Mayor Newsom
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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
Newsom Christens New Mojo Cafe “Parklet,” Pledges More to Come
With scores of people crowding the sidewalk and taking up one lane of traffic on Divisadero in front of Mojo Bicycle Cafe, Mayor Gavin Newsom, Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi and city department heads heralded a new "parklet" sidewalk extension as a piece of a growing trend of re-purposing street space for people instead of cars. The new trial parklet was built into the space formerly occupied by two parked vehicles, providing several hundred square feet of public space and benches, tables, planters and bike racks.
March 18, 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
The Hopes and Challenges for Remaking San Francisco’s Market Street
With six months of hindsight since San Francisco began trial traffic diversions and art in shuttered storefronts on Market Street, city leaders are taking stock of what has been successful and what has been less so. Within weeks, they expect to complete a scoping document and put out bids for a three-year design and transportation plan that will remake the most iconic street in San Francisco.
March 11, 2010
San Francisco Designing Public Amenities in Empty Lots
At a forum hosted by the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR) yesterday, panelists representing landscape architecture firms and Mayor Gavin Newsom's Office of Economic and Workforce Development (MOEWD) outlined several projects they are designing to utilize stalled development plots for interim green space and community benefit.
March 10, 2010
Are More Service Cuts the Last Straw For a Public Fed Up With Muni?
Widespread outrage at the MTA Board, so visibly on display at today's meeting on Muni service cuts and fare increases, appears to be driving a growing surge of organizing that transit supporters hope might finally create a sustained movement with the potential to pressure the MTA into developing long-term fixes for Muni.
February 26, 2010
Mayor Newsom Announces 12 New Pavement to Parks Projects for 2010
San Francisco’s two newest Pavement to Parks plazas got an official launch ceremony this afternoon after several months of public use, along with a promise from the Mayor to build twelve more public spaces like them before the end of the year. The twelve new locations will include a new plaza at the intersection of
24th Street and Noe Street in Noe Valley and Parklets, or wooden
sidewalk extensions, on Divisadero Street in Nopa, 22nd Street in the
Mission, Columbus Avenue in North Beach, and Clement Street in the Richmond.
February 25, 2010
Seniors, Youth and Disabled To Get Reprieve on Muni Fast Pass Increases
MTA Board Director Bruce Oka has confirmed to Streetsblog that a proposal to increase monthly Fast Pass prices for seniors, youth and the disabled will not be considered to help solve the MTA's budget crisis after the outcry from those communities.
February 25, 2010
Newsom Upset at Muni Operators’ Rejection, Threatens Ballot Measure
On the heals of yesterday's vote by Transit Workers Union (TWU) Local 250 rank-and-file to reject the contract concessions negotiated by their President, Irwin Lum, and Mayor Gavin Newsom and senior management at the San Francisco MTA, Mayor Newsom expressed dismay and said he would support a November ballot initiative to force the issue with the union.
February 17, 2010
Campos Sets Sights on MTA Reform through Ballot Box, Audit
Supervisor David Campos will find himself front and center this month in a multiple-front struggle to answer an age-old conundrum: Why doesn’t Muni work better and how can we fix it?
February 10, 2010