SAN FRANCISCO OFFICE Project Highlights
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Photo: Rachel Duffy
SAN FRANCISCO OFFICE Selected Bay Area Projects
Fehr & Peers provides a combination of leading-edge technical skills, high-quality work, and superior client service. We thrive on challenging assignments; environments where complex problems can only be solved by using stateof-the-practice analytical techniques and innovative tools. We work together on practical solutions to achieve consensus amid diverging views and stakeholders. We often find ourselves called into projects where others have failed. We consider each potential assignment carefully, and we only accept those projects to which we are fully committed and able to complete successfully.
Photo: Rachel Duffy
TABLE OF CONTENTS Greenbrae US-101 Alcatraz Transportation Study & EIS/EIR Balboa Park Station Area Plan Candlestick Point/Hunters Point Shipyard Phase II Redevelopment Plan San Francisco Transit Effectiveness Project Temporary Transbay Terminal Treasure Island/Yerba Buena Island Redevelopment Plan EIR UCSF Transportation Studies SF Pedestrian Intersection Volume Model BAAQMD TDM Tool
GREENBRAE US-101 PEDESTRIAN OVERCROSSING “When a simple highway improvement project in Greenbrae turned into a full multi-modal access study, Fehr & Peers took on the tough question of how to best serve the large numbers of pedestrians and bicyclists looking to cross US-101 every day.�
We conducted a thorough study of who actively used the pedestrian bridge and where they were headed. Findings from the study helped us generate a program of area-wide pedestrian and bicycle improvements that would serve these users as well as, if not better than, the current bridge. In a county with very strong pedestrian and bicycle interests, the greatest challenge lay in crafting a compelling way to tell this complicated story.
Greenbrae US-101 Pedestrian Overcrossing
ALCATRAZ
T R A N S P O RTAT I O N STUDY & EIS/EIR
When the National Park Service (NPS) was ready to invest in a permanent embarkation site for its ferry to Alcatraz, they called Fehr & Peers to study the feasibility of nine potential locations. Such an expansive project required us to integrate our various strengths. In order to conduct traffic impact analyses for the individual locations, travel behavior at each needed to be better understood. So, we undertook a massive surveying effort along the entire waterfront to assess how people accessed each site. Fehr & Peers also evaluated and planned a shuttle service to facilitate access to one potential embarkation site with limited transit and parking, and we developed bicycle and pedestrian conceptual designs to determine how these users would access the embarkation site and circulate within it. The project presented an exciting opportunity for Fehr & Peers to improve the experience for visitors to this iconic National Park site.
A l c a t r a z Tr a n s p o r t a t i o n S t u d y & E I S / E I R
BALBOA PARK STATION ARE A PL AN
The Balboa Park Station is the busiest station in San Francisco outside of the downtown area. The station area re-envisioning process began over ten years ago. Since then, small-scale bicycle and pedestrian improvements have been approved for the near-term. However, large-scale changes proposed for the long-term, such as freeway decking and housing construction, are financially prohibitive. Fehr & Peers was brought in to examine the station area to identify improvements for the next 5-10 years that address difficult multi-modal interactions more cost-effectively. Our goal is to optimize multimodal transportation operations in a setting of heavy traffic congestion, complex freeway on/off ramps, high transit use, and challenging pedestrian conditions.
Balboa Park Station Area Plan
CANDLESTICK POINT HUNTERS POINT SHIPYARD REDE VELOPMENT PL AN
The Candlestick Point/Hunters Point Shipyard redevelopment project involved the unique challenge of developing from scratch an entire district of San Francisco. The City wanted to make this a sustainable project, so Fehr & Peers was asked to determine how to reconnect what was a “transportation desert” to the rest of the City through BRT, local, and express bus services, as well as safe and convenient bicycle and pedestrian facilities. To determine mode shares and the rate of internalization in this proposed mixed use community, we utilized our MXD tool to more accurately forecast travel demand compared to traditional methods. If this project were undertaken in almost any other city, it would be a greenfield development. In San Francisco, it’s not only a project of reclaimed industrial space, but a major construction project right in the middle of one of the most crowded metro areas in the Bay Area.
Source: Lennar
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Residential Density II Residential Density III Residential Density IV Regional Retail Neighborhood Retail Research & Development Parking Community Facility Parks & Open Space
CP-HPS LANDUSE
Candlestick Point/Hunter s Point Shipyard Redevelopment Plan
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SAN FRANCISCO TRANSIT EFFECTIVENESS PROJECT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT REPORT San Francisco transportation planning is dictated by its transit first policy. As part of a massive City project to improve the effectiveness of its transit network, Fehr & Peers was tasked with developing a new methodology to determine the effects of proposed scheduling changes and infrastructure improvements on travel time and ridership. We partnered with numerous City agencies to refine the City’s travel demand forecasting model so that it could better help answer these complex and challenging questions.
Photo: Rachel Duffy
S a n F r a n c i s c o Tr a n s i t E f f e c t i v e n e s s P r o j e c t E n v i r o n m e n t a l I m p a c t R e p o r t
TEMPORARY T R A N S B AY TERMINAL During the reconstruction of San Francisco’s Transbay Terminal, a temporary terminal would need to operate for several years. Fehr & Peers was brought onto a team led by Jacobs Engineering working to design the temporary facilities. The project faced two major challenges: design a terminal that could accommodate the high numbers of buses and passengers that utilize the facility (including the requisite passenger amenities), and efficiently route the buses to the Bay Bridge in a way that minimizes impact on area-wide circulation. At the heart of the project was a multimodal simulation model that F&P created, simulating the movements of all modes in and around the temporary terminal site. Based on an analysis of the model’s results, we encouraged the implementation of innovative traffic improvements, including the conversion of travel lanes to bus only lanes and the use of transit signal prioritization. The temporary nature of the project allowed the City to experiment with these at-times controversial strategies, study their benefits, and make a compelling argument for their use elsewhere. The San Francisco Transbay Terminal has been called the “Grand Central of the West,” and the design of the temporary terminal was an important step in building that landmark transit hub.
Source: Transbaycenter.org
Te m p o r a r y Tr a n s b a y Te r m i n a l
Source: MTA
TREASURE ISLAND/ YERBA BUENA ISLAND REDE VELOPMENT PL AN EIR The redevelopment of Treasure Island/Yerba Buena Island is one of the largest development projects in San Francisco history. To complicate matters, it is to happen on an island, where there are only two ways on or off – by Bay Bridge or by water. There was no off-the-shelf way to forecast travel behavior in this unique setting, so Fehr & Peers utilized its MXD model to predict trip generation and traffic impacts from this large mixed-use development. The model results were more accurate than traditional methods and were uniquely tailored to the project’s challenging make-up. Our success on this major and technically challenging project continues our tradition of innovative solutions helping us to forge strong relationships with the City.
Tr e a s u r e i s l a n d / Ye r b a B u e n a I s l a n d R e d e v e l o p m e n t P l a n E I R
Source: SOM Architects
U C S F TRA NSPORTATION STUDIES
Fehr & Peers has had a long-standing relationship with the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), since the early planning stages of its Mission Bay campus in the early 1990s. As a unique entity with five different campuses in very different types of neighborhoods, UCSF projects allow us to showcase our skills and use all of the tools in our toolbox, from traffic impact analyses to parking studies to land use planning to streetscape design. The upcoming UCSF Long Range Development Plan will call for transportation planning at all five campuses, seeking to determine where to provide space and services for the university’s growing research and student population.
U C S F Tr a n s p o r t a t i o n S t u d i e s
SAN FRANCISCO P E D E S T R I A N VOLUME MODEL The City of San Francisco was looking for a new way to prioritize pedestrian safety improvements, and we were tasked with creating an innovative tool that would help the City in this regard. In collaboration with local transportation agencies and a researcher at UC Berkeley, Fehr & Peers engineered a regression model to predict pedestrian volumes at any location in the city based on local built environment characteristics and traffic conditions. Not surprisingly, in San Francisco more walking occurs in areas proximate to universities and where the terrain is less hilly. Our estimation of pedestrian counts allows the City to generate pedestrian exposure rates, and helps the City address the most pressing pedestrian safety concerns in a more strategic manner.
S a n F r a n c i s c o Pe d e s t r i a n Vo l u m e M o d e l
BAY AREA AIR QUALITY MANAGEMENT DISTRICT T RANSPORTATION MANAGEMENT TOOL
Fehr & Peers helped develop an extensive report for the California Air Pollution Controls Officers Association (CAPCOA) that provided a guide for local agencies to calculate the tangible benefits of proposed travel demand management strategies such as reductions in vehicle trips and greenhouse gas producing vehicle-miles traveled (VMT). The next question was how the lengthy details in the statewide report could be adopted into a convenient tool relevant for the specific needs of the Bay Area. After designing a simple spreadsheet tool that incorporated the underlying report data, we used a case study of seven Bay Area projects to calibrate and validate the tool to local conditions. From this project emerged a user-friendly spreadsheet tool that personalized the CAPCOA tool for the unique needs of the Bay Area. Version 2.0 of this is now our TDM tool, available in our ASAP Platform.
B a y A r e a Q u a l i t y M a n a g e m e n t D i s t r i c t Tr a n s p o r t a t i o n M a n a g e m e n t To o l
Photo: Rachel Duffy
This book arose out of a creative collaboration between the planners, engineers, and communications team in the San Francisco office.