Matthew Roth

The MTA might have a solution for the dangerous conditions at the Fell Street Arco gas station, where motorists queueing up to buy gas routinely block the bike lane and force cyclists to navigate between bumpers or try their hand a lane over in speeding traffic. 

More headlines at Streetsblog Capitol Hill.

A few weeks ago in San Francisco, a number of urban farmers opened a gate in a chain-link fence at Laguna Street, between Oak and Fell Streets, and entered an overgrown lot that has been unused for nearly two decades. The farmers brought with them steaming piles of mulch, which they cast over the edge of the ramps formerly used by cars to enter and exit the elevated Central Freeway spur above Octavia Street, arranging the soil in rows for planting vegetables and filler crops.

More headlines at Streetsblog Capitol Hill

Despite a stated Transit First policy, the Transbay Joint Powers Authority (TJPA) and the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) are encouraging solo drivers to bring their cars into San Francisco's downtown and park all day at low prices, according to a parking union who has been picketing in front of a temporary 250-space parking lot at 80 Natoma/81 Minna Street, the site of the future Transbay Transit Center.

In a move that delighted the dozens of MTA bus and light-rail drivers and representatives of the Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 250 at the Board of Supervisor's Rules Committee Meeting today, Supervisor Sean Elsbernd withdrew a proposed charter amendment that would have removed a provision in the city charter that sets Muni base wages and benefits, on average, to the two highest paying transit systems nationally. The amendment would have required base wages and benefits be set through collective bargaining.

Expect to see twice as many pedicabs on the streets this weekend in San Francisco. If you're counting, that amounts to a modest addition of 15 bicycle taxis.

With the announcement of this year's $1.8 billion in Federal New Starts and Small Starts grants [PDF], two of the Bay Area's Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) projects are set to receive much-needed money to maintain their viability in the face of severe budget cuts. The vote of confidence in the Bay Area's first two BRT projects is an important step, particularly given the proposed changes of criteria at the federal level for these grants, proposals that could make it harder for San Francisco and Oakland to compete with other national projects, say planners.

San Francisco Police Chief George Gascón vowed last week to implement significant crime reducing strategies through his Compstat system and restructured enforcement based on best practices from inside and outside of his department, including two measures that have pedestrian and bicycle advocates astir.

As a country bumpkin who moved to New York City in my early twenties, there was no remedy for the overwhelming cacophony of noise that assaulted me on every street and underground, whether it was the piercing horns from cabs or the unbearable throttling clatter of the express trains roaring by me on the local tracks of the NYC subway system. Eight years later, when I left the big city for the more livable confines of Oakland and then San Francisco, I was just thrilled to hear the screaming banshees of Hades that emanate from BART's rails under the transbay tube. I don't know how you lifelong city folk can bear to listen to it without plugging your ears.