Category Archives: Streetscape

A Facelift for the College Avenue Safeway

14 June 2008 – 9:25 pm

The Safeway and 76 gas station, at the northeast corner of College and Claremont Avenues in Oakland, together occupy a site whose layout is entirely inappropriate for an urban setting, particularly for the intersection of two major avenues. The large parking lot, which fronts directly onto parts of both College and Claremont, is a (sub)urban [...]

By Eric | Also posted in East Bay, NIMBY, Oakland | Comments (13)

Better Streets for the Mission District

28 May 2008 – 12:36 am

Courtesy SF Planning Dept.

San Francisco is arguably one of America’s most walkable cities, with its dense, lively downtown complemented by a multitude of compact, bustling commercial districts that provide pleasant strolling experiences. But it also has its fair share of boulevards, like outer Geary and 19th Avenue, whose designs are rigged to maximize automotive throughput [...]

By Eric | Also posted in Community Meetings, Eastern Neighborhoods, Pedestrian Experience, San Francisco | Comments (10)

Thumbs Up For Market-Octavia and 55 Laguna

14 April 2008 – 12:58 pm

A busy week prevented me from posting about this earlier, but better late than never: as you may have already read in the Chronicle, there have been favorable updates at the Board of Supervisors concerning the Market & Octavia Plan, which I addressed in a post a couple weeks ago. Supervisors Mirkarimi and McGoldrick had [...]

By Eric | Also posted in Affordable Housing, Better Neighborhoods, Historic Preservation, Market-Octavia / Hayes Valley, NIMBY, Parking, Public Spaces / Parks, San Francisco, Zoning | Comments (0)

Market-Octavia: Building a Vibrant Hub

31 March 2008 – 8:09 am

Courtesy Stanley Saitowitz / Natoma Architects, Inc.

For several years, the City of San Francisco has worked to develop the Market & Octavia Neighborhood Plan, studying neighborhoods centered on the pivotal intersection of Market and Octavia, bookended by Church Street on the west and Van Ness Avenue on the east. The plan was one part of [...]

By Eric | Also posted in Affordable Housing, Architecture / Design, Better Neighborhoods, Market-Octavia / Hayes Valley, NIMBY, Parking, San Francisco, Zoning | Comments (5)

Interested In Your Very Own Street Tree?

11 March 2008 – 10:24 am

Interested in your very own street tree? My apologies for the dearth of updates. Off-computer life has gotten very hectic lately, but I’m hoping to get the ball rolling again soon. Until then, you could always … plant a street tree? Though sometimes basic streetscape improvements get lost in the shuffle of more complicated issues, [...]

By Eric | Also posted in Air Quality & Emissions, Asides, San Francisco | Comments (5)

Remembering the 15-Third

24 August 2007 – 12:25 am

In April, after construction delays and budget overruns, Muni, at long last, inaugurated its newest rail line, the T-Third Street. Advertised as “Connecting People, Connecting Communities”, the T-Third Street is an investment in some of San Francisco’s long-overlooked communities, particularly the humbler Bayview and Visitacion Valley neighborhoods, in the southeastern corner of the city — [...]

By Eric | Also posted in Bayview / Hunters Point, Gentrification, Muni / SFMTA, San Francisco, Third Street Corridor | Comments (2)