Duboce Triangle Transportation Improvements Plan
A package of neighborhood improvements
The Projects
Duboce Triangle is the site of three interrelated transportation improvement projects:
Track replacement on Duboce and Church Streets
Station upgrades on the N-Judah on Duboce Avenue and Noe Street, and the N-Judah and J-Church lines on Duboce and Church Streets
Traffic calming on Noe Street between 14th Street and Duboce Avenue
In addition, the neighborhood is part of multiple larger-scale transportation and streetscape projects:
Market-Octavia Plan – Impacts Market Street
Upper Market Plan – Impacts Market Street
Community Benefit District’s streetscape improvement plan – Impacts Church Street, Market Street and Duboce Avenue from Church to Belcher
This perfect storm of projects is a tremendous opportunity to make a positive, long-lasting area-wide improvement to the neighborhood.
Issues & Opportunities
Duboce Triangle is renowned throughout the country for its early and extensive traffic calming. Its wide sidewalks and abundance of street trees, lower speed streets and curb extensions continue to foster a sense of community, thriving businesses, well-used transit stops and lines, vibrant parks and other community establishments.
The package of transportation improvement projects are an opportunity to build on this legacy by trouble shooting streets and transit stops that could be more successful, and better integrated into the neighborhood. Duboce Avenue, Church Street and Noe Street are key critical links to the transit system – rail and bus – attracting thousands of pedestrians every day. But they also suffer from excessive vehicle speeding, confusing and dangerous intersections and dead spots that attract anti-social behavior. These conditions threaten pedestrians, people waiting for trains and buses, bicyclists, drivers and others. Parts of these streets are also part of the main bicycle network; the neighborhood has an especially high bicycling rate.
The neighborhood’s many small businesses are also impacted by underperforming streets. They thrive when foot-traffic in front of their stores improves, and suffer when the street is uninviting or dangerous. The Duboce Triangle community’s relatively quiet but thriving character depends on extensive local, pedestrian-based retail.
Duboce Triangle is a model transit-friendly neighborhood. In fact, the neighborhood’s transit stops are so well used that they are currently failing to provide the level of comfort and safety that will help continue to retain and attract new transit users. The Church and Duboce Streets train and bus stops serve as a major transit hub for the entire city. Both the N-Judah and J-Church lines run through this intersection, as well as multiple popular bus lines. Yet the Church and Duboce transit waiting stops are currently considered uncomfortable, drab and exposed to dangerous traffic. Similarly, the Duboce Park N-Judah stop has become so well-used that riders frequently spill out onto the street while waiting for the train.
By approaching these plans as an integrated mega-project, the MTA has an opportunity to maximize value from the projects through finding efficiencies while minimizing the negative impacts of community planning fatigue, construction and transit service interruption.
Process
The Duboce Triangle transportation improvement projects package is well-positioned to be well-received by the community, speeding the planning and implementation process, and helping ensure long-term help for maintenance and trouble-shooting. The MTA is already working closely with the Duboce Triangle Neighborhood Association (DTNA). Preliminary concept plans for recommended improvements have been prepared and discussed with MTA. DTNA will work on refinements to those ideas based on feedback from MTA staff so they are viable for implementation.
DTNA is known for its thoughtful, organized and practical approach to working with city agencies on neighborhood projects. The organization is deeply involved in the larger-scale transportation planning projects mentioned above. By working with them early in the process, DTNA will be able to serve as a potent community advocate, getting the word out to the broad community, trouble-shooting any negative individual reactions and working with other community organizations implicated in these plans. In fact, DTNA and MTA have already begun engaging the Upper Market Community Benefits District (CBD) to coordinate the full package of projects.
Once the concept plans are finalized and preliminary cost estimates are made, DTNA and MTA will continue to collaborate on a process for specifying design details and create a funding strategy.