Better Practices

Somewhat recently, Streetfilms did a short piece on where we plant our street trees. Specifically, why don't we plant them in the road?

Without question, street trees fundamentally improve the pedestrian experience along city streets. Their canopies provide shade and shelter from the wind and rain, but they take up a small amount of valuable street space. This space is almost always taken from the sidewalk. Pedestrians can maneuver around tree trunks better than cars, so this makes some sense.

But cities around the world (the Streetfilms piece is about Melbourne, Australia) and those close to home are trying something that might be a lot better, at least along streets with narrow sidewalks.

Those cities are taking the space occupied by a few parking spaces along a given block and planting trees in the parking lane:

Pacific Avenue in Santa Cruz

University Avenue in Berkeley

The obstacle to doing this in SF is the omnipresent opposition to removing any parking spaces. The few spaces 'lost' to new street trees, however, could easily be replaced in some situations by adding spaces on side streets or removing curb cuts to inactive garages.

The benefits are functionally wider sidewalks, less root damage to brittle concrete, and more space for the trees' canopies away from buildings. My question is, given the benefits this option affords, why wasn't it considered as part of the Cesar Chavez redesign project?

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SF is a Cheaper Place to Live than the Suburbs

Well I could have told you this! I cringe when I hear people say San Francisco is such an expensive place to live. Yes, rents are higher on average and there are a lot of pricey restaurants around. But, as the Urban Land Institute reports today, you will save around $500 per month if you move from Livermore to SF.

This is something a lot of us know implicitly. I lived for almost three years making no more than $18,000 per year and I always knew I could only do that in a place like SF, where I didn't need a car. Sure, my rent was around $75 or $100 per month higher than friends' in the East Bay, but they ate through those savings and then some on insurance, gas, and maintenance of their cars - to say nothing of parking.
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Muni Announces Upcoming Service Changes

The SFMTA has released its planned changes to Muni service. The changes are scheduled to begin on December 5th. Click the link to view each of the changes, including maps of affected routes. Read more...

Blast From the Past

Hat-tip to The N-Judah Chronicles: Apparently someone's selling an old Muni farebox on Craigslist!


Man, that picture takes me back. I remember putting my quarter in one of these on the 49 when I would head home from school back in fourth grade. I can't remember exactly when they switched to the new fareboxes - I think some time around when the adult fare hit $1.00.

If only I had an extra $325 lying around... Read more...

Peak to Peak!

This past Saturday was Walk SF's Peak to Peak, an annual hike from West Portal up ~15 of SF's hills, ending at Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill. It was billed as a 12-mile walk but one participant's GPS-enabled cell phone recorded it at 14.9 miles, with something like 4,500 feet of climbing, if memory serves.

I had an absolute blast, although my walk to work today was a bit slower and more stiff than usual as I recover. Take a look at the photos above for an idea of how beautiful, and worth the pain, the walk was. Here's a map of the route annotated with some of the photos I took:


View Peak to Peak in a larger map

If you went and took your own pictures, consider uploading them to Walk SF's fan page on Facebook. Read more...

Quote of the Day

In Manhattan, creative jaywalking is an environmental positive, because it makes traveling on foot easier: it enables pedestrians to maintain their forward progress when traffic lights are against them, and to gain small navigational advantages by weaving between cars on clogged side streets - and it also keeps drivers on their guard, forcing them to slow down. -David Owen (via Living Car-Free in Big D)

I definitely agree with this statement, and not because I like pedestrians more than drivers and somehow feel that rules shouldn't apply to everyone. Legally, of course, traffic laws do apply to everyone. But there is a difference in justice of those traffic laws, a difference that reflects the natural hierarchy of vulnerability among road users.

Motorists sacrifice the safety of other road users in exchange for speed; bicyclists do too, to a lesser extent; pedestrians do not endanger anyone else by their choice of transportation. When breaking a traffic law further exaggerates these differences it's far worse, IMHO, than when breaking a traffic law results in a more even - and safer - playing field.

When a driver blows through a red light, he's sacrificing the safety of others for his own speed even more than the already high baseline of driving. That's worse than when a bicyclist blows through a stop sign (assuming no pedestrians are around) not because bicyclists are morally superior, but because the bicyclist's behavior makes everyone slow down, which makes everyone safer.

And when pedestrians jaywalk (assuming they are not oblivious to their surroundings) they make both bikes and cars slow down. And that's a great thing. Read more...

More on the MTA's Parking Meters

Paul Hogarth has some thoughts at BeyondChron.

He tips his hat to Melissa Griffin, who rightly notes that May's emergency budget was only 'balanced' if you include money from the proposed meter changes.

And Streetsblog has its usual high-quality coverage of this important issue.

It's not too late to head to City Hall and put your 2¢ on the record. Room 400. Read more...

A Paper Whose Time Expired

So The Chronicle Comical has decided to campaign against rational pricing for parking meters in SF. In doing so they reveal themselves as tireless advocates for those few privileged enough to drive in San Francisco.

Where was their outrage when Muni fares went up in May? A bus ride now costs twice what it did when our spokesmayor took office and, come January, so too will your Fast Pass if you want to use it on BART. Newsom voicebox Nathan Ballard, who apparently has the ear of the Chron's Editorial Board, reacted to the MTA study thusly:

In this economy, we can't ask people to pay more for parking. Our small businesses don't need one more reason for people to stay away.

Read the report, Mr. Ballard! Businesses don't get their customers from on-street parking. Across SF, only 14% of customers at local businesses drove to get there, and they spend less per capita per month than any other group of shoppers. These are people you want beating a path to your door, I suppose, as long as you're not interested in making money.

SFMTA (PDF)

Ballard, Newsom, and the Comical's concern for the plight of the private motorist is especially insulting given their apparent disregard for Muni riders. All of us who take the B.M.W. (BART, Muni, walk) have been 'asked' to shoulder the overwhelming majority of the burden of the MTA's budget deficit. Not once was a crocodile tear shed by the mayor or our daily paper over the increased costs we've been made to pay.

That, you should note, is how these people treat the engine of our local economy - the 86% of shoppers who spend anywhere from $50 to $150 more per month per person on restaurants, boutiques, hardware stores, dry cleaners, movie theaters and everything else.

The SFMTA, to its credit, did it's homework on this one. There are no chinks in its argument as there were in the recently reversed parking policy in Oakland, and comparisons to that chain of events are superficial. Opponents of the plan must come to realize that they are wrong, and all the evidence is on our side.

So, too, must the SFMTA Board of Directors. They will be meeting at 2pm on Tuesday, the 20th, in Room 400 of City Hall. Be there if you can to voice your support for rational meter pricing in person. Send them email feedback at extendedhours@sfmta.com, and encourage your friends to do the same. And write The Comical and let them know they're wrong and should be ashamed of how they pander to the privileged minority of San Franciscans who own and drive cars. You can send them your thoughts at letters@sfchronicle.com

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Quote of the Day

If they use the money to make sidewalk improvements, one of the most important transportation pieces of infrastructure in San Francisco. I think the sidewalks are almost as important as the bus system. If they said we'll use some of the money to improve the sidewalks and the streetscapes on the metered streets, everybody would see that the city is giving back something and not just taking. I think if you give back something that's very visible and very valuable, the metered communities will see the benefits right in front of their eyes. --Donald Shoup (via Streetsblog)

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SFMTA Releases Overdue Parking Meter Study

Streetsblog has a great writeup of the report, which is overdue by a couple months. My favorite part:

When pressed whether the MTA Board would stand up to Mayor Gavin Newsom if it believed extending meter hours was better for the MTA and the city, [MTA Board Chairman Tom] Nolan admitted the board hadn't opposed the mayor "really in much of anything." But, he added, "We keep turning down revenue options, if it's not going to be on the revenue side, it's going to be on the service side." -Matthew Roth

I can almost hear Tom Radulovich gently reminding him that the City Charter requires him and his colleagues to "diligently seek new revenue sources" for the MTA.

The SFMTA will discuss this study at its upcoming meeting on Tuesday, October 20th at 2pm. If you can, you should absolutely attend and let the MTA know you support the fair parking meter prices this study recommends.
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