Identify neighborhood commercial and arterial residential streets to develop as more livable streets. 

 

Our office has been very involved in the planning and implementation of two major streetscape projects in the Sunset District. The Taraval Streetscape Improvement Project extends from 46th to 48th Avenue, and the Irving Streetscape Improvement Project extends from 19th to 27th Avenue. San Francisco Public Works completed the Taraval Streetscape this July. The Irving Streetscape is in the final design phase and the project will break ground in November 2015 with full completion by November 2016*.

 

Outside of projects already being implemented by city departments, we are focusing our attention on commercial corridors and heavily used arterial neighborhood streets to create safe and livable streets. Aside from Irving and Taraval, we are excited that Noriega was recently the recipient of a greening grant thanks to the Outer Noriega Merchants Association. With a grant from the Office of Economic and Workforce Development (OEWD), the merchants embarked on a greening project that broke up concrete and landscaped the sidewalk between 44th and 47th Avenues. Mid-Noriega will also be seeing some additional investment thanks to San Francisco Beautiful, a non-profit whose mission is to “create and protect the unique beauty and livability of San Francisco.” SF Beautiful will be working with our office as well as the neighbors and small businesses in the mid-Noriega corridor to beautify and improve the area. Outreach for this project will begin later this year. We are also currently working with a business owner on Taraval to install a parklet to increase the gathering space for neighbors and to beautify the corridor.

 

A common concern we have heard throughout our outreach has been the lack of a safe north-south bicycle route in the Sunset District. Existing routes include the Great Highway, 34th and 20th Avenues. Existing routes, however, are not entirely safe for bicyclists, drivers or pedestrians. Our office investigated with SF Public Works and SFMTA whether Sunset Boulevard could be improved to be a north-south connector. However, due to the complex traffic patterns, it would be too unsafe for all modes of transportation. We are currently working with SFMTA and the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition to pursue improvements to 34th Avenue, as it is an existing route and has great potential for landscaping, traffic calming and pedestrian safety measures in addition to improvements for safer bicycling.

 

*Given that there is a holiday moratorium from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day in the commercial area, the only work that will occur during that time is sewer and curb ramp work from 27th Avenue to the lower Great Highway. The large portion of the project will not begin until after Chinese New Year, in late February 2016.