>> in this fabulously beautiful persidio national park and near golden gate and running like a scar is this ugly highway. that was built in 1936 at the same time as the bridge and at

that time the presidio was an army and they didn't want civilians on their turf. and the road was built high. >> we need access and you have a 70 year-old facility that's inadequate for today's transportation needs. and in addition to that, you have the problem that it wasn't for site extenders. >> the rating for the high viaduct is a higher rating than that collapsed. and it was sapped quite a while before used and it was rusty before installed. >> a state highway through a federal national park connecting an independently

managed bridge to city streets. this is a prescription for complication. >> it became clear unless there was one catalyst organization that government television. >> good afternoon. everyone hear me all right?

ok. i will try to talk loud, but sounds like the mikes are working. thanks for coming, everybody. welcome to the new great valencia street. i'm the director of public works in san francisco. it is a great honor to be here with you and all of the great folks we have around us. it is great to be here on a great day for the mission district, a great day for the ci city. the san francisco department of public works at the mayor's direction was able to secure $6.1 million, $5.3 million of which was federal funds, to make this project happen. i do want to acknowledge the u.s. department of transportation, the metropolitan transportation commission and county transportation authority for helping funnel that money from washington, d.c. right here

to the streets of san francisco. as big and great as this new street is for san francisco -- and it is great -- it just yet another chapter in an ongoing narrative about our open space and the public realm in in san francisco from street fairs to outside festivals to extensions of the sidewalks to sunday streets, and any of you here this past sunday just a few blocks down for sunday streets in the mission knows what i'm talking about. but from sunday streets to the new pavement to parks, to the major street reconstructions like this, there is a narrative that has a theme of opening up our public realm for a much broad are use. rethinking our public realm and making it accessible to all modes of transportation, to all people and more enjoyable for people to be in as opposed to just pass through.

we are about to take a big step in terms of institutionalizing some of the thinking behind the transformation of our open space and you are going to hear about that today. but none of this from the pavement to parks to sunday streets to this project and rest of the great streets program that we manage would have been possible and we wouldn't be here today were it not for the vision, leadership and drive and tenacity of our mayor, who i would like to bring up, mayor gavin newsom. >> thank you for coming out. we have done a number of these. san bruno avenue. and this is now competing for that title as good as it gets. to portions of polk street. we have been doing a lot of this lately and we are really proud

of it. a lot of folks have been wondering why we get so caught up in this and why this is so important and not all the other things you are supposed to focus on such as much. we are focused on other things just as much, but the reason we highlight this is it is tangible. it is a manifestation of an ideal and vision to connect the dots and connect communities in a different way and connect different functions of government and in a more streamlined manner. to also connect funding to allow us to avail ourselves to federal pots of money that we were not in the past availing ourselves to. to utilize the speaker of the house as a vocal reserve in a constructive, thoughtful and strategic way to take advantage of former mayor dianne feinstein and senior center in a thoughtful way. to leverage the work being done at the m.t.a. and san francisco transportation authority and with community leaders, and to

package these things with a narrative that can anchor our future where these are not one-off projects and this becomes the norm. there is actually a story line in terms of how we approach our public realm. in the past none of that really existed. we had communities that said enough is enough, we need to focus on our streets and somebody with a louder voice camino to the supervisors a -- came to the supervisor or mayor and said focus on our streets. now we have a deliberative plan and we are codifying this vision. it started in 2005, but then it started to take shape formally in 2007 when we asked the m.t.a., d.p.w., department of health, department of environment, public utilities commission and other departments to come together in a way they never had and say what are you planning to do? what are you thinking of doing? what are you asking for in terms of federal and state

appropriations? what are we looking for in terms of general fund support? and put it on paper and we said here is the priority, here is the cost, let's do big projects. not the just little projects no one ever notices and let's reimagine our streets and connect the arts community to what we are trying to do. let's get the bicycle community, the pedestrian advocates and senior advocates together to be part of this vision and get the merchants to be part of this. so, here is a testament to all of that collective wisdom and hard work that has been advanced the last number of years. $6.1 million as ed said has been invested into this effort. brand-new trees, brand-new lighting. new artistic components that connect our past with the present and future. we have new trash receptacles. trust me, it is a big deal. we have the disability community part of this with more curb

cuts. we looked at the sidewalks and said let's extend them. let's widen them. you will remember not long ago and a reminder of it you had this awkward wide street with narrow sidewalks and you had this weird median strip that really wasn't a median strip. it was just a mark with yellow lines and wouldn't necessarily marked with raised concrete which is in and of itself not so wonderful but it was awkward. now you have the ability for a merchant like there to say with the microclimate that is the mission where it is always 55 degrees even when it 20 in the marina, we can bring tables and chairs out because we have a wider sidewalk and folks in the mayor's office said we will be happy to support that because there is plenty of room for seniors to walk by and we can add more bike racks to encourage people to get on the road with alternative transportation. to allow somebody to walk

through a street and see a butterfly because there are beautiful trees and there is something else happening in terms of urban environment. we put all of that in this plan, which finally got down called the better streets plan and this will anchor the future of this effort for decades and decades to come. s caesar chavez is. leyland avenue is next and though the next mayor will take the credit 19th avenue is next and that is long overview. this is what this represents. we told these ideas from all across the country. portland was doing some of this. but we don't like being second place to portland. so, eat your heart out, portland. we took a little bit from bloomberg in new york and that was the idea of payment to park land but we don't like to be

second place, we are now doing more on that and we took the ideas from chicago. and i will say if there is any father or mother of these ideas it is mayor daley in chicago who is on these things years and years ago. i went out there when i first became mayor, got so jealous going down michigan avenue i said we have to do something so we stole their greening director and brought her out here and tasked here with putting these plans together and i want to specifically acknowledge astrid and her hard work and collaborative effort with all of you as well. i'm excited about this. i'm proud of this. this is a special day for me. thank you for all the hard works. this crease jobs, increases -- this creates jobs, increases values of property and increases

the likelihood that people will come down and stay longer. it creates a sense of identity and place so we can marked our neighborhoods so it doesn't look like anyplace, u.s.a. so everything has its own unique character. that is why we are celebrating and why i'm honored that all of you took the time to be here and work so hard to get us here. i have nothing more to say, thank good from your perspective, except again to say thank you and particularly to the planning department for all of their work and to c.p.w. for their stewardship of this process and just get ready, caesar chavez is going to be exciting and leyland and you are going to see on 19th a similar effort very soon. thank you very much for coming out. [applause] >> thank you, mr. mayor. speaking of businesses like this, being in the midst of a construction project for many months can be challenging for

small businesses, and i think all of the businesses up and down this stretch of valencia can attest to the fact that it was challenging and we worked hard to make it as smooth and quick as possible so they could be the beneficiaries with the rest of the neighborhood. i want to again acknowledge mike gillotti the contractor who built all of this. they did a great job. given the conditions we had they got done faster than we thought they would. i pt want to acknowledge our buu of construction management and public affairs, alex mario who worked hand in hand with the folks up and down here to make this as smooth as possible. so, you are not just hearing from us, interto ask our host here today -- i tonight ask our host here today and i can attest to the fact they make great margaritas. she will talk more about this project today.he fact they make

margaritas. she will talk more about this project today.o the fact they m margaritas. she will talk more about this project today. >> hi, everyone. i'm not a regular public speaker i spend most of my team working so i have my notes. i represent my family here and i'm also part owner with other family members. i have been invited to speak for the merchants at the corridor. we have been here over 40 years. we are celebrating our 40th year this year, so, stay tuned, october some time. in those 40 you years we have s lots of changes. but this one was one long awaited change and we are all excited and pleased to have valencia street scape come here and beautify our corridor with these beautiful trees and the lighting and the posts and just the safer bike lanes.

so we are all pleased and excited about all of this. we have many shops. we have furniture stores. we have book stores. we have clothing stores. we have these great restaurants, one of them you are right in front of right here. valencia street has been a little secret and unless you have been here and heard from other people you wouldn't know that it existed. despite this, it has lots of people around it. i will put this here so i two shake so much. there are lot of people here.wo shake so much. there are lot of people here.o shake so much. there are lot of people her shae so much. there are lot of people here.d shake so much.

there are lot of people here.o shake so much. there are lot of people here.n shake so much. there are lot of people her' shake so much. there are lot of people here.t shake so much. there are lot of people here. we have seen people from all over the world, the wider bay area and our neighborhoods. actually, with everything that we have here, i think that what we will be able to do is be more inviting neighborhood. i think mostly we have been having their businesses inside. but now with the expansion of the streets and lighting and everything else i think we will be able to create more of a community and be able to expand outside and bring our community not only to our businesses but to our neighbors and to our homes. some of us live here. we are excited about these changes and feel that everyone, merchants, customers, neighbors and people who live in the area will greatly benefit. it is my pleasure to be one of the many ministeerchants and i' excited about the new transition we are getting to see. thank you very much. [applause]

>> thank you very much. happy merchants is definitely one of the things we hope to get out of this project. in addition to happy pedestrians, cyclists and shall else who uses this part of our city. else who uses this part of our city. else who uses this part of our city. else who uses this part of our cit else who uses this part of our cit who uses this part of our city.e who uses this part of our city. else who uses this part of our cite else who uses this part of our citr else who uses this part of our city.y else who uses this part of our city. everybo else who uses this part of our citd else who uses this t of our city else who uses this part of our city. it takes a lot of the city working together and it has been a hallmark of the mayor's administration to compel the parts who appear to have different interests to work together to achieve things like this project. i want to acknowledge some of those folks. one of our biggest partners was the san francisco municipal transportation agency. the manager of the streets. thanks dan. anita watson. we heard kudos for the planning department. we are joined by john ram and

david for their work. the mayor's office of disability. susan misner is here with us. our director of cultural affairs and there is a significant public art component of this. luis cancell is here. some of the funding was made possible through the county transportation authority and i want to thank jose luis most co-very much and their directaz. >> a few different organizations, s