Gavin Newsom

The Polk Street contra-flow protected bike lane connecting Market Street to City Hall is set to be unveiled at a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Friday at 11 a.m.

Though most of the California political class celebrated the groundbreaking of the new Transbay Transit Center with U.S. DOT Secretary Ray LaHood in San Francisco yesterday, significant questions remain for funding a national high-speed rail network through the federal transportation act.

If you're wondering why Mayor Gavin Newsom supports a San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency two-year budget that continues major Muni service reductions, you just might find your answer in the Mayor's weekly YouTube update.

After months of opposing an extension of parking meter enforcement hours, Mayor Newsom may be finally open to a limited proposal that would help reduce Muni's staggering budget deficit. The Chronicle's Heather Knight  and The Appeal's Chris Roberts report that Newsom is still against extending weekday metering to evenings, but has come around on the idea of Sunday enforcement, which would raise an estimated $2-3 million dollars annually. Knight writes:

Muni's budget saga continued today as the MTA Board heard details on proposed service cuts and future deficits, prompting a growing outcry from the city's transit riders. The cuts would include eliminating ten percent of Muni service, bringing frequencies on many routes to historic lows.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, three members of the Board of Supervisors, MTA officials, SFBC staff and bicyclists -- standing in the glaring fall sun amidst the roar of cars on Oak Street -- celebrated the city's first new bike lane in three years today, and then grabbed the paint rolls and applied buckets of shiny green paint to the Scott Street bike box.

Though it might sound incredible to San Franciscans who have followed bicycle issues for the past three years, not only are more bicycle infrastructure improvements coming, they might be better than anyone imagined. Streetsblog has learned that in addition to the lanes striped today on Mississippi and Howard and seven more bike lanes expected in the next few weeks, the MTA will install a separated bike lane on Market Street.

San Francisco bicycle riders this morning let out a loud cheer, popped open a bottle of champagne and toasted the city's first bike lane in three years: a freshly painted sliver of Scott Street on the Wiggle between Oak and Fell that now serves as a left-turn lane for the thousands of daily commuters traveling by bicycle onto Fell Street.

Gavin Newsom is running for President, er um, I mean Governor (you gotta take these things one step at a time). Maybe he’ll make it, maybe something will wreck his chances. It’s an interesting drama from the point of view of recent American history, as he follows in the footsteps of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, and has surrounded himself with a retinue of advertising professionals… you know, those people who do nothing useful for society but are extremely well-paid to craft lies and deceptions and help the powerful stay on top. Newsom is a vacuous politician with no rudder or internal gyroscope grounded in any values other than what will get him on to the next stop of his political ambition. His advertisers (do they advise? I think they just advertise) are shrewd enough to keep associating the Newsom Brand with the innovative thinking and practices that are practically boiling out of political sight in San Francisco. But we cannot and should not think of him as an ally since his track record is demonstrably empty when it comes to doing what he says.