Year: 2009

Board website.

Walking to school may seem like an unfortunate casualty of the San Francisco Unified School District's school assignment system, which aims to desegregate schools by prioritizing diversity over proximity when placing students. But as the school district launches its Safe Routes to School program tomorrow in conjunction with Walk to School Day, there is hope that schools could significantly increase walking and bicycling to and from school even with the dispersed student bodies most schools have.

Adolfo Carrion Jr., director of the White House's new Office of Urban Affairs, today vowed to begin reconnecting Washington with the needs of the nation's cities -- even as he offered few tangible plans for breaking through the morass of the federal bureaucracy and effecting change in the near term.

That's the suggestion that an anonymous "Senate aide" made to Bloomberg News this morning, recounting a possible White House change of heart as mounting job losses stoke new debate over a second stimulus bill:

Our first user-generated slide show, on bike traffic, was a lot of fun. (See it here.) This time out, we're looking for pictures that show cars -- the most inefficient form of transportation -- hogging public space.

The city of Detroit has gotten a lot of attention recently, most of it lamenting how far its fortunes have fallen. Time magazine has even sent reporters to live in a Detroit neighborhood for a year, covering it as if it were a foreign country -- which, in a sense, it is. Foreign at least to the American self-image of infinite growth and expansion.

MTA to Remove Oak Street SFgo Sign; Decision on Fell Sign Pending (BIKE NOPA) Oak City Council to Vote on Opposing Oak Airport Connector (BCN/CBS5, Living in the O) Some Drivers are Irked About Longer Carpool Hours on 680 (Roadshow)  Fleeing the Scene Pays for Drunken California Drivers (BikingInLA via Streetsblog.net) One of Two Girls … Continued

In light of news that the Mayor opposes extended parking meter hours and that taxi medallions may bring in $12 million less than anticipated, the MTA's mid-year budget could be in trouble, threatening to bring deeper Muni service cuts than the ones on the way later this fall.

The White House's effort to promote sustainable communities has prompted serious (and inadvertently humorous) hand-wringing from conservative pundits who fear the concept of livability will translate into governmental edicts on lifestyle choices. What's the best way to counter such tactics?