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Committee backs Second Street undergrounding district and forwards project to full board
Summary
Public Works presented the Second Street Improvement Project and proposed Undergrounding District No. 361 (Bryant to Townsend). The committee forwarded the measure after staff outlined widened sidewalks, buffered bicycle tracks, an estimated $20 million project cost, and an October 2018 start for utility trenching.
Mike Reager, project manager for San Francisco Public Works, described the Second Street Improvement Project and the proposed Undergrounding District No. 361 between Bryant and Townsend streets. Reager said the project will widen sidewalks to 15 feet, add buffered raised cycle tracks, repave the corridor and underground existing overhead utilities on an 8‑block stretch. "Part of the reason that we're proposing the undergrounding of utilities on Second Street is due to the fact that in this segment, the sidewalks are 10 feet wide on both sides of the street...we are going to be widening the sidewalks from Harrison to Townsend to 15 feet," Reager said.
Reager described outreach beginning in 2012 and public meetings; he reported general property owner support for the district. He said the overall Second Street improvement project is approximately $20,000,000 with a mix of federal grants (FHWA), Prop K matching funds, Eastern Neighborhoods and Transit Center District funds; Public Works requested $2,000,000 from the Eastern Neighborhoods program specifically for the undergrounding conversion. Property owners would pay for individual service conversions from overhead to underground. Reager gave the implementation timeline: trenching and joint‑trench creation for underground utilities is expected to begin in October 2018 (after the Giants season) and the entire project is anticipated to finish around November 2019.
Supervisors questioned whether the $2,000,000 is an additional taxpayer cost; staff said the undergrounding funds were programmed from Eastern Neighborhoods impact fees and that such fees could be reprogrammed if the undergrounding did not proceed. After public comment was closed, the committee voted by roll call to forward the ordinance to the full Board with recommendation; the clerk recorded the roll call (Peskin: aye; Safai: no; Tang: aye) and the motion passed.
