Sunset Neighborways Project

7/13/2023 Update: The comment card and feedback gathering period has closed. Stay up to date on all project news by signing up for project updates:

The online design outreach hub is also available in Chinese. Click below to change the language

 歡迎 ！

Please, use this platform to learn more about the project, design elements, and to provide feedback on any of the five Neighborway corridor designs. 

The goal of this project is to create a neighborhood amenity by creating transportation choices, especially for short and local trips. The purpose of the Sunset Neighborways is to create a network of streets that are safe, comfortable, and inviting for families and children to bike or walk to neighborhood destinations like schools, parks, and local shops.

To provide feedback on the proposal, please visit the section titled “Tell Us What You Think”, which can be found in the navigation bar above or scroll to the bottom of this page.

The Design Outreach website is best viewed on a laptop or desktop web browser, but it is also accessible by tablet or mobile devices.

There is a navigation bar at the top of the web page that can help you move to specific sections that you are interested in, such as project goals, the proposed design, and the project schedule. Otherwise, for full project context, we recommend scrolling from the beginning to the end.

If you encounter any issues with this web page, please send an email to  Sunset Neighborways@SFMTA.com 

Language assistance:

Contact 311 - Free language assistance / 免費語言協助 / Ayuda gratis con el idioma / Бесплатная помощь переводчиков / Trợ giúp Thông dịch Miễn phí / Assistance linguistique gratuite / 無料の言語支援 / 무료 언어 지원 / Libreng tulong para sa wikang Filipino / การช่วยเหลือทางด้านภาษาโดยไม่เสียค่าใช้จ่าย /خط المساعدة المجاني على الرقم

The Sunset Neighborways Project is guided by the  SFCTA’s District 4 Mobility Study  to create safe, comfortable, and inviting walking and bicycling routes for families and children to get to neighborhood destinations.

Neighborways are low traffic stress routes on residential streets that give priority to pedestrians and people on bikes. They are designed to give priority for people and families, young and old, to walk and bike. By using traffic calming tools, Neighborways make streets feel quiet, safe, and inviting with street designs tailored to each neighborhood.

Neighborways do not just improve traffic safety for people walking or bicycling, they improve it for all users of the road. By using traffic calming tools, Neighborways ensure that people driving are driving at safer speeds. Additionally, they incorporate design elements that improve visibility and navigation through an intersection, the portion of a roadway with the most user conflicts.

Unlike other types of pedestrian and bicycle priority streets, Neighborways do not impose street closures in their design, and instead focuses on using a holistic traffic calming approach to improve street safety. Motor vehicle access is allowed on a Neighborway street.

For more information on the difference between Neighborways and other pedestrian and bicycle priority roads, click  here .

The network comprises of eight residential streets that are proposed for Neighborway designation and design. Currently, the project is focusing on designing and delivering five of the eight streets: 34th Avenue, 41st Avenue, Kirkham Street, Ortega Street, and Vicente Street (Group 1). The remaining three streets, 28th Avenue, 47th Avenue, and Rivera Street (Group 2), will be explored at a later time.

The project team initiated an initial community outreach phase for the project between December 2021 through March 2023. Initial outreach efforts included informing the neighborhood of the proposal and gathering initial community feedback to inform the project's next steps. Community feedback was collected from the initial outreach public survey, meetings with community groups, as well as emails/voicemails sent to the project team.

Below is a presentation that was given to community groups during the initial phase that explains what Neighborways are and the overall proposal for the Sunset Neighborways network:

From the initial outreach phase, here are some key findings from community feedback received:

In response to the community's feedback from the initial outreach, the SFMTA removed the four existing temporary District 4 Slow Streets (Kirkham Street, Ortega Street, 20 ^th  Avenue, and 41 ^st  Avenue) in early Fall 2022.

Click the button below to view the full initial outreach summary, where you can see specific findings from initial outreach activities per corridor:

Neighborway design focuses on creating a low traffic stress streets using traffic calming. Neighborways are typically designated on residential streets with low traffic volumes or low enough volumes that additional traffic calming can reduce existing volumes to the preferred amount for a low traffic stress street. Based on traffic engineering principles and various street design guidelines for low traffic stress streets, the goal of Neighborway design is to meet two traffic operation conditions:

• Maximum Typical Daily Vehicle Traffic: Less than 3,000 vehicles per day
• Maximum Typical Daily Vehicle Speed: Less than 25 miles per hour

A street meeting either of these baseline conditions, whether by its original or induced state (i.e., implementing traffic calming measures), constitute a street that is low-stress, safer, calmer, and is more conducive to being used as a major pedestrian or bicycle route. Lower vehicle volumes mean the street does not have many vehicles driving through and is quieter. People who walk or bicycle on these streets do not have to encounter or interact with many moving vehicles. Lower vehicle speeds are also a crucial factor. For vehicles that do access the street, traveling at safer speeds (less than 25 miles per hour) increase roadway visibility and allow for more effective vehicle stopping and yielding to avoid conflicts with other users of the roadway.

Beyond the maximum conditions, there are also ideal or target conditions that are the best-practice standards to ensuring the most comfortable and calm street for all users:

• Ideal Typical Daily Vehicle Traffic: Less than or equal to 1,500 vehicles per day
• Ideal Typical Daily Vehicle Speed: Less than or equal to 20 miles per hour

Throughout the project's design process, tools were selected from our  Neighborway Traffic Safety Design Toolkit  to meet the low traffic stress standards and to enhance traffic safety along the proposed Neighborway streets. Each street's design was guided by community feedback from the initial outreach completed as part of this project, and an analysis of existing conditions along the street.

The Sunset Neighborways aims to provide safe designated walking and bicycling routes in the Sunset neighborhood for short and local scale trips. All of the proposed Neighborways are adjacent to a number of schools and parks, and also run parallel to several commercial corridors in the Sunset neighborhood. The Neighborway designs will prioritize improving safety along these areas of the corridor, since they are major neighborhood destinations and where a lot of vulnerable roadway users like pedestrians and people who bike may be traveling.

From the project's analysis of existing conditions, typical daily vehicle volume (vehicle traffic) and speeds for the corridors were determined and used to inform the design process. Again, a major goal of Neighborway design is to meet the two low traffic streets conditions (low vehicle volumes and speeds) to create a safe and calm street that can be a priority pedestrian and bicycle route.

From the analysis, all five streets meet the typical daily vehicle traffic condition. Therefore, and as shown later in the concept design drawings, vehicle volume management traffic calming tools were not proposed in the designs. In terms of vehicle speed, two of the corridors show high vehicle speeds and speeds that are above the maximum typical daily vehicle speed condition for a Neighborway (41st and 34th Avenue). The other three streets (Kirkham, Ortega, and Vicente streets), have average vehicle speeds below the maximum typical daily vehicle speed target, but above the ideal low traffic stress target of less than or equal to 20 miles per hour. Vehicle speed management and other supplemental design elements like improving intersection visibility, were the core aspects explored during the design process for the proposed Neighborway streets.

Overall design for the five corridors was driven by feedback received during the initial outreach phase and the project's existing conditions analysis. The table quantifies the number of treatments proposed on each corridor.

Use the buttons below to view the concept design maps for the proposed Neighborways. Each concept design for the proposed Neighborway have a set of core design items and a set of supplemental items (color coded as purple in the design maps below). The supplemental treatments (design items color coded purple in the design maps) would only be implemented if the post-implementation evaluation shows that the core design was not effective at improving traffic safety.

These design drawings can also be found on the  project webpage  under the "Related Reports & Documents" section.

7/13/2023 Update: The comment card and feedback gathering period has closed.

The Design Outreach period will be ongoing and live between May 2023 through mid-Summer 2023.

Community members can use the following comment form to provide feedback on any of the five proposed Neighborways and concept designs:

Additionally, throughout this period, staff will be available via email, and you are also welcome to attend our office hours for further questions or comments. The project team will also attend community-hosted meetings to talk more about the project and concept designs for the five proposed Neighborway streets.

Please RSVP for office hours using the links below:

East-West corridors (Kirkham, Ortega, and Vicente Streets)

The following office hours will focus on the designs for the proposed Neighborways on Kirkham, Ortega, and Vicente streets:

North-South corridors (34th Avenue and 41st Avenue)

The following office hours will focus on the designs for the proposed Neighborways on 34th Avenue and 41st Avenue:

If you are a leader of a neighborhood or community organization and interested in meeting the Sunset Neighborways project team, reach out to us at  SunsetNeighborways@SFMTA.com   to schedule a virtual meeting.

For project updates, please visit the project web page at  SFMTA.com/SunsetNeighborways 

Have a question or want to provide feedback? Email the project team at  SunsetNeighborways@SFMTA.com 

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