Issue 295 February 2005

CONTROLLING TRAFFIC: LONDON POINTS THE WAY
Success of the “congestion charge” in curbing downtown London traffic
In February of 2003, despite widespread opposition, London Mayor Ken Livingstone bravely inaugurated a congestion charge under which people pay to drive in downtown London. At the time no one thought the Plan would work, but they were wrong. Here’s what respected transportation experts around the world are saying now.
In its December 2004 issue, the internationally influential journal Planning Theory & Practice says that the congestion charge has “reduced traffic and improved travel speeds in central London” and that it “provides a clear model” for other cities. (See www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/14649357.asp)
Tim Richardson, Professor of Town and Regional Planning at the University of Sheffield, says "as the early findings of its impact in London are being established, the debate about extending the London charge zone is gathering pace. In other parts of the UK there is movement towards implementation.” Other journal contributors consider congestion charging a constructive way of challenging car culture that seems actually to work. “Alongside complementary measures including better public transport, congestion charging is coming of age as a tool.”
David Banister, Professor of Transport Planning at University College, London hails the scheme as “a remarkable success” and notes that “the London congestion charge is the most radical transport policy to be introduced in any major European city center since Rome closed off its center to chariots.”
He also notes that as a result of the reduction in automobile use, Central London is becoming a much better place in which to live, work and do business.
London Mayor Ken Livingstone believes that “over the next few decades congestion charging will become relatively commonplace as a way of reducing congestion at the center of some of the world's biggest cities." He goes on to warn that “the most difficult challenges for introducing congestion charging are not technical ones, but social and political ones, the exact nature of which will differ from city to city."
San Francisco has more cars registered per square mile than any other city in the entire world, including New York and Tokyo. To the traffic effects of some 430,000 registered San Francisco automobiles must be added the effects of the 300,000 plus additional cars that enter the city every weekday and the 150,000 plus cars that exit the city every weekday.
San Francisco is widely regarded as a progressive city, but somehow it is increasing its automobile ownership population and allowing cars to go wherever they want to go. Congestion pricing, combined with a well-coordinated public transit system, is reducing congestion and increasing travel speeds in London. Mayor Livingstone advises any city considering congestion charging to recognize that such a program can be implemented only with strong local leadership and by ensuring that public transit can handle the increased demand.

BIG AND TALL:
CPMC’s Development Plans
Neighbors along the Van Ness corridor have learned that the California Pacific Medical Center (CPMC) is planning to construct a 21-story hospital with five stories of underground parking at the Cathedral Hill Hotel site which it has recently purchased. The CPMC will also propose the construction of a medical office building across
the street (1100 Van Ness), connected by a tunnel under Van Ness Avenue. It is clear that CPMC is siting their proposed facility on Van Ness for economic and market-share reasons: they need to stay competitive with the new facilities offered by the Kaiser system. Total development costs are projected at $1.5 billion dollars.
There will have to be major zoning reclassifications since the site is currently zoned RC-4 with a 130-foot height limit. Since Van Ness is also Highway 101, the State of California will be interested in the issue of tunnel construction under Van Ness. The Cathedral Hill Hotel site lies in the A-2 Redevelop-ment district and falls within San Francisco Plan-ning Department's Van Ness Corridor Plan. For-mer City Zoning Administrator Robert Passmore, now with the Marchese Company, has reportedly been contracted to assist CPMC in obtaining of the various governmental approvals.
Since they calculate that City agency approvals will occur in 2006, the project architects and engineers are furiously working out their Final Design. Not waiting for these approvals is the name of the game. The public gets nixed out every time.
CPMC plans to submit its institutional master plan to the Planning Department later this year.

Planning Plods Along
Year after year, the Planning Department publishes an annual work program and budget for its activities in the coming fiscal year. This year’s is very similar to those of the past eight years. It is a disappointment to see that the emphasis is once again heavily on development permits and the revenue they raise for the Department. Meanwhile, the proposed budget fails to establish priorities that are in any way related to systemic and long-term planning.
Missing is an understanding that planning must comprehensively evaluate the economy, society, infrastructure, institutions and the physical environment interdependently. The Planning Department needs to be the center for the creation of legislative and Mayoral policy choices. This is an extremely complex task for which the city’s agencies and the Planning Department, in particular, are under-qualified to do. New staff is hired with high qualifications in some of these essential fields but their specialties are underutilized and they are continually assigned to routine jobs. The search goes on for a new Planning Director and the Department continues to limp along with an interim director.

Dunce Cap Transportation Derby
San Jose and San Francisco are apparently competing to see who can come up with the dumbest and most wasteful project.

San Jose's Entry: BART-to-San Jose: Thanks to the myopic thinking of San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales coupled with the shortsightedness of the Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group (SVMG), San Jose is continuing to promote a 6 billion dollar, 16.3 mile BART extension from Fremont to San Jose.

In a recent San Jose Mercury article, SVMG justified its zeal to see BART extended by likening San Jose to such cities as New York, Boston and London. Are they kidding? San Jose is not New York. For one thing it’s too sprawled out to be New York, or London or Paris or Boston or even Washington, DC. Even San Jose's "downtown core" is spread out. The hi-tech Silicon Valley "campuses,” surrounded by acres of beautifully landscaped tracts devoted to free employee parking, are even more spread out. The notion that a single BART line could make even a small dent in the traffic-clogged freeways and arterials leading into these areas is, to put it mildly, unrealistic.
San Francisco's Entry: the Central Subway: Thanks to an ill-considered political *promise made to Rose Pak, Chinatown power broker, San Francisco's former mayor has embroiled San Francisco in a plan to extend a subway from the Third Street light rail tracks at Forth and Townsend northward under Market, Union Square and the Stockton Tunnel to Clay Street. MUNI has pushed the estimated price of the Central Subway project up from the previous estimate of $764 million to a staggering $994 million, with hints that costs will rise even higher in the future.
Moreover, MUNI documents also show that the billion dollar subway would cut Clay-to-Market travel times by only two minutes below what MUNI 30-Line bus riders experience today. Given this meager savings of time coupled with the inconvenience of having to descend five stories into a subway only to re-emerge after a short ride, it is not surprising to find that the recently updated projections show the extension as having virtually no effect on corridor transit usage.
If allowed to proceed, these projects will divert scarce transit funds that could be better used to advance good projects, integrate and otherwise improve existing Bay Area rail and bus systems, and encourage developers to locate their facilities near transit stations.
In one sense, San Francisco has an advantage; it has a new Mayor whose ego is not on the line. There is reason to hope that Mayor Gavin Newsom will do the right thing by killing the Central Subway project. If you want to express outrage over either or both of these projects, write to both mayors, both Boards of Supervisors and to the Federal Transportation Administration.

Jake Sigg hike in McLaren Park, March 5
Hike Leader Jake Sigg with his vast expertise and engaged wild spirit makes every hike a delight. Join him Saturday, March 5 from 10 am to 12.30 pm.
We'll start at the wonderful meadow off Sunnydale Avenue, then traverse over the hill to the ridge above Geneva Avenue. Visiting an area tucked into a seldom-visited corner of the park, we'll see wildflower areas seen by very few people. Due to the copious rains, we’ll see the wildflowers but also lots of weeds, which have also enjoyed the rains. (Identifying weeds correctly is also a fine
skill and Jake knows them all.)
Meet at the bus turnaround at the end of the Muni #9 line on Sunnydale Avenue, adjacent to the entrance to the Gleneagles Golf Course in McLaren Park. Besides the #9 bus there is plenty of vehicle parking here. Mansell Avenue (an extension of Persia Street from the west) cuts through the park and it intersects Sunnydale immediately inside the western entrance to the park. The bus turnaround is one-quarter mile south of here. (415-731-3028 or jakesigg@earthlink.net)

PUBLIC TELECASTS CANCELED
Send your protest to the Mayor:

Commissions like the Planning Commission and the Police Commission need access to a public voice beyond the reach of their meeting chambers. Until just a few weeks ago, SFGOVTV provided that voice. To protest the recent budget cuts of $147,000. that have canceled the televised broadcasts on SFGOVTV and the taping of the Planning Commission hearings, previously available on the Planning Commission's website, write to Mayor Gavin Newsom at gavin.newsom@sfgov.org

Dear Mayor Newsom,

I was dismayed to learn that recent budget cuts have deleted funding for televising and video recording the SF Planning Commission hearings. It is only because there has been this visual and oral record of the proceedings that all citizens could participate and learn about the Commission and how it functions. The average citizen is out- matched when going up against developers at these hearings. The developers have deep pockets, political ties, paid professionals, financial incentives, and experience with planning procedures to help them get their projects approved. Neighbors have none of these advantages. In fact, neighbors are at a extreme disadvantage because they must learn the ropes on their own in order to have their voices heard. Minutes of the meetings are rarely produced in a timely manner and are only “Action Minutes” which omit the testimony and all but the Motion of Approval and the vote count. The best tool neighbors have had to understand the workings of the Commission was these televised and video-taped recordings.

Please reconsider your decision on this. The $147,000 budget for video broadcast and rebroadcast was well spent. Transparency with the Planning Commission allows all citizens to have a chance to understand the complicated procedures
of working with Planning and helps in leveling the playing field with developers.

Thank you.

(Sample letter suggested by Suzanne Dumont)

HANC Recycling Center becomes an amazing native plant garden
Passersby continue to be amazed at the native plant garden that Greg Gaar has created at the corner of Frederick and Arguello Streets. At the fringes of the HANC Recycling Center site at the edge of Golden Gate Park, squeezed into every available unpaved patch of soil behind the chained link fence, the hardy natives form a miraculous perimeter around the heavy industrial aspect of the recycling operations.
Greg Gaar, an SFT Unsung Hero, grows an astounding number of different kinds of plants here. He even manages to persuade sun-loving, heat-loving plants that they actually enjoy growing in an often cold, wind-swept area of the Sunset District. You must look carefully to find all the green pockets he has created; for example, there is a north-facing slope beyond the cyclone fence north of the center, near Arguello, that is chock-a-block with thriving plants. They are just beginning to respond to the Spring rains and should continue to look good and flower for the next three or four months.
In order to propagate these plants from native stock, Greg Gaar combs the city’s remnant natural areas for native seed and raises the plants in leftover containers he finds at the Recycling Center. If you go there, bring your recyclables and then take away a few native plants for your own garden at home. They cannot exactly “be sold”, but you are encouraged to donate. The main Recycling Center is open everyday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. but Greg works there Fridays, Saturdays, community grants that HANC makes. The and is frequently there other days as well. He can help you to choose from the large selection based on your part of the city, the soil, and the sun and wind orientation of your lot.

Gardening with Natives
Want to supplant your non-native native plants that are taking up so much precious space on your lot and demanding so much supplementary water? Native plant gardens are ideal for sustainable and drought tolerant landscaping and attracting birds and butterflies who depend on native plants. The beauty of what Greg Gaar is doing lies in his adherence to the specific species of natives that he raises; these are all specifically San Francisco plants. It is important to plant San Francisco natives to keep local plants genetically consistent and protect their unique characteristics.
Some of the native plants being raised at the Recycling Center include: San Francisco Wallflower (from Lake Merced), San Francisco Gum Plant (Twin Peaks), Golden Rod (Golden Gate Heights), Beach Sagewort (Hawk Hill), California Aster (Mt. Davidson and Twin Peaks), Nutka Reed Plant (Mt. Davidson), Crimson Columbine (Glen Canyon), Bee Plant (Laguna Honda Canyon), Yerba Buena (Twin Peaks), Blue-eyed Grass, Giant Buckwheat, Coast Buckwheat, Yarrow, Coyote Bush, Bush Monkey Flower and more.
Tours for school groups can be arranged. For more information, call Greg Gaar at (415) 752-5983.