On Dec. 1, Caltrans will start repaving 19th Avenue — the CA Route 1 north–south traffic artery on San Francisco’s west side. Residents are bracing for a miserable year.
The street is already clogged with cars, particularly at rush hour. Drivers and bus commuters should expect even more traffic, noise, and disruption for the next 12 months, according to the transit agency.
“It’s gonna be a disaster,” said Mary Kwong, who lives on 19th Avenue near Wawona Street and takes the thoroughfare to the Golden Gate Bridge as part of her daily commute to a San Rafael hospital.
Residents say the avenue badly needs repaving — but the timing stings. Construction begins less than a year after the Great Highway closure funneled more commuters onto an already crowded 19th Avenue. Once the road work starts, Sunset Boulevard will be the last fully open north-south corridor on the west side, and neighbors are dreading the congestion to come.
“It’s going to be horrible while it happens,” said Sloat Boulevard resident Michelle Burton, 82. “But it’d be less horrible if the Great Highway were open.”
Jennifer Lam, 70, who has lived on 19th Avenue near Wawona Street since 2003, predicts that Sunset Boulevard will be slammed.
19th Avenue will likely see congestion during repaving work throughout the next year. | Source: Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/The Standard
“A lot of people here were against the closure because they use the Great Highway to go to the Richmond, especially when 19th Avenue is busy,” she said. “Now, there’s only one choice.”
Lam said her daughter takes the 28 bus to her job as a dental assistant in the Richmond, and she worries traffic will slow the bus down, too.
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“I’m going to have to give her more rides because it’s going to be so slow,” she said.
Caltrans has been planning the repaving work for two years. The first phase will start at Sloat Boulevard and 19th Avenue. Crews will pave the northbound parking lane in half-block increments, moving north to Lincoln Way. Work will then repeat in the southbound parking lane.
Phase Two, scheduled for the spring, will focus on repaving all three driving lanes in the same staggered northbound-then-southbound pattern. Beginning in the summer, crews will move south of Sloat to Holloway Avenue near San Francisco State University.
During the first phase, only one traffic lane will be closed, but during the second, two of three will be closed on blocks being repaved. The work will take place Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Caltrans expects the project to be completed by December 2026.
Linda Guitron, who lives near 19th Avenue and Vicente Street, said she has wanted her street repaved since moving there in 2000.
“That street is like a washboard,” she said. She believes the fix will be worth the painful disruption.
Linda Guitron, who has lived on 19th Avenue for 25 years, says the thoroughfare badly needs to be repaved but that the road work will be inconvenient. | Source: Garrett Leahy/The Standard
Two years ago, Guitron, 83, endured a different major Caltrans overhaul to replace sewer and fiber-optic lines under 19th Avenue. Blocked driveways and lane closures made errands an ordeal and increased wait times for the 28 bus, which she rides to connect to the N-Judah and reach Golden Gate Park.
“It was a ton of disruption,” she said. “It was horrible.”
Caltrans said any bus stop relocations will happen during the project’s second phase. The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency didn’t confirm if stops for the 28 bus would need to be moved, or if buses would run more slowly but a representative said it will post notices if the construction requires changes.
During peak hours, Caltrans is urging drivers to avoid the corridor altogether and detour onto Sunset Boulevard. The agency recommends taking Sloat Boulevard east to reconnect with the segment of 19th Avenue that won’t be paved until June.
Home-care worker Maha Paizova, 54, lives with a 100-year-old woman who has occupied a home at the corner of 36th Avenue and Sloat overlooking Sunset Boulevard for 50 years and said the detoured morning rush hour is going to make life more unpleasant for her client, who often sleeps during the day.
“It’s going to be more sound, noise, pollution,” Paizova said. “She needs quiet living.”
19th Avenue is one of two major north-south routes for cars on the city’s west side. | Source: Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/The Standard
Burton lives where Junipero Serra Boulevard intersects with Sloat, where traffic will be rerouted in both directions during the road work. She anticipates that morning rush hour and afternoon school pick-ups will clog her street. But she’s most concerned for commuters: “It’s going to affect anyone who has to go to work.” Kwong estimates that the lane closures will add 10 minutes to her commute.
“When you’re in a rush to get to work, yeah, it matters,” she said.