Cars and parklets don’t mix: SF searches for solutions after recent accidents

By Carly Graf : sfexaminer – excerpt

Andrew Fidelman got the call in the middle of the night from a friend delivering bad news: The parklet outside his wine bar had been demolished by a speeding car.

Around midnight June 18, the driver of a southbound car on Church Street crashed into the parklet’s front wall. Two people got out of the vehicle and abandoned it, according to Fidelman’s account pieced together from surveillance footage, eyewitness reports and preliminary information from police…

The Shared Spaces legislation allows groups of merchants to apply for temporary street closures to create a pedestrian promenade that keeps people safe from cars and supports economic activity. Groups of vendors on Valencia Street and Grant Avenue took advantage of this idea last year to great success.

However, these street closures are not a tool the SFMTA is likely to consider for the express purpose of protecting parklet-rich commercial corridors…(more)

Why is there no concern for retail merchants who can’t operate with closed streets and blocked off sidewalks? Perhaps we need to separte the the outdoor eating establishments from the retail merchants who don’t want, need, or can’t operate outside without curb parking and clear empty sidewalks for people who prefer a more leisurely stroll and shopping experience. If we can designate where the are allowed. We should set up some places where they are not allowed. More of that ghastly segregation we hear so much about, but the mode police have brought that on.

COVID: Google to re-start employee shuttle buses as it re-opens Bay Area offices next month

By Ethan Baron : siliconvalley – excerpt

Famed free-food cafeterias also to re-open

Google will restart its shuttle-bus service for employees along with its famed free-food cafeterias as it begins reopening Bay Area offices in two weeks.

The Mountain View-based digital advertising and internet-search giant said Tuesday it would start bringing workers back to its offices and campuses in the region July 12 on a voluntary basis, ramping up to a broad reopening in September.

Google’s network of shuttle buses — which have drawn fire for their role in gentrification and praise for their role in reducing traffic and pollution — will restart the same day, on a slightly reduced schedule, the company said. The cafeterias and snack stations that the firm pioneered as a free employee amenity will also reopen July 12, but in some locations services and options will be limited until September, Google said…(more)

SFMTA has gone out of its way to give free curb space to tech buses, while removing parking for everyone else. They appear to be playing into the gentrification efforts of our government’s effort to choose who gets to live and work in San Francisco. First they took our parking. Now they are taking our homes. You can see the Bay Area Plan for displacement of 40% of existing citizens predicted as early as 2012. See some links to early warnings and cartoons depicting the future we are living in now on this page: Plan Bay Area smart growth policies, that remove restrictions on developers, are blamed for high property values and displacement.

Now talk to us about the need to integrate our communities that have been decimated by the Bay Area Plan for displacement. Explain again where the homeless came from and how much money we need to pay to house them after they have been pushed out of their homes to make way for rezoning and a higher taxpaying citizenry.

Another July 1, Another California Fuel Tax Hike

By Kerry Jackson : capoliticalreview – excerpt

Coinciding with inflation rising faster than it has in 13 years, the cost of driving in California will inflate again on July 1, when the next round of motor fuel excise tax increases takes effect. The kicks we’ll be getting won’t be the joy of driving but boots on our backsides every time we fill up.

The coming tax hike, the third July 1 gasoline tax increase in a row following November 2017’s 12-cents-a-gallon surge, is a small increase, only 0.6 cents a gallon. But overall, drivers will be paying 21 cents more in state taxes per gallon than they were four years ago, when Senate Bill 1 was passed. The objective of SB1 was to raise $52 billion over 10 years to repair the state’s road-and-highway crackup, but things have not worked out as promised. Progress is lagging. The phrase “you get what you pay for” never applies to taxation, especially in California…(more)

Portland streetcar power cables melt in extreme heat

By Amy Graff :sfgate – excerpt

It has been so hot in Portland, Ore., in recent days that streetcar power cables are melting, bringing transit service to a halt for days…

Amid the heat, street cars have also been hindered by sagging overhead wires and power issues, according to a statement from Portland Streetcar. TriMet’s regional MAX light rail system also suspended service due to similar issues with overhead wires and extreme heat…

Heat-related expansion caused road pavement to buckle or pop loose in many areas, including on Interstate 5 in Seattle. Workers in tanker trucks in Seattle were hosing down drawbridges with water at least twice a day to prevent the steel from expanding in the heat and interfering with their opening and closing mechanisms…(more)

Scoot over? SF levies six-figure fine on scooter outfit — company to halt local operations on July 1

By Eleni Balakrishnan : missionlocal – excerpt

‘Revelations’ of permit infractions lead to $105,600 fine, cessation of SF operations for scooter company

Longtime San Francisco fixture Scoot, a scooter and moped rental company, will indefinitely pause operations on July 1. It also faces a six-figure financial penalty for various permit violations after receiving a cease and desist letter from the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency last month…(more)

Graduated Density Zoning

Land assembly, explained by Donald Shoup term. – via email

One of the firmest premises of redevelopment is the need for public action to dealwith the practical problems of urban land assembly: many small parcels, frag-mented ownership, and balkanized derivative interests, all of which hinder spon-taneous market-driven transformations.
– Lynne Sagalyn, 2007…

Graduated density zoning will not reduce owners’ sentimental attachments to their homes, but the higher property values as part of an assembled site will increase both the ability to buy a better replacement home and the opportunity cost of holding out. Perhaps nothing would have induced Susette Kelo to sell at a reasonable price, but graduated density can at least increase the likelihood of voluntary land assembly. Graduated density may become a new planning option in cases where eminent domain has been considered the only way to assemble land. Cities will no longer have to choose between using eminent domain and accepting the likelihood that holdouts will block redevelopment.

Owners who participate in a land assembly will not have to live with redevelopment next door because they will have cashed out and moved away. Redevelopment will always upset some remaining neighbors, but the voluntary nature of land assembly under graduated density zoning may increase political support (and reduce opposition) within the development site itself…(more)

Not that I believe a word of this reasoning, but, it is amazing to see the way the guy thinks.

Now if you want to stop the latest anti-car bill in Sacramento, here is a sample letter you may send to the State Senators who are poised to vote on it. AB 1401 to remove any parking minimum requirements by local jurisdictions made it through the State assembly. It is in the State Senate committees now.

Sample letter attached to be sent to the State Senators:

find your reps here: http://findyourrep.legislature.ca.gov/

Oppose AB 1401.docx

Press Release: D-1 Supervisor Connie Chan Supports Changes to UGH

press release from Connie Chan’s office :sfrichmondreview – excerpt

Supervisor Connie Chan’s Announces Support for Changes to Great Highway

From Supervisor Connie Chan’s office:

On Tuesday, June 22, the San Francisco County Transportation Authority (SFCTA) voted to adopt the Great Highway report, with amendments to the resolution adopting the staff report. Commissioner Chan requested the resolution include all concepts presented from the report.

Based on feedback from fellow Commissioners Shamann Walton, Myrna Melgar, and Dean Preston, the resolution also included language to urge the SFCTA to monitor use of the facility by race and income and recommend agencies prioritize traffic management planning and bathroom maintenance.

Commissioner Chan expressed support in the long term for Concept Two, which features a promenade and two-way roadway (see image titled “Figure 2”), and in the short term, a timed promenade which would open the Great Highway to cars on weekdays and closed to cars as a promenade on weekends (see image titled “Figure 4”). Chan called for the city to make the infrastructure investments and transit improvements necessary to make a full promenade on one side of the Great Highway available to pedestrians and cyclists, and the other side of the highway open and available to motor vehicles…(more)

Amazing show of unity by the battered and bruised supervisors. Voters need to continue pushing and directing the board to go back to the normal way of life we all crave. Supervisors then need our support when they comply with our requests. No need to bully or blame. Just keep up the positive directions and demand accountability from all our elected and appointed civil servants. We need to go back to our roots to find San Francisco’s heart and get it pumping again.

Pandemic experiments morph into long-term solutions for SF transit agency

By Carly Graf : sfexaminer – excerpt

The streets of San Francisco became real-time laboratories for The City’s public transit agency during the pandemic. Slow streets. Transit-only lanes. Curb management.

The SFMTA tried a little bit of everything, experimenting with novel solutions to quickly address COVID-era problems while avoiding bureaucracy and a typically slow approval process.

Now, it appears some of these temporary measures will become permanent solutions…

The COVID-19 pandemic has forever changed the way SFMTA will approach its work on city streets, according to the transit agency’s director Jeffrey Tumlin, upping its willingness to take bold steps and collaborate with other agencies to address persistent problems facing the public,,,

Fast-paced change hasn’t been embraced by all.

The partial closure of the Great Highway and Golden Gate Park’s John F. Kennedy Drive to vehicles has resulted in significant backlash against what some perceive to be a lack of public input when making major changes to city streets.

“This was a poor plan implemented too quickly without enough alternatives,” said one speaker during public comment at Tuesday’s County Transportation Authority meeting…(more)

When conditions on the streets are unacceptable, voters blame the supervisors and the mayor. All they want is a return to the normal pre-pandemic streets that knew. After the last 18 months they deserve no less and they are letting the supervisors know this.

The supervisors are reacting to the public pressures by requesting more details on the budgets, contracts, and projects they are expected to approve. They want to know who supports the street projects not just the numbers of supporters. Citizens deserve clean, safe, easy to get around in streets and neighborhoods. They do not accept the closed streets, re-routed bus lines and traffic. They want a return to the normal they had prior to the pandemic and that means re-opening the streets.

Letter to the Editor: Stop the “Pilot Program” and Open the Upper Great Highway

Letter to the Editor : sfrichmondreview – excerpt

First of all, the survey that seems to have become the primary authority for this pilot program is nothing more than a sham. Almost everyone I have talked to, and to whom others have talked, knew nothing of the survey. It claims that around 4,000 people took this survey and of that, around half of the people in the Sunset District and a few in the Richmond District approved of the closure. The population of the Sunset is around 62,128; for the Richmond it is 59,297. This is a combined total of 121,425.  Therefore, according to SFMTA, et. al., around half of the four thousand surveyed, half supported a full closure. So, ultimately, 1.5% spoke for 121,425. This is hardly a mandate. What an insult…(more)

San Francisco Transit Transportation Mission Street transit-only lanes make permanent cut

By Jerrold Chin : sfbayca – excerpt

In an effort to speed up one of Muni’s busiest bus routes, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s Board of Directors Tuesday approved permanent transit-only lanes along a stretch of Mission Street.

The transit-only lanes between 11th and First streets were first established on a temporary basis but will now be permanent fixtures to benefit Muni passengers using the local 14-Mission and its rapid route, which carried 33,600 boardings per day in April, or 71 percent of the pre-pandemic ridership, according to a SFMTA staff report.…(more)

Taking traffic off market isn’t enough for Muni. They now have a BART under Market, an above Market Street rail line, and red lanes one block away on Mission Street, (or is that a couple of alleys and street away?) At any rate, the drivers who are footing much of the Muni bills may revolt and stop giving in at some point if you push them far enough. I think the tipping point may be near.