precita.org

The stretch of Cesar Chavez from Guerrero to the 101 interchange remains a stark landscape, six lanes wide and choked with traffic circulating in and out of the interchange. It presents a formidable barrier - some residents call it a "Berlin Wall" - dividing Bernal Heights from the Mission District. Surrounded by streets that are green and vibrant, Cesar Chavez remains unredeemingly blighted and monochromatic. Valencia Street, 24th Street, and Mission Street teem with foot traffic and small shops. Cesar Chavez is dominated by institutions - churches, schools, the Salvation Army and St. Luke's Hospital; day laborers waiting for work on curbs and street corners are the dominant human presence.

(Photo: SFGate)

Residents on the gentrified Bernal Heights side tend toward the same view as the traffic engineers, and worry that traffic taming on Cesar Chavez, especially any reduction in its traffic lanes, will cause a spillover to their quiet residential streets.


Much of the opposition to CC Puede's efforts has come from the Precita Valley Neighbors, a Bernal Heights neighborhood group. When Taylor and her cohorts began promoting their traffic-calming ideas and circulating their petitions two years ago, Precita Valley co-chair David Robinson expressed his firm opposition to any removal of traffic lanes on Cesar Chavez: "We'd all like to see Cesar Chavez not so ugly and not so fast, but that's not the practical reality," he told The Chronicle.

Labels: traffic calming