Active Transportation

At close to midnight last night, the Berkeley City Council unanimously approved the Berkeley Bike Plan, which seeks to build a network of safe, connected bikeways throughout the city to encourage more people to ride bikes.

Representatives from San Francisco's Planning Department, the Municipal Transportation Agency, and Public Works were on hand last night at John Muir Elementary School to hear more public comment on the Lower Haight Public Realm Plan, a project that promises, among other things, better bike and pedestrian amenities for the neighborhood.

Last night, SFMTA held an open house at Lick Wilmerding High School to get community suggestions on what to do about the mess of tracks, ramps, road and pedestrian crossings on and around the intersection of Geneva and San Jose, adjacent to the Balboa Park BART and Muni stations.

SPUR hosted a lunchtime forum today at its Oakland location to discuss the $1.5 billion Brooklyn Basin development. The panel, which was moderated by SPUR's Oakland director Robert Ogilvie, included Mike Ghielmetti of Signature Development Group, Matt Franklin of MidPen Housing, and Patricia Kernighan, who represented District 2 of Oakland during the authorization phase of the "Oak to Ninth" (now called Brooklyn Basin) waterfront housing development.

Jeffrey Tumlin, Principal and Director of Strategy at NelsonNygaard Consulting, has until early next year to put together a Transportation Department, pretty much from scratch, for the City of Oakland.

Two weeks ago, Streetsblog did a Q&A with San Francisco Supervisor Jane Kim. Kim was on a trip to New York and arranged to do the interview by phone. Unfortunately, the connection was intermittent, there was some miscommunication, and the interview had to be cut short. A few days later, Kim asked Streetsblog if we could continue the conversation. Fair enough. (Since Kim is in a tight race for the California State Senate seat for District 11 with Supervisor Scott Wiener, Streetsblog will do another interview with him as well).

Gabe Klein, entrepreneur, writer and former head of transportation for Chicago and Washington DC, spoke yesterday afternoon at the Oakland office of the San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR) about how technology can be guided to shape the future of our cities.

Wednesday evening, SPUR, the San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association, sponsored a talk entitled "Reconsidering Transportation to Create Better Urban Spaces" at their new downtown Oakland location. The talk focused on the history and damage done by the almost mindless adherence over the years to Level of Service (LOS) on urban spaces throughout California.

A little less than a week ago, Walk San Francisco held its fourth annual "Walk to Work Day" events. The idea is to get people more aware of the health benefits of walking. From Walk SF's promotion: