Ed Lee with Human Rights Commissioner Zula Jones. Photo: Luke Thomas, Fog City Journal

During a dramatic eight-hour Board of Supervisors meeting last night, seven supervisors, including President David Chiu, Bevan Dufty, Eric Mar and Sophie Maxwell, lined up late in the session to support City Administrator Ed Lee for interim mayor. It prompted an angry outburst from outgoing Supervisor Chris Daly, who declared that it would be “the biggest fumble in the history of progressive politics in San Francisco.”

In the end, the supervisors agreed to continue the meeting and a decision on appointing a successor mayor to Friday at 3 p.m. Whoever the current board appoints (it requires six votes) would have to be confirmed by the new board. Four new supervisors are being sworn in Saturday. Even then, all the cards, at this point, seemed to be stacked to favor Lee, who was in Hong Kong and not available for comment.

In several interviews, some transit advocates and others who have worked with the former Asian Law Caucus managing attorney over the years offered nothing but praise, saying that even though some of outgoing Mayor Gavin Newsom’s staff might remain in place — something Daly and other progressives predict would mean more of the “same ole’, same ole‘” — Lee would set a different tone and get work done.

“He comes out of a strong civil rights background so I think he would look at transportation from an equity point of view and a transportation justice perspective,” said Supervisor Mar, who is supporting Lee. “Even though he has been a bit distant, in city government, from civil rights or community organizations that’s where his values are in supporting a better transportation system, especially for lower-income people and working families.”

Lee, who would become the city’s first Asian American mayor, has more than two decades of experience in city government, serving as the city’s first Whisteblower Ordinance investigator, executive director of the Human Rights Commission, the director of City Purchasing, and before his current job, was director of the Department of Public Works. When he was reappointed City Administrator in October, the Mayor’s Office praised him for “reducing the size and cost of city government and reducing the vehicle fleet.”

Malcolm Yeung, the public policy director at the Chinatown Community Development Center, knows Lee through his many years of work at the Asian Law Caucus.

“His time at the Asian Law Caucus really launched, I think, what is now the progressive movement in Chinatown,” said Yeung, who has worked as a tenants rights attorney and credited Lee with starting a housing rights position in addition to taking on cases involving employment discrimination and workers rights.

“I feel incredibly confident that Ed Lee is going to work with every element of this city, including the Board of Supervisors,” said Yeung. “Ed knows the city like no one else. He knows it better than (former Board President) Aaron Peskin, he knows it better than the Board of Supervisors, and having someone with that kind of knowledge in the mayor’s seat is going to be another incredible benefit.”

Yeung credited Lee with helping to champion the Chinatown Alleyway Master Plan, saying he used his position at DPW to secure funding.

Tom Radulovich, the executor director of Livable City, described Lee as “a really good public servant” and said he’s been a big supporter of Sunday Streets, helping to make introductions in Chinatown. He said Lee has always been great to work with and is very “professional, even personable.”

“He’ll be more focused on service delivery and fixing problems in government instead of running a press release factory,” said Radulovich. “He’s self-deprecating and he’s easy to work with and it’ll be very different than what we’ve had coming from the Mayor’s Office for awhile.”

The big downside could be that Lee may be hesitant to do anything bold on the sustainable transportation front. Daly’s concerns, along with some other progressive supervisors, are that Lee’s staff would reflect downtown interests and that little would change in the Mayor’s Office.

“He would be the quintessential caretaker mayor. He would keep every old Willie Brown and Gavin Newsom staffer from the Mayor’s Office and would run the exact same agenda as Newsom,” Daly told reporters after last night’s meeting.

He added: “This Board of Supervisors ostensibly has a majority of members from the progressive camp. That means on the tenant side of landlord-tenant issues. That means on the neighborhood side of major development issues. That means on the green side of environmental issues whereas the Newsom administration has been on the other side and that’s where Ed Lee’s caretaker administration would have stayed.”

Daly, who is ending his career as District 6 supervisor this week, pointed much of the blame on Chiu, calling him a traitor to progressives and promising to “politically haunt” the Board of Supervisors President.

Chiu has not responded to requests for interviews but his aide, Judson True, said the District 3 supervisor would continue to aggressively pursue Transit First policies and work with Lee to advocate for sustainable transportation. Chiu, however, is still rumored to be on the short list of candidates to replace Kamala Harris as District Attorney.

Bridges and Supervisor Bevan Dufty pose for photos after today's Rules Committee meeting. Photo: Aaron Bialick

Leona Bridges’ nomination to the SFMTA Board is headed to the current Board of Supervisors for confirmation after being approved this afternoon by the Rules Committee. It managed to get through committee on a day when most of outgoing Mayor Gavin Newsom’s nominations to commissions were put off because he is delaying his swearing-in as lieutenant governor in a move to prevent the current board from appointing an interim mayor.

Bridges, a former manager at Barclays Global Investors who oversaw $800 billion in assets, described herself as an independent thinker who has been a lifelong Muni rider. She was nominated to the SFMTA Board last month to fill a seat that has remained vacant since May.

While she doesn’t have a background in transportation, Bridges was praised by the committee and a number of supporters, including leaders of the African American community, who testified that as an African American with financial expertise she will bring much-needed diversity to the board. The Rev. James McCray, whose term expired last year, was the last and only African American member of the board.

“Growing up in San Francisco, I walked to Benjamin Franklin Middle School, rode three buses to Abraham Lincoln High School and rode three buses to San Francisco State University. I have continued to be a lifelong user of Muni transportation. Additionally, I take taxis and I walk many places,” Bridges told the committee. “I have a vested interest in knowing that we have timely, accessible, reliable, affordable and safe modes of transportation and services in this city.”

She identified transit accessibility among her six top policy priorities, along with affordability. “All modes of transportation and parking garages must be affordable, and not disproportionally impact low-income communities. We must serve all communities in this city,” she said.

Her other priorities include transit reliability, safety, local hiring for Muni contracts and finance. When asked by Supervisor Eric Mar what ideas she had for ensuring adequate funding streams for Muni, she didn’t offer any clear cut answers but suggested “possibly issuing bonds” and “if we do that we have to get it right.” Bridges said she would also examine the way current streams of state and federal revenues are allocated. “There are some areas in parking as well as in traffic where we have allocations that we could probably streamline,” she said.

Bridges, who acknowledged that she would have a learning curve at the SFMTA, could not immediately answer a question from Mar about congestion pricing and would not state what her position on Proposition G was. After the meeting, Bridges declined an interview with Streetsblog, deferring all questions to SFMTA spokesperson Paul Rose.

Transit Advocates Criticized for Lack of Diversity

In public testimony, Elizabeth Stampe, the executive director of Walk SF, asked that the nomination be delayed so transit advocates could get a better feel for where Bridges stands on the issues. Some supervisors had criticized the mayor for making last-minute appointments before he leaves office, putting the Rules Committee in a crunch.

“We would really like to ask, as part of the sustainable transportation community, to have the opportunity to meet with Ms. Bridges about pedestrian safety, about cycling, about public transportation and so we would ask that you would defer…or continue the nomination to give us a chance to do that,” said Stampe.

Supervisor Bevan Dufty saw that as an opportunity to criticize transit advocates for a lack of diversity.

“I’m just really intrigued,” Dufty responded. “Are there any African Americans on the board of Walk San Francisco?”

“No, it’s a very small board. We absolutely support diversity on the MTA Board,” Stampe replied.

“Right, but I’m sort of suggesting it’s a two-way street. And so what I’m offering to you is as much as you’re interested in engaging Ms. Bridges to understand her perspective I think your organization, like so many others in the environmental community, could do a far better job of engaging with the affected communities themselves,” Dufty said to a roar of applause.

Campos, the chair of the Rules Committee, said he was prepared to delay Bridges’ confirmation, along with the mayor’s other nominees, but was so impressed by the public testimony in favor of Bridges that he decided to move it forward. He also criticized transit advocates on the diversity issue.

“I do think that often times transit advocates don’t fully get the point that transit advocacy cannot work if the people who are involved in that movement are not reflective of the diversity of our city,” Campos said. “As a person of color myself I will tell you that time and time again I have been frustrated that when we have those kinds of policy discussions and conversations that the diversity of our city is not reflected in terms of who is seated at the table.”

The Rules Committee vote to move the nomination forward was unanimous and is likely to be approved by the full Board of Supervisors tomorrow.

Room 200. Photo: michaelz1

There are a number of highly qualified people on the list of candidates to be the next mayor of San Francisco, and the Board of Supervisors could embark on a nomination process beginning today. What has become abundantly clear to me is that the person replacing Mayor Gavin Newsom should not be a caretaker, but someone who will lead on an issue that touches the lives of every one of our 815,000 residents: transportation.

We are in the thick of a mammoth city budget crisis, and our public transportation system, Muni, is over capacity and limping. We can’t wait until after the election next November for leadership.

People who walk and bike around this great city in increasing numbers are getting hurt every day by drivers congesting our streets, on top of the colossal toll traffic takes on our health and our environment. The “cars first, people second” mentality remains pervasive in city government.

The interim mayor needs to come in and get right to work on strengthening the leadership structure of the SFMTA, which manages Muni and our streets, and work on empowering those progressive transportation planners within the agency who have been stifled by a culture of fear.  The talented city planners who really want to transform our streets are sometimes afraid to do anything bold because they fear management doesn’t have their backs. A mayor who really believes in the city’s Transit First policy should pick advocates and transportation professionals who have strong convictions about livable streets as department heads and managers instead of old-school traffic engineers resistant to change.

We need an interim mayor who can unambiguously and steadfastly show leadership on sustainable transportation — someone who won’t cave in to a few complaints about removing parking spaces to re-balance the streets for people who bike, walk or take transit. Supervisors should appoint a mayor who won’t buckle on extending parking meter hours to evenings and Sundays, or at the very least allow the pilots to move forward (they were killed by Mayor Newsom) in those commercial districts where they’re sorely needed and SFPark is already in place. It will boost business and make it easier to park.

For too long now, drivers in San Francisco have actually been getting a break over transit riders despite the constant drumbeat in the Chronicle and the Examiner that they are “getting hit with fees.” Many of the progressive members of the Board of Supervisors understand this. A progressive mayor should consider the inequitable price transit riders are paying through higher fares and deteriorating service. To bring back some balance and provide drivers with fewer reasons to keep our neighborhoods clogged with traffic, the new mayor should consider, as one example, getting rid of all discounted parking in the city’s parking garages. That will raise much-needed revenue for Muni.

The person who takes over Room 200 will need to make Muni a top priority and be creative about finding new sources of revenue. Prop G will help save Muni some money but it’s not a panacea. We need to consider new ballot measures to fix and fund Muni. The mayor will have to be especially diligent because the state is still in crisis, and legislators in Sacramento will likely come back to the transit-raiding trough they have rooted their snouts in the past few years. Although there is some hope that Governor-elect Jerry Brown will give sustainable transportation a boost and figure out some way to steadily fund transit, Proposition 26 further complicates the process of raising money across the state and casts a pall upon the downward slide at transit agencies everywhere.

Over the past four years, the SFMTA has had the legitimate and, let’s face it, convenient excuse that the Bike Plan injunction was preventing the build out of bicycle improvements. Now that the city has put the injunction to bed, so too must they start planning for the next bold bicycle vision while their paint crews implement the old plan. It’s going to cost $100 million to build up a network of fully separated, connected, dignified bikeways in the city. The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition’s Connecting the City project is a bold plan to transform San Francisco into a world-class bicycling city and move us into the era of bikeways that can accommodate riders whether they’re eight years old or 80. The need is urgent. More and more people are using bicycles as everyday transportation in San Francisco and many more say they would if it was safer.

SFMTA Chief Nat Ford has been mostly focused on Muni, for good reason, but he’s been extremely weak on pedestrian safety. The recent release of a pedestrian safety study lacking a concrete action plan for improving conditions is just one example of this failing. It probably wouldn’t surprise you to learn the SFMTA does not have a dedicated budget for pedestrian improvements in the city. Yes, a great deal of projects the SFMTA has undertaken affect pedestrians, but the agency does not have a fund targeted specifically for improving the pedestrian realm, nor will the re-organization of the Sustainable Streets Division make that gray area clearer. This demonstrates that pedestrian safety has not really been a priority for the SFMTA, and unless something dramatic changes, it will continue to languish while people are killed and maimed in crosswalks.

Ford is a smart transportation professional. He knows that anyone who acts as a caretaker cannot move an agency forward, something he himself acknowledged in a letter to SFMTA staff last year.

“We cannot simply be caretakers,” Ford wrote in September 2009. “We must advance the agency into one that supports a world-class, fully integrated, multi-modal transportation system that is economically, environmentally and socially sustainable.”

But anyone who has been following the SFMTA closely knows that all of this has been a difficult challenge, and it points back to Ford and the Mayor’s Office.

You’ll hear a litany of excuses for why the SFMTA can’t seem to catch up to its counterparts in New York City or Portland. Lack of funds. Lack of resources. Managing the daily crises. But ultimately it falls on the shoulders of the person occupying Room 200. Whoever the new mayor is will have a great opportunity to embolden all the talented folks in our city agencies who are eager to move ahead with transforming our streets. That person will also have an opportunity to appoint up to three new members of the SFMTA Board, and pick advocates with strong backgrounds in sustainable transportation. The current board does not call the shots.

If San Francisco is serious about being a leader in sustainable transportation, then our Board of Supervisors should appoint a mayor who is prepared to lead.

We can’t wait.

Leona Bridges. Photo: Barclays

One of the prevailing questions surrounding yesterday’s nomination of Leona Bridges to the SFMTA Board of Directors — a vacancy the Mayor’s Office has struggled to fill for seven months — is whether she can drum up the six necessary votes on the Board of Supervisors for confirmation, under the current board or the new one in January.

Bridges, who has no background in transportation and is not familiar to transit advocates, was picked for her financial experience and because she “rides the 38 Geary bus frequently.”

“Leona Bridges will bring valuable financial knowledge and investment experience to the SFMTA Board,” Mayor Gavin Newsom said in a statement. “She may not be a City Hall insider or professional activist, but she’s a regular bus rider, churchgoer and longtime San Francisco resident whose background and financial expertise will enormously benefit the Board. I’m grateful for her willingness to serve San Francisco’s transit riders and help improve our City’s public transit system.”

According to the press release, “Bridges is currently retired and formerly a Managing Director of the Global Index and Markets Group at Barclays Global Investors, one of the world’s largest asset managers. Bridges put herself through school working evenings at Crocker Bank and started her career in securities lending and investment at Wells Fargo.”

In addition, “she is committed to education and has created an endowed scholarship in the SFSU College of Business to support economically and educationally disadvantaged students.”

But some public officials and advocates are already questioning whether she has the right qualifications for the job at a time when the SFMTA, particularly Muni, is facing a horde of challenges.

“If there’s someone who’s being appointed to the MTA without the expertise, I really question why that person is being put on the board when we have such an incredible need for the best and the brightest to be on there,” said Supervisor John Avalos.

Tom Radulovich, the executive director of Livable City, agreed. “The MTA Board governs the city’s streets and public transit system. By its own measures, MTA is failing. The MTA Board urgently needs more members who are knowledgeable about, experienced with, and engaged on transportation issues to turn the MTA around.”

Bridges could not be reached for comment and the Mayor’s Press Office did not respond to our requests to put us in touch with her. Google her and you’ll find pages listing her bio and photos from San Francisco Symphony galas, but no record of her speaking out on transit or transportation issues.

Supervisor David Campos, who chairs the Rules Committee, could also not be reached for comment. The nomination must pass Rules before it goes to the full board but there are currently no more Rules Committee meetings scheduled this year, however Campos could schedule one. Supervisors Eric Mar and Michela Alioto-Pier also sit on that committee.

City Hall sources were still digesting news of the nomination but one insider’s first reaction was that having a financial background is not necessarily a good qualification for the SFMTA Board, even though it does meet one of the qualifications in the City Charter:

At least four of the directors must be regular riders of the Municipal Railway, and must continue to be regular riders during their terms. The directors must possess significant knowledge of, or professional experience in, one or more of the fields of government, finance, or labor relations. At least two of the directors must possess significant knowledge of, or professional experience in, the field of public transportation. During their terms, all directors shall be required to ride the Municipal Railway on the average once a week.

The supervisors (either the current board or new one) could opt to reject the nomination and leave it up to the interim mayor, who will also have an opportunity to nominate two additional members to the SFMTA Board in 2011, since the terms for Cameron Beach and Jerry Lee expire in March. Depending on who the next mayor is (the nomination process gets underway Tuesday), it could present an opportunity to shake up the board and depart from business as usual.

The Mayor’s last appointment to the SFMTA Board, Cheryl Brinkman, was cheered by transit advocates. Insiders say Brinkman, who was appointed in July, has been proactive on the issues and has been working behind the scenes to effect changes in the agency.

Flickr photo: David Lytle

In its annual Smart Growth awards ceremony, the Environmental Protection Agency awarded San Francisco’s Mint Plaza with its “Civic Spaces” prize, honoring the City and County of San Francisco, as well as developers and architects that transformed the former Jesse Street alley into a busy public realm. The award was announced yesterday in Washington DC, in coordination with the EPAs 40th anniversary festivities, where San Francisco joined New York City and Portland among others receiving commendations.

Mint Plaza was the result of a public-private partnership that used private funding to build a public plaza owned by the city, with relatively little city investment. According to the EPA’s announcement, the project cost $3.2 million to build, of which only $150,000 came from public funds. The balance was raised by Martin Building Company, which created a Community Facilities District (much like a Community Benefit District), levying a 30-year special property tax on certain buildings around the plaza to leverage tax exempt bonds. Martin also established Friends of Mint Plaza, a non-profit organization that raises funds to manage ongoing maintenance and programming at the plaza.

Jason Elliott, policy adviser to Mayor Gavin Newsom, said the EPA award was an honor and said Mint Plaza “represents people taking affirmative ownership in their micro neighborhoods.”

“This is a community coming together to invest in their own public realm,” said Elliott, who highlighted the trial traffic diversions on Market Street and said they can complement destinations in the neighborhood. Without creating destinations like Mint Plaza, he said, the public would have nowhere to bike and walk to, neighborhoods would not be revitalized. “We can do a lot of the things we think we’re good at, but when we have the private sector step up and take the proactive responsibility for reinvigorating their own communities,” it expands on what the city can accomplish.

Mint Plaza makes use of movable furniture, set up and maintained by the non-profit Friends of Mint Plaza. Flickr photo: Darwin Bell

“As a resident, Mint Plaza functions as our urban ‘front yard’ and provides a safe and nurturing environment for my son and his friends. As such, the plaza has already created a unique sense of public space ownership in a sometimes impersonal downtown,” William Duncanson, a Mint Plaza neighborhood resident, said in the EPA’s release. “Residents view the plaza as a place for living rather than merely a public park or a conduit to get from here to there.”

In honoring the city and the private representatives, the EPA characterized the space as a “public living room,” noting the transformation of the alley into an 18,000 square foot plaza had attracted new private investment into the surrounding neighborhoods, including four restaurants and cafes.

Joining officials from San Francisco at the awards ceremony in Washington D.C. was Scott Catafa, a principal at CMG Architects, who designed the plaza. “I think it’s a great example for the city for how these things can work for a public-private partnership to maintain public spaces and improve them,” he said.

Catafa said there were great limitations on the design of the plaza because of the intricate public utilities underneath the former alley, which prevented them from adding as many trees as they wanted. Catafa said Bryant Park in New York City was an inspiration for the movable furniture and some of the design elements, and described the arbor in the plaza as a way to provide greenery in place of additional trees.

Noting that the space had previously been used for parking tour buses, Catafa said that the openness of the plaza contributed to the feeling of increased safety. Referring to the “eyes on the street” effect that Jane Jacobs wrote about in her iconic The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Catafa said the space worked to change people’s impressions of an area of the city with a previously bad reputation for drug dealing.

Saying that maintenance of the space was equally or more important than the design, Catafa said Mint Plaza would be a model for other projects in San Francisco and beyond. “It’s about a perception too because people take care of spaces that seem to be maintained.”

Mayor Newsom and Blick's Edward Ogorzaly. Photo: Mayor's Press Office.

Newsom joined the owner of Blick Art Materials in a ribbon cutting yesterday for a new flagship store at 979 Market, near 6th Street, and announced a weekly arts market as part of a Central Market Arts District. The new market opens today at U.N. Plaza and will be co-sponsored by Blick, in what the city hopes will anchor a new art and theater corridor. The city pointed to a recent survey by Theatre Bay Area that found approximately 75 performing arts groups in the Bay Area are interested in expanding or relocating to Central Market. Newsom's administration hopes to lure them to the corridor by establishing a $11.5 million loan fund for commercial projects catered to artists and by providing assistance with identifying space, feasibility studies, and other financing opportunities in the arts district.

"Blick’s opening on Central Market and the weekly Arts Market at U.N. Plaza are major new milestones in our efforts to foster the growing cultural arts district in Central Market," Newsom said in a statement. "Blick and the Arts Market will be cornerstones in attracting artists and arts entrepreneurs to the area and continue its economic and physical transformation."

The current initiative catalyzes several trials to bring art to Market Street storefronts that have been shuttered because of a down economy and is part of the broader Better Market Street Project, a joint effort by the Mayor's Office of Economic and Workforce Development, The DPW, The Planning Department, the San Francisco County Transportation Authority, and the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), which runs Muni. The Art in Storefronts trial combined with the People in Plazas concert series were instituted to fight the perception the neighborhood is dangerous and depressed and bring levity at a low cost. The trials also coincided with private automobile traffic diversions meant to speed Muni and improve safety for bicycle riders with separated green bike lanes and reduced traffic conflicts.

Lest the Better Market Street Project become merely a collection of interventions, the team has recently put out a request for queries (RFQ) to develop a broader vision for the transformation of the street, which will coincide with the scheduled repaving in late 2013 or 2014. The DPW is also coordinating a 15 person CAC to help the multi-agency collaborative liaise with the public and contribute to the visioning. The CAC will meet regularly for three years and will aim to promote interaction between the public and the city agencies as work progresses.

"The Better Market Street Project provides the City an opportunity to enliven one of the most vital corridors in San Francisco through comprehensive public realm improvements," said DPW project manager Kris Opbroek. "The formation of this committee will help ensure broad participation and community feedback throughout every stage of the Better Market Street Project."

The CAC is accepting applications until Tuesday, September 7th, and Streetsblog readers with a keen interest in shaping the future of the street should consider applying here.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, No on Prop 23 Chair Tom Steyer, and Ella Baker Center Green-Collar Jobs Campaign Director Ian Kim at the microphone. Photo: Matthew Roth.

UPDATED: 10:00 pm, 8-11-10

The fight against Proposition 23, which qualified for the November ballot and if passed would suspend California's pioneering climate law AB 32, got testy today as San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom called out Valero and Tesoro, the Texas oil companies spending the lion's share of the money for Prop 23, and said political candidates like Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina were standing in the way of progress for cheap political gain.

Mayor Newsom joined with the No on Prop 23 campaign, the California Nurses Association, and the California chapter of the American Lung Association at a press conference in the Bayview to highlight a new report, "Toxic Twins" by the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and the California Environmental Justice Alliance. The report details the numerous environmental violations perpetrated by Valero and Tesoro as well as the toxic chemicals they spew legally and illegally into the air.

As the report shows, Tesoro and Valero combined have four facilities on the list of the top 15 worst polluters in California, with Valero's Benicia refinery at number 4 and Tesoro's Martinez refinery at number 8. Both companies have also repeatedly violated pollution laws in California and continue to do so, settling with government agencies like the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. The report also notes the people most impacted by the pollution are people of color and low-income communities.

"Just like BP cut some corners in the Gulf Coast to make a little extra money with disastrous consequences, we know with this report today that these nasty Texas oil companies Valero and Tesoro are cutting corners in California every day to make a little more profit," said Ian Kim, the Green-Collar Jobs Campaign Director for the Ella Baker Center.

Kim said in California 63 percent of people living within two and a half miles of oil refineries are black, Latino, Asian and pacific islander. In some communities, like Wilmington, CA, 85 percent of people living near the refineries are people of color, 25 percent below the poverty line.

"We know It's going to hurt low-income communities and people of color first and worst because the people behind Proposition 23 are hurting low income communities and people of color first and worst," said Kim.

"We cannot let these companies pull us backwards as we try to move forward in the future," said Tom Steyer, a noted hedge fund manager with Farallon Capitol Management and co-chair of the No on Prop 23 Campaign with former Secretary of State George Schultz. "They're trying to weaken the rules to make it easier for themselves. They're going to roll back energy and air quality standards for their own sake. It makes sense for them. Their kids don't live in California. Their kids are not going to feel the results of this."

Jane Warner, President and CEO of the American Lung Association in California said the impacts of air pollution affect nearly all Californians. "Here in California 91 percent of us are living in counties where we're breathing air that has gotten failing grades. Those of us in urban areas are breathing over 100 days of polluted air every year, that's about 3 months out of the year dirty air," she said.

Warner said there are 300,000 respiratory illnesses reported each year in California and 19,000 die prematurely because of air pollution. "Prop 23 will do nothing but cause more air pollution, cause more children to have asthma, send more seniors to the emergency room, and take more lives of Californians," she said.

Just after official press conference, Newsom lashed out at the oil companies, as well as Whitman and Fiorina.

"Here we are in California that's a mecca for environmental stewardship, that's really raised the bar over the last 30 years and you have Texas-based oil companies that are disproportionately funding an initiative that absolutely affects our future and our economy and our environmental stewardship as well as our health and well-being," said Newsom, who asked rhetorically what their motivation could be for spending millions, possibly tens of millions, to support Prop 23.

As for the Republican candidates for governor and senator, Newsom said Whitman was backing away from Prop 23 because she realized it was a bad policy and he questioned whether Fiorina really understood the impacts.

"California has the opportunity to lead not just this nation, but the world and the only thing stopping that is politicians like Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina," he said. "They're wrong on this and they're playing to a political base that, with all due respect, is in my rear-view mirror and is not the future of this state."

Assemblymember Dan Logue (R-Linda), author of Prop 23, said Mayor Newsom and supporters of AB 32 were attacking Valero and Tesoro because they didn't want to address the core issues the proposition addressed. He also called the Ella Baker Center a "far left organization out of Oakland" that shouldn't be trusted.

"The bottom line is that this is camouflage," he said. "I think you're camouflaging the issue of Prop 23. I don't see you going after the green guys."

Logue said the groups funding No on Prop 23 also stood to gain financially from green technology, which he said couldn't hold its own without government subsidies.

"My biggest frustration is the message and the whole issue is not being addressed," he added. "My concern is we're killing the messengers and we're killing the financiers."

Now, in a speech delivered this week in Boston, Rogoff set off another heated debate among transit advocates and operators about the federal government's role in funding expansion projects when the agencies building them don't have enough operating money to run their existing systems.

Rogoff asked how wise it is of the FTA to put money into new transit capacity, particularly expensive rail capacity, when virtually every operator across the nation has raised fares and cuts service because of lower sales tax receipts and ubiquitous cutbacks in city and state transit funding levels.

"At times like these, it's more important than ever to have the courage to ask a hard question: If you can't afford to operate the system you have, why does it make sense for us to partner in your expansion?" asked Rogoff.

He went on to question some rail expansion projects when a bus rapid transit system would be far cheaper and could achieve similar ridership benefits.

"Paint is cheap, rails systems are extremely expensive," said Rogoff.

Buses already account for 21 percent more transit trips nationally than rail and Rogoff said riders can be happy with buses if they meet their expectations for service and cleanliness. "It turns out you can entice even diehard rail riders onto a bus, if you call it a 'special' bus and just paint it a different color than the rest of the fleet."

"Take that paint can and paint a designated bus lane on the street system," he added. "Throw in signal preemption, and you can move a lot of people at very little cost compared to rail."

Yonah Freemark at The Transport Politic wrote one of the more impassioned critiques of Rogoff's speech, calling his view naive and suggesting that Rogoff doesn't account for the failure in Congress to commit serious money to transit operations and expansion:

The unfortunate reality for Mr. Rogoff is that the federal government’s steadfast unwillingness to help cover operations spending is the primary reason agencies haven’t been able to maintain service levels during the economic downturn. Meanwhile, while he may be right that transit organizations aren’t doing enough to keep their systems in good shape, he neglects to mention that that problem is a reflection of the federal government’s inability to increase spending levels on maintenance in line with needs.

In the Bay Area, the ramifications of Rogoff's speech could be significant for several key expansion projects, including the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency's (SFMTA) Central Subway and BART to San Jose.

SFMTA Chief Nat Ford told Streetsblog that he's not worried the FTA will change its position on funding for the Central Subway, even with the recent 10 percent service cuts at Muni.

"Last year we went through a very vigorous financial audit administered by the FTA to make sure that we had enough financing to run our existing system properly, keep it in a good state of repair, in advance of approving our full funding grant agreement for Central Subway," said Ford. "They gave us a green light to move into final design. That's why we're proposing that the system we operate, we can properly operate from a financial situation."

Unlike the Twin Cities Central Corridor project, which has fully lined up its local funding match, the SFMTA still has to secure $164 million in local funding by the end of 2011 to satisfy the FTA. Rogoff wrote in a January 7 letter that he was concerned about the SFMTA's ability to maintain a state of good repair to the existing system without degrading existing service.

Presumably, if the SFMTA restores some or all of the service it cut this year, which Mayor Newsom and the Board of Supervisors are debating, it will go a long way toward placating the federal administration.

At BART, spokesperson Linton Johnson said his agency doesn't disagree with Rogoff, but argued the FTA was "taking a too simplistic look at the overall picture."

"If an expansion does bring a transit system enough new riders that it both enhances the existing system and gets people out of their cars, resulting in cleaner air, then we can't afford not to do both," said Johnson. "The bottom line is it's not always an either or. Sometimes you have to spend money to make a lot more money."  

BART Board Director Tom Radulovich agreed with Johnson that expansion must be sound and attend to the needs of the core system.

"Sustainable expansion must be built on a sound foundation of reinvestment in existing systems and services, and maintaining service quality while expanding to new markets," said Radulovich. "Expanding service in this new environment of capacity constraints and fiscal constraints calls for planning that is less about delivering trophy projects, and more about delivering value for money."

"BART extensions which make new demands on overstretched operating budgets, compete with maintenance needs for scarce capital dollars and don't address core system impacts are unsustainable," he added.

Photo: Bike and Roll.

According to Mari Hunter, an intern who organized the campaign for the Mayor's Climate Protection Initiative, I Bike SF is modeled on a national program called Bicycle Benefits.

"The idea simply is to encourage cycling and support local businesses," said Hunter, who added that the focus for the Mayor's Office was to make the program as easy as possible for businesses and to have them benefit through a boost in sales.

Tim Papandreou, the SFMTA's Deputy Director for Planning, said beyond meeting the city's goal of encouraging cycling, I Bike SF would help reduce congestion in business corridors where parking is at a premium. Papandreou said Hayes Valley was a perfect pilot location because it is relatively flat, close to Market Street and similar bicycle corridors, and because the neighborhood is congested with cars looking for parking.

For Elizabeth Leu, who owns the children's store Fiddlesticks on Hayes Street, the idea of promoting bicycles makes sense for San Francisco, along with starting the pilot in Hayes Valley, a strongly proud neighborhood that has voted to forbid chain stores.

"I think it's spot on to be rewarding bikes and people who bicycle," said Leu, who's offering a 15 percent discount on non-sale items to bicycle riding customers. She was doubtful, however, about the impact it would have on business. "I don't know about the redemption. 
The jury is still out on whether bikers will be taking advantage of the program."

Leu was also concerned that the city hadn't done enough publicity around the program to create a buzz. "It needs more legs, it needs more viral marketing, but we haven't seen it," she said.

Hunter acknowledged that the Mayor's Office was working on a quick turnaround to get the program started for Bike Month, but she expected the campaign would get more attention as Bike to Work day approaches. With the thousands of fliers in Bike to Work Day totes the SFBC will hand out on Thursday and an increasing focus in the media and bicycle newsletters, the program should be much better known by the time it expands to other commercial areas, including Lower Divisadero for June and Upper Market/Castro for July.

While the city expects the program will be popular with locals who already frequent familiar small businesses, the SFMTA's Papandreou said the city was working with bicycle rental companies like Blazing Saddles and Bike and Roll to let tourists know about the I Bike SF campaign and get them to explore areas of San Francisco that are not along the usual Embarcadero and Fisherman's Wharf routes.

"We're noticing the bicycle renters at Bike and Roll and other facilities are riding the Embarcadero and the Marina and taking their money to Sausalito," said Papandreou. The organizers of I Bike SF hoped to "engage people who come to the City of San Francisco to start riding to and exploring other neighborhoods."

In addition to the individual bicycle rental companies and local businesses, I Bike SF has partnered with the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Golden Gate Restaurant Association and the Small Business Commission to promote the campaign and get their input.

Laurie Armstrong, Vice President for Public Affairs at the Convention and Visitors Bureau, said they had organized similar programs like Show Your Zip during the holidays, which gave discounts to anyone who lived in a zip within the 9-county Bay Area, or Show Your Badge, which gave discounts to convention participants.

Armstrong said a campaign that supported bicycles for shopping locally dovetailed with the current efforts to market San Francisco as a leading green city. She also echoed the SFMTA's concern that tourists weren't necessarily exploring many of the neighborhoods in San Francisco that weren't among the traditional destinations.

The citywide Stand Against Sit Lie campaign Saturday March 27 was a big success by all accounts. The website claims over 100 events took place on San Francisco sidewalks, and over 1000 people participated. That doesn’t sound overwhelming at first glance, but if you recall that this began as a brainstorm in a bar just a couple of weeks ago, and relied heavily on Facebook and personal networking, it is an impressive beginning.

Mayor Gavin Newsom, Police Chief George Gascón, and the S.F. Chronicle suburban-values attack-dog C.W. Nevius have been drumming up an Astroturf grassroots effort to criminalize sitting on sidewalks. The focus has been the Haight-Ashbury, where there are actual homeowners who have been contributing their energy to this effort. The joke at our 24th and Shotwell sit-in was that these same upscale homeowners in the Haight have been trying for over 30 years to “clean up” Haight Street. They had an organization for a while in the 1980s called RAD (Residents Against Druggies) and you could reliably buy pot or acid by looking for them, and then seeking the cluster of dealers who trailed them around the neighborhood!

Anyway, these folks, egged on by the powers-that-be, are clamoring for a new law to give police carte blanche to evict anyone they want to from the neighborhood’s sidewalks. The proposed ordinance is drawn very broadly, allowing for police to accost anyone on any sidewalk in the city and fine them and, if there’s a second offense, have them jailed for 30 days. This is being promoted as a means to enhance public safety, despite the fact that there are already laws against blocking sidewalks and aggressive panhandling. It’s unclear what purpose this new ordinance is supposed to fulfill, other than a new tool of arbitrary power for the police to use against “undesirable” populations.

Our group gathered at 24th and Shotwell as part of the citywide effort to say no to this proposed law. My partner Adriana organized it as a Tea Party, matching similar efforts near Buena Vista Park and elsewhere. We also put out some mats and a beanbag toss game, along with cake and tea. You really can’t imagine how fun it is to connect with passersby and neighbors on a local sidewalk until you try it out. First the Palestinian store owner came out wondering why we were there. He loved our tea since it tasted like ‘Arab tea’!

Adriana and Wolf discuss public life.

Our first “guest” was Wolf, a longtime resident of the Mission, a self-acknowledged dope fiend who had done a couple of long stints in jail. His dark leathery skin confirmed his years of living on the street. His mother was a Mission district Italian and his father a Mexican from New Mexico, and he had the distinction of being an American who was deported from Mexico after six years in Guadalajara. He was quite the beanbag tosser too! A white homeless friend of Wolf’s asked, “Just tell me this. “Why can white people sit on tables in front of cafés without being harassed? I don’t cause any trouble here. I’m just enjoying the street too.”

Adriana invited Spanish speakers to stop for tea, while various friends slowly began to gather. I spoke for a while with a British visitor who was walking his host’s dog. He couldn’t believe anyone would want to curb street life, since that was so much of why he and others wanted to visit San Francisco. A young French woman appeared in overalls a few doors down, emerging from her new gardening effort in the backyard. I hailed her and invited her for tea, explaining what we were doing. She too was aghast at the notion that San Francisco would restrict life on the streets this way. Both of them were quick to emphasize that safe streets are crowded streets.

Beanbagging fun on Shotwell.

Of course, the unspoken argument of the Sit-Lie proponents is that there are normative behaviors that must be conformed to. It’s not a problem to be on the sidewalks as long as you’re moving along in the endless process of shopping. It’s stopping to engage in activities that are economically purposeless, that actually animate a public life, that create the serendipitous and unpredictable moments and connections that give city life its strong appeal—those are the activities that must be “curbed.” There are three acceptable reasons to be in public space: working, commuting, shopping. If you’re not doing those things, go home and watch TV. That’s the American Way of Life. Earlier in the week, Adriana asked a local beat cop his opinion about the Sit/Lie initiative. He responded that it was a terrible idea. “Just another way in which a community avoids dealing with a grave social issue by having police move undesired people out of sight. It doesn’t solve the problem.”

We spoke with several dozen people during the three hours we occupied the sidewalk. A couple of local DPW street workers hung out with us and had some cake, played some beanbag. Part of their job is to shoo street people along, so they were sympathetic to the opposition to the proposed law. Two neighborhood  homies, Little George and Rigo, spend a lot of time on the corner, and they were delighted that we were staking it out as public space. Elderly Latinas were quite supportive. One woman, Carmela, came up to us and became quite animated. She told a long story about losing her son —7 years of duty in the army followed by 17 years of duty as a postal worker—who died after being hit by a car. She had earlier lost her husband, a sibling and her parents, but the loss of her adult son sent her into a tailspin of despair. “The loss of a son is like no other loss.” She would go out to the street day after day, sitting on stoops and sidewalks. She imagined people thought she was insane, but she needed to walk, to sit in the sun, to be on the street to heal her pain. “You don’t know what pain people carry in their hearts, only they know. I went to the streets to carry mine.”

A posse of cyclists stopped by, including Sue King who is one of the coordinators of Sunday Streets. She complained that we were engaging in a somewhat misguided effort since the asphalt-covered streets (as opposed to the limited space of the sidewalks) were a huge common space that we should be working to re-purpose. Of course she’s right, but the deeper problem is that we’ve already been put on the defensive AGAIN. So much of what passes for “progressive” politics in San Francisco is actually opposing pro-privatization, pro-business, pro-police initiatives. A forward agenda of urban transformation, whether motivated by the Transition Town logic driven by peak oil and climate change, or just the desire to make us more self-reliant and resilient, remains absent from the political landscape. Local activists continually fall into the trap of calling for “jobs” without any discussion of what kind of work SHOULD be done. Demanding jobs in the absence of a broad agenda of ecological transformation based on mutual aid and a solidarity economy is to reinforce the logic that trapped us in the first place.

22nd and Valencia.

That’s the beauty of opening a public space, even for just a few hours. Across the city, dozens of conversations took place, new friendships were forged, and political networks that might go a lot further in the future started to find themselves. At 24th and Shotwell, we didn’t hear a negative word from anyone until we were wrapping it up. A half dozen young hipsters were entering the apartment building we had been sitting in front of. I asked them if they knew about the proposed ordinance. They hesitated, and then one said, “you know, I actually would support something like that. I’m sick of these guys out here at 4 a.m. drunk, puking, yelling at each other.” It was a telling moment. Here were 20-somethings who thought another law was somehow going to remove undesirable people from their sidewalk, as opposed to a well-resourced campaign of public housing and social services. I pointed out that there were already laws against public drunkenness and a young woman said, “we call the police but they don’t show up.” So, passing another law is going to change that?

Karaoke erupts at corner of Hill and Valencia.

San Franciscans, like residents of most big cities, are in a continuous process of reshaping public spaces. There are pilot programs for new ways to use Market Street, for pocket parks in areas covered with underutilized asphalt, for Sunday Streets closures, for opening sidewalks to “green sewers,” and even some tentative efforts to launch more public art and/or urban agriculture in empty lots. All of these experiments are welcome departures from the long-simmering biases favoring the total unquestioned domination of private automobiles over public space.

Behind most of the experiments are deeper ideas of an improved life, what some people are quick to dismiss as “utopian.” The anti-utopians apparently consider change impractical or threatening, or have accepted the close-minded meme of the past few decades that any kind of “social engineering,” or public planning to improve human interaction, is inherently totalitarian. This mentality is rooted in a presumption that the way things are is always good enough, or that even if they aren’t, humans are so inherently corrupt or power-mad that any effort to improve things can only make it worse. The dark chapters of mid-20th century totalitarianism (now being regularly conflated to the present by Murdoch’s pompous blowhards) are somehow supposed to be examples of why trying to make life better is impossible. The American Way of Life, with all its poverty, racism, militaristic imperialism, shallow materialism, et al, is somehow the best we can hope for, and anyone who doesn’t accept that at face value is at best a dupe of some future dictator.

For those of us concerned with transit planning, or urban planning more broadly, this politico-cultural baggage comes with the territory. It shapes the discussion before it starts, and so a lot of folks have learned to think small, so as not to fan the flames of fear.

Paul and Percival Goodman series of plans for cities presented in their 1947 book "Communitas" propose a libertarian-yet-socialistic urbanism, focused on both efficiency and individual choice. "The Community with the Elimination of the Difference Between Production and Consumption" presents a hexagon-shaped plan with multi-use residential, commercial, public and industrial sector in the city center, surrounded by a ring of "diversified farms." From "49 Cities" exhibit at SPUR.

The center of this city is highly dense and irregular. The proximity of the urban core to the farms and countryside allows for easy access from one to the other, and the farms are valued for their educational and aesthetic value in addition to their productive use.

Curiously, SPUR is hosting an exhibit right now called “49 Cities” in which a variety of utopian urban plans are revisited, from the works of Le Corbusier to Owenite cooperative colonies, to Levittown and Brasilia, and even a Buckminster Fuller plan to put a giant Dome over midtown Manhattan. One curiosity of the exhibit is its organization of a “Fear Timeline” which plots various utopian urban visions over a four-century long timeline. Clustered largely in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, most of the visions were concocted to address the dominant “fears” of their era, whether it be military invasion by a foreign army, securing internal security against uprising masses, ensuring access to water or food, controlling disease, etc.

Given the overarching theme of utopia, I expected the exhibit to be more inspiring than it is. The authors of this study have chosen to flatten out the particularities of human culture, political movements, passion and visionary excitement, to instead present the studies as composites of specific statistical comparisons. The end result is a series of odd two-dimensional diagrams (like the one above) which allow plans from across time and space to be compared on total land areas, total housing, distribution of land-uses, population, green spaces in its variations, water use, etc.

Almost as an antidote to this numbing exhibit, Matt Hern came to town recently and gave a few talks. I caught him at the Studio for Urban Projects, an exciting new venue in the Mission on 17th Street near Guerrero. Hern is from Vancouver and has a new book out called Common Ground in a Liquid City: Essays in Defense of an Urban Future. I haven’t had a chance to read it all yet, but his presentation was quite a refreshing alternative to the kind of dry, bureaucratic approaches to which most urban planners tend to succumb. Hern is a fully accredited Urban Studies Ph.D., but standing in front of us in a white t-shirt and jeans, his head shaved, talking about planting community gardens in his East Vancouver neighborhood, and defending the right of the local junkies to hang out in the neighborhood park, he came across as the neighbor you wish you had. (He has small children too, and still says he’d rather have the drug dealing going on in the open in the middle of the park than being busted and pushed into the alleys and doorways of the surrounding neighborhood. That way he can see it and work around it.)

His book refers back to Vancouver, but it’s written from a number of other locales around the world. He has chapters from Thessaloniki, Greece, Istanbul, Turkey, New York City, Diyarbakir, Kurdistan, Portland, Oregon, and others. He explained to us that however you think about your own city, once you go elsewhere, it always develops in interesting ways. The comparisons one can make when far from home are often surprising. Suddenly you notice a sensible bus shelter, or an open streetside marketplace, and realize that an analogous locale in your home city could learn a lot from this new perspective.

Hern is concerned with gentrification, like most of us that live in cities that are rapidly evicting long-time populations of poor and working class people. San Francisco is a quintessential example of this process. Here in the Mission where I live, the process of turning into a mini-Greenwich Village proceeds unabated. You wouldn’t know there’s an economic crisis going on here by glancing in to the many new, crowded, upscale restaurants.

As Hern says:

The market puts us in Faustian bargain: almost any attempts to beautify, improve, develop, or embolden a community inevitably means it will price its most vulnerable/valuable citizens out and undermine all that good work. Capitalism values selfishness and self-interest above all. Progressive planning and social policy try to mitigate this, but are always behind the curve and at a pronounced disadvantage… Cities CAN do something other than smooth the way for capital and/or clean up its messes. It is possible to articulate and develop genuinely democratic and inclusive strategies that are not self-defeating, that don’t reduce “community” to a commodity. There have to be ways to imagine sustainable community development that doesn’t price people out. I think we can carve huge areas out of this economy for non-market life.

I agree. The specific remedy for the housing crisis that is pricing ever more people out of life in San Francisco is the limited equity co-op based on a land trust. We have functioning co-ops here in town, the most forward looking being the San Francisco Community Land Trust. They’ve already managed to acquire one building on Columbus in North Beach where the former elderly Chinese tenants are now owners, paying only slightly more than they used to pay in rent. Removing properties from the market in perpetuity should be the goal of an aggressive social capital fund under democratic public control -- not to make a revolution, but to start the process of wresting our lives from the vicissitudes of raw capitalism when it comes to home, community, and shelter.

Housing is only a small but important part of this larger agenda of radical change. To make San Francisco a city that connects with the needs of its residents requires a very different political structure and very different forms of power to emerge, ones that will allow for a wholly new kind of public planning to take place. The kind of transition to a low-energy, low-water, high quality-of-life future that we must begin to make will depend on a great deal of mutual aid and solidarity. Instead of building infrastructure that could facilitate a more robust common life, this city’s mayors have consistently put the interests of wealthy property owners and large corporations ahead of its working and middle class residents. The quasi-progressive majority on the Board of Supervisors since 2000 has done little to reverse this deep bias in city politics.

Utopian thinking is the only realistic way forward at this point. Leaving our fate in the hands of PG&E, Bechtel, Chevron, and the rest of that lot is to ensure our inability to face a future fraught with radical change.

Matt Hern sums it up nicely:

An ecological and an ethical city is one and the same thing—we can’t have a “green” city without reimagining our social institutions. And that can’t be made to happen by relying on politicians or planners or developers. They can’t lead, they have to get out of the way and allow the neighborhoods, communities, public spaces, and common spaces that make a great city to become the ongoing expression of a constant series of choices made by everyday citizens.

Fighting for our common spaces, our right to what we already DO have, is underway. This Saturday, March 27, from 10-5 all over town, take to the sidewalks. Sidewalks are for people! Use them! Many of us will gather at Castro and Market at 4 pm to dramatize our opposition to a mayor and police chief (and their political supporters) bent on destroying the fabric of San Francisco. Check it out online at www.standagainstsitlie.org.

DPW Director Ed Reiskin, Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, and Mayor Gavin Newsom standing in what used to be two parking spaces. Photos: Matthew Roth

"This is a change in philosophy and how we think of the public rights-of-way," said Department of Public Works Director Ed Reiskin, who noted that approximately 25 percent of the public space in San Francisco is taken up by streets.

"There's an extraordinary amount of the public realm that is not park space, that's actually in the public rights-of-way, that's actually the streets," said Reiskin. "Unfortunately most of it is covered with concrete and asphalt and it was designed for cars and not for people."

The Mojo Cafe parklet is the first of several forthcoming parklets, which are technically part of the Pavement to Parks initiative spearheaded by Mayor Newsom. Though the projects are pilots, they have proven very successful and have quieted some of the early critics in neighborhoods where they've been implemented.

Newsom prefaced his remarks by assuring those critical of the parklet that Divisadero and the North of Panhandle neighborhood had not in fact lost any parking because an old bus stop that was removed nearby is now parking for two cars.

"This is all about taking the narrative of the 25 percent of our land mass that [is] streets, and begin to take a little bit of that back and open that up for the community and create a framework where there is a stronger community connection, a stronger sense of place and a better community environment as well," said Newsom.

District 5 Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi said that the parklet and the greater reconstruction of the Divisadero Street corridor were finally realizing a pledge he made when he became a supervisor: "When I came into office in 2005, I declared that Divisadero would be one of our comeback corridors."

"This parklet right here, this 44 feet, is really the first template that is going to have a citywide impact," said Mirkarimi. "It's an exciting 44 feet."

Reiskin thanked a host of advocates for their hard work, such as the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition (SFBC) and the San Francisco Great Streets Project, as well as city, regional, and federal agencies for their fiscal sponsorship of both the larger Divisadero project and the parklet, including the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and the San Francisco County Transportation Authority. 

A special acknowledgment went to Riyad Ghannam, principal of RG Architecture, who donated his design services to create the parklet. Ghannam, who thanked the many volunteers from the Great Streets Project and SFBC, said parklets were both community amenities and challenges to the design community to get involved in innovative projects.

"I want to congratulate the city on taking a chance on something like this," said Ghannam, who explained that they had turned "two anonymous parking spaces" into a destination. Previously, said Ghannam, you couldn't have said to a friend, "meet me at these parking spaces."

Representing the North of Panhandle Neighborhood Association, Leela Gill praised the Divisadero reconstruction project for helping to bring the Alamo Square neighborhood closer to the North of Panhandle neighborhood, and with inspiring the creation of the Divisadero Merchants Association. Gill said the rapid turnaround of the street and the commercial corridor had improved safety.

"Twenty years ago, you wouldn't catch me walking down Divisadero, and now I would bring both of my children anytime, any day, down Divisadero," said Gill.

DPW's Reiskin, who noted that his daughter goes to school two blocks from the Mojo parklet, said he walks, rides his bike and takes the 24 down Divisadero almost daily, so the improvements had personal significance.

"This is part of a trend, this is not a one-off episode," Reiskin assured the crowd. "We really do see it as emblematic of a lot more to come."

 Future Pavement to Parks Plazas and Parklets

In order to keep the momentum going, Andres Power, Pavement to Parks project manager for the Planning Department, said they hope to have the next parklet at 22nd and Bartlett in the Mission built in early April.

"My goal is to get a project on the ground every three to four weeks," said Power, a schedule necessary to meet the Mayor's pledge to create twelve plazas and parklets in 2010.

Following the installation of the Mission parklet, planners will turn to the Inner Richmond, where they will install a parklet in front of Toy Boat Cafe on Clement Street, near 4th Avenue. Power said the Planning Department had just selected a pro-bono designer for the project, which could be in the ground by early to mid-May.

Unlike the initial Pavement to Parks Plaza at Castro and Market Street, where the novelty of the project left other city departments skeptical, Power said there was no resistance whatsoever to the new projects, in part because of the positive publicity they have engendered.

"At the end of the day, in the scheme of things, they are cheap. You get a lot of bang for the buck," said Power, who noted that the Mayor's presence at recent press events raised the profile of the work.

By this summer, Power and other project managers hope to move on two more parklets on Columbus Avenue, possibly in front of Caffe Roma and Caffe Greco as well as another plaza in Noe Valley on Noe Street near 24th Street, though Power said that still depends on community negotiations.

Funding for the plazas is coming from a combination of private donations and a large pot of economic development money assembled by the Mayor's Office of Workforce and Economic Development (MOEWD). According to Power, each plaza cost approximately $30,000 to construct and each parklet is less than $15,000.

"$30,000 is leveraging a bunch of resources," he said "Because we're able to leverage the good business savvy of local businesses and local project developers, we get these at much lower prices than say, New York City."

Power was quite proud to note that, rather than following the livable streets lead of cities like New York and Portland, Oregon, planners in those cities were consulting him.

"We've gotten calls from New York City, Portland, Boston, Seattle, and Washington DC inquiring about how we are making these happen."

The view of the parklet from the street, showing painted black planter boxes, shrubbery and bike parking.

Mayor Newsom enjoying the new seating.

As San Francisco moves closer to a decision on a new sit-lie ordinance that proponents say would facilitate the SFPD's clearing of unsavory elements off of sidewalks in neighborhoods like the Haight, resistance is building, and several organizers have called for a day of sidewalk action on Saturday March 27, from 10 am to 5 pm. I sat down recently with Nate Miller, one of the people who decided that they weren’t going to watch the City succumb to yet another pandering campaign of fear mongering without standing up to say no.

The sit-lie campaign has been orchestrated from behind the scenes for the past few months, trying to appear as a spontaneous grassroots effort by residents of the Haight-Ashbury. But as Miller tells it, there is strong evidence of coordination between “grassroots activists,” the Chronicle’s resident suburban attack dog C.W. Nevius, Mayor Newsom and Chief of Police Gascon. Together, they are using the decades-long presence of impoverished and annoying “gutter punks” on Haight Street to push a law criminalizing anyone who is sitting or lying on a sidewalk anywhere in San Francisco. Gabriel Haaland wrote an intelligent editorial in last week's Bay Guardian calling for a new approach to actual conflicts (greatly exaggerated in this case), rather than expanding the definition of so-called criminal behavior.

Here’s Nate in his own words: 

I grew up in San Francisco and lived here my whole life. For the past few months the Chronicle has been publishing really inflammatory articles talking about “thugs and bullies” in the Haight who are making it a living hell for residents, shoppers, and business people to exist there. The police have been talking about how this is a grassroots effort of the neighborhood, but the timing shows that is false. First the Chronicle starts drumming up all this stuff. Then they have the Mayor walk down the street when he’s supposedly undecided about this. He walks down the street with his baby, and supposedly sees a man sitting on the sidewalk smoking crack. Obviously it’s already illegal to smoke crack (and you can do it standing up!). He uses this to announce that we need to make it illegal to have people sitting on the sidewalk. Two days later he introduces legislation to the Board of Supervisors, already vetted by the City Attorney. He proposes two separate pieces of legislation. If you do anything in politics, you know that’s impossible [to get this done so quickly]. The Mayor must have been working on this since a long time ago.

The same day the Chamber of Commerce/Committee on Jobs does a poll that they claim shows there’s 71% support for a law outlawing sitting on the sidewalks. The question that they asked was not simply if you support a law that will make it illegal to sit or lie down on a sidewalk. It asked if you support a law that would arrest people who were harassing you. I’d support a law like that! I don’t want to be harassed. There are already laws against that. There’re laws against aggressive panhandling, against panhandling, against blocking the sidewalk, against smoking crack.

They say this is “a tool.” Supposedly “the police will use their discretion to use it appropriately.” Public Defender Jeff Adachi pointed out in a hearing that there were a lot of people that could be subjected to this law—tourists sitting on their luggage, students sitting on a sidewalk, homeless people—and all these people would be subject to $100 fine the first time, while repeat offenders could do 30 days in jail. The Chronicle’s Nevius said “that’s ridiculous, the cops would never arrest a tourist for sitting on their bag,” but the law states that it would be illegal to do that.

The argument made by Nevius and other Sit-Lie Law supporters is that the police can be trusted to implement this sweeping legal mandate in a reasonable manner. But the law defines a normal behavior, sitting on a sidewalk, as a crime!

Here’s Nate again:

Obviously the law will be used against the most vulnerable people. It’s a biological fact that some time during the day you’re going to need to rest. If you don’t have a home to do that in and you’re homeless you’ll have to sit on the sidewalk. I like sitting on the sidewalk! I just went to Vietnam and Cambodia to experience the vibrant, amazing things that go on in the streets. People are out there all day and it’s just a much better feeling. I feel a lot safer with a lot of people on the streets.

I think it’s a two-pronged approach. One is to scare people when they’re on Haight Street—just go shopping, minimize engagement with other people … (forget about people watching or anything else). This is also a serious effort by the Chamber of Commerce and conservative politicians to create a wedge issue for the November elections. That’s already playing out. You see people like Scott Weiner who is running for Supervisor in the Castro campaigning by saying “I support Sit and Lie because I care about public safety.” He can now run, playing to people’s fears that have been created by the Chronicle through all this fabrication, and make them feel safe.

There’s a lot of routes you can go besides this idea of “pre-crime,” that you can just make totally normal behavior illegal and then give the cops the discretion to punish people based on how they look or anything. Because if they’re not doing anything else illegal you are just arresting someone for sitting on the ground.

A few other people started talking about the broader implications of this law, that it is going to make it illegal to sit anywhere on the sidewalk. The first response was a very defensive one: hey, we’re under attack. But then we started talking about what we could do with this. What kind of conversations can we have?

Dangerous use of public space! Let's do it! (Photo: Kurt Bank)

Public space is important. On one hand there’s all these greening initiatives going on, but at the same time we’re trying to make it illegal to exist in public space, setting a really horrible precedent. We thought about Park(ing) Days, where people voluntarily occupy parking places and make them parks for a day, and people really enjoy it. We thought, why don’t we bring that on to the sidewalks for a day? We need to be encouraging more people to enjoy public space, to talk to each other, enjoying our vibrant and exciting city. Through talking about that we decided we were going to reach out to people who were interested in that. The basic idea is that anyone can bring out a table, or lawn chairs, or a mat, and do whatever you want, because it’s completely normal.

Bring yourselves and anything you like out to the street, and just relax. You can do whatever you want, argue with your family, party with your friends, make coffee for people. Some people are reclaiming the tea party idea and having a huge tea party. There’s going to be all kinds of fun things for people to go and see and engage with. We want people to contact us through the website we’re developing, or FB or email. Send us a location, a street corner where you will be situated. What time you’re going to be there, and a couple of sentences about what you think you’ll be doing. Afterward, we’re asking everyone to document it with a photo or a video, even a cellphone picture, and send it back to us. We’re creating a Google Map and hopefully there will be dozens or hundreds of locations where people were doing things. It will be a lot more cohesive after that.

Later on Saturday, March 27, everyone is going to Market and Castro to the new plaza there. By going there we want to connect to a bit of local history. In the 1970s Castro, they passed a similar law to target hippies that were laying around smoking pot or staring at the wall on acid or whatever, but what they really used it for was to target gay men who were flocking to the city to see this exciting new scene that was growing. There was this group called the Castro 14, guys who got put in jail for sitting on the streets. Harvey Milk was a huge opponent of this, and it eventually got repealed after he died because it was totally ridiculous and unfair and it was destroying part of the culture of the Castro.

It’s important that people contact us because we want to provide them with some basic infrastructure to make it a bit more focus and pointed. It’s unusual to do this kind of street activism when something is just being voted on at the Board of Supervisors. It’s going to go on the ballot this November regardless of how it’s voted on by the Board. We have this problem with Ross Mirikarimi and David Chiu who are basically bending to political pressure. They haven’t committed either way, but we’re going to send documents to everyone who contacts us with fact sheets and contact information to organize our opposition. Write us at info@standagainstsitlie.org and you’ll be getting good information, not spam, from us.

Another activity on the way to criminalization? (Photo: Kurt Bank)

Trial traffic diversions on Market Street. Photo: sfbike

Planners said they would focus on prioritizing the needs of pedestrians, transit riders, and cyclists, while allowing for necessary vehicular traffic, such as deliveries.   

"We want to increase transit performance and make bicycling comfortable for the 8 to 80 group," said Timothy Papandreou, Assistant Deputy Director for Planning and Better Market Street project manager for the Municipal Transportation Agency (MTA). Papandreou's reference to the "8 to 80 group" alludes to former Mayor af Bogotá, Colombia, and livable city luminary Enrique Peñalosa's refrain that a city must design its bicycle network so an 8-year old child or an 80-year old senior would feel safe riding through it.

Though it would be premature to speculate whether cars would eventually be banned on Market Street or whether bus and transit lines would be moved to neighboring streets, Papandreou said the city team was looking at best practice examples from around the world, including Melbourne, Australia, where Swanston Street was recently re-designed as a transit and pedestrian thoroughfare without private cars or taxis. He also pointed closer to home and said they had been monitoring the success of similar experiments in Portland and Seattle.

Papandreou noted that one quarter of all transit trips in San Francisco either happen on Market Street or traverse Market Street, so the importance of the project from a transit perspective couldn't be underscored enough.

"Market Street really is the main everything," he said. "Whatever we do [there] is going to impact the whole transportation system. "

Another guiding principle will be improving the pedestrian experience and enhancing destinations along the corridor. As with the transportation trials, the public space interventions will inform the public realm changes that will be part of the long-term vision.

In addition to the Art in Storefronts initiative, the city has experimented with trial Green Pods, where tables and chairs have been set up on sidewalks surrounded by plants, and small open-air concerts Through the People in Plazas program.

"It’s not just about curb to curb," said Astrid Haryati, Mayor Newsom's Director of Greening, in reference to the repaving of the street between curbs. "We’re looking into the kind of consultant that would work with us comprehensively, not just mobility but all aspects of placemaking."

Art on Market Street Mural. Photo: Matthew Roth

Addressing Systemic Challenges on Market Street

Of course, the sum total of trials won't add up to an improved street and public realm without addressing vital questions about economic development and the negative public perception of the Mid-Market portion of the street between Van Ness and 5th Street.

Haryati said the Mayor's Office of Economic and Workforce Development was talking with the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency about revisiting a redevelopment plan for the area, which would allow for increased bonding to spur development. Despite the difficult history and politics of redevelopment on this portion of Market, Haryati struck an optimistic tone, referring to the street and public space changes as a complement to "impactful development in the area."

Balancing development, streetscape beautification and transportation improvement with social issues like homelessness will likely be one of the more difficult challenges the planning team faces.

Dina Hilliard, Associate District Manager of the North of Tenderloin Community Benefit District (CBD), said that while she was encouraged by the Art in Storefronts pilots and the three People in Plazas jazz concerts the CBD funded, improving the lives of homeless people was a "root issue" that would be much more difficult to address.

"It is a balance and that’s why we’re saying let’s deal with the root problems," said Hilliard. "You can’t just put up a chair and a table and the issue is fixed."

Kit Hodge, Director of the San Francisco Great Streets Project, said the city was aware of the bigger challenges and would focus on them while making infrastructure changes.

"The city recognizes that this is a street with a lot of discussion about improvements," she said. The city is focusing "on the bones of the street, to some extent the blood, but recognizing that this project can’t solve all the issues with the street."

Though none of the planners said the process would be easy, they have taken heart with the general acceptance of the trial automobile diversions.

The Union Square Business Improvement District (BID), one of the groups wary of the traffic diversions last summer, was pleased that the changes hadn't hurt business.

"Our organization was concerned about what the diversion of automobiles off of Market Street might mean," said Linda Mjellum, Executive Director of the BID. Mjellum said her businesses hadn't noticed any negative impacts as a result. "We had no complaints," she said. "Zero."

Several interview subjects mentioned possible further additions to the traffic diversion trials, such as replacing the Parking Control Officers who have been directing private vehicles off the street at 10th Street with self-enforcing engineering changes that would further solidify the driving restrictions, though when that will happen is uncertain.

Mjellum noted that the merchants along Powell Street were also enthusiastic about the pilot that expanded pedestrian space, which is sorely needed, especially on weekends.

"I think the businesses on Powell Street are wide open to doing something more extensive," said Mjellum. "They would like to see the sidewalks widened on Powell, assuming we could accommodate passenger drop-offs."

Cyclists were also quite happy with the traffic diversions, which have made the experience of riding less stressful, according to the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition (SFBC).

"For a street as important and iconic for bicycles as Market Street we’re encouraged to see the city planning ahead for such a large project. This is the most important street in San Francisco," said SFBC community organizer Neal Patel,

In the end, the DPW will still repave Market Street in three years, regardless of the politics that help or hinder the design and implementation of the larger vision.

TA Deputy Director for Planning Tilly Chang said the weight of the decisions being made for the next few decades on San Francisco's most iconic street were not lost on anyone involved.

"We all know the expectation of the public, the advocates, the Board, the Mayor, is that we have to make the most of this opportunity," she said.

At a forum hosted by the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR) yesterday, panelists representing landscape architecture firms and Mayor Gavin Newsom's Office of Economic and Workforce Development (MOEWD) outlined several projects they are designing to utilize stalled development plots for interim green space and community benefit.

John King, architecture columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle and moderator for the panel, explained that his interest in the issue arose when he repeatedly passed a vacant lot last year on Mission Street downtown and witnessed construction stalled; asphalt was ripped up but left to sit, and nothing followed.

"Is there something else we can do with cleared lots and development?" King asked the audience at SPUR.

At several "pizza roundtables" last year at the Chronicle offices, King explained that architects, community groups, developers and city personnel began developing best-case ideas for interim use of vacant lots, including a number of proposals by the panelists at the forum.

"When you're talking about empty lots in cities, you're talking about something that recurs," said Sarah Kuehl, a panelist and Partner at PWP Landscape Architecture in Berkeley. Of empty lots, she said, "They tend to develop a sense of loss, of development that wasn't."

Several developers waiting to secure financing for projects in the city were eager to activate their lots and encouraged landscape architects like Rebar, an art and architecture collective known for Park(ing) Day and the Showplace Triangle Pavement to Parks Plaza, to develop interim uses on their properties.

"'Interim use' describes taking advantage of a gap in the cycle of utilization," said Rebar's John Bela of the projects they are designing, including a pollinator garden at 45 Lansing Street and a street tree nursery at 399 Folsom Street. Bela pointed to the Folsom Street project in particular because of the proposed street-tree nursery Rebar will develop with Friends of the Urban Forest, which would produce trees for use along sidewalks throughout San Francisco.

"It's the idea of using this temporary vacancy and activating it with productive uses," said Bela, explaining that interim spaces would also serve to test new ideas before making a significant investment in the site or in a program. "We're testing programs that can take advantage of these fallow lands."

Both Rebar and another panelist, Douglas Burnham of Envelope Architecture and Design, have been working on multiple lots in Hayes Valley that were opened up when the Central Freeway was removed and Octavia Boulevard was redesigned.

Overhead view of the two parcels in Hayes Valley where Envelope Architecture and Design plans to construct interim public amenities.

Burnham elaborated on the process his firm has used to envision the possible interim use of two plots of land adjacent to Patricia's Green, at Octavia Boulevard and Hayes Street, one of which is empty and the other a parking lot.

Burnham listed a number of criteria his firm is considering for the project, dubbed "proxy," including entertainment (movie nights, temporary art space,) retail (pop-up stores, food carts and trucks,) transportation (add bike racks, preserve some Zipcar parking,) and public amenities (bathrooms, wifi, recycling.) Burnham also proposed using the lots for community space, so groups like the Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association could meet in a more visible location.

In order to establish a framework for promoting these interim use projects around the city, the MOEWD's Michael Yarne said the city is exploring legislation to create Green Development Agreements (GDA). GDAs are binding contracts between the city and a developer that would "trade greater security and flexibility to a private land owner who has a project that has been stalled in exchange for some greater public benefits, significant investment in exciting interim uses," said Yarne.

"We've seen all these inspiring projects and designs," said Yarne, "How can we make this happen in a broader context?"

The GDA would be important leverage for developers, who might otherwise avoid interim uses for fear of the negative publicity that can result if the temporary use becomes so popular the community fights its removal. The "People's Park Paradox," according to Yarne, would then be averted and developers would have financial incentive to create public amenities.

Yarne and the MOEWD plan to introduce two ordinances in April that would establish GDAs generally and a pilot GDA at 399 Folsom Street, the tree nursery.

In the question and answer period, a member of the audience said that the Palace of Fine Arts was originally set up as space for a temporary exhibition and now it is a San Francisco icon. Asked how the city would reconcile the public's love of the temporary spaces with the development that would replace it, Yarne acknowledged it was a dilemma.

"There would be all sorts of land all over the city that we could imagine amazing things in, but we have always these countervailing needs and desires," said Yarne. Without incentive to use the empty lots, the public wouldn't have the opportunity to explore the interim uses. "It's really a classic trade-off," he said.

Another view of "proxy" at Patricia's Green in Hayes Valley.

Widespread outrage at the MTA Board, so visibly on display at today's meeting on Muni service cuts and fare increases, appears to be driving a growing surge of organizing that transit supporters hope might finally create a sustained movement with the potential to pressure the MTA into developing long-term fixes for Muni.

Most members of the public testifying at the meeting today were livid about the MTA's approach to the budget, illustrated by loud outbursts from speakers and thunderous applause by the more than 200 people who filled the overflow South Light Court at City Hall.

Long-time Muni organizers and transit wonks were hopeful the momentum that helped turn out so many people would continue beyond today.

"I'm thrilled. I think it's word of mouth, it's gotten around," said Sue Vaughan, a member of the MTA Citizens' Advisory Council and an organizer with Transit Not Traffic. "It's got a life of its own and it's gaining momentum."

Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, who roamed the overflow room and spoke with a number of people who gave public testimony, was awed by the turnout. "I'm incredibly impressed about the volume of people that have come out. They're well organized, and their passion is right on and felt by many of us."

"As far as I'm concerned, you've got a mini-movement that's not going to fade away."

An abundance of different groups were represented at the meeting, including advocates for improved transit, affordable housing, people with disabilities, youth, seniors, and more, as well as plenty of unaffiliated Muni riders who were deeply concerned about the MTA's proposals for balancing its budget.

Some of the testimony took on a distinctly populist tone: A number of people were angry with the recent hiring of John J. Haley as Director of Transit at a salary of more than $225,000, even as Muni operators are being asked to give concessions.

"We're saying, 'Chop from the top,'" said the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition's Frank Lara. "The problem is, this is mismanagement from these administrators. If they want to start criticizing over [operator] salaries then they should start with themselves."

Beatriz Herrera, an advocate with People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER), agreed that management at the MTA was creating a long-term problem that would exacerbate deficits.

"They should look at themselves before they start picking on the elderly and disability groups and people of color," said Herrera. "Working class communities here in San Francisco who ride the bus every day, who work and drive the bus every day, who clean the buses" were the people who make "mobility possible in the city," she said.

Amid Public Frustration, SPUR Presents Alternative Budget

Anticipating the need to present viable long-term solutions for Muni riders to support -- beyond simply cutting MTA Executive Director Nat Ford's salary -- SPUR brought out a budget plan of its own today.

Though the Board didn't have time to thoroughly analyze an alternative budget proposal presented at the meeting by SPUR Executive Director Gabriel Metcalf, the long list of measures in SPUR's proposal promised to fix the budget without service cuts or labor concessions [PDF].

"The message is that they have options," said Metcalf, who believes that if the MTA made some of the politically difficult decisions proposed by SPUR, they would run a surplus over the next two years, rather than the projected $100 million shortfall. "Our expectation is that some of these will go away, will prove politically infeasible, but they could reject a bunch of these and still balance the budget."

Along with proposals to stop paying work orders to the SFPD and redirecting 311 calls to 511 -- measures estimated to save the agency nearly $18 million annually -- SPUR also highlighted numerous glaring deficiencies in the MTA's handling of the parking assets it controls, which would generate more than $20 million annually.

According to SPUR's alternative budget, the MTA doesn't enforce an existing garage pricing ordinance that prohibits daily and early bird rates; the agency could enhance its existing garage ordinance citywide; it should enforce parking violations around City Hall and the Department of Justice; and it should extend metering to Sundays and add new meters around City Hall and MTA controlled facilities.

MTA's Judson True hadn't had the time to thoroughly analyze the proposals and said they would be taken to Chief Financial Officer Sonali Bose for further review, but acknowledged that "the people at SPUR have years and years of looking at Muni budgets and I think there are good ideas in there."

Metcalf shared the exasperation of many who gave public testimony, though he focused on the MTA Board, which he said was failing at its mandate to develop solutions like the proposals he put together. "What you do is ask staff to bring you proposals that are good," said Metcalf, who spent two months preparing the SPUR report. "That's the most minimal interpretation of your job as a Board member. You ask staff to bring you options that do the trick."

"Muni effects people's lives in a very immediate way every single day," added Metcalf. "When Muni doesn't work, San Francisco doesn't work."

Michael Rhodes contributed reporting for this story.

Photo of Showplace Triangle Plaza, formerly a street and parking lot. Photo: Captin Nod

Rebar's John Bela at the press conference. Mayor Gavin Newsom and Planning Director John Rahaim speak to each other in the background. Photo: Bryan Goebel.

The author communing with a tree in Showplace Triangle. Photo: Myleen Hollero.

22nd Street and Bartlett "Parklet"

Click to enlarge, photo simulation of the new Rebar 22nd Street Parklet. Images: Rebar.

Mayor Newsom admitted he was initially concerned that “maybe five or six people would pay attention” to the plaza announcement at 17th and Castro last year, but explained with contentment that 17th Street and those following it were so popular he and his agency staff started looking for smaller interventions in parking spaces.

As Streetsblog reported, the first of the Parklets, or wooden sidewalk extensions in parking spaces, will be implemented at Mojo Café on Divisadero Street, with a second to follow on 22nd Street near Bartlett Street, in front of Revolution Café, Escape From New York Pizza, and Loló Restaurant.

Newsom said the purpose of these Parklets was "to slow down the day and allow people to pause and reflect and connect with one another. It’s about bringing community together, bringing people together, and slowing down the pace of life in this frenetic urban environment we call home."

The 22nd Street Parklet will be built by Rebar and the design is intended to be "modular, portable, elegant, durable, and clearly a step above the standard streetscape," said Rebar's Bela. The Parklet will take up three parking spaces, or approximately 60 feet in all. The seating elements will vary along the length of the platform, with different sizes, shapes, and vertical orientations. As with the Mojo Café project, the restaurants will be responsible for maintenance and upkeep of the space, though it will be open to everyone whether or not they frequent the establishments.

According to the Planning Department's Andres Power, the total budget for the project will be $15,000, none of which will come from city coffers. The primary donation for the project comes from Streetsblog San Francisco principal supporter Jonathan Weiner, as well as some funds from the restaurants it will front. Planners still need to get approval from all the agencies responsible for street closures and special events, and the duration of the trial is expected to be six months initially, with extensions if the space is successful. The project will likely be built in late spring, or early summer.

"Widening sidewalks costs millions," Bela said, adding that Rebar was trying to answer the question: "How do you get safety and place-making without moving underground utilities" and at a cost that is reasonable?

Mayor Newsom also acknowledged the work that Rebar and other designers were doing was donated, for which he was grateful. "We’re taking the creativity of the city and all the talented folks, and they’re stepping up and helping support the city," said Newsom. "In this economic environment, we can’t write big checks, so we’ve got designers that are providing the design and the artistic expression, and they’re doing it pro bono."

Michael Rhodes contributed reporting for this story.

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Mayor Newsom fields questions from reporters today at Showplace Triangle. Streetsblog reporter Michael Rhodes in foreground. Photo by Bryan Goebel.

MTA Board Director Bruce Oka has confirmed to Streetsblog that a proposal to increase monthly Fast Pass prices for seniors, youth and the disabled will not be considered to help solve the MTA's budget crisis after the outcry from those communities.

"If push comes to shove I would rather do fare hikes in a way that will hurt the least number of people. But we heard from the public that seniors, disabled and youth cannot afford what they’re paying now," said Oka, a longtime disabled rights advocate, who added that he would rather see a hike in the monthly Fast Pass price for adults than service cuts. The proposal was to raise the discount Fast Pass prices by $10. They are already scheduled to go up to $20 in May from the current $15.

Streetsblog has learned that the fare hikes proposal has actually been unofficially off the table for a few weeks, but as Oka explained, the Mayor's Office still wanted it on tomorrow's MTA Board agenda. The Board will vote on a series of proposals to bridge the agency's $16.9 million budget gap, including a ten percent cut to Muni service and various monthly Fast Pass increases. A broad coalition of groups is expected to turn out to oppose the measures.

Oka said he will not vote in favor of service cuts tomorrow, and believes there might be enough votes on the MTA Board to reject them. He added that he plans to continue pressing for extending parking meter enforcement, but might be the lone director to support it.

Mayor Gavin Newsom confirmed as much about the fare hikes this afternoon while speaking to reporters after the Pavement to Parks announcement at Showplace Triangle. Newsom, responding to a question from Streetsblog, said it's possible $1.7 million of the $17.5 million the MTA is expected to receive in redirected Oakland Airport Connector (OAC) funds could be used to fill the gap left by eliminating that proposal.

"We could use that, but that would be a temporary reprieve, because it doesn't annualize to address that concern next year," he said. "But it doesn't take TWU off the hook to step up and do the right thing."

Newsom said that of all the proposals to reduce the MTA deficit, the proposed Fast Pass hike for seniors, youth and the disabled "is the one thing I want off the table, and I'm confident we'll get there." He said he had a meeting planned on the issue later this afternoon, presumably with MTA Chief Nat Ford.

Earlier this week, Ford told supervisors, acting in their role as the board of the San Francisco County Transportation Authority, that the $1.7 million would be used for operations, mostly for maintenance. The MTA has not officially clarified whether that money could alleviate fare hikes.

In his remarks to reporters, Newsom, while acknowledging the drastic statewide cuts to transit, said service cuts and other painful budget remedies before the MTA Board tomorrow rests on whether Muni operators are willing to give up a raise.

"We've asked the labor union, the Muni drivers, the Muni operators, to step up. They're due a raise and we're saying, please don't take a raise in this environment, don't make things worse, help us out, help the riders out. Help seniors, youth and disabled out. If you do, we won't raise the fare for seniors, youth and disabled, we won't make the service cuts as acute as we otherwise would."

Newsom said the choices the MTA Board makes tomorrow will be "conditional choices, subject to what the union does next week." Transit Workers Union members rejected a recent package of concessions, with many operators saying they weren't properly informed about the proposal. Newsom, as he has before, vowed to press ahead with Supervisor Sean Elsbernd's proposed charter amendment if drivers don't agree to concessions.

Newsom said extending parking meter enforcement to Sundays was still under consideration, but that it wouldn't happen anytime soon.

"What I am adamantly, vehemently against, is extending the parking meter hours in this economy, and hurting small businesses. For those who are eager to do it, take a look at what happened in the East Bay, and how that was received," he said, prompting cackles from some reporters and TV photographers. "Meters have been increased over the last number of years, people forget that, substantially increased since 2004. It's not as if parking has not become more punitive."

Still, Newsom admitted that some businesses have contacted him, urging him to do it because it would actually be favorable for business, with higher turnaround.

Oka said the Mayor is so opposed to extending parking meter hours that Newsom refused a request to do it downtown where Oka believed he could get support from merchants.

Update: In response to this story, MTA spokesperson Judson True called to clarify Oka's remarks, and said the discount Fast Pass proposal is not off the table, and will be decided by the MTA Board tomorrow. "Clearly, this is a painful proposal and we want to find another alternative but the proposal is very much on the table until our board decides otherwise in public, and there is no guarantee that will happen tomorrow.”

Mayor Gavin Newsom speaks at a press conference with U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at UCSF's Alumni House. SFPD Chief George Gascón looks on. Photos: Matthew Roth

On the heals of yesterday's vote by Transit Workers Union (TWU) Local 250 rank-and-file to reject the contract concessions negotiated by their President, Irwin Lum, and Mayor Gavin Newsom and senior management at the San Francisco MTA, Mayor Newsom expressed dismay and said he would support a November ballot initiative to force the issue with the union.

"We're hopeful that they can reconcile and they can go back to their membership and they can reconsider their vote," said Newsom after a press conference with U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act held at UCSF's Alumni House.

Newsom said if TWU membership balked, his office would coordinate with Supervisor Sean Elsbernd on his ballot initiative and put the matter before San Francisco voters this fall. Elsbernd's initiative, which he pulled several weeks ago, sought to amend the City Charter so that operator salary and benefits would not be guaranteed, but would be negotiated through the collective bargaining process. Elsbernd told Streetsblog this morning he was "emphatic" about bringing his amendment back for the November ballot.

"We'll go to the people of San Francisco, we'll get signatures collected immediately. Expect that to be done in the next week or two," said Newsom.

Mayor Newsom painted the issue as one between reducing TWU salaries or raising the fares for seniors, youth, and disabled riders, and he was confident the public would send a stern message to the union. "I don't think the riding public is going to accept a wage increase for the drivers at a time when their [own] wages are down and the fares are going to go up, particularly seniors, youth, and disabled."

Wages weren't the only thing the Mayor said would be at issue on the initiative. "I expect there'll be a ballot initiative that will be very robust, much more robust than a simple wage cap elimination. That to me was always a solution in search of a problem. There are work rule issues and other issues that will unquestionably be advanced through a signature drive if they don't go back and immediately reconsider the vote."

According to the MTA, the concessions would have reduced costs by $14.75 million, with $1.95 million coming in the remainder of Fiscal Year (FY) 2010, which ends June 30, and $12.8 million coming in 2011. Among other measures, the agreement would have meant that operators would pay their own retirement contributions and would have had to work a full 40-hour week before they could collect overtime, rather than existing work rules that allow operators to collect overtime even if they called in sick earlier that same week.

When asked about revenue generation proposals like extended meter hours on Sundays, a proposal the Mayor hinted at supporting last month, Newsom said it was premature. "It's not that simple," he said. "I don't mean to dismiss it, but it's a de minimis issue. The big issues I have to focus on and I'll get to that later."

MTA Spokesperson Judson True and Executive Director Nat Ford.

Riding back from the press conference on the N-Judah with MTA Executive Director Nat Ford, Streetsblog pressed the matter with the agency's chief.

"We are facing probably the worst financial crisis Muni has ever send in its history and it's going to require some bold and creative solutions," said Ford. "I think anything that will preserve service levels and reduce our expenditures to keep fares down, I have to support it."

Ford argued that extending meter hours during evenings or on Sundays would not produce the immediate expenditure reduction the agency needed for this budget cycle, but acknowledged he was looking at Sunday meters for the next budget cycle. "We are talking with the Mayor's office to see if it's a solution for 2011 and 2012," he said. 

Afraid that implementing extended meter hours now might poison the water for SFPark pilots, the occupancy-based parking management and congestion reduction solution the MTA is beginning to roll out, Ford said one of the options the agency is considering would be coordinating a Sunday pilot process into the SFPark program.

"One of the thoughts is to fold the Sunday meter pilot into the SFPark pilot and get some more information that could help us in 2011 and 2012," said Ford. He added that some business districts were supportive of Sunday hours and had contacted the MTA to say they "are interested in at least piloting it to help their businesses on Sundays."

The MTA has already begun installing vehicle occupancy sensors in parts of the SFPark Richmond control area and new meters are expected to be put in later this spring. Funding for the SFPark pilot comes in large part from a federal congestion mitigation grant received last year.

Supervisor David Campos at a recent gathering outside City Hall.

Campos has inserted himself into the debate by leading the charge on a charter amendment to change how the MTA Board is appointed. He has also requested an audit of the MTA's management practices. Results should be ready in time to inform the supervisors' vote in May on the MTA's budget for the next two years.

On the unplanned side, Campos will be leading the confirmation process for two MTA Board members this month. He's the chair of the Board of Supervisors Rules Committee, the first stop for Mayor Newsom's MTA Board nominations before they reach the full Board of Supervisors.

There's uncertainty on all three fronts at the moment. Details of the audit and the charter amendment measure are still being hammered out, and Mayor Newsom hasn't said whom he'll appoint to fill two MTA Board seats that will open on March 1.

After a press event for the Central Subway yesterday, the Mayor said he's still figuring out his appointments to many of the city's commissions, including the MTA. "I have about 45 appointments that we'll be making in the next few weeks," he said.

With any shot at broader reforms still half a year away, Campos said the Board of Supervisors will be making the most of its confirmation power over mayoral appointees to the MTA Board. "If we put a measure on the ballot, it wouldn't go on the ballot until November," he said. "In the meantime, we want to make sure that, within the current governing structure, Muni is in the best hands possible."

Like many of his colleagues on the Board of Supervisors, Campos said the keyword for directors is independence.

"What I look for is someone who is truly independent of not just the Mayor but also the Board, and who's going to ask the right questions, who's going to be engaged, who understands what it's like to ride Muni, who is responsive to the needs of the ridership, who holds Muni accountable. That kind of independence, in my humble opinion, has not been demonstrated by some members of this MTA Board."

Audit Could Shape Budget Decisions and Charter Amendment Measure

Despite a tight timeline, Campos is adamant that the audit will help inform both the supervisors' MTA budget decisions in early May and the charter amendment proposal. The picture is already looking grim, with deficits of about $50 million for each of the next two fiscal years

"It would really address a larger question that is in the minds of everyone who rides Muni: Is Muni being run properly? It would look at basic best practices around management. It's not just mid-level management or upper-level management, it's management, period."

That could include any level of management, from Executive Director Nat Ford to line supervisors, Campos said. In addition to making sure operations are run in a way that makes sense, the audit will look at how the MTA spends its money, and will almost certainly look at work orders from other city departments.

On the governance side, Campos' charter amendment proposal would include splitting appointments to the MTA Board between the Mayor and the supervisors, something Supervisor John Avalos had proposed last year. The Mayor currently appoints all seven Board members, who are confirmed by a majority vote of the supervisors.

"I think there has to be some form of a split appointment between the Mayor and the Board," said Campos. "Then we need to look at other things to consider. There are some agencies, like the Department of Elections commission, that are appointed by other city officials. There are a number of possibilities. So, I don't want to say that we're looking at one over the other."

Campos has ruled out the prospect of having a voter-elected MTA Board member.

"I think that makes it a political fight that is predicated on who runs the most effective campaign," he said. "Money could be a big part of that. We ultimately want something that's going to provide accountability and transparency for the ridership."

In addition to studying the city's other commissions, Campos said he would draw on the results of the audit in shaping his governance reform proposal. "Any time you look a management audit, you look at the oversight that's provided - or not provided, for that matter."

Initial reports on the ballot measure focused on the call for split MTA Board appointments, but Campos said the measure would include structural reforms as well. "By that I mean rules that govern the day-to-day structure and the operations of Muni in such a way that they're counterproductive," he said.

"I don't know that simply changing the governance structure will get you to the result you want, which is having the most effective public transportation system in the country. I think the governance structure is part of it, but not the only thing."

Once again, the results of the audit could play a key role in shaping that proposal. The city's transit advocates no doubt will wish to have a voice as well. Campos said he's listening. "I don't want it to be something that just comes out of the Board of Supervisors. I think it has to be a grassroots effort."