Month: February 2009

I just want to give all of you regular readers a heads up that you'll soon be seeing some design and branding changes implemented on Streetsblog and the Livable Streets Network web sites.

Today on the Streetsblog Network, we step back and take a look at a philosophical question, courtesy of Kaid Benfield at NRDC Switchboard. As we go forward into the 21st century, trying to create sustainable communities, how do we deal with the aging relics of the 20th century's development patterns?

Should the Bay Area Implement Its Own Gas Tax to Fund Transit? (HSRB) The Transbay Blog Adds Up the STA Fund Losses to Bay Area Transit Agencies Why the Auto Industry Bailout is Doomed (Boston Herald via Hugh Bartling) SF Supe Urges Port Commission to Study Northern Waterfront (SF Gate) More on the Cuts at … Continued

Bashing Muni, an agency that has been historically underfunded, is a San Francisco pastime. Riders are used to break downs, delays and general unreliability. Could all that be about to change?

A lot of what makes living in a city so fun is the ability to walk or bike around and see surprising things that you wouldn’t expect, made possible by being in the streets and moving at a human pace, without the membrane of a steel box and corporate radio to mediate your experience. It’s even more fun when you juxtapose the oddities that you encounter with the history that is obscured or revealed by those discoveries. I took such a ride Saturday, down to the Bayview neighborhood to visit some community gardens I’ve been reading about via the Quesada Gardens website. I’ve visited Quesada Gardens a half dozen times since its original establishment in 2002, but this was the first time I met Annette Smith, one of the founders and guiding lights of the neighborhood renaissance that has accompanied the flowering of this remarkable garden.

Last week, Obama DOT Secretary Ray LaHood caused quite a buzz by discussing, in an interview with an AP reporter, the idea of taxing motorists on the number of miles they travel rather than the amount of gas they burn. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs quickly came out and publicly contradicted LaHood, saying a miles-driven tax "is not and will not be the policy of the Obama administration."

Advocates Gearing Up for Wednesday MTC Meeting on Stim Funds (Berkeley Daily Planet) The Examiner Reports on SF Chamber’s Misleading Congestion Price Survey  More on the Grim Budget Picture for Bay Area Transit Agencies (Merc) How Do We Make Transit Independent? Cap’n Transit Has Some Ideas  John McCain Confuses Light Rail with High Speed Rail … Continued

As we wrote a couple days ago about Jefferson Street, merchants on the commercial street there and throughout the city often assume parking spaces in front of their stores are vital to business, that their customers drive to buy, and that driving customers spend more because they can carry more goods home in their vehicles.