Phony "Slow Streets" emergency continues

FROM:

Mary Miles (SB #230395)

Attorney at Law for Coalition for Adequate Review

San Francisco, CA 94102

TO:

SFMTA Board of Directors

One S. Van Ness Avenue, 7th Floor

San Francisco, CA 94103

MTABoard@sfmta.com

DATE: April 5, 2021

PUBLIC COMMENT MTA BOARD AGENDA APRIL 6, 2021, ITEM 12, “Slow Streets Phase 4”

This is Public Comment opposing approval of Agenda Item 12 before the SFMTA Board of Directors on April 6, 2021, "Slow Streets Phase 4." Please distribute this to all members of the MTA Board and place a copy in applicable files on the Project.

MTA's allegedly "temporary" Slow Streets Project has, since April 21, 2020 illegally closed city streets to through vehicle travel on more than 50 streets throughout San Francisco, including access to public parks, the Pacific Ocean, and view areas that are now closed to motor vehicles.

After developing its "Phase 4" in total secrecy, MTA now announces it will close 22 more streets under the pretense that there is an "emergency" due to the Covid-19 pandemic. (See MTA Slow Streets, Phase 4, Exemption No. 2021-000804ENV, p. 2.) No emergency exists within CEQA's legal definition for any of City's obstructions. 

According to its claimed "emergency" exemption, MTA's "Phase 4" streets include major thoroughfares providing access to medical and other facilities on Steiner, Lyon, 12th Avenue, and Bayview neighborhood streets providing access to industrial, work and neighborhood areas. Steiner is a major north-south corridor serving medical facilities on that street and on Sutter, Post, Geary and other areas, as well as parks, schools, playgrounds, and cultural amenities.

City's falsehood about "temporary" emergency projects has now morphed into MTA's real goal, which is to make Slow Streets permanent, obstructing access on critical arterials and neighborhood streets, affecting thousands of travelers and residents throughout San Francisco. 

Phony surveys by anonymous sources claim "support," but those surveys were taken after those streets were closed among people who claim that recreational walking, bicycling, and skateboarding in the middle of public streets was required because of a critical "emergency." It was not and is not. The charade is accentuated by the recent boast by the mayor that the emergency is over, along with her announcement of reopening eateries and other businesses that formerly required social distancing.

Even if MTA could lawfully issue a different exemption for the Slow Streets project that it has illegally segmented in four "phases," City’s new exemption (No. 2021-000804ENV) does not fall within CEQA’s Statutory Exemption for an emergency, which can only be a “sudden, unexpected occurrence, involving a clear and imminent danger, demanding immediate action to prevent or mitigate loss of, or damage to, life, health, property, or essential public services,” including “fire, flood, earthquake, or other soil or geological movements, as well as such occurrences as riot, accident, or sabotage.” (Pub. Res. Code § 21060.3 [“Emergency”], emphasis added.)

The emergency exemption under CEQA is not applicable to MTA’s closing public streets to cars so that non-essential recreational activities, like bicycling, children’s play, and walking can occupy public streets. Instead, that exemption is only for serious emergencies where peril to life and property is an imminent danger.

The narrowly construed CEQA standards for an emergency exemption are not met by MTA’s desire to exclude and delay the vast majority of travelers in motor vehicles and on transit on public streets in San Francisco on behalf of the less than 2 percent who travel by bicycle. Nor does motor vehicle travel impair in any way bicyclists’ or pedestrians' use of streets and sidewalks for essential trips.

Even if the City’s COVID directives allow trips by any mode for essential travel, MTA’s actions are not supported by any evidence that sidewalks in the Slow Streets Project do not already accommodate essential travel by pedestrians, and that existing bicycle facilities, including many dedicated lanes, do not already accommodate essential trips by bicycles.

Also the City has provided the public no evidence that those now using bicycles, scooters, or foot travel on slow streets are essential workers commuting to work.

Moreover, the Project is preempted and is unconstitutional under the California and United States Constitutions, which prohibit closing public streets to travelers, including those in motor vehicles. (See, e.g., Rumford v. City of Berkeley (1982) 31 Cal.3d 545.) The Project also plainly conflicts with the California Vehicle Code.

Since MTA’s Project and its claimed exemptions are illegal under CEQA, the Project and those exemptions must be rejected.

Mary Miles

See also Heather Knight sells the city's phony emergency and City's Temporary Emergency Transit Lanes Project based on a lie