Get set for parking and driving disruption this month on Lombard Street. San Francisco Public Works notified locals that construction on the Lombard Street Vision Zero Project would begin in September and end in June 2020.
Public Works said the end result of all of this disruption will be safety and transit improvements, including the now-ubiquitous pedestrian and transit bulb-outs, pedestrian islands, changes to traffic signals, upgrades and replacements of water and sewer lines, and the installation of new concrete bus pads.
Residents and merchants in the area might be less enthusiastic about the promised 7– to 10–day advance notice they will receive before construction on their block begins. Background on Lombard Street Vision Zero is available at sfpublicworks.org/Lombard.
In other local transportation news, SFMTA, which is sponsoring the Lombard project, is feeling the heat after a summer of service failures and public outcry. In late August, Mayor London Breed sent a letter to SFMTA Executive Director Ed Reiskin taking him to task for the agency’s service slowdowns and safety issues in the wake of the death of a worker on the Twin Peaks tunnel project.
“I have communicated to the SFMTA Board of Directors that I want to see significant improvements in Muni service, and in fact, in all facets of the SFMTA,” the mayor wrote, calling out the need for repair projects to be “delivered on time and within budget,” bike safety projects to be sped up, and better coordination with other public works projects on streetscape improvements. “The SFMTA’s budget grew by $60 million last year, so I expect that conditions will improve in the near-term future.”
Though Reiskin reports to the SFMTA board and not to the mayor — thus putting him beyond threat of the mayor firing him — she can appoint or fire the SFMTA board, which can fire him.
