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Project managers, fire department and advocates debate street widths in Candlestick Point/Hunters Point Shipyard rebuild
Summary
OCII and Planning staff described revisions to street cross-sections at the Candlestick Point and Hunters Point Shipyard project to reconcile Better Streets design with Fire Department 26-foot clear-width requirements; staff said they reached near-consensus with departments and will return necessary documents for approval.
Office of Community Investment and Infrastructure (OCII) project staff updated the Planning Commission on the long-running Candlestick Point–Hunters Point Shipyard redevelopment and a recent interagency effort to reconcile street design with emergency access requirements.
Wells Lawson, OCII senior project manager, reviewed the project—s scope and approvals and said the full development plan envisions roughly 12,100 housing units, replacement public housing and a major open-space system. "This in total, including both phase 1 and phase 2 of Hunters Point Shipyard, is a 12,100 unit development," Lawson said, and he noted the project includes a roughly 3.15 million-square-foot research and development and office component.
Lawson and staff described that the original 2010 approvals incorporated Better Streets Plan cross sections that in places provide less than the Fire Department—s 26-foot clear travel width. In response to the fire department—s concerns, OCII and planning staff worked with DPW, MTA and the Fire Department to revise sections; a June 3 map shows a mix of "green" streets (>=26 feet clear) and "red" streets (20–22 feet) with approaches to ensure block access from multiple sides so fire trucks can reach parcels.
Public commenters urged caution about widening streets. Tyler Frisby of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition said wider roadways "encourage faster speeds for drivers" and can harm pedestrian and bicycle safety; he asked that narrower 20-foot streets be retained in places where that pattern already exists. Planning and OCII staff said the revised map was the product of interagency compromise and that lane widths on wider streets would be limited to 10-foot travel lanes to discourage excessive speeds. Staff also said remaining changes would be circulated to department directors and incorporated into infrastructure, streetscape and major-phase applications, and that the design-for-development document would return to the commission for approval.
Commissioners asked for more detail on street typologies, bus-rapid-transit routing, sidewalks, and how the fire department—s access concerns would be satisfied. OCII staff said they hoped to finalize the consensus before leaving the city and that several documents (best-intended subdivision map, infrastructure plan, transportation plan and the design-for-development document) would be updated to lock in the revisions.
