Cities, Counties, and Countries

Last Saturday, Daly City officials and residents convened to celebrate a newly built transit plaza, the centerpiece of the long-awaited $3.4 million Top of the Hill project, which includes a series of pedestrian and streetscape improvements along three blocks of Mission Street between John Daly Boulevard and Parkview Avenue. The project was constructed with $2.3 million from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and $700,000 from the San Mateo County Transit District (SamTrans).

Two weeks ago, transportation researcher Michael Sivak brought us the news that there are fewer cars per person in the U.S. now than there were a few years ago – and that the number isn’t expected to rise again.

The Dumbarton Bridge, which connects Menlo Park in southern San Mateo County with Fremont in the East Bay, remains the only bridge that allows bicyclists and pedestrians to cross the San Francisco Bay from east to west, with an eight-foot wide path on its southern side. From the bridge, the path continues for three miles along Bayfront Expressway (Highway 84) through Menlo Park to Marsh Road. It's an important biking and walking connection for both commuting and recreation.

The evolution of state and regional transportation agencies is painfully slow in places like Missouri and Ohio, where officials are plowing ahead with pricey highway projects conceived of decades ago. But plenty of Midwesterners have different ideas for the future of their communities, and they aren't shy about speaking up.

In case you haven't seen it, don't miss the keynote address from livable streets luminary and New York City Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan at the SF Bicycle Coalition's Golden Wheel Awards last week.

Just after our look at the faltering pace of plaza expansions under San Francisco's Pavement to Parks program last week, we get another glimpse of New York City's ongoing efforts to reclaim street space for people and improve safety using low-cost, temporary measures like posts and gravel epoxy.

Oakland celebrated improvements to Lake Merritt in style on June 9th, closing the streets ringing the city's historic centerpiece to cars--and opening them to cyclists, joggers, skaters, street performers and families. The 3.3-mile Ciclovía-style event coincided with the dedication of Lake Merritt Boulevard, a multimillion dollar project that has brought bike and pedestrian improvements to the lake's southern flank, along with a sparkling new amphitheater, a four-acre park, and a restored estuary connection to the San Francisco Bay.

The dream of reconnecting the two halves of East Palo Alto divided by Highway 101 with a bicycle/pedestrian bridge moved one step closer to reality last month with the release of the project's draft feasibility study [PDF].