S.F. to work on safety of streets downtown

San Francisco will shave traffic lanes from two bustling downtown arteries — Sixth and Taylor streets — to make way for safety improvements that the city’s Municipal Transportation Agency board approved Tuesday.

The two projects passed by a 6-1 vote, bolstered by fervent support from Mayor London Breed, who recently asked the agency to fasttrack pedestrian safety in the downtown and Tenderloin areas. But they met resistance from merchants and business leaders who said the roadways would become clotted.

“For employees, visitors and conventiongoers, the choke points are already unreasonabe,” said Kevin Carroll, executive director of the Hotel Council.

He found sympathy from several board members, though only one — Art Torres — dissented from the vote.

Members of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition welcomed the retrofit on Taylor Street, which will cut two northbound lanes between Market and Ellis streets, and one between Ellis and Sutter streets. It would also widen sidewalks and shorten crosswalks.

That thoroughfare, which laces through the Tenderloin and lower Nob Hill neighborhoods, is among the most dangerous in the city. One hundred nine collisions occcured there between 2011 and 2016, resulting in about one injury a month.

Adding bike lanes is not part of the plan for either stretch of road.

Charles Deffarges, a community organizer for the coalition, read off the names of pedestrians and cyclists who were struck and killed by cars over the summer.

“It felt like every new week brought more tragic news, calls with the SFPD, member witnesses, the medical examiner’s office,” he said. “All of this was made worse by the fact that the victims were, more often than not, marginally housed and easily forgotten.”

The Sixth Street project drew stronger opposition because it whittles out a southbound lane that leads from downtown to the Interstate 280 freeway, a node that ferries commuters from the southside and the Penninsula.

Board Director Malcolm Heinicke, who supported the changes, said he will nonetheless watch them carefully. The city’s long-term goal should be a “congestion-free” Market Street, he said, and every redesign around the margins should serve that purpose.