Save Polk Street public meeting puts pressure on SF Transit Agency.

3-22-2013 1-10-23 PM San Francisco transit agency vowed on Monday night to look into possible revisions to SFMTA plans regarding the removal of parking spots on much of Polk street. At a heated public meeting organized by Dawn Trennert, who is head of the Middle Polk Neighborhood Association, which held the meeting at the Old First Presbyterian Church at 1751 Sacramento Street between Polk & Van Ness Streets. One should note that the original meeting was to be held at It’s a Grind on Polk street, but I suspect due to the high amount of interest from both residents and merchants on Polk street that the meeting probably had to be moved to a bigger venue.

Dawn estimated about 400 people attended the meeting, I found that an interesting number considering Polk street is estimated to lose almost 400 parking spots. (Pun Intended) One could tell that most of the attendees were here against the proposed “Improvements” on Polk street from the vocal nature of the crowd, be it in boo’s or laughter at when  Municipal Transportation Agency director Ed Reiskin could not answer how many parking spots were going to be lost. One would think that a SFMTA head would have had those numbers at his fingertips? Leah Shahum, who is the executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition said that the meeting was really focused on merchants needs and did not take into account the overall bigger picture, that being those supporting corridor improvements. When Shahum said that the improvements would boost business on Polk she was laughed at by the attendees. One gets the serious impression that Shahum did not think the meeting was too serious of a hurdle for them regarding her comments.