2018 Annual Report Introduction How do we: SPUR’s Agenda for > Bring down the cost of housing? Change > Overcome growing income inequality? 1. Regional Planning > Give people better ways to get Concentrate growth inside existing cities. around the region? 2. Community Planning > Get our cities ready to face climate Build great neighborhoods. change? 3. Housing Make it affordable to live here. Since 1910, SPUR has worked to 4. Transportation identify the root causes of the Bay Give people better ways to get where they Area’s biggest urban problems and need to go. put into place solutions that will 5. Economic Development work. Lay the foundations of economic prosperity — for everyone. This is a long game. Efforts that we began in the 20th century are now 6. Sustainability + Resilience bearing fruit in the 21st. Reduce our ecological footprint and make our cities resilient. Likewise, the problems we are tackling today will not be solved in 7. Good Government a single year or election cycle. Build the capacity of the public sector. 2 Introduction Real change takes time. Throughout this annual report, case studies show how the achievements of each year add up to long-term progress over time. Case Study The Transbay Transit Center Extending Caltrain to a new regional transit center in downtown San Francisco and building a mixed-use high-rise neighborhood around it. Location: Project initiated: Opportunity: hundreds of thousands of people. SPUR San Francisco 1990 There is currently no direct commuter proposed building a new transit center to train from Silicon Valley to downtown San connect Caltrain to other regional transit Francisco; bringing Caltrain to central San and making it the hub of a new jobs Francisco would improve commutes for center for the city and region. Timeline: 1960s–1980s 1990s 2000s Outcome: What’s Next: The Transbay Transit Center will open The transit center will initially serve AC 1962: SPUR first calls to extend Peninsula 1990: SPUR advocates extending Caltrain 1999–2001: Voters approve the 2013: SPUR’s Taking Down a Freeway within a year. Many new buildings in Transit, Muni, SamTrans and several other rail service to downtown San Francisco to downtown from its terminus on construction of a new transit center, to Reconnect a Neighborhood offers a the station are finished or nearing bus services. Now the focus turns to the after San Mateo County pulls out of the King Street and replacing the Transbay and two years later, the Transbay Joint modern vision to tear down Interstate completion. When done, the new final piece: extending Caltrain (and, on Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) District. Terminal with a new multi-modal transit Powers Authority forms to plan, design 280 and bring Caltrain and high-speed development will include 6 million square the same tracks, high-speed rail) to the center to serve Caltrain, AC Transit, Muni and build it. rail tracks into the Transbay Transit feet of new office space; 4,500 new station. SPUR will continue to work on 1974: The opening of the BART tube and other services. We envision the Center underground. The San Francisco homes, including 1,300 affordable units; how we can fund this major investment causes a dramatic drop in transbay proposed hub as the centerpiece for a 2006: The Board of Supervisors adopts Planning Department begins to study the 250,000 square feet of new retail in the in what will be a generational advance in bus ridership. San Francisco’s Transbay new neighborhood. the Transbay Redevelopment Plan, new proposals. transit center and surrounding blocks; regional transit. Bus Terminal and the elevated ramps increasing height limits to allow dense three new parks, including the 5-acre connecting it to the Bay Bridge begin a 1993: SPUR convenes a task force development around the proposed transit 2017: SPUR’s Caltrain Corridor Vision rooftop park; and all new streetscapes for long, slow decline. to study the extension of Caltrain to center. Plan argues for significant investments to blocks around. The new neighborhood downtown. A new station location at make Caltrain an urban metro system and will serve as a model for how to build a 1985: San Francisco’s Downtown Plan Second and Mission streets is chosen the 2007: SPUR helps the Joint Powers provides a path to grow daily ridership high-rise district around transit. calls for directing high-rise growth into following year. Authority set up a design competition. from 60,000 seats a day to 312,000 seats the South of Market area, with the tallest The winning design features, incidentally, a day. heights around the Transbay Terminal. 1995: SPUR hosts 12 students from a park on the roof and light columns around the world in the EDAW Summer bringing sunlight deep into the building. 2018: The Salesforce Transit Center Student Program, which produces the Tower adjoining the station — San Transbay District Neighborhood Vision 2010–2011: The old terminal is Francisco’s tallest tower — welcomes its Program. The plan envisions a transit demolished and construction of the first occupants in January. Voters pass center with a park on the roof, a “light new Transbay Transit Center begins. The Regional Measure 3, co-sponsored by column” bringing sunlight deep into parcels of vacant land formerly occupied SPUR, which includes $325 million for the the building and a totally redeveloped by the old terminal and ramps begin extension of Caltrain to downtown. neighborhood on surrounding blocks. to be sold for development, which will largely finance the new transit center. 6 2018 SPUR ANNUAL REPORT 2018 SPUR ANNUAL REPORT 7 Research To address problems of significant scale with long time frames, we apply a three-part A research process: source 1. We frame the problem by asking good questions. 2. We bring together the best thinkers on the topic, learn from other cities and use a cross- disciplinary approach to generate of new and unexpected ideas. 3. We test the resulting solutions for feasibility and find the best points ideas.of entry to implement them. 9 Research REPORT FEBRUARY 2017 AUGUST 2017 Room THE Harnessing CALTRAIN for More RETHINKING THE High-Speed Rail How California and its cities can CORRIDOR Corporate use rail to reshape their growth VISION PLAN Campus How to keep the Bay Area’s innovation economy moving The Next Bay Area Workplace SPUR’s Housing Agenda for San Jose The Caltrain Corridor A Housing Agenda Rethinking the Harnessing High-Speed Rail Vision Plan for San Jose Corporate Campus In connecting the Bay Area to Los Angeles, California high- speed rail will run through cities like Fresno and Bakersfield, Home of the Silicon Valley innovation economy, the Caltrain The Silicon Valley economic miracle has become a housing Many of the most advanced tech companies in the world are which were bypassed when Interstate 5 was built. SPUR’s report Corridor holds much of the Bay Area’s promise and opportunity nightmare. As rents and home prices continue to rise, they stuck in offices from a bygone era. The suburban corporate Harnessing High-Speed Rail looked at how a fast rail network — but its transportation system is breaking down. This year threaten the region’s economic growth, diversity and climate. To campus reinforces dependence on cars, worsening our climate, can reconnect these cities with each other and the coast — SPUR released the Caltrain Corridor Vision Plan, a bold action address this crisis, SPUR released Room for More, our housing our air and our quality of life. Today’s employees want to live improving their economies, revitalizing downtowns and shifting plan to speed up trains and increase capacity by an order of agenda for San Jose, proposing two big ideas: use planning and work in more urban settings. SPUR’s report Rethinking growth back to urban centers. magnitude, allowing Caltrain to carry almost as many people as tools to build 120,000 new housing units and findnew the Corporate Campus offered 21 recommendations for how to BART. resources for affordable housing. reinvent the Bay Area workplace. TODAY 2030 60 mph by car 220 mph by high-speed rail 10 2018 SPUR ANNUAL REPORT 2018 SPUR ANNUAL REPORT 11 Case Study The Market and Octavia Plan Reclaiming a neighborhood for people, not cars. Location: Project initiated: Opportunity: Neighborhoods Program as a way to San Francisco 1998 The dot-com boom of the 1990s created create agreement up front to guide the tremendous growth pressures in San process of neighborhood change. The Francisco, but most neighborhoods removal of the Central Freeway made had no plan in place to guide that the Market and Octavia neighborhood a growth. SPUR proposed the Better perfect candidate for the new program. Timeline: 1980s 1990s 2000s Outcome: What’s Next: From 2008 through the end of 2016, Calls for more affordable housing in all 1989: The Loma Prieta earthquake 1998: Mayor Willie Brown agrees to fund 2002: SPUR holds a daylong workshop 2005: SPUR and partner groups hold nearly 2,700 net new housing units were neighborhoods and plans for bus rapid damages the elevated Central Freeway, the Better Neighborhoods Program. The on woonerfs — streets where cars, bikes a design competition for housing added in the plan area; of these, about transit on Van Ness Avenue have spurred a 1950s-era relic that cuts through Market and Octavia area is selected for and pedestrians share the road as equals. prototypes on the very shallow lots left 700 units are affordable. Another 57 the planning department to focus a residential neighborhoods, bringing the program. Market and Octavia residents attend by the freeway removal. The results buildings, totaling roughly 5,100 housing new effort on the blocks around the pollution and crime.