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August 26, 2011Election 2011: How Did SF’s Pension Problem Get This Bad? By Corey Marshall, Good Government Policy DirectorWith two different pension-reform measures on the upcoming ballot, it’s no secret that pension reform will have a significant impact on the November election. But how did the city get to the point of having a problem of this magnitude? Clearly the recession has played a big part, but what about the many negotiated increases in benefits over the course of the last decade?While there has been much discussion here at SPUR about the magnitude of the pension crisis in San Francisco, scant...
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August 22, 2011High-Speed Rail's Plan B Is A-Okay by Gabriel Metcalf, Executive DirectorMore than ten years ago, we did our first major report on high-speed rail in California, advocating for an alignment that went through existing town centers rather than bypassing them for cheaper land. The point was to use rail as a tool for organizing the state’s growth, reinforcing center-oriented development instead of sprawl.For the most part, the California High-Speed Rail Authority has done the right thing on this basic question of the train alignment. But as we move from idea to...
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August 22, 2011SPUR Announces November Ballot Positions By Corey Marshall, Good Government Policy DirectorThe ballot for the upcoming November 2011 election has finally been set. After five measures dropped off, we’ve ended up with the shortest ballot in a mayoral election in at least 50 years.The remaining measures address some important financial topics in a difficult economy, when voters may not be in the mood to talk about money. Pension reform, bonds to pay for schools and roads, and even a sales tax increase — all on the same ballot. Times are still tough for local government, and...
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August 16, 2011How Will 1.7 Million More People Cross the SF Bay? By Jordan Salinger and Egon Terplan, Regional Planning DirectorThe San Francisco Bay Area is expected to grow by 1.7 million people in the next 25 years. If you’ve ever muscled your way onto an overcrowded BART train or idled at the toll plaza waiting to cross the Bay Bridge, you may wonder how we’re going to get all these additional people back and forth across the bay.Meanwhile, gas is just under $4 per gallon today. What happens when it hits $6 or $8 per gallon? Will we have enough transit capacity to manage everyone who can no longer afford...
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August 15, 2011Hackathon! Coders and Civil Servants Unite to Fix SF BY PETER ENZMINGERA grown man napping on his laptop case. Daily visits from SF mayoral candidates. Keynote addresses from the Wigg Party, MIT's SENSEable Cities Lab, the Rebar Group, and the San Francisco Department of the Environment. Cold pizza after midnight. More than a hundred adults sitting around tables on the 5th floor of a Mid-Market office building on a Friday night. This is what ground zero of the open government movement looks like.From July 22 through 24, the Gray AreaFoundation...
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August 15, 2011The Lessons of Carmageddon: Could L.A. Embrace Carlessness? By Micah HiltIt came and it went, but Los Angeles as we know it did not come to a terrible end. Carmageddon — the 52-hour, 10-mile shutdown of the 405 freeway last month —passed quietly into history, becoming one of L.A.’s lightest traffic days ever. Angelenos stayed off the freeways; bicyclists challenged a Jetblue flight to a race — and won; people used trains and buses to get around or just stayed in their own neighborhoods. The predicted gridlock simply didn't happen.Most...
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August 11, 2011Market Street Poster Series Celebrates Cycling Culture By Casey JungA glimpse into biking through San Francisco debuts this week on Market Street. As part of its Public Arts program, the San Francisco Arts Commission will display its second installment of the popular Market Street poster series, which puts art in select bus shelters. With the aim of providing workers, residents and visitors easy access to contemporary art, this year’s series captures the city of San Francisco from atop a bicycle.Designed by the San Francisco-based artist Ian Huebert, The...
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August 10, 2011Mayor Ed Lee Helps Unveil SF's First Parkmobiles By Cole Armstrong and Micah HiltThe Yerba Buena neighborhood already features museums, parks, an arts center and a convention center (as well as SPUR world headquarters), but starting this week there's something new to see: six new mobile parks, called “parkmobiles.” The first of their kind, the parkmobiles will be a shared resource in the community. Unlike the city's parklets, which are usually paid for by one business and stay in one location, the parkmobiles will rotate among many locations throughout...
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August 9, 2011Did the 1966 Market Street Design Report Invent Bus Rapid Transit? By Will HeywoodSPUR’s basement archive is a treasure trove of vintage planning reports and books. To make these documents available in digital format, we are daylighting the more interesting artifacts on our blog. Today’s find: Market Street Design Report Number 4, published May 9, 1966. This 50-page report (which was probably considered detailed back in those days), written for the City of San Francisco by Mario J. Ciampi & Associates and John Carl Warnecke & Associates, addressed how to...
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August 5, 2011New Map Shows NYC's Potential for Solar Power BY JILLIAN BURNSAcross the country, cities have realized the urgent need to invest in renewable energy sources. Solar panel installations in San Francisco have grown from 551 in 2007 to more than 2,400 today, largely due to city, state and federal incentives for residents and businesses. New York City hopes to have the same success by launching the New York City Solar map to help people understand the benefits of going solar and taking advantage of available incentives.The map was created by the City...
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