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Warning: Twin Peaks Roadway Reconfigured
18 July 2016
We've gotten into the habit of saving lives on Twin Peaks so we thought we'd hike up to see how the roadway reconfiguration is going. Just as bad as we imagined, we discovered.
New Paint. And concrete barriers close off the eastern roadway to vehicles who now must traverse the peaks on the two-way western roadway.
For years, there's been a two-lane one-way roadway around Eureka Peak and Noe Peak with a sort of no-man's land between the peaks and the overlook just beyond them.
We'd regularly warn strollers off the roadway before they were endangered by tour buses and speeders coming around the blind curves. But we've also had to warn people driving into oncoming traffic, mistakenly thinking the roadway was two-way.
The roadway itself has been a disgrace for some time. Torn up with areas marked for repair but never repaired and the painted lines long ago worn away.
So many of us welcomed the Recreation and Parks Department promise to do something about it.
But this?
The new configuration, temporarily established with ugly warning signs and concrete barriers (and a little fresh paint), directs all motor vehicle traffic onto the western side of the hill. That's two-way now, one lane in each direction.
The eastern roadway has been blocked off to traffic so people can walk or bike along it without worrying about vehicle traffic.
Between the Peaks. A sort of parking lot with lots of broken glass.
For the first time in all the years we've been hiking and biking up Twin Peaks (and it's a lot), we didn't see a single bike. And we only had to look down at the roadway to see why. After only a few days, it had already become littered with broken glass.
That had never been a problem when there was vehicular traffic on the roadway.
So beware, cyclists. And beware, motorists, especially at night.
And meanwhile, let the Department know what you think. We'd hate to see another dangerous reconfiguration like John F. Kennedy Drive in Golden Gate Park become permanent.
There, we've done it again. Tried to save lives on Twin Peaks.