Michael Rhodes

"Pump up the jams! The SFBC will be hosting an SFBC Service Station for commuters whose tires are low on air at Valencia at 19th."

What better way to start your week than with a livable streets meet-up! Here are the highlights from this week’s livable streets calendar. Monday: Livable Streets Community Meet-Up. Join Streetsblog SF and the Livable Streets Initiative to meet fellow advocates from around the Bay Area to discuss the role of technology in transportation advocacy. Whether … Continued

Join Streetsblog SF and the Livable Streets Initiative to discuss the role of technology in transportation advocacy. Join the Livable Streets Community to share strategies and let them know how technology can grease the wheels of your work.

BART held a groundbreaking ceremony today for a project that will bring a new entrance and accessible walkway to Balboa Park station. The Westside Entrance and Walkway project is intended to improve access to the station for the approximately 5,000 daily riders approaching from Ocean Avenue west of Interstate 280, including students from San Francisco City College and Lick-Wilmerding High School. The station is the busiest non-downtown stop in the BART system, with 13,000 daily riders.

Muni announced an ambitious plan today to replace all of its fare gates with TransLink-only machines by fall 2010. In coordination with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), which manages the TransLink program regionally, Muni will install a total of 98 new fare gate aisles at its nine Muni Metro stations, as well as up to 40 new TransLink-only ticket vending machines. Extra-wide, ADA-compliant fare gate lanes will also be installed. Muni showed off demonstration models of the new machines at a press conference at Van Ness Station today.

A collision this morning between an M-Ocean View Muni Metro light rail vehicle and a male bicyclist has left the cyclist in the hospital with serious injuries.

When an automobile strikes a pedestrian or bicyclist, the impact often extends far beyond the parties directly involved. For anyone who witnesses a crash, or stumbles upon the aftermath, the effect is deeply jarring. It can be hard to pass by the same intersection again without reliving the event. Worse yet, injury crashes are so common in San Francisco, most never receive much press attention, and it can be tough to determine whether a crash victim will fully recover, or even survive.

"Got the gift of gab? Volunteer to phone bank with the SFBC! No cold calling, just simple reminders to friendly lapsed SFBC members that their membership is expired. Come share in the fun. The more the merrier! We supply dinner and good company."

The Valencia Streetscape Improvement Project will bring major enhancements to Valencia Street that will benefit all of its users. To get there though, bicyclists and businesses will have to weather a nine-month storm of construction, which began three weeks ago. At a press conference today at ArtZone 461 Gallery, Supervisor Chris Daly and the DPW's Alex Murillo vowed to do everything possible to help make the process less painful, and business owners sought to remind residents that they will remain open throughout, even if work crews are right outside their door. 

An anonymous photographer snapped the above photo last Wednesday on Terry Francois Boulevard, across from AT&T Park, where SFpark electronic meters were recently installed. It seems one driver got the wacky idea that the new meters require cars to park perpendicularly, across the bike lanes, and the other drivers followed?