Back in 1997 when work began on the Southside Plan, many had high hopes to reverse mistakes of the past. This is a student-dominated neighborhood, where 70% of residents don’t even own cars. Reverting 1-way high-speed arterials back to 2-way neighborhood streets was a no-brainer. Building a bike network was also a no-brainer too.
But then a funny thing happened. As the Plan dragged on and on for the better part of two decades, the transit, bike, and ped elements are all but eliminated. And so now in reading the Plan that Council adopted last week, it is hard to find any changes at all.
For example: Dwight and Haste are retained as 1-way speedways, though the study suggests Bancroft and Durant be “considered” for 2-way operation (planners use the word “considered” to mean “nice idea, but won’t happen”). Similarly, the bike network is largely unchanged. Don’t expect to find bike lanes on Telegraph, Bancroft, or Piedmont Ave.
The only positive aspect of the Plan is conversion of Dana and Ellsworth back to 2-way operation with bike lanes. These are relatively short segments in residential blocks. Nobody should mistake this for bold thinking.
The Plan also uses extravagant language to promote AC Transit and other transit services. But then Council killed the AC Transit BRT, making nonsense of the Plan’s transit goals too.
So there you have it: 15 years of planning to come up with a do-nothing option.
Arg. Channing is the only street with a bike lane to go up, but i wont go down it because its in such bad shape its too rough of a ride at downhill speeds.
Bancroft is a pretty horrible competition with the very high pedestrian traffic from the UC. 3 lanes of cars going fast downhill next to what may be the highest density pedestrian trip generator in the Bay Area (i guess some office buildings in SF may be higher).
The pedestrian flashers on Bancroft are no substitute for good street design, and Durant in this area could be a rather nice urban street if it wasnt a one-way auto slum.
How would two-way streets promote transit? In NYC, bus service is unbelievably slow on all two-way streets, and pretty quick on most one-ways.
No, actually, bus service on the one-way pairs is not any faster. Compare e.g. the schedules on the Amsterdam/Columbus one-way pair and on Broadway between 72nd and 110th. (72nd, because it’s a snarl and therefore crossing it would slow anything down; 110th, because it’s the northern limit of one-way operation.)
In contrast, two-way service tends to be better for buses, mainly for service identity reasons. The best practice for BRT is to put it in the median of a two-way street; I don’t know of any place that tries to put it in one-way pairs for long stretches, except New York.