potrero view

April 2009

Eastern Neighborhoods Transportation Planning Process Continues

By Christina Li

A couple dozen Mission District, Mission Bay, Potrero Hill, and South of Market (SoMa) – collectively known as the Eastern Neighborhoods – residents gathered earlier this year to learn about an effort to engage community members in transportation planning in the area.  The outreach effort will eventually morph into a $1.25 million Eastern Neighborhoods Transportation Implementation Planning Study, or EN TRIPS.  

The EN TRIPS project is being funded by a $750,000 Metropolitan Transportation Commission planning grant.  Another $500,000 was provided by a donor-directed fund – the Eastern Neighborhoods Trust Fund – administered by The San Francisco Foundation and directed by Potrero Hill residents Joe Boss, Susan Eslick, and Keith Goldstein.

Urban Ecology, a Financial District-based nonprofit, is leading the effort to form a citizens task force and identify key stakeholders before an Eastern Neighborhoods Community Advisory Committee (CAC) forms, a process that could take five months (see February View).  The nonprofit is implementing a process to publicly vet proposed transportation improvements.  Citizens’ input – obtained through workshops and focus groups – will be passed along to public agencies, such as San Francisco Municipal Transportation Authority (SFMTA), San Francisco Planning Department, and the Department of Parks and Recreation.  “Our client is the community. It’s not MTA,” Urban Ecology’s Linda Roberson said.

The CAC will ultimately consist of 13 members, five of whom will be appointed by the mayor, with the others selected by the Board of Supervisors.   District 10 Supervisor Sophie Maxwell will appoint four CAC members;  District 6 Supervisor Chris Daly District 6 will select two members; and Bevan Dufty and David Campos of Districts 8 and 9 will appoint one member each.  As reported in the February View, the CAC has yet to be formed. Its procedures and oversight are undefined.  According to City Planning Manager Ken Rich, the CAC will be “up to date on the projects being reviewed,” but will not “officially” review proposed development projects.

Roberson led meeting participants through a 16-page PowerPoint presentation.  In the audience were EN TRIPS Project Manager Suzanne Chen-Harding, from the SFMTA and Rich.  Several meeting participants challenged EN TRIPS’s geographic scope, asserting that their neighborhoods – including Mission Bay and Western SoMa – were being neglected. “Mission Bay is left out of this map,” said Corrine Woods, a Mission Bay resident, referring to a PowerPoint slide that showed the EN TRIPS planning study area.  Woods said that she fears that Mission Bay will be shut-out of the planning process.  “It’s all connected,” said Woods, who lives on a Mission Creek houseboat, and has been a Mission Bay resident for 25 years. “It all ties together.”

Rich countered that Western SoMa and Mission Bay have already been rezoned, and fall outside the EN TRIPS process.  However, according to SFMTA’s web site, EN TRIPS “will study the transportation network of San Francisco’s Eastern Neighborhoods, which include Eastern SoMa, the Mission, Showplace Square/Potrero Hill and the Central Waterfront together with surrounding high-growth areas of Western SoMa, Transbay District, Rincon Hill and Mission Bay.” Much of the City’s growth in the next two decades is expected in those neighborhoods.

Mission District resident Oscar Grande said he’s been interested in the Eastern Neighborhoods transportation plan for almost a decade. The Mission District, he said, wants to be a part of the CAC.  “People spring forward. We’re hoping it will be a positive,” he said. According to Grande, for the Latino community, transportation issues include access, affordability, environmental health and safety.

Potrero Hill resident Babette Drefke, whose lived in her neighborhood for a half-century, heard about the meeting from telephone calls from friends and a postal letter. She rides Muni regularly, and has seen significant changes to the area’s public transportation over the years.  “I don’t know what they’re getting at or how they’ll do it,” Drefke said.  She pointed to Muni Lines 19 and 53 as being particularly important to Potrero Hill residents; she’d like to see those lines kept intact for the future. “They need something. Our hills are pretty steep.”

To contact Linda Roberson at Urban Ecology: linda@urbanecology.org.  To view the EN TRIPS Study Area map:  http://www.sfmta.com/cms/oentrips/indxentrips.htm

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