Do you like white?

Or pastels?

For those saying it’s a primer — perhaps, but here’s the plan from the website:

and this comparison makes me think there’s little difference pre- and post-prime.

Please take this color coordinated poll:

Editorial bias — I say keep it a crisp, cool white (even if Sexpigeon’s shots show just the primers for the color scheme on the elevation drawing).

Ahh, Caltrain, so close but yet so far. The 22nd St station has great potential but the 48 is a joke.

If only there were a fast bus from the Mission and Noe to this station (maybe down Cesar Chavez and 16th?) that synched up with train arrivals/departures. A quick mockup I did last year (from one of the proposed Muni routes — ignore the green, look instead at the red).

The idea is it doesn’t stop every block, i.e. BRT, ~10 minutes. (And there has to be coffee. Someone needs to sell coffee at the station. Or on the bus.)

And why does the “baby bullet” not stop at Santa Clara? Arrrrrgh. VTA light rail in the south bay is a slow moving clown car from either Mountain View or San Jose. Don’t get me started.

I want my high speed rail, and I want it now, NIMBYful Palo Altans be damned. It is my god-given right to travel at 150mph between SF and San Jose (especially when I can drive faster than Caltrain’s current top speed of 79 mph, and the old SF&SJ line was doing 67 mph 144 years ago).

Transit rant off.

2) Once the 26 Valencia goes away, I want Valencia St Park. (Skinny park, skinny jeans — see, it all makes sense!)

TOWN HALL: NEIGHBORS & COMMUNITY MEETING ON THE FUTURE OF ST. LUKE’S HOSPITAL
HOSTED BY DISTRICT 9 SUPERVISOR DAVID CAMPOS

Thursday, July 9, 2009, 6-8 PM
Precita Valley Community Center
534 Precita Avenue, San Francisco

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/06/30/18604926.php

Join Supervisors David Campos and John Avalos to discuss Sutter Health/CPMC’s plans for the future of St. Luke’s Hospital. Since CPMC is a private entity, how can the public influence CPMC’s plans both to ensure a viable hospital that provides access to healthcare for all and livable neighborhoods?

This meeting will include an explanation of Blue Ribbon Panel recommendations by panelists and information on the updated plan presented at a CPMC hosted community meeting held on June 23rd.

Background:
* In 2001, Sutter Health took control of St. Luke’s as part of the settlement of an anti-trust lawsuit by St Luke’s against Sutter.
* In 2007, Sutter affiliate CPMC merged with St. Luke’s. That summer, CPMC revealed plans to close acute care at St Luke’s by the end of 2009.
* When faced with a Supervisors resolution to begin a medical redlining lawsuit against CPMC, CPMC agreed to convene a Blue Ribbon Panel on the Future of St Luke’s Hospital.
* The Blue Ribbon Panel met from March to July, 2008, and ultimately reached a consensus recommendation that St Luke’s be rebuilt.
* Since then, CPMC has altered or retreated from various Blue Ribbon Panel recommendations.

Highlights and recommendations:

• Dedicated bike lanes
• Central median with drought resistant trees
• Two lanes of traffic each way
• Dedicated left hand turn lanes (in the middle)
• Parking with permeable pavement
• Wider sidewalks at intersections (bulb-outs, etc)
• High-speed monorail to 22nd St Caltrain (just kidding (I wish))

They have to coordinate with the rebuilding of the sewer, but they are estimating starting early summer 2010.

Pretty impressed with the city planners and traffic folks there.  They know their stuff, and were respectfully practical with the Q&A.  For example, when asked about wider sidewalks, the presenter responded that sidewalks are ridiculously expensive to make and it would simply blow out the budget allocated to the project.  Medians and bike lanes are easier and cheaper (as we saw on Guerrero). And a couple of interesting ideas on taking care of the plants in the median, such as using the day laborers that wait on the north side of CC, along with the storm cisterns that DPW could draw from.

I’d like to see a) timed lights and b) different colored pavement for the bike lanes so distracted drivers would subconsciously notice it like they do a curve or curb.

Found these in an SFMTA doc. Looks like San Jose @ Guerrero is already be on a list:

Then there’s the St. Luke’s meeting next Wednesday at 6:30.  This one may be fraught with drama — the people and the city seem to have noticed the street uglification plan that CPMC has pushed through in the dead of night. More detail later, but they seem to want to build the ass-end of a 100′ tower  up to the edge of Cesar Chavez and backing right up to two story homes — not exactly the friendly neighborhood walkable feel we are after.  I’m perfectly fine with the hospital expanding, but for the love of god make it human, will you?

While a lot of work has been done in the past 5 years…

• Guerrero is now two lanes in each direction instead of three
• Stoplight at 27th and Guerrero
• Trees and plants in the middle of Guerrero

…there’s still a lot on the list — here’s a resolution passed unanimously by the sups in 2004.

All the more reason to attend the Cesar Chavez Design Workshop this Tuesday at 6:30 pm at Leonard Flynn Elementary School, Auditorium (3125 Cesar Chavez Street).  And don’t forget the CPMC Community Meeting on March 4th at 6:30 in the St. Luke’s Cafeteria to address the new expansion plans.

For some context, here are some shots from the SF Public Library of Guerrero in the 20s and 30s, compared to current photos via MapJack. Click on any picture to get to the source.

1928, Guerrero @ 27th, looking south:

Today:

1932, 27th @ Guerrero, looking east towards St. Luke’s:

Today:

Note the staircase on the white apartment building — even with the houses moved back on their lots and narrower sidewalks, all the front stairs along that side of Guerrero had to be jammed to the side of the houses.

1931: Looking north on Mission @ Army (the old Sears building would be over your left shoulder)

Today:

The Walgreen’s construction site is on the left hand side — retail before, retail again.  Hey, the Palace Steak House is in that 1931 shot!  (Just kidding.)

1940, Army between Valencia and Guerrero (can’t for the life of me find a matching picture for this one — if I’m not mistaken, all those buildings were torn down when Army got widened.)

UPDATE – this is between Valencia and San Jose — you can barely see the Salvation Army building in the top right corner.  (This was before the Salvation Army bought the lot and cut off San Jose.)

Army looking west towards Guerrero, 1962, now more than twice as wide.  The liquor store on the left hand side is on the corner of San Jose and Army. (Source – 1962 Dept of Public Works, via G. Gillet)

The store and all but three of the houses were torn down to make the St. Luke’s surface parking lot, resulting in a rather bleak street.  (St. Luke’s also has a rather empty multi-story parking lot on Duncan…)  At least there are trees.  (Which I am sure will be cut down if St. Luke’s builds a 2nd hospital tower on that lot — but more on that later.)

Anyway, if you’ve read this far, you obviously care about La Lengua — consider attending the Cesar Chavez Design Workshop this Tuesday, the 26th, as well as the CPMC / St. Luke’s meeting on Wed, March 4th.

I would love to see a 3 subbing for an E. “C3SAR CHAV3Z.”

Or better yet use the whole “1337″ substitution scheme: V473NC14 5TR33T!

DPT definitely needs to buy more letters. Though they so totally could have used two Vs.