Matthew Roth

From goodpotatoes, via our Flickr pool

The Bay Area Toll Authority (BATA), a division of the MTC, is expected to approve a $1.3 million contract with TY Lin International consulting to prepare a Project Study Report (PSR) that would analyze the feasibility of adding two pedestrian and bicycle paths on the west span of the Bay Bridge (PDF). TY Lin is already a contractor on the new east span of the Bay Bridge being constructed between Yerba Buena Island and Oakland.

I'd be laughing right now if I could just stop crying.

How would you define the boundaries of your neighborhood? Is it the streets that describe it? Is it the people who live in it, a cultural or demographic group that you belong to, or that excludes you?  Do you think your neighbors would describe your neighborhood the same way you do?

Hey Freakonomics, how could you get so much so wrong in five short sentences?

MTA Board Will Consider Fare Hikes, Line Cuts, Furloughs, Downsizing, Crying (SF Gate) Lowes Eyes Bayshore Blvd Location Formerly Sought by Home Depot (Examiner) (SF Gate) More on Street Repair Bond, KFC Marketers Said to Be Dismayed (Examiner) Caltrain Agrees to Share ROW With HSR for Electrification Deal (CBS 5) Planetizen Asks If High-Speed Rail … Continued

Thanks to busbozo for submitting these very nice photos!  Submit your pictures for our Eyes on the Street feature, as well as video and links here: sf.streetsblog.org/contribute/.

When we wrote about the trial pedestrian plaza on 17th Street and Market Street that DPW expects to start this May, the story generated numerous doubts about how the city would create a successful public space out of a busy street abutting a gas station. 

BART Will Test New Lights in Trains (Examiner) Barring KFC Pothole Sponsorship, SF May Ask Voters to Approve Street-Fix Bond (Examiner) High-Speed Rail Could Face Lasting Fight on Peninsula (Merc) (Merc) High-Speed Rail Myth v. Fact (Merc) A HSR Proposal That Avoids Palo Alto Entirely (HSR Blog) Local Car Dealerships See Modest Sales Increase As … Continued

In casting around for a good April Fool's Day joke, I found yesterday's New York Times Lede blog report on the chicken frying corporation KFC doing some pothole repair in Louisville, complete with this photo of Colonel Sanders in a hardhat and construction bib.  I thought for sure the Times had gotten an eight-hour jump on the April Fool's fun, but amazingly this report seems to be true.  Or they're holding out on a Joaquin-Phoenix-length punchline and haven't broken it to readers that this is preposterous.  The PETA subtext in the Times story is pretty funny, but I find this all a bit unsettling.