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Sausalito Council to Add Bike Parking, But Doesn’t Discuss Rental Fee
Sausalito remains a free city today, at least when it comes to parking for tourist rental bikes. Instead of adding fees for tourist bike parking, the city will add racks to accommodate 300 more bikes for the expected crush of two-wheeled summer tourists.
April 7, 2010
Tea Partying and Beanbagging on Shotwell
The citywide Stand Against Sit Lie campaign Saturday March 27 was a big success by all accounts. The website claims over 100 events took place on San Francisco sidewalks, and over 1000 people participated. That doesn’t sound overwhelming at first glance, but if you recall that this began as a brainstorm in a bar just a couple of weeks ago, and relied heavily on Facebook and personal networking, it is an impressive beginning.
March 29, 2010
Planning and Public Life
San Franciscans, like residents of most big cities, are in a continuous process of reshaping public spaces. There are pilot programs for new ways to use Market Street, for pocket parks in areas covered with underutilized asphalt, for Sunday Streets closures, for opening sidewalks to “green sewers,” and even some tentative efforts to launch more public art and/or urban agriculture in empty lots. All of these experiments are welcome departures from the long-simmering biases favoring the total unquestioned domination of private automobiles over public space.
March 25, 2010
Sausalito Installs Bicycle Signs That Contradict California Vehicle Code
While Marin County has been designated a "national model" for bicycling and walking, one of four counties that have received a $25 million grant from the Federal Nonmotorized Transportation Pilot Program (NTPP), Sausalito has been notably hostile to the influx of cyclists who come over the Golden Gate Bridge, particularly tourists who rent bicycles in San Francisco.
March 24, 2010
Smart Parking Policy Makes a Difference, Even in Livable Streets Utopias
The evidence keeps mounting that smart parking policy is an essential tool in the fight to curb traffic. A new study of two German neighborhoods indicates that managing the supply of parking can make streets more livable, even in places that already have great infrastructure for transit, walking, and biking. Eliminating mandatory parking minimums, the … Continued
March 24, 2010
Sadik-Khan Packs the House in LA, Then Brings It Down
Thanks to Clarence
Eckerson for this Streetfilms Shortie.
March 19, 2010
Council Debate Over Sausalito Bicycle Tax Postponed to April
Growing tension over how, or even whether, Sausalito can accommodate the flood of summer tourists riding rented bicycles into the village spawned a plan by one city councilman to convert four auto parking spots to bike parking. Subsequently, there has been talk of a one-dollar tax on rental bikes to defray costs. But as the Tuesday Sausalito City Council session dragged late into the night, bikes were punted to the April 6 meeting.
March 17, 2010
Standing Up to Sit-Lie
As San Francisco moves closer to a decision on a new sit-lie ordinance that proponents say would facilitate the SFPD's clearing of unsavory elements off of sidewalks in neighborhoods like the Haight, resistance is building, and several organizers have called for a day of sidewalk action on Saturday March 27, from 10 am to 5 pm. I sat down recently with Nate Miller, one of the people who decided that they
weren’t going to watch the City succumb to yet another pandering campaign of fear mongering without standing up to say no.
March 17, 2010
Bicycling Activism in Quito, Ecuador: An Interview with Heleana Zambonino
In Guadalajara last September I met dozens of cycling activists from around Mexico, and one remarkable woman from Quito, Ecuador, Heleana Zambonino. While riding in a big Critical Mass in Guadalajara, she told me about the cycling scene in Quito, and her organization CiclóPolis. Her story left me inspired and a bit embarrassed. They’ve accomplished a great deal more in a half dozen years in Quito than we have in 20 years in San Francisco!
February 23, 2010
SFBC Director Leah Shahum to Write for Streetsblog from Amsterdam
By now, you've probably heard that SFBC Executive Director Leah Shahum is taking an eight-month sabbatical to one of the world's great cycling cities, Amsterdam. Shahum will be missed by many during her absence, but I'm excited to announce today that she'll be chronicling her experiences and thoughts from Amsterdam for Streetsblog San Francisco.
February 22, 2010