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Car-Free Challenge Participants Buck Stereotypes
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.
June 18, 2009
Gav for Guv Interview This Thursday on Current
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.
June 9, 2009
House to Vote This Week on Weak ‘Cash for Clunkers’ Plan
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.
June 8, 2009
Bye-Bye General Motors, Hello (Again) General Locomotives?
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.
June 1, 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
Mission Sunday Streets Expected to Draw Largest Crowds Yet
When tens of thousands of people come out to the first of two Sunday Streets in the Mission on June 7th, they will find a route that winds through some of the densest pedestrian streets in San Francisco, a route that at just over two miles is half as long as previous events and should lend to casual strolling perhaps more than cycling.
May 20, 2009
For a City of Panhandles! Copenhagenize it!
We’ve been waiting for years now to see some physical changes to accommodate the huge increase in daily bicycling. We did get an odd set of painted bike lanes and green bike route signs, and a significant number of bike racks for parking, before it all came to a halt due to the injunction three years ago. After perusing the much-anticipated Draft Bicycle Plan and its dense bureaucratese, full of overlapping redundant promises, I’m afraid we’ll be waiting a good while longer to see the kinds of changes that we ought to be getting.
May 19, 2009
Where’s Gavin? Likely Campaigning in an Armored SUV
Apparently I'm not the only one who got the sneaky suspicion Green Gav
doesn't really take transit or ride a bike unless it makes for good
publicity. Yet-to-be identified satirists decided to call Mayor Gavin Newsom's bluff on the nonsense assertion he (or his handlers) made to the Chronicle that he occasionally rides Muni incognito when he's not being chauffeured around in a hybrid SUV or driving his ridiculously expensive electric sports car.
May 15, 2009