Mayor Newsom

At a press conference this afternoon to celebrate the city's first new bike lane in three years, Mayor Gavin Newsom and MTA Chief Nat Ford learned that Clear Channel had backed out of its option to implement a public-use bike share program in San Francisco. Ironically, just as Mayor Newsom was answering a question from Streetsblog about the future of bike share in San Francisco, Ford approached him with the news, which he had just found out about.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and MTA Chief Nat Ford have made repeated promises that they will act swiftly to build out large segments of the city's Bicycle Master Plan when the 3-year-old bicycle injunction is lifted. Behind the good rhetoric, the agency does appear prepared to begin striping lanes and adding bike racks when the long legal wait finally ends.

Are Muni's days on Market Street numbered?

Streetlights are an enormous part of any city's energy consumption and cities that wish to cut down on their emissions and their energy bills are getting in line to convert their older street lamps to LED technology. According to Clinton Climate Initiative (CCI) and Department of Energy (DOE) data, street lighting costs are one of the biggest components of a city’s utility bill, accounting for 10 percent to 38 percent of the total. With nearly 35 million street lights in the United States, about 1 percent of all electricity is used by street lighting systems.

The kerfuffle continues to intensify over the draft study the MTA recently completed on extending parking meter hours in commercial districts around the city, a study which, as we first reported last Friday, the Mayor doesn't want MTA Chief Nat Ford to broadcast too loudly.  

Mayor Gavin Newsom has been quietly pressuring MTA Chief Nat Ford to delay or prevent proposals to extend parking meter hours on weeknights and Sundays, despite a looming mid-year MTA budget deficit and studies that show it's good policy, Streetsblog has learned.

We all know that you don't have to go far from Bay Area cities to find some of the most beautiful mountains and epic beaches in the country, but you might be surprised how easy it is to get to those hikes and natural wonders without a car. Thanks to a beta website called Transit and Trails, hosted by the Bay Area Open Space Council, you can ditch your ride and plan your next adventure taking public transportation to Mt. Tam or Stinson Beach or Briones.

San Franciscans are likely to see slower response times to street cleaning requests and a reduction in landscaping and tree maintenance in their neighborhoods following a number of layoffs announced this week at the Department of Public Works. Twenty four street cleaning positions are being cut along with 15 gardening and arborist positions.

Though much of the media reaction to Mayor Gavin Newsom's Better Market Street Project is narrowly focusing on the traffic impacts of mandatory right-turns at two intersections on Market, the trial project will attempt to do much more to improve the public realm and public perception of San Francisco's most iconic street.