Whatever you might happen to think about San Francisco’s District 6 Supervisor Chris Daly, we should at least thank him for reigniting the conversation about closing off Market Street to cars, specifically the over two mile stretch between The Embarcadero and Octavia Boulevard in Hayes Valley. This comes fast on the heels of plans to … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading
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, … Continue reading
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 — … Continue reading