Tomorrow morning, March 6, at 10 am, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency will solicit input on proposed changes to the intersection of Bernal Heights Boulevard and Bernal Heights Boulevard at the eastern side of the park.
Wait, what? No, that’s not a typo:
The hearing happens at 10 am on Friday in Room 416 at City Hall. Here’s the announcement in situ:
Three years ago, your Eastern Bureau correspondent attended a Rec and Parks meeting about trail restoration on Bernal Hill, where neighbors discussed the safety of the ‘undefined’ eastern entrances to the park. At the time, someone from the City mentioned that there was “lots you can do with paint.”
Now, the moment is at hand to perhaps do something with some paint. And a few stop signs.
PHOTOS: Joe Thomas
Bernalwood 
Another change is coming: Speed humps on Stoneman Street between Folsom and Shotwell. I am surprised that the Fire Department let it happen.
Mark Mackler
When is that happening? People do drive too fast on that stretch.
FFS.
The Fire Department doesn’t have that kind of influence…
That is certainly a semi-blind corner. And I often see people coming off the hill right at the blind spot.
The Rec & Park Department was supposed to begin work in 2014 on the hill including traffic problems at the east end of the hill. It had a whole committee which met at the library on Cortland Avenue. Then nothing more was heard from them. Phone calls to Rec & Park have not been answered. How about some phone calls to Rec & Park by a few concerned neighbors?
I emailed the project manager yesterday and she put up a blog post about the new pedestrian crossing. The post also says that they anticipate asking contractors for bids in April 2015. (That’s about a year’s delay versus what they anticipated in their last blog update from February 2014.)
A good idea. There is also a real need for pedestrian crossing markings at 29th and Tiffany. People going to and from the Post Office across 29th from the shortcut alley to Safeway make that a dangerous intersection, with no markings at all.
Not sure how they could put a pedestrian crossing at 29th & Tiffany since it is only a driveway entrance and not a pedestrian way coming from Safeway. 29th now gets backed up a lot more than before because of the No Turn on Red recently instituted at he corner of San Jose…Alternately, a “No Crosswalk ” sign at the sidewalks bordering the Safeway driveway exit that directs pedestrians to cross at either San Jose or Mission could be effective. Of course people would have to obey that sign…
+1
+1 is to Tom Libby
LONG overdue.
very smart. next step will be getting people to actually stop.
another idea for a four way stop: Nevada and Cortland. Watching from the bus stop in the morning is amusing but it’s practically bumper cars every morning.
This is interesting because of the situation. At first glance I’m in favor of it.
They put speed humps further up the south side of the park some years back when they chipperly launched their fairly stupid “traffic calming” initiative. The places where the humps are aren’t particularly dangerous, they are high-visibility straightaways and there’s a large sidewalk one would hope people would stick to (even if they don’t). On the other side is a cliff face only idiots walk below. So those humps were pointless anti-car chicanery.
But the bend is where the hazard lies, and that’s where they didn’t put humps. Which seems stupid, but the logic behind that is the hump would come out of nowhere and potentially cause accidents that way.
This same concern is what I have for the stop sign: rather than a hump coming out of nowhere, the far worse situation of a stopped car or pedestrian would come out of nowhere as one rounded the bend.
So if they do the stop sign, it has to be a very wide intersection where everyone can see everyone else, both when stopped and when approaching the stops. This is the principle of least surprise.
If they screw that up this will cause more accidents not fewer.
This is the same reason they can’t put a stop for cars coming up Alabama and why they should put pedestrian bars there as a result. The cars climbing up Alabama wouldn’t be able to see the stopped cars as they rounded the bend. But the park-side intersection could be done properly, as long is it’s a really wide layout enabling full visibility for all concerned.
To be specific about “really wide”: the southern stop sign would have to be placed southwest of the Carver intersection. It would be over 100ft from the southern stop sign to the northern one.
Yes, those existing speed bumps are pointless. That’s a fairly safe stretch, and they just serve to annoy people (okay, maybe just me) who always get stuck behind the overly conservative driver needlessly slowing down to 0.0000001 MPH going over them. Meanwhile, this curve a few hundred feet behind, without any regulation, is a much more obvious potential hazard.
Yes, this bend is a very dangerous spot.
Also what about that big white van that always parks in front of the driveway on the corner of Folsom and Stoneman? It makes turning on to Folsom from Stoneman very difficult.
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