19th Avenue and Park Presidio Enhancements:
Making a State Route Walkable

	Dan Eckels and his daughter Betty, residents of the Sunset, are heartened by a number of improvements along 19th Avenue.

Dan Eckels loves to walk through Golden Gate Park with his two-year-old daughter, Betty. He lives two blocks away on Judah Street, just off of 19th Avenue. However, getting there can be a challenge, "I've lived in the Sunset for over five years now, and 19th Avenue has always been a street to avoid walking on. Cars were parked on the sidewalk, leaving little room for someone with a stroller." For Mr. Eckels, an avid cyclist who does not own a car, the ability to walk around his neighborhood has always been essential. "Without pedestrian signals at intersections, I never knew if cars were aware I had the right-of-way or if I might get trapped in the crosswalk if the traffic light changed when I was in the middle of the street."

Mr. Eckels' concerns about walkability were well-founded. Outdated traffic signals, sidewalk parking, and the lack of pedestrian facilities such as countdown signals and bulbouts (wider sidewalks at intersections and bus stops), had hindered pedestrian activity along 19th Avenue for years. High traffic volumes and speeding are also significant issues on the corridor. The result was challenging walking conditions and numerous serious and fatal collisions. Between 1998 and 2005, 19th Avenue, saw 24 traffic related deaths, including nine pedestrian fatalities, according to a San Francisco Police Department report. Over the last 5 years, multiple intersections on 19th Avenue have ranked near the top of the list of San Francisco intersections with the highest number of collisions. For these reasons, when the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), which has jurisdiction over the roadway, prepared to implement its Signal Upgrade Project, local agencies and residents expressed support for key safety components such as new signals, re-striped cross walks and pedestrian countdown signals, but felt more was needed.

19th Avenue has multiple, and often conflicting, transportation purposes. Serving as California State Route 1 in San Francisco, 19th Avenue is a high-capacity corridor connecting regional traffic from the freeways to the south with the Golden Gate Bridge to the north. The road has six lanes of traffic and carries more than 85,000 vehicles daily. However, 19th Avenue, which turns into Park Presidio Boulevard north of Golden Gate Park, also carries several major transit routes—including Muni bus lines 28 and 28 Limited and the M Ocean View light rail line—and is a central hub of commercial and other community activities in the Richmond, Sunset and West Portal neighborhoods. Improving 19th Avenue's pedestiran safety and walkability without compromising its other needs is a perpetual challenge for this complex corridor.

High traffic volumes and speeding are significant issues on 19th Avenue.

Mark Duffett, President of the Sunset Parkside Education Action Committee (SPEAK) and local resident, approached local transportation agencies including San Francisco County Transportation Authority (Authority) planners and asked for their help to make 19th Avenue less of a wall separating neighborhoods along the corridor. In 2006, the Authority initiated a planning effort to develop multi-modal solutions for the corridor, teaming with Caltrans, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (MTA), and the San Francisco Department of Public Works (DPW). The resulting 19th Avenue/Park Presidio Transportation Plan built on the Caltrans Signal Upgrade Project and proposed a range of additional measures to improve the safety and walkability of the corridor. Today, Mr. Duffett points supportively to the plan's recommendations to implement a number of pedestrian improvements, including lighting, pedestrian countdown signals, corner and transit bulbouts, and landscaping for the corridor, amongst others.

One of the plan's signature successes was achieving consensus on a series of early action traffic-calming strategies from all participating agencies. These included reducing the speed limit along 19th Avenue from 35 to 30 miles-per-hour and creating a continuous white stripe, or edge line, between the right-most travel lane and the parking lane. The edge line encourages drivers to park their cars entirely on the street by clearly delineating the distinction between their parked cars and passing traffic. It also reduces the perceived width of the street, to which drivers often react by slowing down.

	Since 2003, more than $20 million has been spent on traffic signal upgrades and pedestrian countdown signals at 26 intersections.

According to Manito Velasco, a manager for traffic calming at MTA at the time of the early action projects, meeting Caltrans design guidelines for a state highway while also achieving pedestrian goals took significant patience, creativity, and compromise by all agencies involved. "By looking at traffic calming holistically, each agency was able to achieve many of its desired outcomes" said Mr. Velasco. Immediately following implementation of the edge line, San Francisco Police officers provided strong enforcement of new local regulations prohibiting parking on sidewalks to help ensure the success of the proejct. In a follow-up evaluation report, MTA found that speeds on 19th Avenue decreased in both directions, for all the locations studied. The report also found that vehicles partially parked on the sidewalk dropped from 68 percent to only 3 percent of all parked vehicles, after the edge line was implemented.

Since 2003, a total of more than $10 million in Prop K transportation sales tax funds and an equal amount in State transportation funds have been invested on a number of other compromise enhancements: new traffic signals with enhanced signage, lighting, and pedestrian countdown signals; new and enhanced accessible curb ramps; and re-striping of cross walks at 26 intersections, with the remaining nine to be completed as additional funding becomes available. Based on a beautification recommendation from the neighborhood transportation plan, the signal poles were painted green and have been well received by the community and local agencies versus the standard grey pole color.

Vehicles partially parked on the sidewalk dropped from 68 ercent to only 3 percent of all parked vehicles, after the edge line was implemented.

Phase II of the signal upgrade prioject included the the installation of fiber optic signal interconnect (traffic signal communication infrastructure) on 19th Avenue from Holloway Avenue to Lincoln Way. This will allow for smoother signal progrssion along the corridor as well as the potential to implement transit signal priority on 19th Avenue. Authority planners are currently working with Caltrans and City agency staff to design the transit and pedestrian bulbout project.

Both Mr. Duffett and Mr. Eckels feel that while there is still significant work to be done to make 19th Avenue safer and more pleasant, the improvements thus far have been a good start. "19th Avenue needs a bunch of things—nicer sidewalks, trees, some sort of larger separation between pedestrians and cars, and maybe even a place for bikes," said Mr. Eckels, "but you'd never convince people that it was worth doing that without first getting the cars off the sidewalks and making it look like a place worth walking."

Project at a Glance

The Authority, in conjunction with Caltrans, MTA, DPW, and numerous community stakeholders, developed the 19th Avenue/Park Presidio Boulevard Transportation Plan to improve multimodal transportation conditions along 19th Avenue, a complex corridor serving both regional and local traffic and several transit routes. The $75,000 study, funded exclusively by Prop K, prioritized key areas of need, including pedestrian safety and streetscape conditions, traffic calming, and transit passenger access and loading operations.

Since adoption of the plan, 26 of the 35 intersections in the study area have received upgraded and more visible traffic signals, additional street lighting, pedestrian countdown signals, and accessible curb ramps. In addition, a parking edge line has been implemented on the east and west sides of the street for a two-mile stretch from Sloat Boulevard to Lincoln Way. The remaining nine intersections await further funding. Other recommended improvements such as bus and curb bulbs (wider sidewalks at bus stops and intersections) are undergoing further project development.

The more than $20 million expended on the project thus far includes more than $10 million in Prop K funds, the half-cent sales tax for transportation administered by the Authority. The other half was funded through the Caltrans State Highway Operatiion and Protection Program (SHOPP).

For more information, visit www.sfcta.org/19th.

DOWNLOAD AS PDF | BACK TO SPOTLIGHT INDEX PAGE | BACK TO SFTP HOME PAGE