in fact to deliberately create traffic congestion throughout the area to make the two Muni lines “competitive” with other travel modes.
The Examiner's recent story on the project.
A good Examiner op-ed on the Geary BRT in 2017.
See also Van Ness Avenue: Two-mile long disaster,
Randal O'Toole is skeptical of BRT projects.
Foolishness about Geary Blvd. back in 2008.
Labels: Central Subway, City Hall, Examiner, Language, Masonic Avenue, Muni, Neighborhoods, SF Chronicle, Traffic in the City, Van Ness BRT
posted by Rob Anderson @ 2:07 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
In May, 2013 a 16 person delegation from San Francisco on a study tour to Mexico City. The purpose of the trip was to show Mexico City’s sustainable transport projects, specifically, the Metrobús bus rapid transit (BRT) system.
- Delegates from San Francisco who participated in the Mexico City trip:
1. John Avalos – SFCTA Board Chair
2. Scott Wiener – SFCTA Board Vice-Chair
3. Eric Mar – SFCTA Plans and Programs Committee Chair
4. Cindy Wu – SF Planning Commission Vice-Chair
5. Tom Nolan – SFMTA Chairman of the Board
6. Gillian Gillett – Director of Transportation Policy, Office of the Mayor
7. Jeremy Pollock – Legislative Aide to SFCTA Board Chair John Avalos
8. Judson True – Designee/Legislative Aide to David Chiu
9. Andrea Bruss – Designee/Legislative Aide to SFCTA Finance Chair Malia Cohen
10. Leah Shahum – Executive Director, SF Bicycle Coalition
11. Michael Cabanatuan – Staff Writer, San Francisco Chronicle
12. Peggy da Silva – SFTRU Chair
13. Ratna Amin – Transportation Director, SPUR
14. Peter Gabancho – Project Manager, SFMTA
15. Michael Schwartz – Senior Transportation Planner, SFCTA
16. Shari Tavafrashti – Principal Engineer, SFCTA
Given that these people (mostly SFBC types) know absolutely nothing about transportation and even less about the unique aspects of transportation in San Francisco one shouldn't be too surprised at what Van Ness BRT has become.
In the Netherlands, the supposed "bike-friendly" country (or so the SF bike nuts would have us believe), they're removing bike lanes because they realized they don't work:
https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2021/07/14/when-does-a-street-no-longer-require-protected-cycleways/
Nice try but no, that's not what the article says. Instead, it's a change that seems reasonable only in those specific circumstances, not because that country now thinks "bike lanes don't work."
I think the Dutch owe you a lot of gratitude for your devastating arguments against bike lanes. They're coming to their senses, (only a few decades late to the party), to what you've been patiently explaining to the rest of us about how dangerous and destructive they are.
I understand your anger, Rob, it's completely understandable. I'm imagining how you and Mary have devoted decades of your life to fighting bike lanes, and then seeing your movement catch on internationally, to the point that even the Dutch are now realizing bike lanes are a bad idea. But then not getting a shred of credit or gratitude for helping them realize that... it has to sting a little! I'm sorry about it, but rest assured your hard work has not been in vain, here in SF or around the world, and we thank you.
Yes yes, keep trying to be clever, but carefully avoid saying anything factual, like that this post isn't about bike lanes, just the routine incompetence of City Hall.
If you're so proud of your cleverness, why the anonymity? Because if you used your name, your friends and acquaintances would know what particular kind of an asshole you are.
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