What we need, then, is a smart transportation system equal to the needs of the 21st century ... Imagine boarding a train in the center of a city, no racing to an airport and across a terminal. No delays, no sitting on tarmac, no lost luggage. No taking off your shoes.
Imagine whisking through towns at speeds over 100 miles per hour, walking only a few steps to public transportation, and ending up just blocks from your destination.
The Overhead Wire points out these great examples of streetcars whose tracks are laid into grass rather than ugly concrete. He shows the T-Third as a particularly ugly example of a concrete rail bed. The closest we come to those pretty green trains here in SF is the section of the J-Church that runs down the San Jose Avenue traffic sewer, where the tracks lie on gravel and ties rather than in a concrete bed.
In a thinly-veiled attempt to make me love it, the Transbay Blog has a great article on how to get rid of the Central Skyway. That makes the Transbay Blog the latest voice calling for San Francisco to finish the good job it started when we knocked down the elevated structure North of Market Street.
I've called for this, and Streetsblog SF reported that the MTA has agreed to consider studying alternatives to the elevated skyway at the urging of superheroesque Tom Radulovich. Well, Transbay blog has an alternative worth considering.
I've got my own fantasy map that I'm working on polishing up, and I'm sure there are smart folks out there with their own great ideas for this miserable waste of space.
This is an issue that's important to me, and I hope it takes off!
The Chronicle Comical published a letter to the Editor today by Virginia Newhall of Greenbrae.
Compared with other cities around the world, Muni's fares have been too low for a long time, but neither Newsom nor his colleagues on the MTA has mustered the political courage to initiate an increase until now, when necessity demands. -SF Chronicle
Newhall apparently forgets about the two fare increases we had four and five years ago. One assumes from her tone she would like to see Muni's budget woes solved at the expense of its riders yet again. One also assumes that her opinion is based on the fact that she's from Marin and therefore is not one of the afore-mentioned riders. Lastly, one assumes that she feels the work orders responsible for $80M of Muni's budget deficit are the "necessity" that demands that action.
Ms. Newhall's thoughtful contribution to the debate not withstanding, one wonders what happened to the Doyle Drive fare proposal.
At $1.96 per call, should Muni really be encouraging folks to call 311? What's more, the message refers riders to 311 for questions about the MTA budget and its impacts on service...
D6 supervisorial candidate and Beyond Chron editor Paul Hogarth, and D5 supervisor Ross Mirkarimi are making noise about making the MTA's governing board an elected body. Currently, MTA directors are appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the Board of Supervisors.
Hogarth:
If Muni’s not going to fight for the money it needs to run a decent public transit system, I believe that an elected MTA Board makes sense.
From Streetsblog:
[Mirkarimi] said he cautiously supported Proposition A, which gave the MTA Board more power, and wonders whether it wouldn't be better for MTA directors to be elected rather than appointed by the Mayor to enhance independence and accountability, a statement that drew applause from the audience [of the April 8th Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee].
This edition is HD by Vimeo's standards. I recommend viewing it full-screen with HD on and scaling off.
This walk circumnavigates one of San Francisco's ugliest warts: the tangled maze of on- and off-ramps that connect Potrero Avenue and Cesar Chavez Street to Highway 101 while separating the Mission and Bayview Districts for car-free residents. Other liveable streets advocates have taken to calling this monstrosity the "hairball," and I'll use that term here as well since my own name for it is unprintable.
We start at Muni's Potrero trolly yard and maintenance facility, recipient of some much-needed Federal stimulus funds and end at the Flowercraft garden center on Bayshore Boulevard. Since the hairball cuts off the most direct route, down Potrero, across C Chav and on to Bayshore, I cut across 101 at the 18th Street Pedestrian bridge and over Potrero Hill into the Islais Creek industrial area of Bayview.
Things to note in order of appearance:
The steep slope of Mariposa between Potrero and Utah Street results in steps for a sidewalk.
Potrero Hill community garden is planted on former Caltrans land
McKinley Square park with its formal Victorian lawn and panoramic views
The section of Vermont Street adjacent to McKinley Square is curvier than Lombard, but far less famous
The lack of pedestrian crossings on C Chav, even east of the hairball, forces pedestrians to go out of their way around Kansas and Marin Streets, past the KOFY TV20 studios and Beronio Lumber
The Bayshore Boulevard traffic sewer with its merge turns and narrow sidewalks encourages motorists to drive recklessly. Note the failure to yield at 2:18
The Old Clam House is a San Francisco institution; a relic of the days when this area was wetlands surrounding Islais Creek
The old Whole Earth Access and Goodman's Lumber buildings. Locals remember these places fondly; the latter is the site of the ever-controversial and endlessly reincarnated proposed Big Box Home Center store
Carly Clark and Aaron Naparstek of the Liveable Sreets Initiative (the folks behind Streetsblog) have a great piece in Good magazine that eloquently explains the concept of a complete street.
Transbay Blog and SBSF have good writeups of yesterday's SFMTA Board of Directors Meeting at City Hall. The next meetings where you will have a chance to weigh in on the proposed changes to Muni's budget are Tuesdays the 14th at 9am and 21st at 2pm. These meetings have been added to the list of Important Dates in the sidebar.
For those of you, like me, who cannot attend a multi-hour-long meeting in the middle of the week, please use any means necessary to contact the SFMTA and leave your comments.
Tell your friends, post fliers, organize groups to attend the meetings. This is a big freaking deal, people. The basic Muni service we all rely on is in very real danger of being cut to the point where it becomes useless. The number of Muni trips in a day roughly equals the population of San Francisco - and there's no place else for us to go!
SBLA has a great followup to the transit race they told us about a couple months ago.
I have to reiterate what a great experiment I think this is. The organizers and participants apparently all learned something new about LA's transit network. Mr. Newton at SBLA is already forwarding suggestions for the next race, which I hope is in the offing.
I'll hold off on my inate Norcal/Socal rivalry to advocate that this be an idea we appropriate from our quaint southern neighbors. Who's coming with me?
The opinions expressed here are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer or any group I'm affiliated with.
Email: pedestrianist [at] yahoo [dot] com
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