Community, Advocacy and Labor

As San Francisco's Better Streets Plan (BSP) street design manual nears environmental certification, many questions remain about financing street maintenance and how all of the agencies responsible for the city's streets will work together to improve conditions for transit, walking, and bicycling, one of the primary goals of the three year BSP planning process.

The San Francisco MTA has an interesting decision to make with bus zones throughout the city now that a number of bus routes were changed or terminated with the service reductions that went into effect on December 5th, 2009. Will the city open the curb space up to cars, potentially adding meters in zones with metered parking regulations, or take the opportunity to experiment with more innovative parking solutions, such as on-street bicycle parking protected by bollards, similar to the Grove Street entrance of the San Francisco Public Library?

A number of Streetsblog readers have noticed a particularly loathsome group that has sprouted up on Facebook and has a legion of fans. As of this writing, more than 32,000 people are fans of "There's a perfectly good bike path right next to the road you stupid cyclist," a group page with a bunch of anti-cyclist screeds and some pretty nasty photos of bicycle crashes and car-on-bike violence. Facebook has concluded that the group does not violate the site's terms of use and will not shut it down.

Governor Schwarzenegger's budget (PDF), unveiled today at a Capitol press conference, confirms what transit agencies and advocates across the state have been fearing: a $1.5 billion proposed scheme to divert funds that would otherwise provide critical relief to California's struggling transit agencies.

With bids for the eBART extension project expected in early February, newly elected Congressman John Garamendi from California's 10th District conducted a tour of the planned station sites of BART's 10-mile extension from Pittsburg Bay Point to Antioch. Garamendi joined BART Director Joel Keller, Brentwood Mayor Robert Taylor, and representatives from the Contra Costa Transportation Authority, BART, Tri Delta Transit and the State Route 4 Bypass Authority on a Tri-Delta bus for the tour.

Despite California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's pledge to be a good steward of his state's environment, the governor is expected to release a budget proposal this week that would gut transit funding and contravene both a state Supreme Court ruling and numerous public referendums mandating secure transit funding, a slap in the face to a proven green transportation strategy, say transit operators.

San Francisco's first green bike box, painted by a smiling group of electeds and bike activists earlier this month, was heralded as an important first step toward finally advancing some "innovative design treatments" in the city's long-stalled Bicycle Plan. But nearly three weeks later, the MTA has yet to paint any kind of bike symbol in the box, and many San Francisco drivers, and even some bicyclists unfamiliar with the concept of bike boxes, are still not getting the message that it's for bikes only.

Among the many strategies to reduce vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and attendant greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from private vehicles, Bay Area smart growth advocate TransForm has developed a new certification called GreenTRIP to encourage architects, developers, and municipal officials to build transit-oriented development and implement transportation demand management (TDM) solutions for future tenants [PDF].

A 54-year-old San Francisco woman was sent to the hospital with life-threatening injuries this morning after being hit by a driver at the intersection of Van Ness Avenue and Grove Street near San Francisco City Hall. The victim, whose name has not yet been released, was undergoing surgery this afternoon.