San Francisco

We are often attracted to city life for the energy, the boisterousness, the noise. I am a city guy having lived all my life in cities (born in Brooklyn, Chicago until age 10, Oakland until 17, and San Francisco since I was 20). I often make the joke that "nature is trying to kill me," when one of my friends suggests we go camping. Back in the late 1970s and early 1980s I was a punk rock fan, and went to dozens of shows with ear-splitting volumes. I've been to plenty of other events through the years with overwhelming noise, from other concerts to major sports events, etc. Maybe that's why I have had a ringing in my ears for the last two years (tinnitus). And perhaps not surprisingly, I've become increasingly frustrated at the oft-overlooked urban problem of noise pollution.

This is the second installment of a slow journey through San Francisco transit history. All of this information is derived from our Shaping San Francisco collection that you can explore on Foundsf.org.

(Editor's note: this is the latest installment from contributor Chris Carlsson, The Nowtopian)

I’ll be slowly going through San Francisco transit history over the next few months. All of this information is derived from our Shaping San Francisco collection that you can explore on Foundsf.org. Also, I'll be conducting a 4-hour "Transit history" bike tour on Sat. April 24. Today we start where it all began, in the sand.

(Editor's note: This is Part 1 in a 3-part series on the Bay Area watershed)

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.

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.

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.

Now that the new police chief has announced he is going to "review" department procedures with respect to Critical Mass, I think it might be a good time to "review" the history of the relationship between Critical Mass and the police. I have to emphasize that this relationship has evolved in the context of a police department that has been consistently biased against bicyclists for as long as anyone can remember. Recent efforts to bring the SFPD into the 21st century have not yielded noticeable results yet. Chief Gascón has an opportunity to direct the department culture towards an altered cityscape with thousands more bicyclists and pedestrians, or he can maintain an obsolete approach to reinforcing a car-centric society's prejudices. I have to admit that I'm not hopeful. Also, I hope this review further debunks the silly reporting from KPIX starting last summer, that somehow Critical Mass is not paying for the police that accompany it, and thus costing the city some $100,000 a year in police overtime.