Disability Perspective on MTA's DPT: A Calculus of Blood and $$$$$$$$$$?

by Bob Planthold, 2006-10-16

One of the busiest routes in SF, Howard St., will be blocked off to ALL vehicular traffic for nearly a week in October. The block of Howard between 3rd St. and 4th St. will be blocked off for nearly eight days, while the northern 3 lanes of Howard between 4th and 5th St. will ALSO be blocked off for almost a week. What's happening? Is it a major street re-surfacing, a utility replacement, a campout by MacWorld groupies, or even the pits of hell expected to open up to disgorge their demons? Nope. Not even these occasional disruptions can cause ONE ENTIRE BLOCK of busy downtown / SOMA traffic to be shut down for DAYS and DAYS and Days... from the evening of Thursday, 19 October through the morning of Saturday, 28 October.

It's the Silicon Valley powerhouse Oracle that has the "juice" -- and of course the bucks--to get MTA's DPT to authorize the signs and the police and the parking control officers and all other city departments involved in this decision to go along with this temporary privatization of SF's streets.

By the way, the taxicab industry, which provides MANY paratransit rides to seniors and the disabled, is also uneasy at the likely delays and possible road rage collisions that may result from the need to detour THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS of vehicles around this privatized block of Howard St.

Remember, Mayor Newsom's un-agendized speech to the MTA Board of Directors at their special 26 Sept. board meeting indicated he wanted SF to be viewed as, if not become, "the Silicon Valley of the North". This Oracle exclusion of San Franciscans and commuters from city streets may be an early taste of what may happen if Silicon Valley attitudes and behavior migrate up here.

So, what's the disability perspective?

These privileged, able-bodied, and MONIED people are getting special treatment so people like themselves can mingle freely without risk of injury by vehicles traveling along that block of Howard St.

Yet, immediately behind the Folsom St. edge of the Yerba Buena Center / Moscone Center, there are hundreds and hundreds of seniors and the disabled who risk injury from autos when trying to cross to get to the mid-block elevator to take them up into the back of this same complex that Oracle is having its way with.

How come? DPT wrote almost exactly two years ago - 19 Oct., 2004, in a letter from the City Traffic Engineer-- that there hadn't been any accidents to justify any installation of a mid-block crossing between the senior & disabled housing and the elevator designed to take people up into the Yerba Buena Center.

Which raises the question: How many seniors and disabled DO have to be injured, maimed, or killed before it's worth a few stripes of paint to mark the mid-block crosswalk, to install a couple of YIELD signs, and maybe even paint in an advance STOP bar line?

Of course, DPT conveniently forgot to mention that, 1-1/2 blocks away, they had earlier already made special mid-block crossings of 3rd St. so culture mavens could get easily to and from the middle of Yerba Buena Center to the Museum of Modern Art.

And, of course, DPT conveniently ALSO forgot to mention they not only made a mid-block crossing of the same block Oracle gets to use for one week BUT also permanently installed a special stop-light for conventioneers to use at that mid-block crossing.

That's ONE block away from the seniors and disabled who have been denied even the simplest mid-block crossing. Which means the rich, the privileged, those who dress stylishly, and those are able to mingle easily get THEIR comfortable mid-block crossings. Those who hobble, shuffle, wobble, or move not so gracefully have to walkman extra distance of MORE than 1 block to get to the elevator. Parents taking their babies in strollers to and from the daycare center in Yerba Buena ALSO have to do this mid-block dash to get to and from the elevator.

Still, DPT remains aloof and unresponsive for the safety of people at the rear of Yerba Buena Center while also blocking off an entire street one block away for Oracle to do what it wants. DPT uses as its formal professional authority a 2002 Federal Highway Administration study often questioned by many as to its universal applicability. This FHWA study claims its not as safe to put in mid-block crossings everywhere requested, because it may lull pedestrians into a false sense of safety.

Maybe in the areas FHWA studied this might be true.

But, what DPT didn't do--much as the MUNI Transit Effectiveness Project didn't do with regard to their galloping down the path of lengthening distance between bus stops--is to look at the POPULATIONS recruited and tested in this study.

SF has a disproportionate number of seniors and of people with disabilities, compared to the rest of the country. DPT has been mulishly stubborn about not impartially inquiring about the demographics of those used as test subjects.

It's worth mentioning another traffic engineering study that has been used for decades as a near-Bibilical source of authority and yet clearly has major demographic flaws in its test subjects. The professional traffic engineers' so-called "average walking speed" of 3.5 to 4 feet per second was determined in the mid 1970s by using GRADUATE STUDENTS as the test subjects. No people pushing babies in strollers; no recruitment or inclusion of seniors; NO outreach to people using canes, crutches, walker, wheelchairs, guide dogs, or navigating canes; no use of primary grade school kids, no kids on bikes. A seriously flawed study--due to the MANY population groups of pedestrians excluded from the pool of test subjects; yet no traffic engineering group has nominated this study for an award exemplifying "bad research."

With that skewed methodological problem--avoiding testing many vulnerable populations--that has long been embedded within the traffic engineering's research techniques, realize that both FHWA and DPT are silent about the demographics of the test subjects used to justify the recommendation to generally deny installing mid-block crosswalks. Since this flawed methodology was applied to the Folsom St. decision to deny a mid-block crossing for the safety of seniors, of the disabled, and of adults with babies in strollers, it raises the question how and why the other nearby neighborhood mid-block crosswalks got approved--and even had the enhancements of stop lights as well!

Could it be that its CONNECTIONS, MONEY, POLITICAL FAVORS--or even unacknowledged bias? Whatever it was, these unknown factors may have somehow worked in getting approval for Oracle's request to block off an entire street for nearly a week while denying a similar request by nearby seniors and the disabled.

Don't seniors and the disabled have ENOUGH danger in their lives to justify a few stripes of paint and maybe a couple of YIELD signs?