Car Culture

Celebrated Colombian urbanist and former mayor of Bogotá Enrique Peñalosa told a standing room audience of more than one hundred people at the San Francisco Public Library last night that San Francisco can be friendly to cars or to people, but not both. Further, he argued that there is no fundamental technical reason why streets have to function only as free-flowing arteries to move cars, but that the state of our cities in America is a political decision that we can overturn and that American's perceptions of what is possible in cities will follow suit.

At a press conference this afternoon characterized by relief and jubilation, Mayor Gavin Newsom, representatives from the city agencies responsible for San Francisco's streets, and bicycle advocates celebrated the MTA's adoption of the Bike Plan and the legislation of the first 45 of the 56 priority bike-lane projects. Mayor Newsom seemed as thrilled as the bike advocates that much of the details for moving the legal process forward had been surmounted with last night's Planning Commission's certification of the Bike Plan EIR and the MTA Board's unanimous vote of approval today.

One of the tasks our New York City executive editor put to us at Streetsblog San Francisco when we started was to hold "mainstream" journalists' feet to the fire when they write stories about transit, bikes, and pedestrians from a windshield perspective. You know, pieces like Mike Aldax's story in the Examiner today, which goes out of its way to focus on the negative impacts of the Bike Plan to vehicular traffic, impacts that are based on misguided vehicular Level of Service standards that hold ease of movement for motorists to be a proxy for environmental standards.

What's more authentically American than boys suping up their rides and preening about town deafening all within earshot (reducing taxes, you say..)? The Speed Network series Hot Import Nights is the weekly sex-and-horsepower profile of the subculture, and as anyone who saw any of the Fast and the Furious movies in the Bay Area knows, selling these components to gear-heads is brisk business. 

Throughout June, scores of participants in TransForm's first Car-Free Challenge have set goals for themselves to reduce or completely eliminate the use of cars, from those living in bike and transit-friendly Berkeley to far flung and auto-dominated suburban enclaves like Castro Valley. In addition to opening eyes about those who live normal and productive lives in the Bay Area without relying so much on cars for mobility, the Challenge is also a benefit for TransForm, as participants set fundraising targets to go with their car-reduction targets.

One of the good things about Mayor Gavin Newsom's obsession with putting public discourse online is the opportunity the public has to ask him a lot of questions.  In this vein, Current is holding a live online video interview with California gubernatorial candidate Gavin Newsom about his "green" agenda and they are seeking help from the public to choose the questions they ask him.

The House is poised this week to take up the so-called "cash for clunkers" bill, which aims to boost the slumping U.S. auto market by giving out tax credits of $3,500 and up to anyone who trades in a gas-guzzling car for a more efficient model.

This morning much of the nation's news outlets are devoted to the demise of General Motors, which represents the fourth largest bankruptcy in U.S. history and the largest of any industrial titan. Perhaps most entertaining of all the articles is P.J. O'Rourke's onanistic fetish piece about horsepower and the "masculinity" emblematic in the growl of American muscle cars, in which he bemoans the passing of the automotive giant as the emasculation of the American Dream.