Lake Street Design

June 24, 2022 Update: Thank you for sharing your feedback on the Lake Street design. The Lake Street Design Virtual Engineering Public Hearing has concluded and the public commenting period is now over. This site will remain live so that members of the public may continue to explore the project details.

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Thank you for joining the Lake Street Virtual Engineering Public Hearing. This event is an opportunity for the public to learn more about the project, see the draft design, and provide public comment on the project.

No decision or approval will be made during the Engineering Public Hearing event period and all comments received will be reviewed by the project staff and responded to accordingly. After the Engineering Public Hearing event concludes, staff will present the comments received to the City Traffic Engineer, who will then make a decision on project approval.

Comments and questions received during the Engineering Public Hearing period will be responded to and posted on this webpage by 5:00 pm on Friday, July 8. Check back here to see public comments received and staff responses to questions.

The Virtual Engineering Public Hearing event will be live from June 13th, 9:30 am to June 24 ^th , 11:30 pm.

The Virtual Engineering Public Hearing 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're interested in such as safety information, the draft design, project schedule, etc. For full project context, we recommend scrolling from the beginning to the end. 

To leave a public comment during the Virtual Engineering Public Hearing, please visit the section titled "How to Provide Public Comment", which can be found in the navigation bar above or at the bottom of this Virtual Engineering Public Hearing web page. 

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

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Through this design process, we aim to ensure that Lake Street remains a safe, comfortable corridor for people of all ages and abilities to pursue active transportation in all forms—biking, walking, scooting, rolling in a wheelchair, and more. Throughout the pandemic, Lake has proven to be an essential east-west connection for active transportation through the Richmond, and a well-used and beloved community space. This design prioritizes keeping traffic volumes and vehicle speeds low along Lake Street to ensure it remains a safe and useful street for all.

Lake Street was authorized as a post-pandemic Slow Street by the MTA Board in August 2021. The design for Lake Street is now being taken through the Engineering Public Hearing process through this virtual event. Once approved by the City Traffic Engineer, implementation of the design will begin (anticipated to occur later in the summer).

Prior to this Engineering Public Hearing, the Lake Street project team conducted an extensive and thorough community outreach process that has informed the design that will be presented during the Engineering Public Hearing. This process included:

Surveys:

• Summer 2020: A survey of residents to gauge overall support for and usage of Slow Lake Street: Of 391 responses, 73% of residents said they support the street remaining a Slow Street.

• Winter 2021/2022: A survey of residents to gauge design preferences for the future of Lake Street. Over 5,700 responses were received; 83.5% of Lake Street residents expressed their support for at least one of the three options that maintained the Slow Street. Of residents who live adjacent to Lake Street, 53.9% supported one of the slow street proposals over the “No Build” proposal.

Meetings:

• Virtual Open House meetings: Over the course of Winter 2021/2022, the SFMTA Lake Slow Street project team hosted three 1.5-hour long virtual open house meetings.

Hundreds of questions were answered; the project team also compiled a  “FAQ” document  to address commonly-heard questions.

• Community meetings: The SFMTA project team responded to requests from a number of community/nonprofit groups for discussion about the project, including “Concerned Lake Street residents,” “Friends of Slow Lake Street,” and SF Sierra Club Transportation Committee.

The Project Team also hosted and facilitated briefings with neighborhood stakeholder groups around Winter survey results and data evaluation findings in March 2022.

Email communications:

• The SFMTA team has received and catalogued over 5,000 emails related to Lake Street. Many of these were form letters; those that raised specific questions we responded to promptly.

During the conceptual design phase of the Lake Street project (November 2021 – January 2022), a series of design options were presented to community members to react to. These conceptual design options served as examples of the types of layouts and design elements that could be possible on Lake Street. The feedback we received from the community on these conceptual design options informed the draft design presented in this Engineering Public Hearing, which focuses on clearer guidelines around street usage, safety, and maintaining the lower traffic volumes and speeds that contributed to the success of the Lake Slow Street.

The draft design shown below proposes a series of changes that seek to maintain Lake Street as a safe and comfortable neighborhood active transportation corridor.

This design is a draft, and subject to refinement based on public feedback and interagency review.

Design elements include:

• Traffic diverters at 4 locations: 2 ^nd  Ave, Funston, 14 ^th  Ave, and 24 ^th  Ave. Each diverter would prohibit through-traffic in one direction only.
•  6 new all-way stops (3rd, 8th, 11th, 17th, 21st and 24th) to ensure that vehicles on Lake Street must stop every two blocks at most.
• 8 new traffic calming elements spaced along the corridor (speed cushions and raised crosswalks) to reduce vehicle speeds and discourage cut-through traffic.

Taken together, the design elements shown in the slideshow below all make the street less accessible as a cut-through route for through traffic, while still accomodating local access needs.

Scroll through the images below to see the elements incorporated into the draft design for Lake Street using the arrow to the right of the right of the image.

Scroll through the illustrations below using the arrow to the right of the right of the image to see the draft design for Lake Street. Alternatively, you can view a PDF version of the images  here .

• Initial community outreach: October – November 2021
• Conceptual Design: November 2021
• Conceptual Design Outreach: November 2021 – January 2022
• Draft Design Public Hearing: June 2022
  • We are here! Engineering Public Hearing
• Project Approval: July 2022
• Implementation: Summer- Fall 2022
  • Implementation will be phased: the four new traffic diverters can be installed using quick-build materials (delineators) as soon as the design has been approved, and will be replaced with traffic diverters consisting of concrete and planted areas in late fall.

If you would like to comment on the draft changes, please use one of the methods below:

• Online Public Comment Form. Click the button below to comment through the Online Public Comment Form:

• Email. Email LakeStreet@SFMTA.com with the subject line "Public Hearing: Lake Street". Please include the following in the body of your email:  
  • Comments/ Questions about the project: 
  • If you would like to sign up for project updates or receive results of this public hearing, please provide your contact information: 
  • Name:
  • Email:
  • Cell Phone Number:
  • Zip Code:
  • Address (optional)

• Phone. Call the number below, and leave a voicemail. You will have two minutes to provide comments.  
  • 415- 501-0788

• Mail. Mail-in comments or questions may require additional time before a response can be given by project staff. Please use the Mail-in Comment Form linked below and address it to: 

Comments and questions received during the Engineering Public Hearing period will be responded to and posted on this webpage by 5:00 pm on Friday, July 8th. 

• No decision will be made about the final project design while the Virtual Engineering Public Hearing event is live. 
• All written correspondence will be evaluated by the City Traffic Engineer to determine next steps.
• The Engineering Public Hearing items may be approved by the City Traffic Engineer after the hearing.
• The result of this Engineering Public Hearing is anticipated to be posted on the Lake Street project web page by 5:00 p.m. two weeks after the Engineering Public Hearing concludes.

For project updates, please visit the project web page  SFMTA.com/LakeSlowStreet     and sign up for project updates.