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Employee Shuttles Finding Their Place in SF’s Complex Transit System
In New York, the standard icon of corporate prestige is a gleaming tower downtown bearing a company's name. Here in the Bay Area, one of the preferred symbols is a sprawling, parking lot-ringed "corporate campus" off US-101 (Google, Yahoo) or I-280 (Apple,) 30 miles or more from the region's densest city. Ironically, though these campuses were designed for convenience, many Silicon Valley employees prefer to reside in San Francisco. As a result, companies have discovered the recruiting value of something transportation planners have long touted: high-quality, car-free transportation.
August 5, 2009
Livable Streets Concerns Overshadowed at Geary Blvd BRT Meeting
At a community meeting in the Richmond last night, planners from the San Francisco County Transportation Authority and Supervisor Eric Mar sought public input on the Geary Boulevard Bus Rapid Transit project - and sought to dispel some false rumors about it.
July 28, 2009
Geary Blvd BRT Meeting Tonight in the Richmond
As the environmental review process moves forward for the Geary Boulevard Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project, Supervisor Eric Mar is holding a community meeting to discuss the many issues at stake along the city's busiest bus route. As we've written, the Geary BRT will be complementary to the proposed Van Ness corridor project, which would hopefully be online by Muni's centennial in 2012.
July 27, 2009
SFCTA Completes Exhaustive Parking Study, Supervisors Delay Action
The San Francisco County Transportation Authority (TA) presented the results of the comprehensive parking study it started in 2006 to the Board of Supervisors today, fleshing out many of the parking management principles espoused by parking guru Donald Shoup in his High Cost of Free Parking and recommending a plethora of solutions for managing the curb more strategically (presentation PDF).
July 21, 2009
Only 17 Percent Drive to Downtown SF to Shop, Study Finds
The San Francisco County Transportation Authority (TA) has released a survey of nearly 1400 shoppers in downtown San Francisco that found less than one-fifth drive to shop, and that they spend less money in aggregate than shoppers using other transportation modes (PDF). The study indicates drivers spend more each trip than transit riders, but visit less often and account for far fewer total visits and therefore spend less total.
May 27, 2009
Streetscast: An Interview with MTA Chief Nat Ford, Part II
MTA Executive Director Nat Ford sat down with Streetsblog San Francisco last week for an hour-long interview. In today's segment, he addresses the funding crisis facing California transit agencies, the long-awaited implementation of the Bike Plan and the internal MTA battle over how to balance the different modes.
April 17, 2009
San Francisco Shovel Ready for Freeway Project Through a Park
Five decades after activists killed plans for a major freeway traveling through San Francisco’s Panhandle, construction companies are lining up for the contract to break ground in August on another major freeway through a park – the Presidio Parkway, which will replace Doyle Drive in the Presidio National Park.
March 30, 2009
Streetfilm: Making a Better Market Street
Just about everyone who visits San Francisco's grand Market Street is awed
by its hustle and bustle, the myriad modes of transportation, and some
of the beautiful architecture the city hosts. But just about everyone
also agrees that Market Street has a much bigger potential as a people
space that accommodates its users in more efficient and human terms.
Parts of the street are in disrepair; whole blocks contain more boarded
up facades than functioning businesses.
March 16, 2009
Do We Have to Wait for the Next Mayor for a Car-free Market Street?
How hard is it to fix the most important street in San Francisco, one that is vital to transit, that is the spine of the bicycle network, and that could be the crowning jewel of the city, a Champs d'Elysee or a newly pedestrianized Broadway? Without Mayor Gavin Newsom spearheading the process, it doesn't bode well.
March 9, 2009
Despite Outcry, MTC Board Approves OAK Connector Funds
Transportation and social justice advocates packed the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) board meeting today to demand that the agency not spend a proposed $70 million of federal stimulus money on the Oakland Airport Connector (OAC) project. MTC commissioners heard testimony for over two hours from some of the more than one hundred members of the public who were mostly opposed to the OAC, claiming it would take money from the operations of AC Transit and other transit operators.
February 25, 2009