Streetsblog San Francisco

Depressed about the direction Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan is heading? Cheer yourself up by starting to plan for Park(ing) Day 2007. Friday, September 21 is the day when urban dwellers the world over pop quarters into parking meters and take over on-street spaces, temporarily transforming them into miniature parks, playgrounds, cafés and community spaces.

San Francisco is throwing down the gauntlet this year with the construction of the human-powered Parkcycle, above.

Streetsblog is looking for some New York City Park(ers) to step up and meet the challenge by building a parking space-sized studio apartment on wheels complete with Viking range, plasma television and plumbing. Take advantage of the cheapest rent in town -- on-street parking space.

 

From the San Francisco Chronicle via Carfree USA:

For the first time ever, at the height of the morning rush hour there were more bicycles than cars heading downtown on Market Street in San Francisco, officials said.

Mayor Gavin Newsom, in a black track suit, survived the ruts on Valencia Street on his loaner mountain bike and made it to City Hall, where he was joined by a half dozen supervisors on bikes.

"You should see the potholes in this town,'' the mayor said.

Newsom seized the day to unveil the city's new cycling strategy, a 10-point plan now being held up pending an environmental review.

"Turnout was huge,'' said Leah Shahum, executive director of the bicycle coalition. "We gave away 3,000 canvas bags and we're down to our final bunch of bananas.''

Photo: San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and Leah Shahum of the SF Bike Coalition, by Drew Rogers via Flickr 

Brooklyn

San Francisco

Like Clarence Eckerson, I recently returned from a visit to San Francisco. I left with a feeling that San Francisco has the best urban surface transportation in the country: emissions-free buses drawing power from overhead wires, regular buses, cable cars moving up and down steep hills, many cyclists despite those hills, partially buried lightrail and a regional subway. But the most heartwarming thing to see was the streetcars. What a joyous and democratic mode of transportation, the streetcar.

Sure, we have light rail over in Jersey City, and it's great to have that. But there is nothing like an honest-to-God fully functioning streetcar system like the one San Franciscans have managed to preserve restored on Market Street and the Embarcadero (the F Line). Think they're just for tourists? Maybe the cable cars, but the streetcars I saw were standing-room-only, with a mix of visitors and natives. There are probably other models visible in museums, but these old cars and the ones New Orleans still only partially restored after Hurricane Katrina are the last in the country still doing the heavy lifting. At least for now.

Now that the corpse of the ill-fated attempt to bring streetcars to Red Hook (pictured above) is cold, we can begin to think about the new efforts to bring streetcars back to Brooklyn. 'Frisco proves that it is possible.

(Top two photos by Futurebird.)

Park(ing) Day San Francisco
A Clarence Eckerson Streetfilm
Running time: 6:51 - 22.05 MB, QuickTime

New York City Streets Renaissance Filmmaker Clarence Eckerson happened to be in San Francisco on Thursday during International Park(ing) Day. Organized by an art collective called Rebar Group, the idea behind Park(ing) is to reclaim curbside automobile parking spaces by temporarily transforming them into grassy parkland complete with benches, tables, chairs, trees, sandy beaches, and eclectic art installations. One park(ing) spot even offered a self-serve lemonade stand.

In San Francisco over two dozen parking spots were "liberated" including Mayor Gavin Newsome's space in front of City Hall. A number of other cities around the U.S. also participated in Park(ing) day, including New York City where a curbside space on 8th Avenue near 30th Street was, for a few hours, used for something other than automobile storage.

If you have links to Park(ing) events in other cities, please send them along.