Month: February 2009

The City Design Group at the Planning Department has released its proposal for transforming Jefferson Street at Fisherman's Wharf into a single-surface pedestrian priority street, the first of its size in San Francisco.

File the following in the "Can't Believe My President Gets It" category. 

Now that the president has signed the stimulus bill, members of the Streetsblog Network have thrown themselves into the task of trying to figure out where all that money is going.

Automakers Come Back to Public Feed Trough for $14 Billion (SF Gate) (NYT) Obama Signs Stimulus Bill Into Law (NYT) The Politics Behind Obama’s Funding of High Speed Rail in Stim Package (Politico) Reaction to Politico Article at HSR Blog (CHSRB) Transpo Sec LaHood on How Stim Money Will Be Spent (Transportation for America) Good … Continued

Warning: Graphic video

With overwhelming approval for the Proposition K half-cent transportation sales tax in 2003, San Franciscans  signaled they not only wanted to maintain a state of good repair and operational solvency for their transit system, they were willing to dedicate more than 25 percent of the tax to expansion, including a network of transit preferential streets and Bus Rapid Transit (BRT).  The first two BRT corridors will be on Geary Boulevard and Van Ness Avenue, the latter with a target opening date by Muni's centennial at the end of 2012.

Editor's note: This is the latest installment in our series of occasional stories on how to improve the streets for pedestrians in San Francisco.

So the wheeling and dealing over the stimulus bill is done, and the spending, presumably, is soon to begin. Members of the Streetsblog Network are looking at what it means for their communities.