Oakdale Ave Green Connections Meeting

From the SF Planning Department,

The Green Connections open house in the Bayview neighborhood was held on June 11 from 3:30 - 6:30 at the Joseph Lee Recreation Center. The goal of the meeting was to get feedback on the base design and understand priorities for additional improvements.  

Staff from the Planning Department and the Municipal Transportation Agency, were on hand to explain the streetscape design, and listen to input on the base design, additional streetscape improvements, and overall priorities for the street.  

32 people attended the open house. In addition to neighborhood residents, representatives from the following organizations attended; the A. Philip Randolph Institute (APRI SF), the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition; Walk San Francisco; the Trust for Public Land; SPUR; SF Parks Alliance; the SF Democratic County Central Committee (SF DCCC); Friends of the Urban Forest (FUF); the Cultural Village Tribal Land; and STOP (Senseless Tragedies Oppressing People).  

BASE DESIGN FEATURES
The following core design features for Oakdale were presented (see back page for details):

• 2 green corner bulb-outs at Oakdale & Phelps 
• New street trees
• Re-striping of existing bike lane from Lane to Phelps
• Protected bike lane from Phelps to Quint

OPTIONAL DESIGN FEATURES
Participants were asked to provide feedback on the following features (see back page for details):

• Extend existing eastbound bike lane to Lane Street
• Additional locations for corner bulb-outs
• Additional types of greening 

COMMUNITY INPUT
The open house sought community input on several features of the proposed design, including:
1. What type of bike facility would you like to see on Oakdale?
Input: Participants strongly favored the option to extend the bike lane to Lane Street and re-configure the parking on the north side of the street to parallel parking. Some community members expressed concern over loss of parking especially for seniors. 22 out of 23 “dots” were placed next to the bike lane option. 

2. Priorities for the type of streetscape improvement
Input: Participants favored pedestrian improvements overall. On the surveys, 50% favored pedestrian improvements, 25% favored lighting and 13% favored greening & landscaping. On the interactive board, pedestrian improvements received 41% of all dots, while lighting received 35% and greening received 24%. 

3. Preferences for the location of additional corner bulb-outs (other than those on the west side of Phelps and Oakdale)
Input: Participants favored corner bulb-outs at Newhall Street, with half of survey respondents expressing this preference. 29% preferred the east corners of Phelps, and 14% preferred no bulb-outs at all. Results from the interactive board closely matched the survey results. 

4. Preferences for the type of greening on Oakdale
Input: On the survey, a majority of respondents (63%) favored both street trees and sidewalk landscaping. On the interactive board, sidewalk landscaping received 40% of dots, while street trees received 33% and corner gardens received 27%.
http://greenconnections.sfplanning.org