Hat tip to one of our favorite neighborhood sources, the Richmond District Blog, for pointing out that the intersection of Geary and Park Presidio Boulevards is getting a little work done.
Among the improvements, mainly to the state highway running north-south from the Presidio to Golden Gate Park, are broader sidewalks, curb cuts for safety and better accessibility, new bus shelters and lighting, and a “seating wall.” (Here’s a link to the project’s site.) Not included in the project, unfortunately, is a reconception of what Park Presidio should be, which our outdoors editor Barry Owen proposed one year ago as a high-profile response to San Francisco’s self-inflicted crises of housing affordability and rampant automobile congestion.
At this intersection, six lanes of Highway 1’s north-south traffic cross six lanes of east-west traffic. There’s even more space if you consider the greenbelts on either side of Park Presidio, along with the four north-south lanes of Funston and 14th Avenue. Indeed, the thoroughfare’s designation as a state highway makes revisions here lots more complicated, but: It’s crazy that this much space in a major city gets sucked up by motor vehicles either speeding or inching along at surface level.
This is not only wasteful, but as anyone who crosses Park Presidio by anything other than an automobile can attest, it’s unpleasant. Or potentially deadly for seniors, the disabled, and others who need more crossing time. Please don’t get started on the shitshow that is Geary, which is eight times more dangerous for pedestrians than other city streets.
Shouldn’t the city be doing more about this obvious problem? Well, according to the Park Presidio project’s presentation itself, dated May 2017, there have been other attempts to dick around the edges, in 2006 and 2008. But let’s not be so negative and look at the bright side: Thanks to a streetscape improvement bond in 2011, which by our math is seven long years ago, San Francisco Public Works has $300,000 it can finally put to use.
The proposed work is scheduled to be completed later this summer. If everything goes well, Park Presidio will be dolled up with one of four kinds of showy “gateway planting” — formal, “bold + bright,” textural, or color contrast. That’s a nice spin for some nipping and tucking on a highway that flattens cyclists and pedestrians and splits a city neighborhood to boot. We should be able to do better than this. Why not start with our idea?
Have thoughts other than some country-club landscaping about how to make Park Presidio better? Let us know in the comments or at thefrisc AT gmail.com.