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October 1, 2012Combatting Coastal Erosion, One Truckload of Sand at a Time By Shannon Fiala, Ocean Beach Master Plan Assistant Program ManagerThe City of San Francisco and the National Parks Service recently partnered to fight erosion by placing sand at the southern end of Ocean Beach. Image courtesy of the San Francisco Department of Public Works.Over the past two months, the National Park Service, Public Utilities Commission and Department of Public Works collaborated to move more than 73,300 cubic yards of sand from the north to the south end of Ocean Beach to provide protection against erosion. This process stabilizes...
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September 28, 2012The Time Is Now for Business Tax Reform By Corey Marshall, Good Government Policy Director San Francisco’s technology sector is booming once again, the real estate market appears to be in full recovery mode and office vacancies are at record lows. The city’s economy is quick to catch fire, but it’s also prone to downturns. This has benefited the city’s coffers and the public services they support, but it forces difficult decisions when fortunes turn for the worse.These boom and bust cycles have exposed the importance of consistent sources of revenue for the...
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September 26, 2012Bus Rapid Transit Getting Traction on El Camino Real By Egon Terplan, Regional Planning DirectorAt a workshop on September 21, the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) Board reaffirmed its support for a bus-rapid transit (BRT) project on El Camino Real in Santa Clara County. The project takes a 17.3-mile route from the HP Pavilion in San Jose through Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, Mountain View, Los Altos and north to Palo Alto. This corridor already has the highest transit ridership in the county between the 22 local bus and the 522 rapid bus.Over the past year, the cities of Mountain...
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September 14, 2012New Superintendent Brings New Energy to School Food in SF by Eli Zigas, Food Systems and Urban Agriculture Program ManagerRichard Carranza has been an educator for more than twenty years. He has seen firsthand how student learn better when they’re healthy and nourished. And, as a father of two daughters enrolled in the city’s public schools, he’s heard firsthand that students want better food in their cafeteria. Professionally and personally, he understands that school food is integral to the lives of students and the success of the District. And, as the new Superintendent...
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September 13, 2012BART’s Balancing Act: Ridership and Bike Access By Jennifer WarburgIt’s been an interesting month for BART. Not only did the transit system mark its 40th birthday on September 11, but during the week prior it experienced four of its top-ten most crowded days ever. Ridership exceeded 400,000 on three of those days, and the fourth, September 6, was a day with no special events to boost regular numbers. BART's 10 All-Time Highest Ridership DaysChart courtesy Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART)This explosion of ridership followed on the heels of a pilot...
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September 11, 2012Planning Action on San Francisco's Waterfront by Sarah Karlinsky, Deputy DirectorIn recent decades, San Francisco’s waterfront has been home to some of the city’s most transformative projects, including Mission Bay, AT&T Park, China Basin and the South Beach neighborhood. Today the waterfront is once again where many of the city’s largest and most exciting development proposals are taking place. Several new plans along the bay — including Seawall Lot 337/Pier 48 (also known as Mission Rock), Pier 70 and the Warrior’s Stadium — are...
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September 5, 2012North American Cities Produce Bumper Crop of Urban Agriculture Studies by Eli Zigas, Food Systems and Urban Agriculture Program ManagerThere may be a drought in much of North America, but this summer has produced a bumper crop of reports on urban agriculture in cities across the continent. Nonprofit groups in New York, Toronto and Boston have recently published studies examining what their cities can do at the policy level to support city gardeners and farmers.In the Big Apple, the Design Trust for Public Space and Added Value partnered together to produce Five Borough Farm: Seeding the Future of Urban Agriculture in New York...
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September 4, 2012SPUR San Jose Takes to the Streets on Two WheelsA cadre of 45 urbanists gathered downtown on a recent Sunday morning to join SPUR San Jose Director Leah Toeniskoetter for a bike tour. Beginning in the urban plaza fronting Philz Coffee, our mighty bike train easily navigated its way along the brand new buffered bike lanes of Third Street, en route to Japantown. A project of the City of San Jose, the extra-wide bike lanes are a product of recent “road diets” on certain streets, where three lanes of auto traffic were reduced to two...
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September 4, 2012California's Water Wars: Three Decades, Same Issues By Michael S. McGill*California water policy is endlessly fascinating. It addresses the single most important resource problem facing the state. It is complex. And it changes with glacial slowness.This year, San Franciscans face two issues that reprise what occurred three decades ago: What should the city do regarding the long-term fate of the Tuolumne River? And what should the state do about moving fresh water through the Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta for shipment to the south?Indeed, these two issues were the...
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August 27, 2012Get SPUR's Guide to Public Spaces on Your Smart PhoneSPUR is proud to announce our first smart phone app!Our guide to downtown San Francisco’s privately owned public open spaces (POPOS) is now available for the iPhone. This landmark guide maps the rich network of more than 50 plazas, gardens, rooftop terraces and other little-known oases tucked throughout downtown San Francisco.As our report Secrets of San Francisco explains, the 1985 Downtown Plan requires developers to build one square foot of open space for every 50 square feet of office...
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