Norm Rolfe Dies:
SFT’s Voice for Sound Transportation Planning

For almost 50 years Norman Rolfe, transportation activist and dedicated San Franciscan, has been a strong and consistent champion of a more pedestrian-oriented and less car-oriented San Francisco.   He died on Friday, January 15 at the age of 84.
   
Norm Rolfe could be called the voice of Sane Transportation Planning in San Francisco.  With his well reasoned and strongly voiced arguments, he helped save the cable cars and the Muni J-Line.  He helped prevent Upper Market Street from being converted into a San Jose style, 8-lane "boulevard".  He helped block the Second Crossing (an ill-conceived scheme to build another transbay automobile bridge).

In the early 1960's, Mr. Rolfe joined others to keep a freeway from running through the Panhandle and Golden Gate Park and thus became an influential part of San Francisco’s campaign to prevent the California Division of Highways from ripping the City to shreds with freeways.  Years later, he was one of the first people to call for the removal of the Embarcadero Freeway.  He supported removal of the Central Freeway after it was damaged in the 1989 earthquake and worked for voter approval for construction of Octavia Boulevard.  He successfully fought against the auto tunnel proposed to run under Russian Hill. 
  
In 1970 he was one of San Francisco Tomorrow's original members and has long served on the Board of Directors of this city’s premier urban environmental organization as Chair of its Transportation Committee.  In 1971, he helped write San Francisco Tomorrow's transportation policy, which remains largely intact and current today.  He also was active for many years on the Sierra Club’s Bay Chapter transportation committee.

Mr. Rolfe studied every issue thoroughly and usually got to the crux of the matter while everyone else was still on the first page.  He strongly supported the return of streetcar service to Market Street and later to the Embarcadero (both now highly successful Muni lines).  In public hearings and in meetings with officials, he never minced words; he expected other people to be persuaded by his voice and was impatient when they did not see things as clearly, and with as much farsightedness, as he did.  He was incapable of sugar-coating an issue, or spinning it or making it more palatable for his audience.

A strong but fair-minded passenger rail advocate, Mr. Rolfe was a steadfast supporter of the Tranbay Terminal/Caltrain Extension Project who also foresaw the weakness of the lightly-patronized and money-losing BART/SFIA extension.  In recent years, he has strongly opposed the grandiose plan for building an unnecessary full-sized freeway through the Presidio of San Francisco.  He also was an early opponent of the ultra- expensive, marginally useful Central Subway and worked with others to block MTC’s ill-conceived scheme to expand Bay Area freeways in a major way under the guise of its so-called HOT lane program.
  
At the time of his death, Mr. Rolfe was a member of the Citizens Advisory Council for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, Citizens Advisory Committee for the Transbay Joint Powers Authority, and the Octavia Boulevard Central Freeway Citizens Advisory Committee.

 

ALERT! HISTORIC LIBRARIES THREATENED

 Easily taken for granted and too easily targeted for the wrecking ball, our modern historic Appleton & Wolfard Libraries warrant respect for their place in the history of the modern library movement, for their architectural quality, for their service and contributions to San Francisco’s neighborhoods:  Parkside (1951), Marina (1953), Ortega (1955), Merced (1957), North Beach (1958), Eureka (1960), Western Addition (1965) and Excelsior (1966).  Threatened with demolition are the Ortega and North Beach libraries.

WRITE to save our libraries:  Luis Herrera (City Librarian), Phil Ginsbury (General Manager, Recreation & Park Department) and Supervisor David Chiu (President, Board of Supervisors).

lherrera@sfpl.org <> , Phil.Ginsburg@sfgov.org <> , David.Chiu@sfgov.org <>

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