Tonight: Discuss 7th & 8th Street Safety Improvement Plans With SFMTA

Tonight: Discuss 7th & 8th Street Safety Improvement Plans With SFMTABicycle infrastructure added to Market at Seventh Street last September. (Photo: Rose Garrett/Hoodline)
Brittany Hopkins
Published on September 22, 2016

Tonight, the SFMTA is hosting an open house to discuss bicycle and pedestrian safety improvements in the works for Seventh and Eighth streets.

The community feedback session comes a month and a half after Mayor Ed Lee issued a directive to implement safety improvement projects on both streets within the next six to nine months. As many will recall, the directive was issued after two cyclists were killed in hit-and-runs in the city on the same night.

Cones placed by @SFMTrA earlier this month to help protect cyclists on Seventh Street from vehicles. | Photo:  John G./Hoodline

During the open house—to be held at 5:30pm today in the Bayanihan Community Center at 1010 Mission St.—SFMTA staff will share details on the current bicycle and pedestrian safety improvements planned for both one-way streets.

According to the project website, the safety improvements will center around using paint to increase the visibility of pedestrians and cyclists on Seventh and Eighth, and concrete to separate cyclists from drivers and make boarding public transit a smoother process. Here are some specific improvements that are currently planned: 

  • Reducing vehicle travel lanes from four to three (which has already been done on Eighth Street)
  • Adding protected bike lanes to separate vehicles and cyclists
  • Adding bus boarding islands to reduce the potential for conflicts between buses and bicycles
  • Redesign intersections to separate bicycles from vehicles turning right
  • Updating traffic signals to make them more visible for drivers
  • Modifying the curbs along both streets as well as some parking and loading spaces to improve pedestrian safety
Conceptual design for the improvement project. | Image: SFMTA

The plan also calls for changes to the northbound 19-Polk Muni route, with the goal of making the trip from SoMa to Civic Center faster and safer.

The SFMTA is proposing to have northbound buses go straight on Market from Seventh Street and then make a left on McAllister and a right on Larkin, rather than the current route, which turns left on Market and then right on Larkin. This new route will eliminate buses merging across four lanes of traffic between Mission and Market, the agency says.

Proposed 19-Polk route. | Image: SFMTA

The SFMTA's fact sheet for the project encourages community members to stop by the open house any time from 5:30-7pm. Staff members will be on hand to discuss the plans and gather feedback.

According to the latest project timeline, a public hearing will be held in October or November, final approval from the SFMTA Board of Directors should come in November or December, and construction could begin as soon as spring 2017.