Petition to SFCTA re Quint St Bridge Replacement

I write to ask for your help in ensuring that another road closure and realignment doesn't sneak up on us without our input.  In June, the SFCTA Board will decide which direction the Quint St Bridge project will take - berm/connector road or a new bridge.  It's my belief that we have to make sure that we're not only well informed about the project, but to speak up to the decisions-makers before they make the final policy decisions that will decide how this project moves forward.  As you may now know, the Produce Market plans to reroute Jerrold Ave via Innes and Kirkwood around the market were unknown to most of us until it was too late to have much impact or affect on them.  That plan managed to happen without being on most people's radar, and it has taught us all a valuable lesson in keeping vigilant and speaking up before its too late regarding future projects happening in our backyards.  The Quint St bridge project is one such project.

I've created a petition on change.org to be sent to all the SFCTA Board members (who are our eleven city supervisors) and the SFCTA Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC) regarding the Quint St Bridge replacement.  I would like to ask that you sign the petition and share it broadly before the CAC meeting May 23.  If you would like to find out more about the project or ask questions of Caltrain, DPW, or the SFCTA (the money people who are driving this), there will be two more community meetings in May: one May 10, 6-8PM at the HPS CAC Planning & Development Subcommittee, at the HPS Office Trailers Conference Room (near Innes at Donahue); the other TBD in front of the full HPS CAC.  Emails of people who are working on this project can be found at the bottom of this email.

Following that, there will be one meeting of the SFCTA CAC and three of the Board, the final of which will be the one at which the Board makes their policy decision regarding which plan to adopt (bridge or berm):

May 23     Citizens Advisory Committee     Scheduled for Wednesday, May 23, 6:00 PM, 100 Van Ness Ave., 26th Floor

Jun 12     Finance Committee     Scheduled for Tuesday, June 12, 11:00 AM, Room 263, City Hall

Jun 19     Plans and Programs Committee     Scheduled for Wednesday, June 19, 10:30 AM, Room 263, City Hall

Jun 26     Authority Board     Scheduled for Tuesday, June 26, 11:00 AM, Room 250, City Hall

The Change.org petition reads:

Quint St Bridge Replacement: Make Policy Decision to Pursue Bridge Option

The SFCTA Board is being asked to make a policy decision in June that will chart the course for the Quint St Bridge Replacement project from here on out.

At community meetings held over the past six months, the community has been told that the berm/connector road plan may cost close to $30M, exceeding the $25M available for the project.  We have also been told that a value-engineered bridge that could accommodate a station at Oakdale Ave could be built for close to $30M.  If there is little to no cost difference, and the choice is to close Quint St, create a narrow connector road and eliminate at least 25% of the connectivity between Silver Terrace and Bayview, or keep Quint St open via a bridge at the Caltrain tracks as it is today, retaining all accessibility to and from our neighborhoods and ensuring access to a future station via roads that are sufficient to accommodate the expected traffic increase, then we strongly support the latter.

We, the residents and business owners in the Bayview and Silver Terrace neighborhoods who rely on Quint St remaining open, ask that the board's policy decision be that the ill-conceived berm/connector road option be taken off the table and that Caltrain be instructed immediately to design a cost-effective bridge that would accommodate a future station at the Oakdale Ave site.

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Some things that came out of Saturday's Open House at the BVOH:
- possibility that engineers can design a cheaper bridge option that would still accommodate a station at Oakdale
- possibility of a policy decision delay and dual-path planning and design approach to look at both options (berm/connector and bridge) simultaneously

Some things that came out of Wednesday's SECF Meeting:
- connector road may cost as much as $8M, $3M more than they have for it, reducing its feasibility (if they can pull $3M out of the air for the road, then they can value-engineer a bridge and find the money for that, too)
- possible Oakdale Station has no parking planned, but they recognize that it should, and so they would need to find money to build a parking structure somewhere nearby
- connector road eliminates left turn at Jerrold from Quint, which affects 25% of drivers
- closure cedes the section of Quint north of the tracks without financial compensation to the city or neighborhoods

Thanks for getting the word out about this and your support in seeing that the connections between Bayview and Silver Terrace are kept strong.

SFCTA Staff:
Deputy Director for Planning Tilly Chang, tilly.chang@sfcta.org
Planner Colin Dentel-Post, colin.dentel-post@sfcta.org

SFCTA Board:
Chair, Supervisor David Campos, david.campos@sfgov.org
Vice-Chair, Scott Wiener, scott.wiener@sfgov.org
Supervisor Malia Cohen, malia.cohen@sfgov.org

SFCTA CAC:
CAC@sfcta.org

http://www.change.org/petitions/chair-supervisor-david-campos-quint-st-bridge-replacement-make-policy-decision-to-pursue-bridge-option