San Francisco voters should start getting ready for a jam-packed June ballot, which includes a recall of District Attorney Chesa Boudin. Everyone who walks, bikes, rides, and drives on SF streets — and who out there doesn’t? — should pay extra attention to what seems, at first, the least exciting measure on the slate: the $400 million bond to raise funds for the SF Municipal Transportation Agency.
If it passes, about three-quarters of the money would pay for an urgent upgrade of Muni infrastructure, especially the repair of trains, buses, and transit facilities. According to the SFMTA, nearly 25 percent of its capital assets such as these are operating beyond their useful life.
In the grand scheme of things, the infrastructure funding is but a drop in the bucket. At last count, SFMTA estimated its “good repair” backlog — the money needed to replace all buses, train tracks, and other assets operating beyond their expected life span — to be $3.2 billion.
The remaining quarter of the bond, some $110 million, could have a more outsized impact, though. Those funds are earmarked for street improvements, as the city encourages more people to get around town without cars.
There are twin goals here: addressing climate change by reducing emissions, and protecting people from being injured or killed by drivers on city streets.
Both goals are pressing. SF’s self-imposed 2024 deadline to eliminate traffic deaths — the so-called Vision Zero pledge — is rapidly approaching, and progress has been hard to come by.
Since SF officials made the pledge in 2014, more than 200 people, including a young teacher two weeks ago, have been killed by drivers and another 20,000 have suffered serious injuries, according to the latest Walk SF traffic safety report card. Two-thirds of the deaths have been pedestrians.
The pandemic drop in commuter traffic did not make roads safer. In 2020, there were 30 traffic deaths, just one fewer than in 2014, according to the city’s tracker. (Last year’s total was 27.)
“Building better and safer streets will make it more likely that mistakes on San Francisco roadways don’t result in severe injuries or death,” says Stephen Chun, an SFMTA spokesperson.
Advocates say the bond, which will require two-thirds approval to pass, is crucial to make Vision Zero commitments a reality. “The return on investment in safe street improvements is protecting human life, it’s that simple,” says Brian Haagsman, the Vision Zero organizer for street safety nonprofit Walk SF.
Haven’t we seen this bond before?
What’s not so simple is spending money and making an impact. In 2014, around the time Vision Zero became a goal, voters approved a very similar SFMTA bond: $416 million total, and about 30 percent, or $127 million, for street projects.
Beyond the lack of progress toward Vision Zero goals, a recent string of capital projects egregiously delayed or over budget leaves many people skeptical of SFMTA’s ability to make good on its promises.
In recent years alone, there’s been the bus rapid transit project on Van Ness Avenue, the long-awaited and oft-delayed Central Subway, the multimillion-dollar redo of the Twin Peaks Tunnel project, and the gutted plans for Better Market Street, which went from bold to boring despite nearly a decade of advocacy.
Under director of transportation Jeffrey Tumlin, who took the agency’s reins in late 2019, leadership has not shied away from its track record and the erosion of public trust. “This is something that I’m working very hard to correct,” Tumlin said at a November 2020 SFMTA board meeting. “While I inherited these problems, I am now responsible for a lot of these problems and rebuilding our approach.”
In one particularly tense County Transportation Authority meeting in May 2021, Sup. Aaron Peskin, a frequent Muni critic, went as far as to suggest that SFMTA might hand off some responsibilities to another agency.
In the past, it felt like the city was always having to choose between the short- and long-term fixes, when the reality is we need both.
Brian Haagsman, Walk SF
As of December 2021, SFMTA had not even spent all the money from the 2014 bond, and officials say they’ll do better with the upcoming bond. At a Dec. 7 board meeting, SFMTA acting chief financial officer Jonathan Rewers said the agency plans to use a “significant component” of the bond within the first three years of approval.
Asked to elaborate on Rewers’ comment, spokesman Chun says the agency is learning from mistakes of the last bond: “We hope to spend the funds more quickly than previous bonds by focusing on fewer projects, and projects that are shovel-ready.”
Sometimes tortoise, sometimes hare
In a presentation at that early December meeting, SFMTA staff indicated that $42 million would go to improve safety and visibility at intersections; $42 million on redesign along major streets to strengthen walking, bicycling, and Muni connections; and $30 million on traffic calming and speed reduction tools.
The terms of the bond require the agency to use the money on long-term engineering projects that SFMTA has said it otherwise doesn’t have staff or resources to complete. One example: Engineers could build concrete bulb-outs instead of just laying down more paint, creating extra room for pedestrians at crosswalks and making them more visible to drivers.
More permanent changes would add a new layer of infrastructure atop the relatively new quick-build program, the agency’s way of rolling out street improvements without all the bureaucracy they typically require. Last fall, Tumlin told The Frisc that quick builds can happen in six months, as opposed to five years, and allow the agency to improve streets with fewer resources. The idea is to implement affordable, reversible, and easy-to-execute changes, such as coats of paint or plastic bollards, and seeing what works.
“In the past, it felt like the city was always having to choose between the short- and long-term fixes, when the reality is we need both,” Walk SF’s Haagsman says. “Sufficient funds will mean the SFMTA can tackle a dangerous street comprehensively. That means bringing those needed quick fixes while also investing in some serious street redesign.”
Political will
There’s also the question whether city officials will make street safety a true priority, even if it risks making some people upset. The COVID-19 pandemic has offered no shortage of opportunities to make significant changes, yet pushback has left some transformative visions in danger of being swapped out for watered-down alternatives.
It’s taken months to turn four pandemic-period slow streets into permanent fixtures. Even those deemed by SFMTA to be the most popular, according to survey results — have faced notable criticism from a vocal minority. (Always worth repeating: Cars aren’t banned from slow streets. Everyone, including residents and delivery vans, can drive on them at reduced speeds but not as through streets.)
How are we going to get other things done? We need to move on.
SFMTA board member manny yekutiel, on the long process to close of jfk drive to cars
The closure of the Great Highway and John F. Kennedy Drive to vehicles in April 2020 has resulted in a polarizing debate. The Great Highway sits in a compromise limbo that the mayor ordered last year, closed to cars on weekends and open to them on weekdays.
The truest test of political will is coming soon. JFK Drive, the main drag of Golden Gate Park, was one of the city’s most dangerous roads before COVID, with drivers using it as a shortcut around city streets. It was closed to cars early in the pandemic. After long negotiations with advocates and public outreach, SFMTA and the Recreation and Park Department codified a plan to keep it closed permanently to cars with a high-profile joint vote on March 10. A closure plan must still have the approval of the Board of Supervisors; the mayor and three supervisors released a version on Mar. 15 based on what the SFMTA-Rec and Park boards approved last week.
In the marathon joint meeting, SFMTA board member Manny Yekutiel expressed concern over the angst caused by the JFK proposal. If it takes this much consternation to close just one road in the park to cars, “how are we going to get other things done?” he asked. “We need to move on.”
How much money SFMTA has to get other things done will be up to the voters in June.