Following is a letter sent recently by the Visitacion Valley Asians Alliance to Diane Wong of the San Francisco Planning Department about residents' concerns of traffic congestion due to new housing developments in the neighborhood.

Dear Ms. Wong:

I am writing to address a very serious concern about the culminating effects of the present and upcoming building developments in and around our community.

As a 10-year resident of Visitacion Valley and the spokesperson of our group, I have close contacts with hundreds on non-and limited-English speaking residents in the southeast sector of San Francisco. Currently I am serving as vice-chair of this organization and in the past I was a member of Muni's CAG group for the soon-to-be-constructed light rail.

Recently I had the opportunity to attend the Executive Park development. After the concern of massive traffic congestion was brought up by several members, everyone voted to get more information before the group was willing to endorse the plan.
I am familiar with passenger needs because I have been a Muni rider for more than 30 years. I share many daily frustrations with fellow Muni passengers and other commuters in the mornings. For the past year we have been frequently delayed by the bottleneck traffic congestion leading to the two freeways. Some riders resorted to buying their own vehicles to speed up the trip. Others have been leaving home earlier than before in order to beat the traffic.

I received the Executive Park development report and have had time to read it. However, common sense tells us that EIR reports of only one out of many housing developments in and around Visitacion Valley CANNOT adequately portray the realities of our neighborhood.
We cannot imagine the traffic nightmare when the massive Executive Park project and the following developments are built:

A. Heritage Homes, Britton Street development, and the John King Senior Center in Visitacion Valley;

B. Home Depot clients will bring in hundreds of cars into our community;

C. The international branch expansion of the United States Postal Service on Bayshore Boulevard;

D. The full occupation of the Sunnydale housing complex;

E. Brisbane Technology Park development;

F. More than one hundred units of housing developments on the neighboring hillsides;

G. The future developments near the Caltrain tracks;

H. The thousands of cars brought by the Cow Palace and the 3Com Park visitors;

I. The elimination of possibly two (out of the existing six) traffic lanes on Third Street and Bayshore Boulevard for construction of the extended light rail line;

J. Other corporations will likely capitalize on the opportunities from our community and bring in more traffic.
While our community wants to benefit from economic opportunities for our residents, we have to be realistic about the culminating effects they will have on our transportation system. We don't need to wait for the year 2015 to know. One morning, one of my students from San Francisco City College was kind enough to offer me a ride to my teaching assignment in Chinatown because my regular bus was delayed for almost 45 minutes.

Since the study for the Executive Park Development took at least a few months to complete, some of the traffic information presented may be obsolete and because this EIR only focuses on the immediate area of the project. To be realistic, its traffic study should include EIRs of all proposed projects that I happened to know and mentioned earlier. They should all fit into a more realistic and comprehensive neighborhood plan.

We are therefore presenting the following input:

1. The possible widening of the existing six traffic lanes leading to the two freeways (because the light rail may take two of these lanes in the future).

2. Since the combined Asian population in the southeast sector is said to exceed that of Chinatown, information on such major projects should be translated in order to inform and get input from these residents. Incidently, Visitacion Valley has about 55 percent Asians who are predominantly English-handicapped. Muni has not provided appropriate surveys to these language diverse residents who constitute at least half the passengers on our local busses. Public information such as this should be advertised in the mass media as well.

3. Since the rate of development exceeds the slower rate of information gathering, we propose an independent monitoring group be established to provide our residents with updated and unbiased information.

4. All studies must be inclusive of the culminating effects of the present and upcoming developments within and around the neighboring communities.

5. All developments should be inclusive of representatives from major groups. Brief and concise multilingual information sheets should be available to residents for comments. It's unfair to expect some so-called "community leaders" to disseminate this important information because most of the residents have absolutely no information all this time.

6. Since frequently delayed Muni passengers may receive some negative comments from their supervisors, late busses should not "add insult to injury" by expecting bus fares. Some of the passenger' jobs may be at stake as a result of repeated delays. Also, from experience, some of the supervisors and drivers need to be more professional and knowledgeable about the scopes of their jobs.

7. It would be helpful if Muni drivers could provide tardy slips to stranded passengers for them to present to their supervisors.

8. In the future, hopefully, the Light Rail would be able to extend all the way to Balboa Park to facilitate passengers in connecting to other lines.

I hope this gives you a better idea of the existing traffic problems from the perspective of our residents without some of the developments being built. Please advise all developers in and around Visitacion Valley to provide complete and comprehensive plans to include the culminating effects of other projects as well. One of the main reasons many residents are opposed to the Home Depot development is because of the massive traffic gridlock it can cause in our community.

Thank you for your kind attention.

Sincerely,
Marlene Tran, spokesperson

Tax Program Looking for Volunteers

Dear Editor:

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Sincerely,
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