Blog: May, 2011
The Numbers: 96% of U.S. Transportation Energy Comes from Oil
A recent editorial by the Regional Plan Association cites this sobering stat (from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) to make the argument for a higher tax on gasoline as a way to both reduce carbon emissions and raise revenues in a time of huge fiscal shortfalls. Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy recently included a three-cent-per-gallon increase in the gasoline tax in his proposed budget, but the legislature cut the measure. Attempts to raise the national gasoline tax, or to enact a cap-and-trade system, have been rejected even more quickly.
The RPA calls this penny pinching short sighted, suggesting that we'll look back on this era of history as a time when oil extraction peaked and demand grew — a recipe, ironically, for drastic increases in gas prices. The editorial argues that governments, both local and national, must take action if our country is to reduce its dependency on oil. Facing their current fiscal crises, most governments cannot offer the carrot of improved public transportation options without paying for them with the stick of taxing car use. Until then, the problems stemming from fossil fuel consumption, including pollution, congestion and climate change, will continue to worsen.
Read the RPA's editorial>>
Weekly Snapshot: Good News for Seattle Bikers and Walkers? Kinda.
Seattle is consistently ranked one of the nation's most bikeable and walkable cities, with low pedestrian fatality rates, bicycle-friendly legislation and a high percentage of commuters who bike or walk to work. However, some worry that these high scores have made Seattle "too cocky," and that the city still has a ways to go in providing acceptable bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure. Residents hope Seattle's relative success does not defer the city from investing in better and more extensive facilities for traveling by bike and foot.
Read full story at PubliCola
More from the week in urbanism:
Don't Fear the City: Urban America's Crime Drops to Lowest in 40 Years
Recent data from the FBI reports that cities, especially those with a population of more than 1 million, are seeing a sharp decline in urban crime rates.
Read full story at The Atlantic
Lights on Market Street
A short film by Public Architecture shows how temporary installations of three large scale lighting displays on Market Street has brought greater vibrancy to the area at night.
Watch film at Vimeo
Five Media Myths That Perpetuate Car Culture
A post on Streetsblog suggests that the media fuels an unhealthy car culture by the continued use of hackneyed language related to Americans' car dependence.
Read full story at D.C. Streetsblog
The Numbers: SF's Compost Program Offsets 2 years of Bay Bridge Traffic
Source: Recology
San Franciscans have been throwing compostable waste into the “third bin” for 15 years now, since we began a composting pilot program in 1996. But anyone who thinks the third bin has only tertiary importance should know that since its beginning, San Francisco’s composting program has offset 354,600 metric tons of greenhouse gasses, equivalent to the emissions of all vehicles crossing the Bay Bridge for over two years. San Francisco has collected over 907,000 tons of compostable waste since the program began. Recology, the company that collects our garbage and recyclables, has converted that matter into 95,000 cubic yards of finished compost a year.
Last year, 77% of San Francisco’s waste was diverted to compost and recycling programs. This surpassed the goal of 75% waste diversion by 2010 set by the Board of Supervisors in 2002. The city has adopted a long-term goal of reaching zero waste, and the Department of Environment is recommending that the city aim to reach this goal by 2020.
Other Sources:
Public Workshop #2 - Ocean Beach Master Plan
Please join us at the Golden Gate Park Senior Center on Saturday, June 4th for the Ocean Beach Master Plan Public Workshop #2.
The project team has been hard at work analyzing the impacts of different courses of action at Ocean Beach. You will have a chance to review several "test scenarios" and compare their outcomes in categories like ecology, infrastructure, and public access over a 100-year period. You can then work with us to assemble an approach that best serves the future of Ocean Beach.
This session will include both presentation and interactive participation. If possible, please arrive at the beginning and stay for the whole session
If you missed our first workshop or would like a refresher on the complex issues at Ocean Beach, please read our article in the SPUR Urbanist, or have a look at the workshop materials here.
WHEN: Saturday, June 4th, 10am-1pm
(includes presentation and interactive work: please attend the whole session if possible)
WHERE: Golden Gate Park Senior Center, 6101 Fulton St. (@37th Ave)
TRANSIT: Muni 5-Fulton to 37th Ave.
DIRECTIONS: http://tinyurl.com/GGPSCdi
PROJECT PARTNERS:
San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR)
California State Coastal Conservancy
US National Park Service
San Francisco Public Utilities Commission
San Francisco Dept of Public Works
ACCESSIBILITY:
This is an ADA accessible facility. Assistive listening devices, sign language, or translation services are available on request.
QUESTIONS/CONTACT: oceanbeach@spur.org
7 Phone Apps That Can Make Cities Better
One of the greatest allures of a smart phone is the time it saves at the bus stop. Having real-time transit info and nearby stop locations at your fingertips makes city living just a little easier. But popular transit apps are just the beginning. Increasingly, smart phone technology is fundamentally changing the way we physically experience our cities.
We have written before about SFMTA’s SFpark program, whose new iPhone application displays real-time parking availability and pricing data, and about Park Circa, an app that lets residents rent out their private parking spots. Below are 7 more apps that can transform our understanding of urban space, provide tools for affecting physical change, help us connect with our neighbors, and generally make our cities better.
Blockboard
Aiming to be a mobile bulletin board, Blockboard is a new neighborhood-based app currently in beta form for residents of the Mission District. Users can post and view local news and events, ask questions of their neighbors, report potholes and graffiti to 311, or list lost belongings. To use the app for the first time, you must be in the Mission, but you can access it after that from any location.
Zonability
Ever visited a building and wanted to know what zoning codes apply to it? Zonability allows users to view basic zoning ordinance data from their smart phones, making city data accessible, legible, and convenient.
Getaround
Getaround is a peer-to-peer car share network in beta phase that allows users to search, request, and unlock a shared car using their iPhone. This is made possible by a small kit that car owners can install in their cars. With such technology, any private vehicle could possibly be shared.
Cool factor: There’s the option to rent a Tesla Roadster.
Street Bump
The city of Boston is working on an app that will use smart phone technology to automatically report where potholes exist on city streets as drivers hit them. The app is in a testing phase, and there are a number of obvious obstacles to success, but the implications are huge. Such an app would allow citizens to report a problem without sending an actual message to the city. Drivers and their smart phones could become mobile sensors for potholes in roadways.
Slow Down
Sometimes blasting an upbeat song while driving makes people drive faster. But speeding – particularly speeding through city streets while dancing in the driver’s seat – leads to more accidents. Slow Down, an app from Belgium, plays your music more slowly as you speed over the limit.
TagDis
A variety of augmented reality apps display virtual information on top of the real world through the lens of a smart phone’s built-in camera. TagDis is a virtual graffiti game where users create their own street art and apply it to walls around the city. Other players can see those tags through their iPhone cameras. With apps like this one, city space becomes both physical and virtual.
Golden Gate Park Field Guide
The California Academy of Science offers visitors to Golden Gate Park an app that features a field guide to animal and plant species, a map of attractions, and suggestions for adventures. Though fairly straightforward, this may be the most urban way to experience nature.
Weekly Snapshot: Imagining Detroit
Mark Bittman of the New York Times calls Detroit a model of "self-reliance and growth," citing the residents ability to look within the city for solutions to challenges posed by a shrinking population. The key to Detroit's recent successes, Bittman argues, is food. The city's food system is integrated with a sense of justice, community, and a commitment to smart land use that unifies residents across race and socioeconomic boundaries. "If the journey is as important as the destination, Detroit is already succeeding," Bittman suggests.
Read full story at the New York Times
More from the week in urbanism:
SFMOMA Addition Design Being Revealed Soon
In anticipation for the release of the SFMOMA addition designs on Wednesday, John King gives readers the tools they will need to critique the proposed building plans from an architectural perspective.
Read full story at SF Gate:
Urbanisation
An interactive map shows how the world's cities have grown over the past half-century.
Read full story at BBC News:
Why Does Seattle Have So Many Bleak Public Spaces?
Lawrence Cheek explores Seattle's public spaces only to find that many of them are dreary and uninviting, some of which go virtually unused for those reasons.
Read full story at Crosscut:
The Numbers: Sea Level Rise Will Expose 270,000 People in the Bay Area to Flood Risk
Tomorrow night, we open "Adapt!" an exhibition on the coming effects of climate change in the Bay Area. The show highlights key points from a SPUR policy report released earlier this month, which explains the kinds of changes we can expect to our climate — and what we need to do now to prepare. As our report explains, efforts to slow down greenhouse gas emissions have so far failed, meaning some changes to our climate are now unavoidable. One of the most profound effects scientists expect is sea level rise. By 2100, seas will rise by an estimated 55 inches, exposing 270,000 people in the Bay Area to flood risk and threatening $62 billion of development. The Bay Area is also likely to see as many as eight times the number of “extreme heat” days it currently does by the close of the century — days that our mild-weather-loving population is almost completely unprepared for. SPUR's report lists 30 strategies for handling climate change in the Bay Area, making it clear that we must act now to adapt.
The Numbers: 30.3% of San Francisco Households Do Not Have a Vehicle
Source: MTA 2011 Climate Action Strategy
Good Government Awards: How Cheryl Nashir Increased Retail Sales at SFO
SPUR’s 31st annual Good Government Awards, held earlier this year, honored five City of San Francisco employees and teams who have performed exceptionally, becoming models for other agencies and cities around the country.
Cheryl Nashir received an award in recognition of her leadership and vision in making San Francisco Airport a vibrant marketplace and increasing revenue. Since joining the Airport in 2006 she has developed and managed a dynamic mix of food and beverage, retail stores, advertising programs and other services, with the majority of selected businesses operating in the Bay Area. This has resulted in a 24% increase in the Airport’s revenue, totaling $98.7 million annually. This boost in revenue means the airport contributes $3 million to the city’s General Fund, during a time when the city faces enormous budget deficits. In addition, Nashir’s successful concessions program for Terminal 2 will generate $4.6 million to the Airport and $700,000 to the General Fund. Under Ms. Nashir’s supervision, SFO has achieved the highest food and beverage sales per passenger of any airport in the United States, as well as the third highest retail sales.
Watch our video about Cheryl Nashir's work:
The Numbers: SF Bike Rental Revenue Up 2,000% Since 1998
Source: Streetsblog
SPUR has made the case that an expanded bike network gives residents a safer option to add exercise and subtract carbon from their transportation diet. Better bike infrastructure would benefit tourism as well — although visitors are already discovering the pleasures of biking San Francisco: in 1998, bike rental businesses in San Francisco had combined earnings of $500,000. Thirteen years later, that figure has ballooned to $10 million, according to a post on Streetsblog. These numbers, provided by Darryll White, CEO of Bike and Roll San Francisco, show tourists voting with their feet: even without a fully developed bicycle infrastructure, visitors want to explore the city without a windshield in the way. Bicycle tourism is a growth opportunity, and just one more reason why "bikeability" is a critical component of San Francisco's future — and a critical component of SPUR's recommendations for Fisherman's Wharf (pdf), and the Embarcadero (pdf).
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