Community, Advocacy and Labor

Amalia Pittier of Caracas, Venezuela spent a sunny day riding a rented bike across the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito with her two traveling companions, stopping to buy lunch and spend money shopping for gifts they will take home to family and friends. Little does this tourist know she's at the center of a local controversy because she and her friends are among the estimated 250,000 visitors annually who rent bikes to ride over the bridge for a day of sight-seeing before they climb on an evening ferry for the return trip.

The California Transit Association has submitted a list of recommendations (PDF) to the Commission of the 21st Century Economy, a "bipartisan" panel mostly appointed by Governor Schwarzenegger, that call for establishing a "stable, predictable source of long-term funding" for the state's public transit agencies. 

The Mayor's Director of Climate Change Initiatives, Wade Crowfoot, joined MTA Executive Director Nat Ford, Board of Supervisors President David Chiu, SFBC Executive Director Leah Shahum and many others this morning to formally announce this year's six Sunday Streets events.

Don't get me wrong, I love San Francisco's historic streetcars. I have ridden them often and can appreciate the nostalgic bumpy rides, even more so if I don't have to stand, and can grab a seat and peer outside the small windows.  But when I saw Rachel Gordon's story in the Chronicle this week about how Muni plans to renovate Streetcar Number One for $1.9 million it really got me thinking: In these tight budgetary times, is that really where we want to be investing our precious transit dollars?

With spring here and nice weather, a lot of us will be riding our bikes more often, which means thieves will be on the prowl for poorly locked bikes. For anyone who has had a bicycle stolen, there are few feelings as dreadful. The SFBC has a great resource page with tips on how to secure your bike properly and what to do if you lose it, including calls to the SFPD and posts on Craigslist.

A five-foot tall median fence that some advocates fear will actually make the area more dangerous for pedestrians is now being installed on Potrero Avenue between 25th Street and Cesar Chavez. As my colleague Matthew Roth has reported, DPW and MTA are erecting the fence to to prevent people from making "illegal and unsafe crossings" in the middle of the block between Rolph Playground and Potrero del Sol Park. Some neighbors and advocates pointed out the city reopened the park, which has become wildly popular, without any consideration for pedestrians who want to cross back and forth. The fence idea was initiated after the Mayor noticed people were crossing in the middle of the block.

When the State Transit Assistance (STA) fund was zeroed out to pass the budget a couple of months ago, the already dire situation for transit operators in California became much worse.  In the Bay Area, AC Transit raised fares, the MTA has been considering budget cuts and fare hikes, and BART will likely do the same if its board can get to the discussion at the next meeting. 

The Bay Area Toll Authority (BATA), a division of the MTC, is expected to approve a $1.3 million contract with TY Lin International consulting to prepare a Project Study Report (PSR) that would analyze the feasibility of adding two pedestrian and bicycle paths on the west span of the Bay Bridge (PDF). TY Lin is already a contractor on the new east span of the Bay Bridge being constructed between Yerba Buena Island and Oakland.

If you've pedaled along Howard Street in SoMa lately, you've no doubt noticed the shoddy paving between 6th and 8th Streets.  A DPW contractor repaved the street as part of a sewer main replacement project but in several areas left a two inch shelf in the middle of the bike lane, which is causing many cyclists to drift into traffic or struggle to keep upright, especially at night.