Van Ness work puts businesses at risk
Sluggish revitalization project keeping customers away
“For a lot of small businesses, this has been a death warrant.” Masaye Waugh, below, co-owner of Bootleg Bar & Kitchen at Van Ness and Green
The chain-link fence went up about a year ago outside Bootleg Bar & Kitchen, a once-buzzing sports bar on Van Ness Avenue that’s now blockaded by dirt piles and construction equipment.
By December, business had dropped by a third. As the months ticked by, the Van Ness street improvement project showed no sign of ending, and bar co-owner Masaye Waugh realized she may have to shut down.
“For a lot of small businesses, this has been a death warrant,” Waugh said, referring to the massive infrastructure project that San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency began in 2016 to revitalize the entire stretch of Van Ness between Mission Street downtown and Lombard Street in the Russian Hill neighborhood. It will eventually add rapid bus lanes, sprinkle trees among the pavement and replace a 19th century sewer main, all at an estimated cost of $316.4 million — a figure that’s likely to grow.
Some merchants on the bustling corridor of restaurants, offices and auto dealerships wonder if their shops will survive to see the enhancements. The project is already running a year and a half behind schedule, and the city is facing a $21.6 million claim from the construction contractor over the delays.
And in the meantime, work crews digging underground keep hitting pipes and utilities that weren’t marked on any maps, said Kate McCarthy, MTA’s public outreach and engagement manager for the project. Just last month workers were toiling away at Van Ness and Filbert Street, when all of a sudden water began gushing from beneath the roadway, McCarthy said. It turned out they’d struck a pipe that was completely encased in tree roots.
“It’s just the nature of being a very old roadway where lots of people have done lots of work,” McCarthy said. Regulations were different in the past, she noted, and several water companies operated in San Francisco before the Public Utilities Commission formed in 1930.
It appears that when those bygone companies dug underground and hit an obstruction, they would work around it and lay their utilities a few feet away, without denoting the
During construction, Van Ness Avenue is split into northern and southern segments at Sutter Street. One crew is working its way down from Lombard Street on the eastern side, while another is proceeding down from Sutter Street on the western side. Traffic has been reduced to two lanes in each direction, and most left-hand turns were removed, except for southbound at Broadway and northbound at Lombard Street. Construction is scheduled to end in March 2021. For more information on detours: https://bit.ly/2Ppa1Fr