Public weighs safety, stop spacing and preservation as Planning Commission reviews Better Market Street draft EIR

San Francisco's Planning Department on April 4 presented the draft environmental impact report (DEIR) for the Better Market Street project, a proposed redesign of a 2.2-mile corridor that would reallocate space for transit, bikes and pedestrians and restrict private vehicle access through much of the route.

Chris Thomas, the department's DEIR coordinator, told the Planning Commission the proposal would establish Muni-only lanes, relocate stops and boarding islands, add grade-separated, sidewalk-level bikeways and replace the existing brick sidewalks with ADA-compliant surfaces in many locations. The DEIR identifies significant and unavoidable project- and cumulative-level impacts in areas including cultural resources, noise during construction and temporary disruption to transit operations while work is underway. Written comments on the DEIR are due to the Planning Department by 5 p.m. on April 15, 2019, Thomas said.

Public commenters generally welcomed efforts to reduce private vehicles and improve bicycle and pedestrian safety, but pressed staff on several technical details. Ron Miguel of the Better Market Street Citizens Working Group said the DEIR understates the effect of wider stop spacing on transit access and singled out proposed distances between center boarding islands, which the DEIR shows ranging from approximately 1,082 feet to as much as 2,867 feet in places. "This is over half a mile," Miguel said, and he urged the department to analyze enhanced island-placement options that preserve reasonable walking distances while still reducing the number of stops.

Walk San Francisco's policy director, Cathy DeLuca, said Market Street carries roughly half a million pedestrian trips per day and described the corridor as "30 times more dangerous than comparable California streets." DeLuca endorsed the Western variant of the project that would further restrict private vehicles and expand sidewalks in parts of the corridor, but warned that cafe seating and other curbside uses could leave only six to eight feet of actual walking corridor in some places east of Van Ness.

The S.F. Bicycle Coalition's Charles Defarge urged the commission to adopt the proposed sidewalk-level bike lanes and, where feasible, elements of the Western variant to improve safety on the corridor, which he described as one of the city's highest-injury corridors.

A representative from the Historic Preservation Commission told the Planning Commission the DEIR's analysis of cultural resources and alternatives was generally adequate but encouraged retention of Market Street's historic materials where feasible, including granite curbs and path-of-gold light standards. Staff noted the Historic Preservation Commission submitted a letter with specific recommendations; Thomas said the Historic Preservation Commission's comments and other public feedback will be addressed in the EIR's comment-and-response document scheduled for publication this fall, ahead of certification.

Commissioners asked staff to provide additional modeling and analysis where feasible, including pedestrian flow models to test proposed sidewalk widths and how cafe encroachments affect throughput. "The devil is in the details," Commissioner Moore said, asking for quantitative modeling of pedestrian comfort at peak times.

The Planning Department will accept written comments on the DEIR through April 15, and staff said it expects to publish the comments-and-responses document this fall before bringing a certification hearing back to the commission.