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San Francisco Should Take Cues from New York and Just Try It!
Urban space advocates the world over use best practice examples from other cities to raise the bar on policy and praxis in their own cities. For years in New York, Transportation Alternatives and the NYC Streets Renaissance Campaign invoked the phrase "Lessons from London," pointing to congestion pricing and the pedestrianization of Trafalgar Square, among other excellent projects, that demonstrated that city's commitment to reconquering its streets for people over cars. They also pointed to Paris, Copenhagen and Bogotá for examples of brilliant bike share programs, four decades of urban design giving primacy to pedestrians and cyclists, and innovative use of street space and buses to move more riders on Transmilenio BRT than most cities move on their entire transit systems.
February 26, 2009
Advocates Upset Stim Money Could Still Fund Oakland Airport Connector
The debate over how to spend the federal transportation stimulus money at the regional level is heating up and may boil over tomorrow morning at the next Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) meeting.
February 24, 2009
The Myth of the Urban Driving Shoppers
As we wrote a couple days ago about Jefferson Street, merchants on the commercial street there and throughout the city often assume parking spaces in front of their stores are vital to business, that their customers drive to buy, and that driving customers spend more because they can carry more goods home in their vehicles.
February 20, 2009
Planning Department Unveils San Francisco’s First Pedestrian Priority Street
The City Design Group at the Planning Department has released its proposal for transforming Jefferson Street at Fisherman's Wharf into a single-surface pedestrian priority street, the first of its size in San Francisco.
February 18, 2009
Bay to Breakers: The Death of Fun?
Bay to Breakers (B2B) is under attack. For countless thousands both in San Francisco and around the world, the third Sunday in May has always represented an eclectic mix of athleticism and hedonism, one that no other event in any other city can deliver. But in their crusade to suburbanize our great metropolis, curmudgeons are set on destroying the most beloved of San Francisco traditions.
February 13, 2009
How Many Bikes Would Make a Proper Bike Share Program in San Francisco?
5328 bikes, to be exact.
February 13, 2009
Good Roads?
I just finished an interesting journey that took me to the World Social Forum at the mouth of the Amazon River system in Belem, Brazil, and then to Los Angeles and finally home, just in time to attend a presentation last night at CounterPULSE of Rick Prelinger's Lost Landscapes III. The show consists of rare and obscure footage of life in San Francisco going back over 100 years. A few of the clips are striking reminders of how much the basic "technology" of roads and how we use them has evolved during the past century.
February 12, 2009
BRT Comes Out Ahead of Light Rail, Again
The debate among policy makers and community stakeholders over the merits of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) versus Light Rail Transit (LRT) is often heated, and usually centers around whether LRT recoups the substantial capital costs of implementation over time versus BRT, and whether BRT has a more substantial carbon impact. Sometimes it can also boil down to a debate over whether buses are sexy enough to get people out of cars and onto transit.
February 10, 2009
Concrete Giveaway: Free and Exclusive Parking on the Public Street
Curb cuts, also known as driveways, theoretically provide vehicle access from the street into a private garage. New development in San Francisco has been required to include off-street parking since the 50s, in an effort to ensure a convenient supply of on-street parking. But as documented by Mary Brown’s comprehensive investigation in the Mission District, 49-percent of all residential garages are used for storage, not parking.
January 30, 2009