Cross Walks -- A Face Lift Please

Cortland's crosswalks are fading quickly.

1. This strecth of Cortland contains several playgrounds, a public library, a recreation center, a pre-school and numerous bars and restaurants. Enough said -- the cross walks should by up to par.
   
2. This route is heavily traveled by children and parents with strollers.
   
3. There is also a lot of non-neighborhood traffic cutting across between Mission and Bayshore. This is a situation that will certainly get worse if the Home Depot opens as planned at Cortland and Bayshore.
   
   

Humm, not much left here. This is in front of the public library and holds a very popular children's playground right behind it.




Very faded cross walk that drivers see as the come down Cortland to the library and playground.



Who stole the cross walk?
Half the cross walk in front of the popular Progressive Grounds is missing. There was road work and it looks like the job never got quite finished.

>> If you agree that these cross walks should be repainted, please contact -- livable.streets@sfgov.org.

Below is a sample of the email I sent.

To whom it may concern,

re: Request for immediate repainting of cross walks on Cortland Avenue in Bernal Heights

I am a home owner and parent of two young children in Bernal Heights. I live just north of Cortland Avenue. We face a dangerous situation in which traffic is not respecting the right of way of pedestrians in the cross walks. The faded state of the cross walks is a prime reason for this.

The situation:

(1) The cross walks are worn and from what I've been told the DPW has visited the sites and acknowledges this.
(2) The faded cross walks are in the immediate vicinity of public library, recreation center, playground, and pre-school.
(3) The neighborhood is heavily populated with young children
(4) The traffic regularly fails to fully stop at Stop signs

The request:

(1) Please repaint these cross walks with "ladder crosswalks" at key locations. According to the DPW website "'ladder crosswalks' are being installed at schools and mid-block locations, using grant funding and fines from red light violators." http://www.ci.sf.ca.us/site/livablestreets_index.asp?id=14441

(2) Please respond to this email with status of the request and the process through which this will be expedited.

Thank you in advance for you attention to this critical issue.

Street Cleaning -- Support it & Sign the Petition

Sign the petition

After attending several of the community meetings, we created a petition to request street cleaning for a few streets on the north side of Cortland. We're supporting this because we want:
...A clean, trash-free neighborhood for our kids
...A neighborhood free of abandoned cars
...A neighborhood for the neighbors; not a long-term parking lot for people from out of the area. There are lots of people who park their cars in Bernal when they go to the airport. We are not a long term parking lot!

Police Chief Fong and others have pointed to the impact that clean, well-maintained neighborhoods have on reducing crime.

Signing this petition is a step in making Bernal a cleaner, safer, more enjoyable neighborhood.

I know there are some folks who would prefer not to have street cleaning. At the end of the day, I'm more concerned with clean, safe streets that with how it's done. So, if there are alternatives I'm open to hearing about them.

Sign the petition