This week’s StreetsWiki entry highlights an intriguing storyline that our colleagues at Streetsblog San Francisco will be covering in the months ahead. The Better Streets Plan aims to establish a citywide template for street improvements:

The
Plan describes a set of policies for the City and County of San
Francisco to follow to achieve a more livable streetscape environment.
It creates a street typology system for making streetscape
improvements, and describes appropriate standard and optional elements
for each street type. For each element, there is a set of guidelines
for appropriate location and design. Finally, the Plan will describe
ways that the City can fund, maintain and enforce Better Streets
improvements.

The folks at local advocacy org Livable City
say the street types in the plan are a step up from the traditional,
car-centric classification system, but caution that the current draft
lacks critical components:

Important
tasks, like identifying which streets are of what type, and creating
standards for essential elements of successful streets (street lighting
and pedestrian-friendly building fronts, for example) are missing so
far. The Better Streets project also shied away from addressing the
speed and volume of traffic, two critical elements for creating safe
and livable streets. Governance (how city agencies plan and coordinate
street projects) and a strategy for funding and implementation also
need to be addressed.

Starting in January
you can read about the evolution of Better Streets in the cyber pages
of Streetsblog SF. In the meantime, members of the Livable Streets
Network familiar with the plan should feel free to dive in and flesh
out this wiki entry.