10 Transportation Lessons For San Francisco From Portland

[DubbaG]

Putting pragmatism before megaprojects, Portland’s commitment to the details puts pedestrians and transit first • by Jeffrey Tumlin

This article first appeared in the November/December, 2005 SPUR Newsletter, p. 1.
http://spur.org/documents/051101_article_01.shtm


Portland works hard to not be a big city, preferring instead to be a cozy, welcoming, drizzly small town. Unlike any other place in the world, in fact, all aspects of Portland, positive and negative, can be summed up in just a single word: nice. The people are nice. The streets are nice. The buildings are nice.

Portland’s unrelenting niceness, in fact, makes comparisons with San Francisco almost impossible. It also makes me glad to be back here, as Elizabeth Taylor came back to Richard Burton, to appreciate our fair City’s unruly, bombastic, self-contradictory charm. Still, there are lessons San Francisco could rightly learn from its more prudent and prim neighbor to the north. Here are ten of them, from a transportation-planning perspective:

1. Transportation is for economic development and quality of life

When the head of the city’s transportation-planning department was asked about her agency’s primary purpose, she replied that it was not about mobility or congestion; rather, the only goals of her department were economic development and neighborhood quality of life. Portland, unlike much larger cities, has recognized that moving people around in circles serves no end in itself. Moreover, facilitating longer, faster commutes to the outer suburbs is counterproductive. Transportation in Portland is about making sure that people have access to the services they need within a reasonable time period. It’s about facilitating economic development to ensure that services are where the people need them, and it’s about creating a high-quality urban environment.

Much has been written about the success of the Portland Streetcar in helping to attract over $2 billion in development investment along the line. What’s clear about the Portland experience compared to other cities, however, is that Portland saw its streetcar investment as just one component of a larger, detailed economic-development strategy. Too many other cities have made the mistake of laying streetcar tracks with the hope that development would simply follow without a real strategy in place. In many ways, the Streetcar followed from the development strategy, and continues to expand only in concert with a clear city commitment to density, and developer interest in it.

2. It all starts with pedestrians

Portland recognizes that all urban trips begin and end with a walking trip, whether they’re by car, transit, bicycle, or other means in the middle. Therefore, the success of the overall transportation network hinges on the success of the pedestrian environment. Downtown Portland and its near neighborhoods offer a relentlessly high Quality of Service for pedestrians, higher than any city in the West, even Vancouver. Sidewalks are generous and buffered from moving traffic. Trees and flowering plants are everywhere and well-maintained. Crossing the street is never scary, let alone prohibited. As a result, walking is a pleasure and pedestrians are everywhere, despite the comparatively low density of the city. In fact, in many close-in neighborhoods, Portland exceeds Vancouver’s Cardinal Rule of Transportation Success: everywhere you look, there must be at least ten times as many pedestrians as cars.

3. The car is accommodated but tamed

Like Oak, Fell, Franklin, Gough, and most of the streets of SOMA, almost all of the streets in downtown Portland are one-way for cars, and almost all of the traffic lights are synchronized. Radically unlike San Francisco, however, Portland times its one-way streets for a 10–20 mph progression, about half the speed of San Francisco’s streets, reducing the noise, pedestrian discomfort, and safety problems common to San Francisco’s one-way streets. Moreover, Portland hasn’t sacrificed sidewalk space and pedestrian comfort to add more lanes. Most streets in Portland carry only two lanes of auto traffic, three at the most. The result is that it is easy and enjoyable to drive in Portland—you never have to stop at a red light!—but motorist comfort is not provided at the sacrifice of pedestrian comfort. More importantly, at these speeds, pedestrian fatalities or severe injuries are rare. Due in part to signal timing and other pedestrian improvements, Portland reduced pedestrian deaths by more than one-third between 1998 and 2003.

Much has been written about Portland’s small blocks. At just 200’ square, an astounding 16 Portland blocks can fit into just one SOMA block. Besides making the city highly accessible and walkable, it also means that Portland can have four skinny, pedestrian friendly streets for every one SOMA traffic sewer. The result is a high degree of auto access and a high degree of pedestrian comfort. One wonders why San Francisco continues to allow its alleys to be closed for megadevelopments.

4. Buildings respect the sidewalk
Walking through Portland’s newest infill neighborhoods and looking at the new buildings, one is struck by an exquisite attention to detail at the sidewalk level. Artistic ironwork along a railing. A perfect bevel in a concrete foundation wall. Runs of stone in the sidewalk. A planter filled with blooming plants. Individually, none of these details would make Architectural Digest, but collectively they make San Francisco’s newest neighborhoods look cartoonish by comparison, as if we took nice drawings of buildings then blew them up 100 times larger. We kept asking planners and developers how Portland ended up with such great detailing—Is it your code language? How did you exact this from the builder? Did your Design Review Board require this? To our disappointment, Portland’s requirements are similar to our own, and it remains a mystery why they end up with better buildings.

5. Everything comes off the shelf
Another aspect of Portland pedestrian life is the proliferation of nice “street furniture,”—light poles, drinking fountains, benches, tree grates, bus shelters, etc. Aside from a handful of artsy pieces in the downtown, Portland’s street furniture is remarkable in its sheer repetitive unremarkableness. Portland seems to find one thing it really likes—something generally simple, elegant and functional—then builds or orders thousands of them. The result is that it can then afford to buy more than it could if they were custom made, and, more importantly, it can afford to keep everything well-maintained. If one gets dented, it just gets swapped out with the dozens sitting in storage, or another set is ordered from the same catalog. Whereas other cities are known for a few landmark buildings, the most widespread symbol of Portland is a repeated item: the historic four-post drinking fountain. It’s elegant, unique to Portland, beloved as a civic symbol, and found in abundance all over the urban core.

In contrast, San Francisco seems to insist on a different, custom-designed light fixture for every street—just look at Market, Howard, Second Street, and Third Street—entirely different custom fixtures for every street in a few blocks. Our transit vehicles all end up custom fitted and costly, while Portland takes what is available and is able to invest its resources in consistent quality throughout its system.

6. Transit is for everyone
Riding a bus in Portland is like riding the bus in Stepford. The drivers are oddly cheery and welcoming, offering to call out passengers’ desired stops: “Joe, this is the stop for the library, but you’ll need to walk just one more block up thattaway.” People offer to help lost tourists make change. The insides of the vehicles are simple, but immaculate. Most buses are low-floor, meaning there is no step from the curb to the main floor. As a result, the elderly, the disabled, and parents with strollers use it in droves with no delay to either the bus or the passengers. All transit is free in the downtown. You get the eerie impression that Portland transit actually wants more passengers.

And it continues to get them. Passenger boardings on the TriMet system, which provides bus and light rail service to much of the three-county region, have increased over 30 percent since 1998. TriMet surveys show that passengers in Portland choose transit rather than succumb to it—77 percent of TriMet passengers are “choice riders,” meaning they have a car available or chose not to own a car.

This accessibility carries through in their print materials and website as well. Not only is there abundant information available about how to take transit, but the language is clear and helpful. On the transit route maps, Portland actually lets riders know which lines are the most frequent, so that you can walk an extra two blocks to the route with the thicker line that runs every five minutes.

Buses have been central to the city’s life for almost 30 years, when the downtown transit mall was created. Two of the most centrally located streets in the downtown are a couplet for buses only, with auto access only on certain blocks. The bus facility is two lanes wide, so that buses can pass each other. The result is a consistent and reliable bus facility that moves more buses per hour than Market Street, at far higher reliability with much more pleasant waiting areas.

7. Parking is well-managed
Parking is easy everywhere in Portland, but it is expensive. Portland has capped its downtown parking supply based upon its available roadway capacity. There’s no point, after all, in providing more parking if it will only result in too many cars congesting the streets trying to get to that parking. In order to minimize “search” traffic caused by cars circling around to find a spot, the city tries to manage all its downtown parking through consistent pricing policies. Prices are set high enough that there is almost always parking wherever you want to park. Long-term parking is discouraged in favor of short-term, shopper, and visitor parking.

Portland also recognizes that it is counterproductive to its traffic management, quality of life, and affordable-housing goals to force developers to build more parking than is needed. In fact, Portland’s regional government has outlawed local jurisdictions from creating minimum parking requirements. This means that any development project can be built anywhere with no parking at all. San Francisco, meanwhile, requires developers to build twice as much residential parking as existing demand warrants in many neighborhoods, adding up to 25 percent more costs for each unit, and reducing the number of units that can be built on a typical parcel by up to 20 percent.

Portland recognized early that parking revenue is a valuable resource for improving the downtown. The city leveraged revenue from its parking garage system, SmartPark, to help fund the Central City Streetcar. Recently, a hike in on-street meter rates was enacted to help fund operations on the newest streetcar extension.

8. Housing choices are provided
Rather than focusing its efforts on making it easier to drive into the city from the suburbs, Portland has welcomed all types of people to live in the city. Booming new and revitalized residential neighborhoods now ring the downtown. To help address the potential problems of gentrification, Portland welcomes secondary (“in law”) units—where existing residents can build small apartments out of otherwise underused space in their buildings—in all residential areas, since this is the most effective way to create a permanent supply of affordable housing without government support. In fact, all municipalities in the Portland metro region are required to allow secondary units.

9. Maintenance comes before new projects
In three days in Portland, we did not see a single pothole. There are no tree grates that are strangling growing trees. Public facilities were free of trash and graffiti. It was a bit of a shock to come back and see Market Street. While San Francisco lives off its credit cards to create spectacular megaprojects it cannot afford to maintain, Portland dully invests its limited resources in good stewardship of its practical public realm.

10. Design for congestion
Like is true everywhere, Portland has recognized that it cannot build its way out of congestion. As a result, its traffic engineers have realized that the best they can do is decide where the congestion goes, and locate it places that cause the least impact on economic development and quality of life. As a result, there is still traffic congestion in Portland, but it’s put in out-of-the-way places, allowing the entire downtown and most residential neighborhoods to flourish in relatively traffic-free environments.

http://spur.org/documents/img/051101_article_01_fig1.png

Portland is hardly perfect, and while it may continue to win awards for being the most livable city in America, San Francisco, with her scuffed stilettos, botox, and smeared lipstick, is still going to be the fun girl at the party, while Portland stays at home in her tennis shoes, knitting new socks for the kids. Portland is the kind of girl you can take home to Mom, but I’d never pass up a hot date with the City.

[WesTheAngelino]

I'm very intrigued by the part about "secondary" housing units...where else is that practice common and what exactly does it mean?

[J Church]

Carriage houses, garden apartments, things of that nature. There are loads of them in San Francisco even though they're illegal.

[mcbaby]

Portland might be at home wearing her tennis shoes, knitting.. but she's got on on some provacative undies.

[miketoronto]

Portland is a success. But everytime I see stats, I am surprised at how low transit use really is in Portland.

[DubbaG]

See, Portland is about quality not quantity.

[Cirrus]

Portland works hard to not be a big city, preferring instead to be a cozy, welcoming, drizzly small town. Unlike any other place in the world, in fact, all aspects of Portland, positive and negative, can be summed up in just a single word: nice. The people are nice. The streets are nice. The buildings are nice.I've never wanted to stop reading an article after the first paragraph more in my life.

[Doady]

See, Portland is about quality not quantity.

If Portland truly has quality mass transit, then there would be a lot of people using it, wouldn't there?

[Epicurean]

^The answer, of course, is: not necessarily. Popularity =/= quality. Portland's main claim to fame, however, should be more that it is improving transit more quickly than almost anywhere else in Canada or the USA. That, and Tri-met is possibly the best managed transit system around; for example: as highly touted as the TTC is (and rightly so!), I have spent far more time waiting on stalled subway trains in my 11 months here, than in my six years in Portland; nor do I recall suffering through any wildcat strikes there. Ultimately, there are many systems that may be all around better, but few are as well run.

[zilfondel]

Hey, I use mass transit in Portland and own no car!

Roughly 60% of commuters who work in downtown Portland use transit. Unfortunately, there are only about 100,000 jobs downtown in a Metro area with 2 million people: that is roughly 10% of the jobs.

But, more than anything, Portland is changing - and fast. San Fran is already all grown up as a city...

[natelox]

5. Everything comes off the shelf
Portland seems to find one thing it really likes—something generally simple, elegant and functional—then builds or orders thousands of them. The result is that it can then afford to buy more than it could if they were custom made, and, more importantly, it can afford to keep everything well-maintained. If one gets dented, it just gets swapped out with the dozens sitting in storage, or another set is ordered from the same catalog. Whereas other cities are known for a few landmark buildings, the most widespread symbol of Portland is a repeated item: the historic four-post drinking fountain. It’s elegant, unique to Portland, beloved as a civic symbol, and found in abundance all over the urban core.

In contrast, San Francisco seems to insist on a different, custom-designed light fixture for every street—just look at Market, Howard, Second Street, and Third Street—entirely different custom fixtures for every street in a few blocks. Our transit vehicles all end up custom fitted and costly, while Portland takes what is available and is able to invest its resources in consistent quality throughout its system.

I guess this could be argued as a positive, but differentiation of these kinds of items as well as other public facilities such as transit stations can make for community pride which will see residents cleaning up their own neighbour hoods and taking stronger stances on crime.

[mcbaby]

If Portland truly has quality mass transit, then there would be a lot of people using it, wouldn't there?

there is a lot of people using it. I ride it and it's always packed and there is frequent service which is gradually increasing. I haven't owned a car in years. I walk or ride my bike to work, ride Trimet or carpool to school. Don't even use car to shop for grocerys. have an old bike, a "Free Spirit" that I call the grocery getter. I don't miss getting stuck in traffic or spending half my income on insurance/gas/upkeep. love the exercise and seeing people I know out in the neighborhood. If it weren't for the sun in southern california, I would get depressed down there visiting family. They don't even know their neighbors.

[joeindt]

I thought seattle was supposed to be the 'nice' city.

Ick! Kind of a weird story. They must have been desperate for print.

Portland:
“Joe, this is the stop for the library, but you’ll need to walk just one more block up thattaway.”

SF:
"hey, you gettin' off or stayin' on!"

SF:
with her scuffed stilettos, botox, and smeared lipstick, is still going to be the fun girl at the party
^ Drag queens?

Portand:
while Portland stays at home in her tennis shoes, knitting new socks for the kids. Portland is the kind of girl you can take home to Mom, but I’d never pass up a hot date with the City.
^ knits socks?

[J Church]

Portland:
“Joe, this is the stop for the library, but you’ll need to walk just one more block up thattaway.”

SF:
"hey, you gettin' off or stayin' on!"

That pretty much sums it up.

Tumlin's a terrific planner, by the way, although I have to admit I winced a little bit at the good girl/bad girl metaphor the first time I read it, too.

[OhioGuy]

I've never wanted to stop reading an article after the first paragraph more in my life.

Because you'd rather read about a mean city?

[volguus zildrohar]

9. Maintenance comes before new projects
In three days in Portland, we did not see a single pothole. There are no tree grates that are strangling growing trees. Public facilities were free of trash and graffiti. It was a bit of a shock to come back and see Market Street. While San Francisco lives off its credit cards to create spectacular megaprojects it cannot afford to maintain, Portland dully invests its limited resources in good stewardship of its practical public realm.


This is something I wish more cities would take to heart. Everybody is wowed by huge new developments but the fact of the matter is these projects often replace or supplement existing amenities when if the resources/manpower were put into maintaining and modernizing what already exists there may not be a need for new construction. I don't think anyone can say Chicago's Millennium Park qualifies under this standard but how about Boston's Big Dig? New York's Second Avenue Subway?

[fflint]

Portland:
“Joe, this is the stop for the library, but you’ll need to walk just one more block up thattaway.”

SF:
"hey, you gettin' off or stayin' on!"
More accurately:

Portland:
“Joe, this is the stop for the library, but you’ll need to walk just one more block up thattaway.”

SF:
"This bus ain't going nowhere until you all MOVE TO THE BACK!"

[joeindt]

^ I will NEVER catch from chinatown again! :)

[WonderlandPark]

sorry, I don't trust where ever those 'bogus' population numbers came from, but no way the Lation population is .7% for Portland.

From the US Census, Latino line of the Portland OR page:

Hispanic or Latino 43,324 8.4%

http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/ACSSAFFFacts?_event=Search&geo_id=&_geoContext=&_street=&_county=portland&_cityTown=portland&_state=04000US41&_zip=&_lang=en&_sse=on&pctxt=fph&pgsl=010

[quashlo]

I guess this could be argued as a positive, but differentiation of these kinds of items as well as other public facilities such as transit stations can make for community pride which will see residents cleaning up their own neighbour hoods and taking stronger stances on crime.

I agree with you, at least in terms of fixtures and transit stations. Custom-made rarely seems to work well when it comes to transit vehicles, however. Just jacks up the cost, both capital and O&M. I'd much rather have proven (cheaper) technology than something designed from scratch.

[J. Will]

I'm surprised only 12.9% of metropolitan Portland's workers take transit to work (I assume that number is for the metro area, and that within city limits the number is much higher) given how much you here about Portland transit.

What percentage of commuters within Portland city limits take transit to work?

[Segun]

I have spent far more time waiting on stalled subway trains in my 11 months here, than in my six years in Portland.

Well that goes without saying.

[J. Will]

I average probably 25 trips a week on the TTC and rarely ever am stuck on a stalled train. Maybe you just have bad luck.

[miketoronto]

I'm surprised only 12.9% of metropolitan Portland's workers take transit to work (I assume that number is for the metro area, and that within city limits the number is much higher) given how much you here about Portland transit.

What percentage of commuters within Portland city limits take transit to work?


That is the percentage in city limits.

METRO Portland's transit use is 6%. So the city with 12% is about double.

But metro wide, about 6% of work trips are by transit. Or something like that. Not very high actually.

[miketoronto]

Heres some interesting info about Portland's LRT. Not everything is as great as expected.

---
This is from http://www.ti.org/transit.html

One reason why ridership is poor is light rail's slow speed. The eastside line travels in the streets for all but 4 miles of its length, so its speed averages less than 20 miles per hour. Cars can easily beat that even in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Light-rail cars take nearly 45 minutes to go the entire 15 mile route. Tri-Met's express buses go 10 miles or more in 15 minutes. Since Tri-Met eliminated express buses parallel to the light-rail route, the line actually increased the trip time for many riders.

When the eastside line was being planned, Tri-Met estimated that building an exclusive bus lane instead would attract 13 percent more riders than light rail at a significantly lower cost--mainly because the buses could go faster.
But Tri-Met preferred light rail's higher capacity; if ridership exceeded projections, the buses might not be able to cope. The planners never considered the possibility that ridership might fall short of projections.

During the 1970s, Tri-Met used federal funds to make significant improvements in service. These included buying a new fleet of buses, constructing a bus mall downtown, high-occupancy vehicle lanes on freeways, doubling of service on several routes, and offering park-and-ride stations in the suburbs. These service improvements, combined with increases in the price of gasoline, increased ridership by 12 percent per year to more than 250 percent of the 1970 levels. By 1980 Tri-Met was carrying 10 percent of the region's commuters--not quite as much as in 1960 but much more than in 1970. Each rider lured out of his or her car cost taxpayers about $1.

Construction of the light rail was accompanied by an overall decline in Tri-Met ridership from 40 million riders per year in 1980 to 35 million in 1986. By 1990, ridership had rebounded to 40 million, but the share of commuter and other Portland-area trips using mass transit had fallen from 10 percent in 1980 to 6 percent in 1990. It fell even further by 1995.

[zilfondel]

Dude, TI.ORG is the evil mortal enemy of anything that is an alternative to the car. Please don't even bother reading that stuff, as a lot of the numbers are 'massaged.'

You know the old adage? There are lies, damned lies, and statistics. Those guys just proposed for the Bay Area to spend like 27 billion dollars on freeway expansion.

[pdxstreetcar]

mike, that is randall o'toole's site, theres a lot of information purposely kept out or carefully re-worded when he gives those stats. that decline in ridership that he talks about did not occur what he is probably refering to is the rate of ridership increase fell over that time period (because the system grew so much in the early 70s due to being rebuilt from the decaying private service), btw the light rail system opened in 1986. obviously the share of portland area trips using transit would drop between 1980-90 considering the amount of suburbanization in that time period, yet the ridership of TriMet grew considerably.

1969 ridership at 65,000, now over 300,000
max ridership is now 100,000 riders a day

http://www.trimet.org/pdfs/trimetfactsheet.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TriMet
http://www.trimet.org/pdfs/ridership/busmaxstat.pdf

[J Church]

It really pains me to see people who claim to be pro-transit miss the point.

It takes time to build out a mature transit network. Like decades. And most North American cities, Portland included, more or less started from scratch 10 or 20 years ago. For 50 years we've been building highways, and--and this is key--building our cities around them. Even many cities that are now making a serious effort to build up their transit networks are still aggressively expanding roads under the mantra of "balance." There was no balance for 40 years, and a street-running light rail line is still not equivalent to a freeway--but then never mind all that I guess.

But don't forget, don't ever forget, that as you expand a transit network, you add value to the existing system--to the existing routes. So these things really do build themselves up over time. But it takes time. It's clear Portland is on the right track. Now give it a little space to turn that train around.

[alexjon]

No matter what anyone says...

...Tri-Met still gets me from point A to point B.

Ironically enough, the non-frequent buses are rarely late, get me to wherever I'm going ON TIME, and rarely have any major problems. The Frequent buses (I'm looking at you, #75 >:O) are another story, though.

Speaking of... does anyone know who that light-haired older (and tatted and pierced) brit that drives the #14? I need to know cuz... uh... cuz. Just cuz. He r00lz

[SpongeG]

I'm very intrigued by the part about "secondary" housing units...where else is that practice common and what exactly does it mean?

my city Coquitlam a suburb of Vancouver has just done this - all new houses can now include and is being encouraged that they have suites in them for low cost rentals - as rentals are becoming hard to find here and expensive

nice read

I have been to Portland twice this year - its nice - going again in a few weeks as well as San Fran - should be interesting to see both cities

[mersar]

They are looking at revising the rules in Alberta for the inclusion of suites inside houses, mainly as there were some estimates that there were 50,000 such suites existing illegally in Calgary alone this past summer.

[miketoronto]

I ws wondering if that website was by some anti-transit group. The only thing I was interested in where the stats. If it is true that the old bus routes were faster then the LRT, then that has to be addressed.

Becaue you need fast transit to attract riders.

[BTinSF]

SF:
"hey, you gettin' off or stayin' on!"

That pretty much sums it up.



Naw. In SF, you get total silence from the driver but screams of "Back door! back door!" from the passengers (last ride I took on the 1 California, those screams were in Mandarin).;)

[Rational Plan2]

my city Coquitlam a suburb of Vancouver has just done this - all new houses can now include and is being encouraged that they have suites in them for low cost rentals - as rentals are becoming hard to find here and expensive

nice read

I have been to Portland twice this year - its nice - going again in a few weeks as well as San Fran - should be interesting to see both cities


In the UK these are known as granny annexe's. They are often built as little one bedroom flats that are some times connected to the main house, but have there own entrance, The reason for the knickname is that when your surviving parent gets to a certain age, you may begin to worry about leaving them alone, but they don't need to go into a care home. If you have the space and money, then these are the ideal solution. These days they often serve as teen boltholes, home offices, a handy source of rental income or if you rich enough some where for the au pair to stay.

[SpongeG]

yeah sometimes they are called "mother-inlaw" suites here

a lot of the new houses are built and they call them mortage helpers

My friend looked at a suite that was inside a new house once - it had a daylight basement entrance, its own set of stairs and it was quite a large 2 bedroom apartment.

another friend lives in a house that has 2 suites in the basement (a 1 bedroom and a 2 bedroom), the house was built with the suites in it from the start.

they can really help people pay for their mortages since to buy a house is so expensive these days

[POLA]

Wow, secondary kicks ass! why don't more cities allow it?

[Wright Concept]

^ Less $$$ for plan Checks and Cities not being able to bribe the persons for a donation for later elections compared to a developer.

[mcbaby]

i think SF could teach portland how to put our mass transit underground.

[Justin10000]

i think SF could teach portland how to put our mass transit underground.

A good mass transit does not always have to underground. No one can deny the charm of having a streetcar, or a smaller urban LRV plying the streets.

I love riding a train aboveground. It gives you nice scenery to look at, and not just some tunnel wall.

[urban_encounter]

A good mass transit does not always have to underground. No one can deny the charm of having a streetcar, or a smaller urban LRV plying the streets.

I love riding a train aboveground. It gives you nice scenery to look at, and not just some tunnel wall.


Exactly and in most cases it is much more cost effective to construct a system above ground.

In a city such as San Francisco, a subway (or underground system) makes sense, because of the density of that particular city. You just don't have the ability to operate an expansive Light Rail system (above ground), even though there are parts of the Muni that are above ground.

Plus San Francisco uses a combination of Muni LRVs, Trolleys (sp), cable cars, standard transit and articulated buses, BART heavy rail as well as Cal Train, to move people into the the city and within the city.

A system heavily dependent on above ground Light Rail just wouldn't work in San Francisco...

[der Reisender]

an underground section through central portland would be useful though since our 200' downtown blocks restrict light rail trains throughout the entire metro area to running in 2-car sets, which prohibits expansion of capacity when needed. addtionally, light rail downtown is a bottleneck for the system, and takes far too long to traverse the distance it does.

[jamison]

5. Everything comes off the shelf ... In contrast, San Francisco seems to insist on a different, custom-designed light fixture for every street—just look at Market, Howard, Second Street, and Third Street—entirely different custom fixtures for every street in a few blocks.

I guess this could be argued as a positive, but differentiation of these kinds of items as well as other public facilities such as transit stations can make for community pride which will see residents cleaning up their own neighbour hoods and taking stronger stances on crime.

I'm with Nate about individualizing things to support that sense of close nit neighborhoods with their own pride, but a lot of that can be done with color variation and modular designs that can be combined in pretty unique ways, but there also needs to be a sense of continuity.

I think Castro, Church and Van Ness stations, do this pretty successfully because they use the same design elements (the bricks, panels, faregates and booths, signs, etc.), and while they feel like they are tied together by all this, each has it's own look. Living in the Castro, the distinctness of Castro Station definitely makes it feel like it is "my station".

Done well it helps with wayfinding. Castro's easy and I will tell someone it's got deep red bricks, but even if quite a few stations or stops share the same look it still holds true. You could give directions like, "take the M-Ocean View line outbound and get off at the second yellow platform" and you would know you were getting close when the color scheme changes.

I got reminded of the continuity issue last week walking along The Embarcadero where north of the Ferry Building the F-Line stops use a design found nowhere else in the system, then the Ferry Building has it's own unique design. Though the Ferry Building is such an important landmark this is where a unique one off design is appropriate, and aside from the swooping shelter canopy often replaced things like signs still share a common design.

Moving further south, the four stations built as part of the "MMX" extension to Caltrain have yet another design, though wouldn't it be more appropriate for the stations north and south of the Ferry Building to have the same design tying together the entire Embarcadero?

The worst thing though is at the Caltrain Depot where platform with the MMX design station now sits kitty-corner to a new platform with the radically different Third Street design. Even using the new station design, the two could have been integrated a bit more gracefully had they not started the new pick and black alternative paving until after the bridge, or used the MMX platform color scheme (since they must stock these colors anyway, it's not a cost burden).

And while the new station design ties together the entire 5 mile corridor and the neighborhoods along it, I wonder what it would have been like if there was some variation along the corridor. Nothing radical, something as simple as neighborhood centric color variations and even then schemes that still tie together but with different accent colors like I mentioned with with the Castro, Church and Van Ness stations.

You could still get cost saving benefits like Portland but keep some distinctness using a limited set of fixtures (maybe standardize on two or three sets of street lamps, benches, bus shelters and garbage cans) and a wider, but still restricted, set of paint colors. Two neighborhoods could be distinguished if they share the same street lamp and bench design, but use the alternate bus shelter and trash can design and each using it's own color scheme.

[J Church]

The worst thing though is at the Caltrain Depot where platform with the MMX design station now sits kitty-corner to a new platform with the radically different Third Street design. Even using the new station design, the two could have been integrated a bit more gracefully had they not started the new pick and black alternative paving until after the bridge, or used the MMX platform color scheme (since they must stock these colors anyway, it's not a cost burden).

I don't know, you think this might help with the issue of distinguishing between the 4th & King platforms?

[pdxman]

Meh, portland can't hold a candle to san francisco IMO...it should be the other way around in this article. I love portland, don't get me wrong, but i think people have this misconception that its some amazing, streets-of-gold, liberal enclave place. Goodness knows i thought that before i moved here. Its far, FAR from perfect and articles like this permeate that false idea. Portland is nice, and thats all it ever will be. But i love portland, thats why i can be harsh on it like this

[jamison]

I don't know, you think this might help with the issue of distinguishing between the 4th & King platforms?

If this was a different location I'd probably say yes, with the qualification that they at least provide some clue they are part of the same system, like a Muni logo somewhere on the station.

The design of the new station is a clue this is where you board a Southbound T-Third Street train, but only if you know that's the look of the new stations. The tracks heading south of the new station are a contextual clue along with the older station being a terminal with the trains hanging out past it at the end of the line.

Heading the other direction downtown is where the different designs can become a liability...

Riders heading downtown from Fourth and King will have to choose which station to wait at. This is a decision point where the different designs will not help the rider choose and visually overwhelm the small signs which cannot be read at distance. Neither station has coloring which matches the line color on the map.

In fact, the Next Muni signs are colored the opposite of lines which use the stations, with a yellow/orange LED sign at new T line (colored red on the maps and signs) station and a red LED sign at the older station which will be used by the J line (colored yellow/orange on the maps and signs)

And there is an issue with the new T-Third Street line sharing the next three surface stations with the N-Judah (soon J-Church) before going underground. This concerns me because a rider taking the J to get to Fourth & King will probably be hesitant not to use the same platform for their return trip, and especially because it doesn't look at all like the platform the rider had passed to get down there.

For someone who feels it's safer to just retrace their steps to the station they got off at, this wouldn't be an issue except for a few minutes of delay if the other train comes first.

Except under Muni's service plan for the J-Church only running at peak hours this could leave riders waiting for a train that's not going to come.

This is why I think it is going to be problematic beyond just two mismatched stations side by side. This could be minimized with 1) signs large enough to be read from across the street including Next Muni signs, 2) swapping the Next Muni signs so their colors match the lines using the stations (I don't like this because it can mislead riders into thinking this happens elsewhere), 3) a gate at the older station which can be closed when the J line is not running which tells riders they can use the other station to reach downtown on the T line where they can transfer to all other lines including the J and 4) if ridership picks up because of the new line expand the J-church to full time service to Caltrain.

In this case, I would rather the two stations looked the same. The primary use case for these two stations is riders who will be heading to and from downtown and Caltrain in which case it doesn't matter which platform the use because both go downtown. The vast majority of Caltrain commuter work in or towards downtown, not south because it is mainly residential (and 22nd Street would make a quicker transfer for Caltrain riders who want to head south)

[mcbaby]

...

[mcbaby]

Exactly and in most cases it is much more cost effective to construct a system above ground.

In a city such as San Francisco, a subway (or underground system) makes sense, because of the density of that particular city. You just don't have the ability to operate an expansive Light Rail system (above ground), even though there are parts of the Muni that are above ground.

Plus San Francisco uses a combination of Muni LRVs, Trolleys (sp), cable cars, standard transit and articulated buses, BART heavy rail as well as Cal Train, to move people into the the city and within the city.

A system heavily dependent on above ground Light Rail just wouldn't work in San Francisco...

we have trolleys, streetcars, LRVs, buses, etc. we also have small 200 foot blocks that give our city it's village feel. we will eventually have to move our max below ground to increase capacity and speed because more people are choosing to live in the central city or around transit centers.

[BTinSF]

A system heavily dependent on above ground Light Rail just wouldn't work in San Francisco...

If you consider the cable cars (which are mostly in the more congested--because they are the oldest--parts of the city) and the Market St./Embarcadero F-line streetcars as well as the extensive sections of the Muni Metro that run on the surface (quite often in dedicated right of way) in residential neighborhoods, I'd say San Francisco IS "heavily dependent on above ground Light Rail" even if it does use underground rail in the core of downtown.

[J Church]

Buses carry three-quarters of Muni riders.

[BTinSF]

^^^So take away the 1/4 of capacity that's rail and see what happens to the bus system. That's what I call "heavily dependent". But I was really just suggesting that SF's rail component, while it has some subway, is not a "mostly underground" rail system.

[northbay]

^yea, i have never heard anyone refer to muni as a "subway" (not any locals anyway)

[fflint]

Muni Metro downtown is in a subway, and if I'm referring to it specifically there I'll call it a subway.

[BTinSF]

^yea, i have never heard anyone refer to muni as a "subway" (not any locals anyway)

Now you have. Are congratulations in order?

Really, if you were to describe what BART and Muni's Market St. lines are to anyone from anywhere else (which most SSP forumers are) and did NOT call it a subway, you'd just confuse them. I see no point in doing that purely to demonstrate my being a "local".

[northbay]

Muni Metro downtown is in a subway, and if I'm referring to it specifically there I'll call it a subway.

yea, i just meant people refering to the system as a whole. tokyo or new york have a subway system. sf has a lrt with a subway component (at least in my interpretation/opinion).

[BTinSF]

yea, i just meant people refering to the system as a whole. tokyo or new york have a subway system. sf has a lrt with a subway component (at least in my interpretation/opinion).

OK, but say you are standing on lower Market St. and some tourist asks you how to get to Castro St. as has happened to me any number of times. After pointing out the passing F-line streetcars, you want to mention the other option. Do you tell them about the "lrt subway component" or do you just tell them there's a "subway" under their feet that will take them there?

[fangorangutang]

Meh, portland can't hold a candle to san francisco IMO...it should be the other way around in this article. I love portland, don't get me wrong, but i think people have this misconception that its some amazing, streets-of-gold, liberal enclave place. Goodness knows i thought that before i moved here. Its far, FAR from perfect and articles like this permeate that false idea. Portland is nice, and thats all it ever will be. But i love portland, thats why i can be harsh on it like this


Agreed. I came away from San Francisco (the city itself, not sure about the rest of the Bay Area) feeling that I had just ridden the most convenient and efficient transit system in my life. Of course, such thorough coverage and frequent service is much more feasible in San Francisco given its density and layout. Portland and Trimet, while certainly making efforts to move in the right direction, are still very, very far from achieving the standard of service and operation that MUNI has, in my opinion.

I don't think the problem with LRT is whether it's above or below ground, but simply that it isn't on a separated grade in Portland. Downtown, it moves at the same pace as cars (or slower, taking stops and subsequent missed lights into account). The blocks are also tiny, long enough to fit just two MAX cars and forcing them to make more frequent stops. I don't know exactly how the system works, but sometimes it seems like we might as well not have the MAX traffic signals at all.

[pdxman]

^^^Indeed...You might as well drop the X on MAX because its not worthy of being called an "eXpress". The effectiveness of light rail in portland is killed because of it going through downtown on streets that are on a fixed light system designed for cars. So, unless trimet gets smart and tunnels lrt then it will continue to be slow and a waste. Another problem as stated above is that there are WAY TOO MANY stops in the system. The trains have no time to get to maximum speed before they have to slow down for the next stop. Put simply, trimet has problems. lots

[northbay]

OK, but say you are standing on lower Market St. and some tourist asks you how to get to Castro St. as has happened to me any number of times. After pointing out the passing F-line streetcars, you want to mention the other option. Do you tell them about the "lrt subway component" or do you just tell them there's a "subway" under their feet that will take them there?

in this case, i would probably go with u and say just "subway" instead of "lrt subway blah blah..." for the sake of minimizing confusion. by my saying that i had never had an occasion to hear someone refer to muni metro as "a/the subway", i was just agreeing with u that sf doesnt have a true "subway" system:

But I was really just suggesting that SF's rail component, while it has some subway, is not a "mostly underground" rail system.

[MayorOfChicago]

I've been to San Fran many times, and have used the MUNI and BART systems every time. I always thought of MUNI downtown being a subway. Because it is.

It's like the L in Chicago. Subway downtown, above ground elsewhere.

If a tourist on State Street asked how to get to the red line, I would just tell them to go down into the subway.

You call the whole thing MUNI, but I would reference it as a "subway" when I'm downtown. It's funny how locals in Chicago just call it all the "L", which stand for elevated - even if they're on the underground part. You're basically catching the Elevated train underground.

[jamison]

I came away from San Francisco (the city itself, not sure about the rest of the Bay Area) feeling that I had just ridden the most convenient and efficient transit system in my life. Of course, such thorough coverage and frequent service is much more feasible in San Francisco given its density and layout.

Your experience, and that of many tourists and travelers, is very different from what residents experience. While service downtown is frequent, much of that is because several lines share the same corridor and split just past where most tourists will take it.

BT threw out a good example with the Castro. For visitors heading to Castro, there are 3 (4 starting in April) lines they can take. For residents who live further out, the lines diverge and only one goes to SF State.

What visitors don't often realize is the imbalance of service which happens when there is a delay in only one of the lines. Overall the Castro service remains frequent, but for the student trying to reach SF States they experience a very long delay.

When their M-Ocean View train to SF State finally arrives it could be too crowded to even board. The student is out of luck and might end up very late for class, but it doesn't hurt the visitor trying to reach Castro who can just take the next train.

This is one of the reasons Muni service can be viewed so differently between locals and visitors.

[BTinSF]

YBT threw out a good example with the Castro. For visitors heading to Castro, there are 3 (4 starting in April) lines they can take. For residents who live further out, the lines diverge and only one goes to SF State.



Jamison: How many lines can they cram through the Market St. tunnel anyway? I was thinking about this when remembering some of the subway stations I encountered on my last New York trip--where there may have been as many as 8 different sets of tracks among several lines with locals and express trains on different tracks. Those 4 lines you mention above all have to share one set of track in each direction. San Franciscans are familiar with the jam-ups we have from time to time with only 3 lines running through that tunnel.

[jamison]

Jamison: How many lines can they cram through the Market St. tunnel anyway?.

I wouldn't be surprised, if it were run better, the subway couldn't handle another. The T-Third Street should actually improve service since Castro riders won't crowd KLM trains as much. Get deeper into the issue and you'll notice not everyone actually wants to go to Powell, Montgomery or Embarcadero Stations, but the radial grid service pattern makes Market Street the main corridor with lines running north and south from it.

My commute is an example because I live in the Castro and work in SOMA. There's no alternative besides using Market Street and transferring to the 30/45, the same is true of the entire western half of San Francisco.

Eventually, if anything, I see the growth in SOMA leading to the need for a second subway running parallel to Market along Folsom.

[fflint]

Could a Folsom subway somehow hook north on Van Ness?

[jamison]

Could a Folsom subway somehow hook north on Van Ness?

I won't take it any further than my predication we'll someday need a subway, or it could be a surface line with a dedicated right of way like Third Street, running through SOMA. It's where much of the development is already being concentrated and will likely spread further to the southwest from where it's being developed now in the northeast. The Rincon Hill plan is already going to turn Folsom into the main boulevard and both the planning department has studied extending that through the rest of SOMA and an earlier transportation study recommended turning Folsom into the main transportation corridor.

[fangorangutang]

Your experience, and that of many tourists and travelers, is very different from what residents experience. While service downtown is frequent, much of that is because several lines share the same corridor and split just past where most tourists will take it.

BT threw out a good example with the Castro. For visitors heading to Castro, there are 3 (4 starting in April) lines they can take. For residents who live further out, the lines diverge and only one goes to SF State.

What visitors don't often realize is the imbalance of service which happens when there is a delay in only one of the lines. Overall the Castro service remains frequent, but for the student trying to reach SF States they experience a very long delay.

When their M-Ocean View train to SF State finally arrives it could be too crowded to even board. The student is out of luck and might end up very late for class, but it doesn't hurt the visitor trying to reach Castro who can just take the next train.

This is one of the reasons Muni service can be viewed so differently between locals and visitors.


Ironically, I stayed at SF State for my week in San Francisco, and took the MUNI to downtown. Perhaps it's just that much better than Portland's MAX, or I used it on good days or at good times. Either way, I was impressed by the way the buses, trolleys, and LRT are coordinated. Plus the distance is much shorter than my typical MAX ride in Portland (from downtown way out to 185th street in Beaverton, a western suburb).

[BTinSF]

^^^Wow! SF State to downtown is about as long as Muni rides get.

PS: How many different one-sided cell phone conversations did you overhear?

[SpongeG]

i was a tourist in SF and we called it the MUNI - like do you wanna catch the street car back or the muni