The Glen Park Association Board shares the many concerns we’ve heard about the Diamond and Bosworth intersection rebuilding, particularly about signal plans and pedestrian crossings. Toward that end, the GPA Transportation Committee, GPA president Michael Rice, Ric Lopez, president of the Glen Park Merchants Association, and several other community members met with staff from the SFMTA and Planning Department on April 27, focusing on how the current construction project aligns with the larger Glen Park Community Plan, how community input was considered, and what the next steps would be after construction and restriping are finished.
We met with Public Information Officer Kelley McCoy, SFMTA Project Manager David Greenaway, and Amnon Ben-Pazi of the Planning Department. (Unfortunately, SFMTA’s traffic engineer wasn’t available to answer questions as promised.) At the meeting, we presented questions on how SFMTA communicated information and plans with the neighborhood. We also summarized points from the Glen Park Community Plan, other reports, and contract documents for the Diamond/Bosworth construction that all referred to left-turn signals. SFMTA staff explained that they are not including left-turn signals on Diamond Street at this time because they prefer to make changes incrementally, rather than making several changes at once. The rebuilt intersection will have left-turn lanes at all four approaches. Traffic patterns will change at that point. They claim this helps them study the effects of changes and make better operational changes going forward. They stated that the wiring and signal-control hardware now being installed will allow easy later installation of left-turn signals, if that proceeds.
We also discussed pedestrian crossing patterns. Greenaway noted that the ‘scramble’ idea was reconsidered and dropped because the dimension of the intersection with two-way traffic would make the scramble a long delay for traffic. SFMTA will look at pedestrian signal phase timing, to consider pedestrian safety as well as traffic turning patterns.
They assured the Committee that SFMTA studies traffic and pedestrian patterns immediately after construction is finished, potentially making further changes in the following six weeks. In particular, Project Manager Greenaway assured us that they will study adding left-turn signals on Diamond Street and adding an all-pedestrian phase to the signal timing. He also committed to meeting with the Transportation Committee again before the construction work is finished, and making sure the SFMTA traffic engineer is available to answer questions.
Michael Rice
GPA President
Hilary Schiraldi
GPA Transportation Committee Member