potrero view

September 2009

Caltrans Tries to Drive Over Pennsylvania Garden

By Anthony Myers

In Southeast San Francisco open space is at a premium, causing a growing movement by residents to take neighborhood beautification into their own hands.  This summer the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) decided that one such effort, the Pennsylvania Garden, located near the Interstate 280 exit loop at 18th Street, had been constructed without a permit.  Now Caltrans’ Adopt-A-Highway program, which oversees community-based beautification activities, and has known about the garden since January, must appeal to its Office of Traffic Operations to determine the garden’s future.

According to Adopt-A-Highway Program Coordinator Arnold Joe, “The state doesn’t have the money to beautify that area.”   He suggested transferring maintenance of the plot to the San Francisco Department of Public Works (DPW), though it’s unclear whether DPW would be in any better position to provide funding for it.   Joe has scheduled a meeting with DPW’s Community Liaison Officer Sandra Zuniga to facilitate approval of a Caltrans permit that would bring the garden into compliance.  But until that meeting takes place or a permit is granted, the garden will retain its guerrilla status.  Without sanctioning the garden, Joe said Adopt-A-Highway’s job is to facilitate beautification of roadside areas, and that anybody wanting to do other garden projects on Caltrans land should contact him.

Annie Shaw, the garden’s primary caretaker, met with Caltrans in late July to present the department with 281 signatures from Potrero Hill residents who want the garden to remain intact.  According to Shaw’s Pennsylvania Garden website, pennsylvaniagarden.blogspot.com, Caltrans indicated that stair steps that had been constructed were tripping hazards, and a proposed bench would attract the homeless.  Caltrans also stated that persons under the age of 16 may not enter the garden, and that crossing the road at the exit ramp isn’t allowed.

“Obviously these are sensible rules for freeways,” Shaw said.  “Pennsylvania Garden is not a freeway.  But are they able to bend the rules? We shall see if they come back with directives to remove the items anyway.”  Shaw worried that a metal archway would have to come down, and the woven twig borders would be ordered removed.  Caltrans Office Chief of Traffic Operations Roland Au-Yeung will render a final decision on what elements can stay.

Conflict over how best to develop the Pennsylvania Garden prompted neighborhood debate over the merits of having two highway exit ramps at 18th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue.  The garden abuts an I-280 exit loop that dumps traffic onto Pennsylvania Avenue.  The loop also sits only a few feet away from an 18th Street exit from the same ramp.  Eighteenth Street resident Sean O’Boyle lamented that he had nearly been run over at the intersection.  “That ramp encourages people to enter Pennsylvania Avenue northbound at freeway speeds,” O’Boyle said.  “Why does that stupid loop even exist?  Why not continue to the stop sign and make a couple of right turns?  I wouldn’t be sad to see the loop closed.”  O’Boyle also suggested that closing the loop would allow a larger garden to be built. 

Shaw, who lives on 17th Street, planted her garden on what she thought was City property.  The exit loop runs between her garden and a smaller parcel that the Potrero Hill Community Garden had tried to adopt a couple of years ago; and which is also being reclaimed by neighborhood activists.  Missouri Street resident Amaranth Pai said that he hoped the garden work would carry on, and that the dual freeway exits would eventually be consolidated.  “I’ve complained about it on potrero-neighbors mailing list because it seems kind of pointless to have two exits a block away from each other,” Pai said.  “Caltrans is being lame about Annie’s garden and trying to shut down certain improvements she made, perhaps because the Mariposa/18th exit has had collisions/accidents occur there in the past and they think there would be risk.  I think Caltrans is being dumb and signed a petition to this effect.”

Shaw used to live across the street from the garden.  Even though she now resides a couple blocks away, she remains committed to the project.  She’s made plans to welcome the Potrero Hill Garden Tour, sponsored by the Friends of the Public Library, to the garden on September 13.  “I’m going a little nuts trying to get everything tidy for that,” she said on her blog. 

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