West Portal Notebook
Supervisor Melgar Surprises Neighborhood with Final Plan for the West Portal Project
SFMTA Compromise Decision
Editor’s Note: On July 16th the SFMTA voted unanimously, after over an hour of public testimony to a compromise which follows Melgar's recommendations witha few additions — converting Lenox Way to a one-way and prohibiting a left-turn from West Portal onto Vincente Street. See the final adopted plan at the end of this article.
• • • • • • • • • • July 15, 2014 • • • • • • • • • •
District 7 Supervisor Myrna Melgar sent out a mass email on the morning of June 27, 2024, the tone of which was cheerful, even celebratory, a sort of “we did it!” sentiment expressed in the first few lines. The following content, however, surprised and frustrated West Portal residents and merchants who have worked hard these past several months to make sure their voices were heard and opinions counted for; couched in the email’s happy-go-lucky tone was the announcement that the final plan for the West Portal Project had been created and would be brought to the Board of the SFMTA on July 16th, 2024, for a vote. Credited in Supervisor Melgar’s email is Mayor London Breed, who gave her support for and approval of this new and final plan.
According to the text of the email, the final plan was a result of “the discussions of the Welcoming West Portal Committee and months of public feedback,” leading the SFMTA, Supervisor Melgar, and Mayor Breed to develop a “refined proposal” that incorporated community feedback and opinion. But this seems to be out of step with the last meeting of the West Portal Welcoming Committee (an eleven-person committee of West Portal merchants, residents, visitors and youth convened by Supervisor Melgar and West Portal Merchants Association President, Deidre Von Rock to help advise and give feedback about the planning process), which, while recognizing that “some changes would make the neighborhood a more welcoming and thriving corridor,” ultimately concluded their last session without consensus on a particular proposal.
This decision also seems to be sudden to many, and while multiple business owners have admitted that this plan isn’t so bad, there are other community figures calling on Melgar and the SFMTA to wait to make a decision until the L train is back up and running properly. In last month’s panel on the possible changes to West Portal infrastructure and traffic management, one panelist argued that until that line is operating properly again, we won’t have any real idea about how these changes will affect train traffic, which in turn would affect vehicle and pedestrian traffic, bus stop locations, speed impediments, etc. The point was echoed by three other panelists, who questioned why the West Portal Project needed to happen now, at this precise point in time, when, historically speaking, accidents at the West Portal Avenue, Ulloa Street and Lenox Avenue conjunction are so rare that the intersection isn’t even listed amongst the City’s twenty most dangerous intersections.
...when it comes to accidents of all kinds (vehicular, bicyclist, pedestrian, non-fatal, and fatal), the area of West Portal accounts for 6% and less of the City’s accidents; moreover, following the implementation of Project Zero in 2014, accidents of every kind in the West Portal area have dropped from 20% - 48%.”
Stephen Martin-Pinto, a candidate for District 7 supervisor, was particularly firm in his opinion that this project is happening far too quickly and is based on multiple murky factors that might have an impact on any final plan’s effectiveness and practicability. In addition to the incompletion of the work on the L train line, “the results of the accident investigation have not been released, so any traffic proposal that is meant to prevent an accident like the family tragedy at West Portal is not based on complete or accurate information. By SFMTA’s own data, the entire West Portal Avenue is not a part of the High-Injury Network… It appears to me that the effort to make these safety improvements is based on an effort that is designed more to pacify bicycle and anti-car activists, but not designed to address any credible evidence-based need,” he said.
He concluded his statement by recognizing that while there do need to be improvements to safety measures at that intersection, they should be the common sense measures the community at large has been requesting for years: MUNI signal priority lights and traffic lights at the West Portal Ave. and Ulloa St. intersection, and moving the bus stops on Ulloa St. and Lenox Ave. back to the semi-circle of the MUNI station where pedestrians would have more protection from oncoming traffic.
On the point of “credible, evidenced-based” needs, according to the SFMTA’s records, when it comes to accidents of all kinds (vehicular, bicyclist, pedestrian, non-fatal, and fatal), the area of West Portal accounts for 6% and less of the City’s accidents; moreover, following the implementation of Project Zero in 2014, accidents of every kind in the West Portal area have dropped from 20% - 48%. The SFMTA has also admitted that from 2020 on (Covid aside), they saw such a sharp drop in the number of citywide accidents that they’re not 100% sure which factors are the most responsible; according to their website, the effects of recently “completed projects, like the 2nd Street Streetscape or the retiming of all the signals in the downtown area… are difficult to analyze considering the overall drops in crashes citywide.” As of right now, there’s no concrete evidence to say how effective or ineffective street remodeling projects are in making San Francisco streets safer.
(It is also perhaps important to note that the seemingly sudden decision to bring the final plan to the Board of the SFMTA was made at the same time the City’s Board of Supervisors approved the 2024-2025 budget which, among other things, “fully funds public safety, our children, and small business support.” It is not clear, however, if one affected the timing of the other.)
Final Project Plan Details
The details of the final layout for the West Portal Project are closest laid out in a former plan referred to as “3a”: in both plans, through westbound traffic on Ulloa St. has been eliminated (for those as bad with directions as me, that’s from the gas station side to the library side) while eastbound through traffic will remain. On the main West Portal corridor, at the north end of the avenue just before the MUNI station (the “top” of the block before the train station “horseshoe”), there will be roughly a half a block’s length on both sides of the street where no cars are allowed to drive on the train tracks, turning what is now effectively used as two-lanes back into one for cars and one for transit and commercial vehicles only; there will be no left-hand turns onto Ulloa St. going north (towards the train station) on West Portal Ave.; there will be no left-hand turns onto Vicente St. going south on West Portal Ave.; Lenox Way will be one-way, downhill only, with only right-hand turns onto Ulloa St.
Additionally, several bus stops will be moved to corners farther away from the Ulloa St. – West Portal Ave. intersection, a “bus stop amenity” (yet unclear as to what that entails) would be added to the north side (library-side) of Ulloa St., and many other speed bumps, plastic lane dividers, mid-intersection concrete islands, and pedestrian crossing visibility devices, would be added to the streets and corners at the Ulloa St. – West Portal intersection, the Vicente St. – West Portal Ave intersection, and surrounding streets like Wawona St. Beautification efforts, including planters and murals at the MUNI horseshoe are also to be included in these changes to make the locations more inviting to pedestrians.
Other questions about the West Portal Project have yet to be answered, most interestingly regarding where the SFMTA will get the funding for the project and the upkeep of the planters and surrounding murals. The SFMTA is already facing a deficit of a little under $13 billion this year. And while fewer, less radical changes mean a much lower budget and faster timeline for project completion (the “quick build implementation” is estimated to conclude at the end of 2024, after which traffic patterns and incidents will be monitored and changes made as necessary), the size of the hole in SFMTA finances looms large. That leaves many confused about how installing traffic lights and stop signs at the primary intersection in question would cost less than this project, which even the SFMTA admits is only meant to last for 3- 5 years.
The Board of the SFMTA is scheduled to make what could be the final vote of approval this coming Tuesday, July 16th, at 1 p.m. in City Hall, room 400 on the fourth floor; although the meeting is closed, a link has been provided to watch the proceedings.
Maura Corkery is a reporter living on the West side.
July 15, 2024
