New & improved Masonic Avenue in the works

Masonic Avenue might just be the street that everyone loves to hate these days. Traffic goes too fast, accidents are common, it’s treacherous for bicyclists, and, well, it’s kinda ugly.

That might all change, though, with plans being floated by the San Francisco Metropolitan Transportation Agency (MTA) to give Masonic quite a dramatic facelift. There are at least two possible plans, oh-so-interestingly named “Boulevard” and “Gateway.” The powers that be polled residents in the direct vicinity and found that 76 percent of them favored the Boulevard plan.

Some of the key points in the proposed plan known as Boulevard:

* remove all parking spaces — all 167 of ‘em — on both sides of Masonic between Geary and Fell. (I must admit I’m surprised that removing that much parking polled so well, but it’s pretty cool to hear about residents making a priority of safety, trees, and green space.)

* install bikes lanes where the parking used to be.

* allow for four lanes of traffic.

* add a tree-lined median through the whole corridor (this will help with that ugly thing).

* add pedestrian “bulb outs” at intersections, which reduce the distance to be crossed on foot through an intersection.

* add public green space at Geary & Masonic.

The Gateway plan would do this:

* remove all parking spaces on the west side of Masonic between Geary and Fell, and leave parking as-is on the east side.

* allow for four lanes of traffic.

* install bike lanes.

* install medians at gateway intersections only.

The Boulevard plan outpolled the Gateway plan among local residents by 76% – 64%. Any way you slice it, that’s a lot of support for either plan.

The MTA is supposed to submit a finished plan to the MTA Board of Directors and the Planning Commission by the end of the year. We’ll keep you posted.