Concerns over safety prompt road redesign
Boarding areas to be installed at 8 intersections along Taraval Street
Despite its placid appearance and its reputation as a somewhat sleepy boulevard, Taraval Street has become a deadly place for pedestrians and Muni Metro riders on the L-Taraval line.
Over the past five years, 46 pedestrians have been hit by motorists on the residential and commercial street that runs through the Parkside District. Nearly half of those — 22 — were people climbing off an L train or waiting to board.
“At nearly every (L train) stop on Taraval, someone has been hit,” said Michael Rhodes, a Municipal Transportation Agency planner. “This type of collision is entirely preventable.”
Because the L-Taraval line runs down the middle of the street, regular riders along the roughly 2-mile stretch know that they’ve got to hesitate when exiting the train, and look to see if a car’s speeding toward them.
“Getting off, especially at night, I’m really cautious,” Madison McIntire, 23, a manager at the Cavalier restaurant, said as she waited for an inbound train. “The drivers don’t really care.”
After a six-month experiment involving painted passenger boarding zones along with lights on L cars that flashed at stops and other signs warning motorists did nothing to improve rider safety, the Municipal Transportation Agency Board of Directors voted this week to try something new.
Crews will install concrete boarding islands to protect riders at eight intersections along the L train’s route between West Portal and 46th Avenue, where the line turns south toward the San Francisco Zoo.
The MTA had previ-
ously planned to install the islands, but put the project on hold early last year after merchants balked at the loss of parking places. Instead, the agency tried the series of changes that were designed to get at least 90 percent of vehicles to stop passing Metro trains when the doors are open, but it didn’t really work.
“To our surprise, we didn’t see as much improvement as we needed,” Rhodes said.
Before the six-month test of strategies to grab drivers’ attention, 72 percent were stopping for L trains boarding or unloading passengers. During the experiment, the number never climbed higher than 75 percent.
The boarding islands are intended “to ensure we provide a safe place to get on and off trains,” Rhodes said.
But some of the street’s merchants don’t like the idea, arguing the islands will cause the loss of 36 spaces for street parking, discouraging some shoppers. Andy Chow, who owns Great Wall Hardware, said the six-month safety campaign to test less drastic options was inadequate.
“There was a lack of education, a lack of enforcement and a lack of design,” he said.
The loss of parking, he said, “will make it more difficult for Taraval businesses to survive.”
Rachel Hyden, executive director of the San Francisco Transit Riders Union, called the decision to install boarding islands “a huge win for riders” and said she was grateful that none of the people hit getting off the L-Taraval was killed.
“Often it takes someone dying to get something done,” she said. “This is the city doing something proactive.”
The boarding islands will be installed by 2021 as part of a project to redesign Taraval Street for the first time in 40 years. As part of the project, the MTA also will attempt to speed up service on the L line with transit-only lanes and by removing stops at 17th and 35th avenues.
Hyden said she understands some riders — particularly older or disabled passengers — won’t want to lose their stops but said the changes would make the L-Taraval a better transit line.
“This is really a oncein-a-generation opportunity to overhaul an important Muni corridor,” she said. “Muni can’t stop at every corner and difficult decisions must be made to get people where they need to go more quickly.”