299 Valencia Appeal Fails As Swing Vote Dufty Sides with Developer
The Board of Supervisors, in one the first tests of the new progressive bloc, failed to muster a supermajority vote to support an appeal that would have overturned the Planning Commission's approval of a conditional use (CU) permit, which allowed seven more parking spaces than the ratio set in the Market/Octavia Plan for a proposed condominium and commercial development at 299 Valencia Street.
January 14, 2009
Eyes on the Street: History of Oakland Chinatown’s Barnes Dance
Unlike numerous pedestrian tragedies that go unnoticed and unmitigated, when a man was killed at the corner of 8th Street and Webster Street in Oakland’s Chinatown in 2002, the community banded together to get a large federal grant to transform not only the dangerous intersection, but the entire neighborhood.
January 13, 2009
Today’s Headlines
BART Turns Over Investigation to D.A., Protests in SF (SF Chronicle) (SF Chronicle) BART Board Creates Police Review, Asks for Firing of Chief, Manager (SF Examiner) (LA Times) National Safety Council Calls for Complete Ban on Cell Phones in Cars (Information Week) And Surprisingly, Many Drivers Interviewed by Channel 4 Agree with Ban (KRON 4) … Continued
January 13, 2009
Will the Board of Supervisors Betray the Market/Octavia Plan on Tuesday?
After nearly ten years of community planning and a rigorous review process that resulted in a model community plan encouraging transit-oriented development, density, and strategic parking limits, a developer in the Market and Octavia Neighborhood Plan (PDF) area has asked for a special exception to the parking limit so they can sell condos to mostly wealthy people.
January 12, 2009
In Magnetometers We Trust
San Francisco-based Streetline, Inc. is one of several vendors who will compete for
a contract to install parking occupancy sensors and networking
technology in the SFMTA's SFPark pilot.
January 12, 2009
Bike Commuter David Chiu Will Preside Over the Board of Supes
After seven rounds of voting and nearly an hour of exasperating political theater, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors chose newly elected District 3 Supervisor David Chiu as its president. A voluble cheer erupted in the North Light Court at City Hall, the overflow room where more than three hundred people crowded around a television monitor.
January 9, 2009
Schwarzenegger Long on Fiscal Stimulus Rhetoric, Short on Transit Specifics
Governor Schwarzenegger sent a letter Tuesday to President-elect Obama encouraging massive expenditure in the federal stimulus package on a host of projects in California. The letter comes a month after the governor and president-elect discussed the stimulus package in person:
January 7, 2009
Eyes on the Street: Cleaning the Curb, Fouling the Sidewalk
On a recent Tuesday morning, at Folsom and 25th streets in The Mission, I watched one of the more bizarre street-cleaning rituals I've ever seen in any city. I know San Francisco drivers get a free parking pass in front of numerous churches on Sundays (just check out Valencia Street), but I had never seen car owners squat on the sidewalk for street cleaning.
January 6, 2009