Central Freeway Revisited
May 25, 2000
By Janet Dang
A move by Supervisor Leland Yee to direct Central Freeway property funds to projects that will improve traffic congestion in the western section of the city failed to garner enough support from his fellow members at the supervisors meeting on Monday.
In last November’s election, San Francisco voted to tear down the freeway and build a boulevard instead. Yee wanted some of the money that would come from land sale proceeds set aside to fund transportation improvements to neighborhoods still currently served by the freeway—including the Sunset and Richmond District. The land is valued at $30 to 40 million.
“With the partial closure of the Central Freeway, there has been a creeping increase in congestion to other parts of the city and there is much concern that the tear down will further exacerbate the congestion,” Yee said. “[The proposal] wouldn’t deter the establishing of Octavia Boulevard. If there are dollars left over, there should be some funding to decrease congestion and access to the west-side of the city.”
Proponents of the Octavia Boulevard plan, however, had planned to use the money for housing development. Yee’s motion ultimately failed because it didn’t get a second vote from fellow board members.
Saying that Yee’s proposal was a “good idea,” and that he was not against the “spirit” of the legislation, Supervisor Michael Yaki, nevertheless, disapproved of the plan. “We need to see what kind of money we have before we start earmarking the money from the get-go,” he said.
Last November, San Franciscans voted in favor of the construction of Octavia Boulevard over rebuilding the Central Freeway, ending a three-year saga. The controversy of whether to rebuild the freeway or not went through three city elections, and pitted a faction of the city’s Chinese American population against proponents of the boulevard plan. Yee had been an outspoken proponent of rebuilding the freeway, and in fact, over 95 percent of Chinese Americans in the city voted in favor of the Central Freeway, according to a Chinese American Voter Education Committee exit poll.
Yee’s proposal came after a failed attempt at last Friday’s Finance and Labor Committee meeting, which Yee chairs. The supervisor proposed that $10 million in Central Freeway land proceeds be used for congestion relief. Fellow committee members Tom Ammiano and Sue Bierman did not support the proposal.
At Tuesday’s meeting Yee said, “We just can’t tear down the freeway and call it a day…Everyday, thousands of San Franciscans will suffer from the burden of a longer commute due to the rerouting of 90,000 cars onto neighborhood streets not designed to handle such high traffic volume,” he said.
Comments
Got something to say?