If one spends much time reading through the achievements of local planning and transportation activists recently, one word keeps cropping up. This is the result of many complex systems, but “temporary” is the newest kid in on the block.
- Pedestrian Plazas: Castro (at 17th St) and Guerrero (at San Jose).
- Studies for permanent closure: Mason St in North Beach.
- Stair steps for traffic calming: Market St past 8th and various Presidio thoroughfares.
These studies have much in common, which is what I’d like to focus on. Besides all be temporary, the thing these all have in common is that they close areas off to private cars, while all remaining open to transit, bikes and pedestrians. This by itself should be complimented as a forward thinking breakthrough. While areas around the country are using their new stimulus money to create new highways (or an unnecessary 4th bore), San Francisco uses its resources to seek more open space and pedestrian environments.
The funny thing is that many of these seem to be done purely to avoid any environmental analysis. CEQA exempts temporary installations from the lengthy EIR and notification process. Basically, as long as the city departments all agree with each other, it’s a done deal. This is exactly the reason the Bike Plan has taken so long to get off the ground – something that was seen as undoubtedly good for the environment was thought to be OK skipping the EIR. Not to short-change anyone, because I’m sure many groups had a lot of planning to do behind the scenes, but it all just seems to be *so easy* to temporarily fix the problem. The beauty is that this overcomes humankind’s great tendency to resist change.
Inertia is a great thing. It keeps the earth rotating the sun. It also makes shopkeepers incorrectly think that most people drive to their stores. Instead of having endless hearings and studies about the effect of road closures, San Francisco has decided to simply close the roads, and do the study in real life. The thing is, once the earth doesn’t stop rotating, and the sky doesn’t fall, people should actually come to appreciate the fact that you can get down Market on a bus or a bike just as easily. Not to mention, we will have real life data for the EIR, should it ever come to that.
I’ve tended to present this is exploiting a loophole in CEQA, but that’s not entirely true. Yes, the environment needs to be taken into account, but I’m just excited to see something actually being attempted. I assume the furious partisans will picket a plaza if they are determined to drive on every single street in San Francisco. Lawsuits and hearings will happen, and we should prepare to defend them for the betterment of our town. But hey, at least we should applaud the city for trying.
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