Since I've returned to San Francisco I've become a devoted reader of the
Bernalwood blog, which reports on all things Bernal Heights. I find out so much of what is happening in the "hood" on this blog. Some of it humorous, some of it about people and residents of the area, but most importantly, it reports on civic issues that affect all us residents. This, recently has been an issue that has stirred up amazing amounts of controversy and debate.
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| The new "red carpet" bus and taxi only lanes on Mission from 30th north up through 14th St (or even further north). Photo stolen from the Bernalwood blog. |
Reading the blog, I found out that there was going to be a community meeting about these red lanes held at the Mission Cultural center at 25th and Mission last night. I don't have much of an opinion about these lanes, but if I were to fall into a constituency, I would be a bus rider who finds that when I do ride the Mission buses they certainly
SEEM to move faster and feel like a less frustrating experience. But I went to the meeting thinking that a few people would show up, but I just wanted to hear what other people had to say, AND, it's part of my summer of civic engagement. Well, let's just say "a few people" turned out to be standing room only and upwards of 250 to 300 people. But as I expected, the discussion was heated.
The meeting started late by 15 minutes and the first to speak was the district supervisor. He stated he wanted to organize and invite the San Francisco Metropolitan Transit Authority (aka MTA which runs MUNI) to hear what the community had to say. Then the head of the MTA spoke, said the same thing. Then the project manager of the Mission corridor project spoke for about 15 minutes giving us the history and goals of the project. These bus/taxi only lanes were implemented with the intention of providing better bus service (in addition to the lanes, stops were removed and consolidated as well) and to improve pedestrian safety along the Mission corridor. A huge change is that there are NO locations to take make a left turn from Mission. In addition, there are forced right turns at certain intersections, the biggest being at Cesar Chavez, pictured above. So the two representatives of the MTA were Caucasian men in suits, obviously well educated and the project manager looked like he might have been, at most 25 years old. This is just data for something that I will mention later on.
Once these three introductory speakers were done, it became open mic. If you wanted to speak, you submitted a speaker card and were called up and got two minutes. For the first 20 speakers, it was a civil discourse. Anyone in the audience that was out of line or tried to interrupt a speaker was handled by the audience and attendees.
About a third of the speakers were like me, people who generally don't drive (or have to drive on Mission, or if like me, when I do drive North/South, I take Guerrero or South Van Ness) and take the bus and have found the the new lanes a boon to our bus riding experience. However, I did come to hear about other perspectives and I got what I came for.
If there was one theme, it was that MTA did not inform all stakeholders about the changes and they came as a sudden surprise. Granted I'm one of those people who considers myself somewhat well informed but these red lanes were a surprise to me. I probably wasn't paying attention, but I don't think that there was much outreach or if it was done, the MTA wasn't exactly thorough.
There was someone who spoke up for the elderly for whom the changes to the bus lanes weren't the real issue, but it was the reduction in bus stops, therefore they had to walk further to board a bus.
A taxi cab driver, a constituency that felt uninformed, requested that at somewhere on Mission there be a place where the can take a left turn.
One speaker accused the MTA of using this to make money. Turns out that there aren't any places to drop off people and so any double parking is automatically ticketed. There is a sense that a LOT of tickets are being issued for this as well as driving in the red lanes, which is sometimes unavoidable.
A number of speakers were from the merchants association which say they are feeling the economic pinch. They claim that there are fewer parking spaces and that it is harder for people to drive to the Mission to spend money. No access means no money and the effect is on their bottomline.
Apparently UBER drivers, who technically aren't taxis are using the red lanes.
The forced right turns onto Cesar Chavez is "dividing" the Mission into two.
There was a sentiment that "change is hard" and the right now this is painful to adjust to new ways of moving around. Don't give up. A piggy back on this is that anyway we can get people out of cars is a good thing.
Someone suggested moving the buses over to South Van Ness.
THEN it inevitably happened. A speaker came up and pointed out that the two MTA guys were Caucasian and didn't represent the neighborhood. This person then, in essence, stated that the MTA is out to "kill" business on Mission, and in the pockets of those, leading the effort for future redevelopment and gentrification. And there was the word that I knew would eventually come up and the room exploded. It was stated (by someone else) that was this saving of time on the bus worth the inevitable gentrification and displacement of long time residents of the Mission District?
At this point, I sensed that the meeting was going to devolve into a session where people were going to vent about the changes in the Mission and it would no longer be a discussion about the bus lanes and changes to transit flow along the Mission Avenue corridor, so I left. Perhaps the meeting managed to right itself into its original intent, but the seal had been broken.
It's a hard thing to watch as San Francisco changes right before everyone's eyes. Some people are affected and I have no solution.
