Bike Accident Tracker: Contra Costa Least Safe Place to Bike

Hola amigos, I know it's been a while since I rapped at ya, but I've been trying to figure out what my intentions and ambitions with this publication are, exactly.

In the meantime, a totally excellent example of public data sharing and professionally-managed crowd-sourced journalism: The Bay Citizen's Bike Accident Tracker. Maps, charts, data. Agent at fault, type of crash. Really great stuff.

Click to enlarge--and note the customized search/sort featers at left.

Aggregated results: Contra Costa County is the worst. Not for the total number of crashes, but for the percentages of bike commuters who are involved in accidents. From 2005 to 2009 there was an average of 288 accidents involving cars and bicycles in CC, or 11% of the roughly 2568 bike commuters.

San Francisco, though it posted far more accidents, also posted far more commuters--and only 4% of them were involved in crashes.

New SF Affordable Housing

SJ Mercury News: The Metropolitan Transportation Committee has committed $10 million to a $50 million revolving fund for affordable housing near transit stops. Morgan Stanley, Citi Community Capital, and several other financial and nonprofit groups to create the fund, called the Bay Area Transit Oriented Affordable Housing Fund.

Officials plan to make the first $4.8 million loan to buy a San Francisco parking lot where developers plan to construct a 14-story building with 150 apartments and a ground-floor grocery story at Eddy and Taylor streets.

It's great to see money being freed up for housing, post economic liquidity/loan contraction. Affordable housing is also chronically underfunded, as, you know, incentives skew more strongly toward non-affordable housing (read: luxury condos). Such is life, such is the market.


Map:

Street view:

Of course, the shortage of parking in SF is a bone of contention. But in the heart of downtown, I can think of better lot uses than car storage.

Caltrain Saved, For Now

Chronicle reports: Caltrain has found a way to stay afloat for the next two years. The Metropolitan Planning Organization, the closest thing the balkanized Bay Area transit/transpo landscape has to a arbiter, stepped in and pledged to divert monies slated for maintenance projects (!) and capital projects like electrifying the Caltrain tracks (who knew?) and building a "Dumbarton Bridge line." Again: who knew.

And raise fares. Natch.

And to think people thought Caltrain would stay solvent by closing stations or limiting hours.

It's hard to tell from either the Chronicle or the Examiner account whether the diverted funds are the MTO telling Caltrain what to do with its (Caltrain's) money, or whether it's the MTO throwing its own money at Caltrain. I lean toward the latter. The plan is for Caltrain to locate a dedicated funding source in the next two years--it is unique among all Bay Area transit agencies in lacking some kind of local tax revenue source. Because the current arrangement is hardly appealing, for anyone. And one of the craziest things is that Caltrain has one of the highest farebox recovery rates in the area; they get more of their budget from fares sold than BART or Muni do. Through the looking glass.

At least the new Transbay Terminal has some sweet public art commissions lined up: Tim Hawkinson plans to use rubble from the old Transbay Terminal to make a new sculpture. Previous work:

 

A bear!

And a "300-foot long sculpture was comprised largely of 13 bus-sized inflated bags", AKA a giant bagpipe.

Redevelopment vs. Preservation in SF

Writing SoMa history | San Francisco Examiner

Interesting snapshot of the investment that may/will unfold with the arrival of HSR and the Transbay Terminal. Proponents of HSR argue that areas adjacent to planned stations will receive this attention up and down the state-long route, and with it come concerns about preserving the character of the existing space. Preservation is a tricky beast to tame, and a glance at the comments will tell you why:

Planning tends to do a really mixed-up choc-a-bloc pastiche when they get into this micr0 management mode. It the Mission they arbitrarily took whole blocks that had been mixed use, and locked them down under "industrial preservation." Now many of those buildings sit empty because the "industry" has long since moved out and there is no flexibility to re-purpose the buildings.

Meanwhile individual neighbors are jammed up against industrial space that is neglected.

And:

Sixth Street Lodging District?!?!? Are you f-ing kidding me? Let's make sure we preserve the homeless and criminals that do with it and that live in these "historical" buildings. Better yet, in order to preserve the true character of the neighborhood, let's dress all the homeless like 1930 bums and call is Skid Row again. We can sell tickets!

Preservation can be a powerful tool to prevent slash and burn redevelopment that makes every place look like noplace, and whether these commenters are right or wrong, it can also hamstring economic growth, and result in arbitrarily preserved eyesores. It is also selectively wielded, and though Examiner reporter Kamala Kelkar doesn't come right out and say it, bias is implied. SoMa and the Mission have been targeted for preservation against overzealous developers, while (the last historically black neighborhood left) Hunters Point was not. Nor, in decades past, was the Fillmore area, known as "The Harlem of the West."

I've given my snapshot of California Redevelopment Laws in an earlier post, and it is safe to say that the system favors the monied and powerful in their quest to remain monied and powerful. It accomplishes this by creating powerful incentives to replace underperforming/poor areas with uses that generate more impressive revenues: luxury condos and big box regional retail being perhaps the foremost. Preservation needs a place at the table, as I think it's usually best to regard redevelopment skeptically until proven otherwise.

Funding for Central Subway?

The Chronicle reports that Newsom has come through with guarantees for $106 million in state bond money, and the remainder from savings. On paper, the San Francisco central subway is looking better.

Tolls! In SF and LA

People hate tolls.

SJ Mercury News covers the congestion pricing scheme, and lays it on thick:

Welcome to San Francisco. That'll be three bucks to enter, and three more bucks to leave.

Sound nuts? Not to the San Francisco Transportation Authority. The agency is considering a proposal to turn the line with San Mateo County into a virtual toll plaza, charging rush-hour commuters up to $6 each weekday to cross into -- and out of -- the city by the bay.

 Ouch.

Buried at the bottom:

Tilly Chang, a deputy director at the agency, argued that the toll would decrease traffic because people would alter their commute times and take transit to save money. The authority predicts that with tolls, traffic at the city's southern border would drop 20 percent during commute times.

"The cost of anything needs to be taken in context," Chang said. "It's not free right now. People are paying in time and having to pad their trip."

Battle lines!

And in LA, the MTA has received a grant for a demonstration project to test the expansion of HOT lanes. If it works--if traffic is reduced and vehicle throughput increased--any number of five additional locations could see a permanent addition. The locations are currently being vetted in more detail.

SF Pulling Out All Stops

Two proposed underground subway lines into downtown.

Congestion pricing for SF's northeast quadrant.

Parking lot in the Mission slated to become a park.

MTA proposes 250 miles of bus only lanes, 100 miles of dedicated bike lanes.

And a month ago, SF Bike Coalition's plan for major, city-wide bicycle infrastructure, striping, and safety improvements.

Topsy-turvy up in here. Exciting to think about how these projects could transform the city--if any of them come to pass.

(Duplicate?) Underground Rail Galore Planned in SOMA, South Beach

The San Francisco MTA is looking a few million short for their planned central subway. The subway would connect the existing Caltrain terminal at King and 4th with light rail service above ground to Bryant and 4th (by the looks of the map) and then underground to Chinatown.

The proposed additions

What is unclear is how this plan will connect with the Transbay Terminal, a project that is much more likely to move forward, since the previous Terminal has been demolished--buses are currently using a temporary structure. According to the Transbay Terminal project map (also below) on the website, the new Terminal will be bounded by Mission and Howard, and 2nd and Beale. So, far enough away from the black line on the above map that the central subway will not pass through the Transbay Terminal.

Additionally, the Transbay Terminal proposes building an underground right of way from King and 4th to the 2nd and Howard/Mission. This would serve as the SF terminus for high speed rail.

"The rail line will be extended 1.3 miles underground from its current terminus at Fourth and King streets into the new Transbay Transit Center, providing a seamless connection between the Peninsula, the South Bay, Southern California and San Francisco’s Financial District."

So to pull this together: HSR and Caltrains will come through the 4th and King station, and continue underground to the Transbay Terminal (blue line above). The 4th and King station will also have a branch northwest along 4th street, taking Muni light rail aboveground to Bryant, then underground to Chinatown.

I wonder how the underground subway would connect with existing Muni subway running along Market Street ... (update: commenter lmz informs that the Union Square Central Subway stop would have an underground ped connection to the Powell St station)

Also, can a high speed rail train execute a 90 degree turn? Maybe the right angle is an exaggeration of the publicity map; these are obviously not engineering specs, and it will be underground in any case (and thus not constrained by street grids).

Both of these projects are "actively searching for funding." Especially the central subway, which is more tenuous. If rail service is already being extended from 4th and King to 2nd and Mission, does it also need to go up to Chinatown along a separate route? Wouldn't it be better to extend, later, northward from the Transbay Terminal? I must be missing something here.

San Francisco Proposes Congestion Pricing

The San Francisco County Transportation Authority just got some great press for its proposal to implement congestion pricing. From the Chronicle:

Drivers crossing greater downtown San Francisco and the southern border with San Mateo County could be hit with a new toll costing them as much as $1,560 a year.
Everyone from workers to parents dropping off their kids at school could have to pay the new charge, which is designed to ease congestion and raise revenue for extra bus service, pothole repairs and bike and pedestrian improvements.

811 comments, and counting. SFCTA's got some nerve with the timing of their announcement, what with the general perception that government is overly spendthrift, recession, state debt, etc.

I'm of two minds here.

1) Congestion pricing discourages driving, which is in the long run a win for dense urban spaces with good public transit, like San Francisco.  But these taxes are regressive, in that they hit the poorest the hardest. So I'm curious to see how the name-checked plan to give discounts to "disabled and low-income drivers, residents who live in a toll zone, drivers who also pay bridge tolls and businesses with a fleet of trucks" gets rolled out.

2) The communications team at the SFCTA must be tone deaf, otherwise they would have frontloaded their media campaign with something besides the obvious: you, yes you, will now need to pay for something you used to do for free. Namely, they should have made crystal clear, dollar by dollar, why congestion pricing offsets the unpaid costs that driving always already incurs--the pollution, the amortized cost of parking & roads, the realization that the city's population will grow but its automobile infrastructure is at capacity (barring road widening, etc), and that as such congestion pricing is a necessary response.

Is it? I would say yes, but I don't live there. If I lived there, and drove, I'd be indignant. This whole proposal comes across looking like a bunch of bureaucrats have arbitrarily decided that they want a city with fewer cars, and could also use a bigger budget for their pet projects, thank you very much. No taxation without representation, c'mon, let's go dump some goddamn tea in the water.

You can't just drop a proposal of this type like any other news story; something like this needs set up work, it needs a proper PR campaign. Get out the information about hidden costs of driving, of the time wasted in congested streets, then slap a dollar sign on it to give the issue some context and help us all understand what costs are already being paid, and why something needs to be done about it. Get some economist up there to talk about how when a desirable good is underpriced, demand will always outpace supply and shortages, e.g., congestion, occur. Maybe they tried some PR pump-priming, and this happened anyway. Maybe they have no time and no funding for public relations. Either way, the SFCTA is catching flak like it's going out of style.

In an interesting comment, SFWeekly notes that a congestion pricing plan would likely fall victim to Prop 26, which requires all fees to be approved by a two-thirds majority vote in the state legislature. Good pick-up.

Further Reasons to Mess With Texas

For those keeping track of symbolic cultural clashes, the current World Series between the Giants and the Rangers just keeps getting juicier. First there was Proposition 23, the Texas oil-fueled attack on CA's greenhouse gas reduction bill*, then there were Josh Hamilton and other Texans waxing incredulous about omnipresent weed scents. Now comes the news that Arlington is the largest U.S. city without transit.

*Partial text of Gov. Schwarzenegger's epic take-down of Prop 23 in the comments.

Not that SF is the very bestest, transit-wise, but at least fans have options for getting to the ballpark. Either way, the Giants now carry the hopes of the environmentalists, the stoners, and the transit advocates, each looking for vicarious victory over the forces of evil.

Though traditional auto-dependent land use is certainly an obstacle for transit in Arlington, funding is also a substantial problem: Texas sales taxes are capped at 8.25%, of which the state receives 6.25% and cities receive the remaining 2% to use locally. Because the Rangers and the Cowboys have recently completed ambitious new stadiums, all of Arlington's sales tax gets funneled toward paying off debt. Which lead SFWeekly to the following insight:

San Francisco has earned its reputation as a place that throws money around. But in this case, the truth is counter-intuitive. Here you ride a publicly financed bus or train to a privately financed stadium. In Arlington, you ride in a privately financed car to a publicly financed stadium. 

Zing!

San Francisco Bike Plan

Wow. Streetsblog has the details, I'm just going to post some pictures for visual pizazz. Dedicated bike lanes, solid green lanes, mode split goal of 20%, making biking safe for ages "8 to 80", a new waterfront bike path, even neato Scandinavian tools for scaling hills. All from the San Francisco Bike Coalition, priced at $100 million. No funding or official SFMTA sign-ons yet.

Connecting the City's proposed three priority crosstown routes. Map: Jack Reinick for SFBC.

A draft network of 128 miles of bikeways in the city. Image: SFBC. (Click to enlarge).

Segregation and cities

One area of urban planning that I have both read a lot about, in the sense that it exists, but have not read anything about, in the sense of what a planner can/should do about it, is segregation.

h/t to Ms. AK from Seattle for the link to these illuminating population maps. Just goes to show how far a good visual can go. I've posted three, but a few more are here.

Red/pinkish dots = white people, blue dots = black, green dots = asian (presumably east asian, judging by the Chinatown clusters, unknown how much of Asia is included though), and yellow = hispanic/latino.

San Francisco - lots of white people in north and central SF. Interesting integration in what looks to be either downtown Oakland or Berkeley, can't quite tell. It's one of the few places on any map where all colors can be seen mixed together.

Detroit - the 8 mile road is like the Berlin Wall. Wow. Inner city is black, outer ring, white.

New York City - the famous neighborhoods. Little thises and thatses, and boy are they concentrated. Notable that Central Park and Prospect Park, the two best known (and used) parks, are pretty much surrounded by white people. Assuming I've noted the correct location for Prospect. I guess that shouldn't really come as much of a surprise.

These maps = me looking forward to learning GIS.

Parking, Parking Everywhere

Parking Minimums lead to Sprawl: Quantitative Evidence

A team of economists from the University of Munich recently released a study examining the effects of mandatory parking minimums on development in urban and suburban Los Angeles. The team found that parking minimums "significantly increase" the amount of land devoted to parking, to the detriment of water quality, pedestrian safety and non-automotive modes of transportation.

One byproduct of minimum parking reqs is the amusing personification of "underperforming asphalt." That parking minimums lead to an oversupply seems like a no-duh situation, but quantitative results are, as they should be, the gold standard.  

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Market-based Parking in San Francisco

Circling for parking accounts for approximately 30% of driving in San Francisco.

Very interested to see how this plays out. Definitely a story I will be following.

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Privatized Infrastructure = Lost Revenue

About two years ago, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley sold off the rights to 75 years of his city’s public parking meters for $1.15 billion to a partnership of private companies led by Morgan Stanley. ... Bloomberg News, however, revealed last week that the private partnership that bought up the spaces expects to generate at least $11.6 billion in revenues over the course of the contract — producing a potential profit of $9.58 billion.

Daley wanted to implement market based pricing--like SFpark, above--but expected it to be politically impossible. In 2008, yes. In 2010, less so. 2015? Who knows, but hindsight is always 20/20.

But damn, what if cities accurately priced the real estate and construction costs of parking? Billions and billions more for the business districts and neighborhoods abutting the parking spaces, billions more for road maintenance, for transit, for ADA compliance, for bike lanes and ped paths. Reduced incentives to drive. Cleaner air. And how terrible to think that such needed revenue for reinvestment in public infrastructure might go (will go, in Chicago's case) to things like Morgan Stanley's bottom line. Yuck. But here's hoping the program, and SF's program, showcase how effective market pricing can be in reducing circling time and vehicle miles traveled while generating revenue.

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Shoupista Explains Cash Out Parking

If certain employers offer free parking (a subsidy to drivers), they are required to pay an equivalent amount to employees who do not drive. A parking cash out.