February 2011
71 posts
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5 great bike rides in Oakland →
gmapped, thanks to oaklandnorth.
up tunnel road.
riding in chinatown.
Interested in Your Ideas
Hi,
My name is Bernadette, and I am an intern working on the ResetSanFrancisco.org website.
Reset San Francisco is a website designed to engage San Franciscans and others concerned about issues in their city, including transportation! While perusing Tumblr, your blog caught my eye because of all the posts about public transportation news and improvement ideas, particularly the ones featuring...
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January 2011
41 posts
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Two-Way Hayes Street Proposal Wins Approval at... →
A plan to restore two-way traffic on several blocks of Hayes and Fell Streets in Hayes Valley that were converted to one-way streets in the 1950s was approved at an SFMTA hearing today following a strong show of support from residents, merchants and neighborhood associations. It now goes to the SFMTA Board for approval.
It would affect Hayes Street from Van Ness to Gough and Fell Street from...
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Ashby bike station opening soon →
A new 124-capacity bike station will open within a month at Ashby BART station. The bike station will be similar to the existing self-service bike parking facility at Embarcadero station, and will be located just south of the main station entrance.
oaklandlocal, 27.01.11.
can’t believe there hasn’t been a bike station there previously.
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Light Rail Transit extension to UCSD →
UCSD CAMPUS NOTICE University of California, San Diego
OFFICE OF THE VICE CHANCELLOR – RESOURCE MANAGEMENT & PLANNING January 26, 2011 ALL ACADEMICS, STAFF AND STUDENTS AT UCSD SUBJECT: Mid-Coast Light Rail Project I am very excited to update you on significant progress toward the addition of trolley service to our campus....
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The State of the Union →
The speech was a chance for Mr. Obama to talk about the need for government investment in highways and railroads, schools and new, clean-energy industries. And we were encouraged that Mr. Obama set national goals in these areas — 85 percent of the nation’s energy should come from clean energy by 2035; 80 percent of Americans should have access to high-speed rail within 25 years; and 98 percent...
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Biofuels: jatropha still linked to 'land grabbing... →
Jatropha curcas seedlings.
In my Climate Change & Geogrpahical Economics class at TU (Technische Universität Berlin) we spent some time on Biofuels, including reading the FoE (Friends of the Earth) report.
Here’s a short article with basic info on jatropha, the crop that’s being touted as a silver bullet but fulfills none of its promises.
theecologist, 26.01.11.
not all...
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ridiculous "petition" for more student parking... →
*not super accurately labeled.
gdmit, ucsd and spoiled (and mostly from socal) students and staff members—how many freaking parking spaces do you need???!!!??!!!
and I heard the superloop bus line got cut this year or something of the sort?
why don’t we get to improve transportation options to commuting to campus first rather than add more ridiculous parking spaces???!
gyahhh effing...
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New green trail under BART moving forward →
The Alameda County Transportation Commission is moving forward with a plan to build a 12-mile bike path under the elevated BART tracks between Oakland and Hayward.
The project — called the East Bay Greenway — would offer a landscaped, car-free corridor from just north of the Fruitvale BART station all the way just south past the Hayward station. A pedestrian trail also would be included in...
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“The intersection of lifestyle and conservation is urbanism.”
– context/excerpted from the excerpt from the book Urbanism in the Age of Climate Change by Peter Thorpe, 2010.
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Urbanism in the Age of Climate Change (excerpt1) →
urbanism in the age of climate change, by peter calthorpe. 2010, island press.
I take as a given that climate change is an imminent threat and potentially catastrophic—the science is now clear that we are day by day contributing to our own demise. In addition, I believe that an increase in fuel costs due to declining oil reserves is also inevitable. The combination of these two global threats...
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Pleasant Valley Safeway returns to Design Review →
#19 Jenn says: (January 23rd, 2011 at 5:33 pm)
I live a block away from the current site – and looking at the annotated drawing, I just have to laugh. “Quarry pond amenity”? That quarry pond is an ugly slime covered cesspool – I’m not sure anyone would go out of their way to gaze upon it – I know I sure don’t. It doesn’t even smell good a lot of the time.
The funniest part is the...
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don't drink milk. ..?? →
4. Milk often contains unwanted ingredients. Under current industrial methods, cow’s milk is often a toxic bovine brew of man-made ingredients like bio-engineered hormones, antibiotics (55% of U.S. antibiotics are fed to livestock), and pesticides—all of which are bad for us and the environment. For example, unintentional pesticide poisonings kill an estimated 355,000 people globally each...
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Environmentalists who eat meat have a blind-spot →
TL: Can you see a situation in which you would eat meat again? JSF: I don’t think I would. I don’t need to. On a desert island I might - I might even eat a human. But this is the wrong argument to have because you end up ignoring what is right in front of us which is that 50 billion animals are factory-farmed every year. It’s the number one cause of global warming, it’s...
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Bus Shelters Turn Wait Times Into Neighbourhood... →
Web giant Yahoo has installed twenty large touch-screen displays in bus shelters across San Francisco. These displays are not for trailers. Instead, they’re to let people engage in some free multiplayer gaming.
It’s called the Yahoo Bus Stop Derby, with commuters able to choose from four simple games to play. While they play, their results are being tracked and updated in...
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Downtowns Get a Fresh Lease →
Suburbs Lose Office Workers to Business Districts, Reversing a Post-War Trend
wsj, 13.12.2010.
The trend continues. suburbs will decay as more people come to the realisation that the suburban lifestyle is unsustainable. (statement not to be taken very prophetically.)
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Oakland plans to amp up bikeways in 2011 →
The Webster/Shafter corridor, as this bike route is called, is one of the several dozen projects the City of Oakland’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Program will be working in 2011. Currently, there are no bike lanes painted on the Shafter portion of the corridor, but within the year 2.7 miles of striping or arrows will cover this route from Berkeley on down to 29th Street. “2011 is going to be the...
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WatchPhysically Separated Bike Lanes by Clarence Eckerson, Jr. on 17.02.2007.
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Planned bicycle route to downtown San Diego... →
Uptown Planners unanimously rejected the plan to add bicycle lanes to Kettner Boulevard and India Street, and instead recommended several traffic-calming measures that wouldn’t require a loss of 137 parking spaces.
san diego u-t, 08.12.10.
That is completely untrue. Not the fact that I just excerpted, but that they believe that taking away storefront parking spaces will ruin businesses.
...
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Shanghai Five →
Shanghai Five
A documentary about Shanghai, Culture, and Skateboarding. by Charles Lanceplaine.
Makes me hella wanna bust out my board!
When I get back to Cali, the two things I really wanna work on: graff and skating. haha. It’s like trying to catch up on the stuff I wish I’d done more during high school.
But awesome documentary. Very nice shots. I love skate + surf docs....
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To Conquer Wind Power, China Writes the Rules →
Employees at work on wind turbine hubs at the Gamesa factory in Tianjin, China, in October.
There is another side to this story, of course - namely, that both the Obama and Bush Administrations have focused on subsidizing the following: 1) Coal-to-gasoline plants (billions from the DOE, often cloaked as “CO2 capture projects”) 2) Tar sand imports (billions in Congressional loan...
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Sustainable Oakland →
…In fact, Oakland has been busy addressing these issues for over a decade. I’m impressed with the city’s Sustainability Program, for example, which includes a detailed energy and climate action plan; a “green map” highlighting local green buildings, green businesses, and resources; pedestrian and bicycle master plans; a “zero waste” strategic plan; and an environmentally preferable...
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Reid Brothers ride: SF architecture bike tour →
While not immediately recognizable by name, the Reid brothers’ body of work speaks for itself. The Hotel Del Coronado near San Diego (which was the backdrop for Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis in “Some Like It Hot”) and San Francisco’s Fairmont Hotel are beautiful destinations for travelers, and they were designed by the brothers’ firm. The third iteration of the Cliff House on...
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Do Fake Horse Silhouettes Make Biking More Fun? →
‘horsey’ by eungi kim. one of the shortlisted design entries in designboom’s recent competition “seoul cycle design competition 2010”.
treehugger, 12.01.11. designboom, 10.09.10. (for more pics)
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East Bay Bike Party — January: Hillbilly Wedding! →
The ride will start at the Bay Fair BART and we’ll ride about 12 miles to South Hayward where the off-bike celebrations commence at The Dirty Bird. The bar is close to the South Hayward BART, so if you’re headed home by rail it’s a cinch! The usual start time applies: socializing begins at 7:30pm, ride departs at 8pm. If your New Year’s resolutions include seeing new...
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David Chiu: Bike Network Expansion Is... →
“It is going to be an important year for San Francisco to build on its recent successes for better bicycling,” said Shahum. “City Hall leaders have the opportunity to make the city easier to move around with relatively low-cost, quick improvements, such as more physically separated bikeways on key routes like Market Street and Fell Street along the popular Wiggle route.”
“Every day, on average,...
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Pedestrian injuries in San Francisco targeted for... →
On average, 22 pedestrians are killed each year in San Francisco and 800 are injured, a rate that means over two walkers are hurt every day on city streets. Almost 50 percent of all traffic deaths in San Francisco are pedestrians, which is more than four times the national average. To help improve pedestrian safety, Mayor Gavin Newsom has issued an executive directive outlining goals to cut down...
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some specifics for urban greening in n. oakland →
In my last piece for Oakland North, I wrote a problem statement describing the current unsafe situation on the major streets of North Oakland, and broadly proposing some potential solutions. In this piece, I will delve into more specific detail on a specific type of solution, one that pulls double duty: Urban Greening for Traffic Calming.
The basic concept is to take paved portions of the...
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Rebuild Oakland’s streets to make them safer →
With a bicycle fatality, a little girl hit by a car and multiple car accidents along Market Street in the past couple of months, just in the stretch of Market Street between the intersection of 57th/Market/Adeline and 40th/Market, I think it’s high time that this community begin a dialogue about the relationship between pedestrians, bicycles, automobiles, safety and the design of roadways and...
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Diabolical leaf blowers →
Noise hazard: Blowers create a level of noise of 62-75 decibels at 50 feet away (some estimates say 85 dB to 105 dB or even much higher for older models of leaf blowers) which is well above the noise level considered acceptable for residential areas. Electric leaf blowers are quieter, but almost never used by gardeners. Studies have found that the noise level of most backpack and...
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Brown strips cell phones from state employees →
(01-11) 18:40 PST Oakland — Gov. Jerry Brown issued his first executive order Tuesday, taking aim at a convenience that wasn’t in vogue the last time he was the state’s top official: cell phones.
The governor ordered state agency and department heads to collect half of the approximately 96,000 state-issued cell phones currently in public employees’ hands, a move he said will...
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Estimating GHG emissions from the California LCFS... →
just did my presentation in my Climate Change & Geographical Economics class at TU (Technische Universität) this morning.
I discussed Richard J. Plevin’s 2010 analysis on the California Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) policy. It’s chapter 10 of his 200pg dissertation (no, I didn’t read the entire thing), Life Cycle Regulation of Transportation Fuels: Uncertainty and its...
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Four SF Neighborhoods Get On-Street Bike Parking →
While we knew they were coming, we were so excited to see the new on-street bike parking corrals that appeared along four commerical corridors right before the New Year. Thanks to the SFMTA who installed these racks in Hayes Valley, South Park, along Howard Street and on 14th Street in the Mission. On-street bike parking is a smart way that the City is catching up with the growing demand for...
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Introduction to Environment Impact Assessment... →
by Glasson, et.al. (2005). [too expensive on amazon. and another thanks to google. even if it’s only preview. I wasn’t about to read the entire book anyway.]
catching up on reading for my EIA class.
