Safeway wants to remove a part of the median for truck access.

The Planning Department is preparing to release the final environmental review for the soon to be remodeled Safeway on Monterey Blvd. The grocer hopes to begin a ten month renovation in the next year. Safeway has posted a new web site with details on the planned renovation including a driver’s eye video of the store from the street and inside the rooftop parking lot.

The upgrade is sorely needed in the neighborhood but we wish Safeway had spent more effort looking at the project from a pedestrian’s point of view. Seen from the sidewalk instead of from behind the wheel, a big issue is the removal of a large portion of the median along with three palm trees in front of the current parking lot to accomodate round the clock deliveries. The plan calls for trucks to back into the enclosed loading dock across all four lanes of Monterey from the westbound side of the street.

Hundreds of kids use this crossing each day to get to school

A small island will remain at the crosswalk at Foerster where slow pedestrians will be able to find shelter at this busy school crossing. FoMB feels the effect of removing the median will open the street up to faster traffic – the opposite of what we have been working toward for the last few years.

FoMB has several proposals for ways Safeway can ameliorate this situation. We want to “bulb out” the sidewalk at Foerster, reducing the distance pedestrians have to walk when crossing Monterey. We also want a bus bulb at the westbound Muni stop to provide

in-pavement pedestrian warning lights

more room for bus riders and to calm the traffic. In addition, we request that Safeway fund a permanent radar speed detector at Detroit, as well as in-pavement warning lights that alert drivers to pedestrians in this mid-block crosswalk. Another request is to fill in the missing median west of Foerster.

Another controversial issue is Safeway’s request for a variance to allow a third lane from the roof-top parking lot. The planning Department’s traffic study counted cars

Safeway's driveway as it is today

crossing the sidewalk into the parking lot during its busiest times– Sunday and Monday evenings between four and seven o’clock. They counted 288 cars per hour on Sundays and 300 on Mondays. Planning projects these numbers will increase fifty percent after the renovation to 525 per hour. That’s one car crossing pedestrian space every seven seconds!

Retouched to show three lanes if traffic crossing the sidewalk

Safeway’s thinking is that a third lane will speed up traffic in and out of the lot. That is the precise reason we oppose it! We want to calm traffic, not speed it up, especially when it intrudes into the pedestrian realm! Our solution is for Planning to deny the variance from the Planning Code and allow just one lane in and one lane out. Several parking spots should also be removed in front of the store to allow for a wider sidewalk that will compensate for the extra traffic by expanding pedestrian space. This will allow room for landscaping and street seating, allowing for a neighborhood meeting place.

The Friends of Monterey Boulevard welcomes this positive improvement to our neighborhood and we hope these suggestions will help to make our main drag a safe and convivial place. We wil be submitting a letter to the Planning Department with our suggestions in the nest week. Do you have additional ideas? Leave them in the comments!

The Planning Department is asking for input from the community. Letters about the environmental effect of this project are due no later than Nov. 14 and should be sent to: 

Andrea Contreras
San Francisco Planning Dept.
1650 Mission St.
San Francisco, CA 94103
Refer to Case #2010.0401E

Letters about things that pertain to to the project itself (such as the proposed 24 hours of operation) should be directed to Sharon Lai, at the same address.

We got this with the help of Walk San Francisco, Safe Routes to School, The Sunnyside PTA and Green Committee, the MTA Commission and Supervisor Eslbernd.

Another step along the way!

Now that the data is collected and analyzed, the report is here. (pdf) Produced in partnership with Walk San Francisco it  details the existing conditions, reviews preceding SFMTA work, polls neighborhood opinion, and makes recommendations for a better boulevard.

To make Monterey Boulevard safer and make the neighborhood more walkable the report suggests:

1. Reduce speed limits to 25 mph on Monterey Boulevard.
2. Create school zones around local schools.
3. Install automated speed radar detectors and signs along Monterey Boulevard.
4. Complete the implementation of the Sunnyside Traffic Calming Project’s traffic-calming recommendations.
5. Install pedestrian-actuated traffic signal in the crosswalk at Detroit Street.
6. Increase the signal time at Monterey Boulevard and Foerster Street to accommodate the walking pace of seniors and children.
7. Actively enforce existing traffic laws at intersections where drivers run stop signs and red lights (Baden, Congo, Edna and Foerster).
8. Replace worn and illegible crosswalk “Yield to Pedestrian” signs.
9. Coordinate designated school routes and pedestrian safety measures along Monterey Boulevard with the Safe Routes to School program and the Department of Public Health.
10. Use street improvements to reduce the chance of wrong-way traffic on Edna Street.
11. Consider a comprehensive urban design alternative for the intersection of Monterey Boulevard and Foerster Street, in coordination with SRTS, the new Safeway and the community.

The Friends of Monterey Boulevard wishes to thank our survey team Shannon Kane, Kelly Kocella, and Jennifer Patankar.  We are also very grateful to Manish Champsee and Elizabeth Stampe of Walk San Francisco, as well as Rosie Dudley and Jeremy Shaw who stayed up into the night putting the report together. Thanks also to Tom Radulovich of Livable City, our fiscal sponsor.

Funding for this program was provided by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety through the Business, Transportation, and Housing Agency.

The audio is here.

This Wednesday, on Walk to School Day, as dozens of Sunnyside Elementary students form “walking buses” to wind their way down to school before the bell rings, their parents will also be calling for a safer, calmer Monterey Boulevard.
“There’s been a big surge in interest for walking this year,” said parent Julie Tonroy, “Just think how many parents and kids would join us if we could calm traffic on Monterey.” Tonroy is the sustainability chair in Sunnyside’s PTA; with this event, she plans to kick off Sunnyside Elementary’s new “Walking Wednesdays” program; she already walks to Sunnyside Elementary every day with her 7-year-old son Erick, but she would like to encourage more walkers to join them. At Sunnyside, more than half of the students live within one mile of school but only 20% walk or bike, according to the San Francisco Department of Public Health, which selected Sunnyside to participate in its “Safe Routes to School” program.

The Friends of Monterey Boulevard has teamed up with Walk San Francisco and San Francisco’s Department of Public Health to take the first steps toward calming traffic along Monterey. We have already put up “We Live Here — Please Slow Down” signs, done traffic surveys, and done online and written surveys of parents and other users of Monterey Boulevard.

The primary recommendation they make in the resulting report is to bring Monterey’s speed limit down from 30 to 25 miles per hour. “Monterey Boulevard isn’t a highway, but it can feel like one,” said Elizabeth Stampe, director of Walk San Francisco. “The city has been transforming some big streets to be safer and greener; Monterey is ripe for improvement.” Stampe pointed to current planning for Masonic Boulevard, Cesar Chavez, and greening along Divisadero as positive models for Monterey.

The report also makes recommendations about how to make specific intersections safer for pedestrians.

“While we were doing our traffic surveys, I actually saw an elderly man get completely stranded in the middle of the street. Someone had to go rescue him and help him get where he was going,” said Adrienne Johnson, parent of 3 school-age children and a leader of Friends of Monterey Boulevard. “Making this street safer for our kids will make it safer for everyone.”

The principals of Sunnyside Elementary and St. Finn Bar, two of the three elementary schools close to Monterey, will be signing letters to request a “school zone,” establishing lower speed limits for 1,000 feet around the school, which parents and neighbors say will be a first step toward calming the entire street.

Supervisor Sean Elsbernd couldn’t attend the event as he was walking his own son to daycare, but he issued a supporting statement:

“On Walk to School Day, Oct 6th, Supervisor Elsbernd supports making it easier and safer for children to walk to school and will continue to work towards making San Francisco streets safer for all pedestrians. The Supervisor will walk his son Michael to daycare on Walk To School Day as he does every morning.”

WHO: Sunnyside parents, Friends of Monterey Boulevard, and Walk San Francisco, 8:00 am Wednesday, October 6

WHEN: Kids depart at 8:10; arrive at school at 8:30 for Walk to School Day events.

WHERE: Kids depart at 8:10; arrive at school at 8:30 for Walk to School Day events. Sunnyside Playground, at the corner of Foerster and Melrose Ave. (map)

VISUALS: School children in chaperoned “walking buses,” making their way to Sunnyside Elementary. A post walk celebration on the school yard involving prizes and snacks.

We at FoMB send our heartfelt thanks to Walk San Francisco and the SF Department of Public Health for all of the help and support they have given us in this project.

Its sad that we have to resort to advertising to say what should be obvious, that we are a family community with all types of people who need a livable space but, there it is.

(Thanks to a grant from the San Francisco Dept. of Health)

1) from 7:00 AM to 8:45 AM and 2:40 PM to 3:30 PM each of the 4 days

2) You will be taking a count of the number of pedestrians at one of 4 intersections along Monterey Blvd.  This count will also include the number and type of crossings (interactions with cars not stopping, bus cut offs, number of cyclists on sidewalks, red light/ stop sign runners….)

3) There will be training for this job through a local senior organization.  This is a paid, part time, temporary position (let us know if you are interested for information on pay scale).

Information from this visual survey will be used to help create a more accurate account of just how Monterey Ave. is utilized on a daily basis.  Ultimately, his will help in the future planning of a more pedestrian and neighborhood centered Boulevard!

We need hundreds of responses from all types of street users! Please help us to circulate this survey far and wide. The more people who respond, the more accurate our data will be.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/montereyblvd