How is that gunna work? All of the stops from Fenwood to Heath lack a platform and side load. Or do you mean they're just adding curb ramps.
Or Frisco-style "transit in the center, cars bear right" combo trolley/bus platforms, offset on either side of intersection. See here:
https://goo.gl/maps/Vqcxq2LQQfC7zzrK9.
That was actually an explicit suggestion in the E-centric GLT public meeting, per the comments section. It works extremely well in-practice from my own observation on multiple past trips to SF. The platform median does an excellent job chopping up the roadway width to make crossing less daunting, and the cars bearing right around stopped transit vehicles are traffic-calmed by the act of turning so you get way fewer speeders through those intersections as the lights are changing.
The major problem with all-curbside transit pickup is the time-chewing turnouts. It's bad enough on bus where it's the mode-default virtually everywhere, but weaving trolleys around traffic lanes really really doesn't work that well in-practice. Arborway restoration was predicated on curbside stops...and from the renders circulated way back when it looked like a born shit sandwich done that way, only validating the prefab gripes that trolleys couldn't hack it in 21st c. JP Center. If you've got enough room to stay on laser-straight trajectory in the center accessibility from platform is almost always enormously better than with a hasty curb turnout. Market St. in SF is narrower than all street-running parts of Huntington, and roughly par width with all of South Huntington...so that style of ADA-kosher platforming can be implemented there it can certainly be implemented here. Causes some add'l complication around snow removal, but how many total stations are we talking...two? Fenwood + BoTH are both dead-men-walking stop consolidations way too close to next-adjacent stops, so you only have to do this at Mission Park & Riverway...plus any Hyde Sq. extension stops if that goes forward. Easy as hell.
All of the Hyde Sq. extension renders I've ever seen have kept the center-running strip and either done PoP-enabled left-hand exiting onto a center platform or the San Fran-style staggering, so it's vastly more likely that's going to be the preference here and not any change from center-running tracks. Where they do have a golden opportunity to do an above-and-beyond improvement is--City-willing--Mission Park. Because if BHD were willing to trade out the (superfluous)
front-wrapping driveway and relocate all of 20 resident parking spaces elsewhere on the complex Huntington Ave. would be able to re-bulb out to full 100 ft. width of the reservation-bearing section, and the full reservation would be able to reappear for 1 full block to house this stop on a full grade-separated platform. MP residents would also get some fatter street-facing greenspace buffer to mingle on rather than the bizarre one-way circulator driveway eating up so much space to their front steps. That would be the truly ideal fix...whack Fenwood, reposition the short-turn offsetted Brigham platforms squared-up to the intersection...run on-street solely on the space between stoplights, then reservation restarts again from Mission St. to Parker Hill Ave., inclusive of MH station in the middle with plenty of room to spare. Riverway is then the only one you have to do in-street tricks with San Fran-style or otherwise, unless Heath-Hyde service goes online.
Given who we're dealing with politically here I'd expect complete and total
ANTI-cooperation from the City and BHD on ^this^ and for any such first suggestion of a Mission Park reservation-creating cosmetic surgery to Huntington to get shot out of the sky with violence. But that's uncooperative city politics for you. It
is extremely, extremely feasible and cheap to do if it weren't for the politics. If I were a Mission Park resident I'd probably rather want more grass and benches facing the street too rather than that anachronism of a one-way loop driveway and a handful of "privileged" parking spots that could easily be re-striped on the side streets. Alas...turf warrage, UNGH-UNGH!
