Parking

The crowded sidewalks on 18th Street between Dolores and Guerrero in the Mission are usually packed with foodies inching their way into renowned eateries like Tartine Bakery and Cafe or Delfina Pizzeria and Restaurant. Couple that with a high volume of bikes and a scarcity of bike racks and the block screams for improvements to benefit the public realm. 

If all goes as planned for San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development and one of the nation’s largest home builders, the Lennar Corporation, a causeway over the Yosemite Slough wetlands restoration project between Hunters Point and Candlestick Point will be built sometime in the next few years. This fact is not making environmentalists happy.

Today on the Streetsblog Network, Roger Valdez of Worldchanging examines whether making parking more difficult can actually reduce driving levels -- and recalls the frustration he used to feel before he was able to jettison his car:

We've written before about obstructions caused by motorcycle cops parked in the bike lane (and the SFPD generally doesn't have a good reputation among cyclists), but yesterday around 4:30 p.m. -- a few hours after Sunday Streets wrapped up -- I spotted a cop parked in the bike lane on Valencia Street just before 16th for a good reason: to shoo away a motorist who was double parked.

Dear San Francisco Chronicle:

Last week, BART hosted a brunch meeting for Bay Area transit bloggers, explicitly acknowledging that journalism is trending away from traditional media to online and niche outlets. Organized by BART spokesperson Linton Johnson, writers from Streetsblog, The SF Appeal, The Overhead Wire, N-Judah Chronicles, and Transbay Blog had the opportunity to ask BART General Manager Dorothy Dugger and her team unvarnished questions, to which we received fairly straightforward answers.

It's no surprise, but it's troubling. Mayor Gavin Newsom has confirmed to Streetsblog that he remains opposed to extending parking meter enforcement to Sundays, despite a promise by MTA Chief Nat Ford that it's being studied and remains on the table for consideration, along with evening metering to 10 p.m. -- revenue measures that would raise $9 million --  potentially offsetting fare hikes and service cuts, changes Ford still has the power to make (within five percent).

In the past few weeks, Stanford University students have built support for a proposal to reduce parking, widen sidewalks, and eventually close eight blocks of University Avenue in Palo Alto to motor vehicles. The Palo Alto Pedestrian Mall (PAPM) started out as an assignment in a "Creating Infectious Action" class at the design school at Stanford and has since garnered support among transportation committee members of the city council and businesses along the avenue, many of them restaurants that want to take advantage of extra sidewalk seating. 

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.