Greater West Portal Neighborhood Association

The Traffic and Safety Committee for the West Portal Neighborhood Association has been working to get some pedestrian safety improvements in three locations in the neighborhood: 1) along Ulloa St., 2) at the 5-way intersection of Vicente, Wawona and Madrone, and 3) at the corner of West Portal Ave. and 14th Ave. near the Bank of America. 

We have applied to the SF Municipal Transportation Agencies Neighborhood Traffic Calming program. Each year, the MTA selects 25 locations from all the applications in San Francisco for study and possible improvements. 

Here’s a quick update on our progress: 

1. Ulloa St. Application (between 15th Ave and West Portal Ave.) – We didn’t get the required 23 signatures from addresses on Ulloa St. itself, but they gave us an extension until next Wednesday to try for more signatures. 
2. They accepted our application for Vicente St. between West Portal Ave and Madrone Ave. 
3. They rejected our application for West Portal Ave. at 14th Ave. because it’s not a residential intersection. 

So, we’re going to try again this week to collect signatures from the 45 homes that have street addresses on Ulloa St. between 15th Ave and West Portal Ave. We need at least 23 signatures to reach the threshold to qualify to be considered, and even then they may not accept application into this years program. If not, we’ll have to try again next August. 

If you personally know anyone who lives on Ulloa St. please call or email them and ask them to sign the application for neighborhood traffic calming. Few of our neighbors on Ulloa St. are members of NextDoor.Com, so your help is appreciated. Tell them to contact me directly (Matt Chamberlain), either by email or by phone and we’ll schedule to have someone pick up their signature this weekend. 

Matt Chamberlain, 
GWPNA, Chair of the Traffic and Safety Committee 

Traditionally GWPNA has met on Wednesday nights, but that can conflict with SF Board of Supervisors meetings on some evenings, so starting in the Fall of 2013, the monthly GWPNA meetings will be held on the first Wednesday of the month instead. This will allow our members to attend BOS meetings when necessary without missing a GWPNA meeting. More importantly, it will allow our Supervisor, Norman Yee to join our monthly GWPNA meetings and provide updates on how he’s advocating for us at the Board of Supervisors.

By: Lee Hsu

Friday, October 5, 2012 through Monday, October 8, 2012

Raise money or store credit for West Portal Elementary school by shopping at Bookshop West Portal during Fall School Days from Friday, October 5 through Monday, October 8! Just mention West Portal School while shopping during School Days and the school will receive 15% in cash or 25% in store credit of your net purchase. 

Bookshop West Portal 
80 West Portal Avenue 
San Francisco, CA 94127 
Open 10 am – 9pm, Sunday – Thursday 
Open 10 am – 10 pm Friday and Saturday

By: Avrum Shepard

Have you noticed all the food trucks parked around the City? It’s hard to miss them, since they have jumped in number from only 20 four years ago, to about 250 today. Off The Grid (http://offthegridsf.com) holds about 20% of those permits and operates around 50 trucks in the City today. 

It’s not just a food truck, it’s a phenomenon, and there have been several reports in the SF Chronicle, SF Examiner, the Westside Observer, and the West Portal Monthly about them. Most articles say they aren’t at all like the “roach coaches” you’d see parked at construction sites years ago. Heck, there is an article about food trucks in the most recent AARP magazine and even in Information Week, a long-standing tech weekly. 

In the spring of this year, one of the West Portal merchants invited the 3Sum Eats food truck to park in front of their business for a day. It worked out so well for 3Sum Eats, that they opened the Market & Rye restaurant on the first block of West Portal Ave. It also triggered a proposal by Off The Grid to add West Portal as another location served by their fleet on a regular basis. Off The Grid suggested closing 14th Avenue, between West Portal Avenue and Portola Drive on Tuesday nights between 4:00 pm and 10:00 pm and providing eight trucks. We don’t know yet what type of food the trucks would serve, but regulations block them from offering foods similar to those provided by established area restaurants. There will be no tables but there might be chairs. 

Many of the restaurants (there are about 20) on West Portal were not happy with the competition, so Maryo Mogannam, President of the West Portal Merchants Association called a meeting in June to discuss the issues around permitting the food trucks to block 14th Avenue and setup business on a permanent basis. Most of the restaurants were very concerned about the competition the food trucks would offer. After all, the trucks don’t pay rent, are said to have some tax advantages and so have a significant financial advantage over brick and mortar restaurants. They seem to charge the same for their fare as brick and mortar places. On the other hand, Off The Grid estimates that the trucks will attract somewhere between 1,000 and 1,500 shoppers to West Portal. Those people could include a whole new demographic and potentially provide opportunity to current merchants, restaurants included, to significantly increase business. 

Off The Grid has placed food trucks at 15 locations throughout San Francisco, Marin, and the East Bay. The trucks are located at specific places and they communicate with their customers via their websites, Facebook, and Twitter.

One issue raised at the Merchant meeting was litter. Off The Grid, and many observers note that the trucks clean the areas during their stay and leave a place cleaner than when they arrive. Probably the most significant issue people mention is closing 14th Avenue. The Greater West Portal Neighborhood Association Traffic and Safety Committee is opposed to the idea of blocking 14th Avenue during the evening commute because of the extra burden it would put on the Vicente & West Portal Avenue intersection as traffic flows around the blocked street. They recommend Off The Grid consider using one of the two public parking lots in the neighborhood and augmenting that with curb-side parking in the vicinity. 

What do you think of the food truck idea? Is it a good one or otherwise? Let me know at info@gwpna.org. I’ll publish a follow-up to this article next month.