A total of 10 "Excellence in Motion" awards were presented by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) at a ceremony at the San Francisco Ferry Building in late October. The winners of MTC’s 27th Transportation Awards Program range from U.S. Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi to urban neighborhood activists who reclaimed their local streets, to a high school that convinced students to carpool to instead of driving solo.
Octavia Boulevard replaced a double-deck freeway, and through clever design serves as both a thoroughfare and quiet neighborhood street. (Photo: Noah Berger)
By Marjorie Blackwell
Published: November, 2006
This year’s Grand Award is equally shared by two neighborhood efforts to reclaim their streets from the blight and danger of heavy through traffic. Both projects involve thoroughfares in San Francisco, and both owe their success to countless volunteer hours on the part of community residents, and the professional expertise of the city’s Department of Parking and Traffic as well as the Department of Public Works.
The Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association convinced officials to develop the new, five-block long Octavia Boulevard in Hayes Valley, a triumph of urban transportation planning that serves both as a thoroughfare and a quiet pedestrian street. The roadway’s success is due to 18 years of relentless determination and imagination of neighborhood residents, urban planners, city officials and engineers who created the tree-lined boulevard and neighborhood park on the site of an ugly, double-deck freeway that was damaged in the Loma Prieta earthquake and that had long marred the neighborhood.
In another San Francisco neighborhood, local residents took on the challenge of calming traffic on San Jose Avenue, Guerrero Street and Cesar Chavez Street, busy arterials where speeding vehicles endangered pedestrians. The San Jose/Guerrero Coalition to Save Our Streets brought together neighbors, businesses and other organizations, lobbied city officials, and ultimately won the city’s support to reduce the speed limit and the number of traffic lanes, create bicycle lanes, install a new traffic signal, and establish wider medians on these streets.
Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi received MTC’s John F. Foran Legislative Award for her work locally and in Washington, D.C., to dedicate funding for essential upgrades to the Bay Area’s infrastructure. Projects that have received funding range from seismic strengthening of the Golden Gate Bridge and the Bay Bridge to BART’s San Francisco International Airport extension.
Other Excellence in Motion special awards presented by MTC include:
Doris Kahn Accessible Transportation Award: Heart of the Valley, Services for Seniors, Inc. (HOV), provides free transportation to hundreds of seniors in western Santa Clara County, allowing them to live independent lives in their own homes. HOV volunteers spend their own time and gas driving elderly residents to medical appointments, shopping, errands and the like.
Miriam Gholikely Award: Ernest Bradford, a long-time member of MTC’s Elderly and Disabled Advisory Committee, has focused the attention of MTC and other transportation organizations on the plight of older drivers and providing transportation options to ensure their continued quality of life. The Miriam Gholikely Award recognizes individuals for community service, volunteerism, advocacy, leadership and minority affairs.
David Tannehill Special Employee Award: Jaimie Levin, AC Transit’s director of Alternative Fuels Policy and Marketing, has spearheaded the nation’s foremost hydrogen fuel-cell demonstration project. A public-private partnership has raised more than $21 million and produced five state-of-the-art fuel-cell buses (with three buses now operating on East Bay city streets) and two hydrogen energy stations.
Greta Ericson Distinguished Service Award: Rodger Tim Reilly recently retired from San Francisco Muni after a 22-year career as a pattern maker for the city’s historic cable cars. Reilly’s carefully crafted wood, metal and plastic patterns become the molds that are cast into cable car parts. Nearly every San Francisco cable car has a part that began with Reilly’s skilled craftsmanship.
In addition to these special awards named in honor of outstanding individuals in Bay Area transportation, MTC presented four Merit Awards to the following:
• Peter Tannen was San Francisco’s first Bicycle Program manager. During his tenure, from 1992 until his retirement earlier this year, San Francisco added more than 40 miles of bike lanes, established a 200-mile bike network, erected 3,000 bike route signs and installed 1,500 bike racks. Tannen does not own a car and has bicycled every street in San Francisco.
• Traffic jams, overcrowded parking lots and pedestrian safety risks are common problems on and around high school campuses, and typically are caused by too many students driving alone to school. Palo Alto’s Gunn High School resolved these problems by creating the GO-FAST program, which provides incentives for carpooling, bicycling and transit. The results have been dramatic: In two years, the number of students driving alone to school dropped from 250 to 83, while the number of carpoolers tripled.
• The Ways to Work Family Loan Program, run by the Family Service Agency of San Mateo County, offers low-interest loans to help struggling families purchase a used car or repair their car. The program, begun in 1998 and the first of its kind in California, has provided auto loans of up to $4,000 to more than 200 families with children in San Mateo County, making it easier for working parents to travel to their jobs, school and medical appointments.
• Caltrans’ Bay Bridge West Approach seismic retrofit team is accomplishing one of the most daunting and complex engineering projects in state history. The project involves replacing a one-mile stretch of freeway — and three on/off ramps — in a densely populated urban area while maintaining capacity for some 260,000-plus vehicles each. The West Approach team completed its greatest challenge when it closed the eastbound Bay Bridge during the 2006 Labor Day weekend to demolish 1,000 feet of the upper deck bridge approach and remove 10,000 cubic yards of concrete. Their planning and teamwork paid off when the bridge reopened ahead of schedule.
