Streetsblog Los Angeles

(I figured some of you would enjoy this.  Originally posted as "A Lost Decade for San Francisco’s Critical Mass?" at SF Streetsblog – DN)

Critical Mass rolls down Lombard Street, July 2007. Photo by Chris Carlsson

Well,
no. We’ve had a great run in the 2000s. Averaging between 750 and 3000
riders on any given month, the birthplace of Critical Mass keeps going
strong, in spite of the total lack of promotion or organizing during
this past decade. But many of us long-time riders have been dismayed to
see the persistence of silly, aggressive, and counter-productive
behavior that makes the Critical Mass experience worse for our natural
allies on buses, on foot, and even folks in cars who might join us in
the future. Not to mention that it makes it worse for us cyclists too,
to the point that many former regulars have stopped riding. Part of the
frustration for us long-time riders is that we went through all these
issues quite intensively back in the early-to-mid 1990s, and to see
them cropping up again is a harsh reminder that we’ve done a piss-poor
job of transmitting the culture, the lessons learned, from one
generation to the next. Plenty of current Critical Massers were under 5
years old when we started it, and the ride’s culture has been more
loudly and consistently transmitted by distorted representations in the
mass media than it has by those of us who put our hearts and souls into
it for years.

To address this, a few of us launched a new blog dedicated to San Francisco Critical Mass.

Online for only a couple of months, it has already reprinted a well-digested list of “do’s and don’t’s”, and a rumination from a long-time former Masser on the hard work it takes to keep a space like Critical Mass open and inviting and pleasurable, as well as a look at the Budapest, Hungary Critical Mass and an always provocative look at bike helmets.
It’s a moderated blog with a limited number of contributors, but it’s
open to a wide range of comments including some markedly negative ones,
while it also seeks to keep the discussion constructive and insightful.

Read more…

For decades, planners and transportation specialists have debated how San Francisco's most important street could be re-visioned to  make it work better for transit, pedestrians, cyclists, shoppers, and those living on or near it. Now, as the Better Market Street Project moves forward with trial traffic diversions, the Art in Storefronts project, music and programming in public spaces, greening along sidewalks, and pedestrian safety improvements, San Francisco's political class is intent on revitalizing the street for the long haul. Though the concrete vision for what Market Street will eventually look like is some ways off, there is more effort now than in many years to improve the public realm and ensure the street lives up to its great potential.

When
it comes to building new developments in the Bay Area, especially in
San Francisco, the battle over limiting the construction of new parking
spaces is pitched. Parking reform advocacy organizations like Livable City,
which maintains a listserv populated by car-free and livable-city
advocates keeping a keen watch on planning commission parking
exemptions, have long encouraged city leaders to tighten the
parking-to-unit ratios in dense neighborhoods flush with transit and
bicycling options.

Photo: Matthew Roth

Why,
these advocates ask, would any city seeking to be a model of
sustainability require developments to have one parking space per unit,
as is the case across San Francisco outside of the downtown core and
certain neighborhood plan zones (the mandatory parking ratio can be
higher in other Bay Area cities)? San Francisco is the city it is
because it was built densely, with
minimal parking, and areas like the Mission or North Beach would be
impossible with 1:1 ratios.

Read more…

San Francisco's Market Street.

Two and a half years after a judge issued an injunction preventing the city from adding any new bicycle infrastructure to its streets, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) and the San Francisco Planning Department have released a 1353-page Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) on the San Francisco Bicycle Plan. 

At a cost of more than $1 million, the city has attempted to demonstrate in excruciating detail what would seem to be the obvious: better bicycle amenities contribute to increased cycling and an improved environment.

Despite the significant time and money required to produce the tome, Mayor Gavin Newsom struck an optimistic note, citing the proposed addition of 34 miles of bicycle lanes to San Francisco streets—a 75 percent increase over the existing 45 miles of lanes. 

Read more...