Well here’s what it looks like IRL, on “MACALLISTER” Street near Scott at a barely-used, windblown parking lot owned by a nearby church.
And here’s what it looks like on your iOS device:
Will this company ever make money?
I don’t know.
Will this company ever make money from me?
Hell no.
Anyway, check out how they’re doing in the white part of the Western Addition northeast of the Panhandle – the DivCo they call it. Looks like somebody’s been knocking on doors lately…
Here’s what 6th and Stevenson is like today…
Auweia – click to expand
…and here’s the vision for its future, below.
So, just as the horrible SFMTA recently conducted focus groups on the future of Polk, 6th Street is getting its turn.
I’ll tell you, if I were in charge of making 6th street safer, I don’t think I’d put “Slower Cars” at the top of the list.
How about “Less Untreated Mental Illness” instead?
Anyway, our blessed SFMTA will be hosting ”an interactive activation project on 6th Street (between Market and Stevenson)” on May 18th, 2013.
And Twitter will be there too, sort of.
In a better world, Twitter would participate because it wants to, not because it’s contractually obligated to do so.
(And Twitter would pay its fair share of taxes under the rules signed into law by that wild job-killing radical, Gavin Newsom, all the way back in 2004. Twitter, just give me your tax returns and I’ll figure how much more you should have paid and then you can write a check for the difference and send it in to the General Fund.)
NEWSFLASH: The people from the residential hotels you don’t like on 6th Street aren’t going anywhere.
By law.
Oh, and lots of people working at Twitter would still prefer to labor in northern San Mateo County, just saying.
Anyway, on with the show:
“Slower Cars. More sidewalk space. More mid-block crossings. Brighter lighting. Cleaner streets. These are among the ideas and desires recently expressed by the local community for a safer 6th Street.
Safer 6th Street is a collaboration between SFMTA, District 6 Supervisor’s Office, Twitter, Neighborland, SPUR, URBAN SPACEship and other community organizations to address the issue of safety in the 6th Street corridor, and gather further input from the local community as to what can be done to create a safer area for residents, workers and passersby alike.
There is an on-going community process to implement safety measures in the 6th Street corridor, including:
- Sixth Street Improvement Project led by SFMTA, for permanent traffic calming and pedestrian improvements in the corridor
- Supervisor Jane Kim’s District 6 Pedestrian Safety Workgroup, which has been advocating for traffic calming on Sixth Street for the past several years
- Activation projects led by the Mayor’s Office of Economic Workforce and Development
- The recent establishment of The Sixth Street Safety Hub, an SFPD sub-station
In alignment with this process, we ask – how can we, as a community, create a safer 6th Street?
On Saturday, May 18th, between 12-6pm we will be hosting an interactive activation project on 6th Street (between Market and Stevenson), to engage the community and gather ideas and feedback towards this question, with the aim of envisioning a vibrant area and helping to prioritize treatments to the 6th Street design.
Pick your medium – we’ll have a Neighborland board for you to freely write on, a Twitter photo booth, and a collaborative mural installed by ArtIsMobilus.
Until then, share your ideas and comment on others here or on Twitter using the hashtag #safer6th. Through a new integrated platform between Neighborland and Twitter, your tweets will display on the Question page. Any tweets that start with “I want …” and contain the hashtag will auto-magically become ideas on the Question page.
Come join and take part in creating action on the ground!”
Transit First for Thou but not for Thee, that is.
Taxpayer-paid pickup fueled with taxpayer-paid gasoline:
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Why not use your sweet SFGov ride to run errands to make your life easier?
Legend:
GF: Girlfriend. Or sister I guess.
JC: Junior College. You know, the troubled one.
These were the final two I saw after just passing three others ALL walking/jogging west to get to Trader Joe’s. This is my personal best, after all those years.
Oh yeah, I know all about the history of jaywalking and about Who Framed Roger Rabbit and the Red Car and so forth. So what. How does that kind of stuff help us here? Answer: It doesn’t.
Moving on….
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Here’s what I said about Trader Joes #100, a half-decade ago, on the old blog:
“Of course, everybody needs to be on the lookout for all the Frogger-like jaywalkers carrying their groceries across six lanes of parked and moving cars. (Somebody is going to get hit one of these days.)”
Now that got a bit of attention from TJ’s Corporate. (I know because I saw the logs indicating such.)
So what the reaction? Nothing, basically.
Stuff like this is what the TJ’s people spent their time on instead, it would appear.
Now this is what occurred last year. Actually, it’s the one-year anniversary of the death of 25-year-old Suzanne Monaco.*
Did the San Francisco Planning Department plan things well? No, obviously.
Is the SFMTA doing anything about this particular block? No. They have plans to put a whole lot of useless trees and a useless median south of Geary but they don’t seem to care about where TJ’s parkers park and where they walk.
Yes these jaywalkers are illegally crossing the street and yes they are 100% responsible for their deaths when they get killed but what can be done to prevent future deaths right here in this one location?
I don’t know, a parking garage, an enforcement action, a ban on parking on the east side of Masonic on that particular block of Masonic, a traffic signal and crosswalk, opening up Emerson Alley to allow shopper parking on the roof, you know, just throwing things out there.
This situation is one giant FAIL for SFGov.
You should all be ashamed, SFGov.
Srsly.
Leaving you with one reaction, from Jessica Levin:
“I saw the flower memorial outside Trader Joe’s, and if that is the spot where she crossed, then she must have had a death wish. That’s a busy high speed corridor in both directions and she crossed near a blind crest. She didn’t deserve to die, but if anyone gets the blame, unfortunately it is the pedestrian. I parked across Masonic exactly once (and I did jaywalk to get back to my car) but I was careful to cross at the crest where I could see traffic coming from quite a distance, and even then I was extremely nervous. That was two years ago, and I have never done it again.”
*Was she really carrying “an armful of groceries” while heading “west” back to the store? Probably not.
Get all the deets from Vicente Patino here.
“If the tentative hearing indeed takes place on May 17, a follow-up SFMTA board meeting would likely be scheduled for Tuesday, June 18. According to Paul Rose, press officer for the city agency that oversees parking, traffic, and transportation planning in San Francisco, these new measures may be passed. The board’s approval in June could mean that all-day parking would be gone by the end of summer 2013.”
Up first, spotted skulking about the Western Addition, which certainly would make sense, comes the whip of the Pariah Nation, North Korea’s BFF. Check out the cutesy numbers and letters on the quasi-Fed-issued consul license plate.
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(And, ironically, the car is the flagship model of the world-famous Tahara Plant, the finest car factory in the world since the 1980′s. Thomas L. Firedman still has a total boner for it.- he took the tour and got the T-shirt. My ride was made there well, AAMOF. Actually, I passed through there just last month, you know, on bidness. That’s the country that got all invadey starting about a century ago ’til about seven decades ago. Hey, who’s invading Filipino islands these days? I’ll give you just one guess! Ooh, my ride had a cheesy SERRAMONTE license plate holder as well. But I didn’t even buy my car there, so WTF was that for, who told you to put that thing on? Not just plastic bolts, metal. I couldn’t get them off myself so they had to do it for me. But while I was down there one time, I told the extreeeeeemely cute front line sales rep that she ought to sue for harassment if what I saw and heard was routine. Guess what – she got together with her friends and took action by hiring some law firm/lawyer and ended up getting a ton of money from the dealership group. I’ll tell you about it sometime. Oh and that’s the same dealership where bay area favorite son Tom Hanks got a nice SUV, also from Tahara, also the best in the world, about a half-decade back. I’ll tell you about that sometime too. But I digress…)
Up next comes Taiwan. Poor Taiwan! See that, “FOREIGN ORGANIZATION,” like it’s not even a country.
That’s some fucked up shit right there.
Check it:
“Foreign Organization Special License Plates
5006.5. (a) The department may issue, for a fee determined by the department to be sufficient to reimburse the department for actual costs incurred pursuant to this section, distinctive license plates for motor vehicles owned or leased by an officer or a designated employee of a foreign organization recognized by the United States pursuant to the Taiwan Relations Act (22 U.S.C. Sec. 3301 et seq.) when the department is otherwise satisfied that the issuance of the license plates is in order.
(b) The distinctive license plates shall be designed by the department and shall contain the words “Foreign Organization.”
(c) The department shall establish procedures for both of the following:
(1) To verify the eligibility of an applicant for plates issued pursuant to this section.
(2) To authorize a recognized foreign organization to apply on behalf of its officers for plates issued pursuant to this section.
Added Ch. 397, Stats. 1994. Effective January 1, 1995.”
On It Goes.
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You know what the architect of excessively-wide Octavia Boulevard says about it now? She says we built it too wide.
Anyway, at the time, former District Five Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi warned about the unintended effects of this brainchild of property-owning Hayes Valley millionaires.
One of the effects of gridlock on and around Octavia Boulevard is that it now makes sense for drivers to avoid Oak in the AM.
Thusly:
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Is this a good thing?
I think not.
Read the news and turn the pages.
I remember seeing CODA Automotive’s first SFMTA bus stop ad back in 2010. I thought, “Man, what a turkey.” That’s the year I started the DeathWatch.
This whole CODA concept appeared to be another big fat loser from Goldman Sachs and that’s exactly what it turned out to be.
Oh well.
Ah memories, memories from 2010:
“Whatever You Do, DON’T Put $499 Down on the $45K, Mostly Chinese, All-Electric Coda Sedan
I’ll tell you, the Mitsubishi Carisma didn’t exactly slay the European market when it went on sale a decade and a half ago. Simply, it wasn’t popular. Then a regional car maker in China tried to take the design from Mitsu and make a version to sell to the Chinese in 2005. It wasn’t popular there neither, even at a price of just $10,000. It, as they say, “lacked quality to make a mark“ in the Chinese market. O.K. then.
Well, they went and took out the gas engine and fitted it with a big heavy battery and a lightweight motor and that’s how we’re getting the 2011 Coda Automotive Sedan at a price of, wait for it, Holy Toledo, $44,900. That’s the news of the day, 45K, officially.
Should California and the feds give you tax credits to buy this thing if all Coda Automotive is going to do is raise the price sky high?
What a POS this thing is. Just look at it. In some ways better, and in some ways worse than your sister’s ’94 Honda Civic:
Now, they’re going to have a showroom in the bay area soon and they’re going to let you take a test drive starting next month. Fine, test drive the thing, I don’t care. But don’t give them a deposit, don’t encourage them.
All right, what about the all-electric Nissan LEAF, the Coda Sedan’s arch-rival? The LEAF is better and cheaper.
Here’s what an overly-excited CODA fan was saying about the LEAF last year:
“It’s an alien-looking buggy with small wheels and no nose that won’t look like a real car to American buyers”
Uh, no, that’s incorrect. Sorry.
Hey, here’s a question:
Why is the LEAF so much cheaper than the CODA?
Yes the CODA has a big trunk that the LEAF lacks but so what. (The CODA has small rear seat area because of that big trunk, so oh well.)
Uh oh:
“More ominously for the company, the sedan is more expensive than the Nissan Leaf, which will retail for $32,800 before incentives. Put another way, the Leaf is almost as cheap before incentives as the Coda is after incentives. And Nissan has a well-known brand name and years of automotive experience.”
Here’s another question:
Why does the CODA cost so much more than the Chinese design it’s based upon?
Here’s another question:
How on Earth can people call the CODA an American car if the bulk of it, the glider (basically the entire car except for the battery/transmission) is made in one factory in China and the giant battery is made in another factory in China? What’s that, you wait for the boats to arrive in L.A. County Contra Costa? Solano?, Alameda? (one of them counties anyway) and then slap the battery and various whatnots inside the glider and that’s your “final assembly” in America? I cry foul.
Let’s face it, the Coda Sedan is a Chinese car, whether you like that or not.
Maybe a $45k electric sedan seemed like a good idea last year, but this thing is looking like a clunker already. That’s why people are saying that it, “may be a tough sell.”
Now, speaking of tough sells, let’s look at some of the marketing we’re getting from the CODA people. Go ahead, click and read along:
“The CODA might be the most agile car you’ve ever driven.”
Nope!
“Do you know the feeling of stomping the pedal and waiting for the car to build speed? Those days are over. The experience of driving a CODA is completely different.”
Well, I know what a Chevy Chevette Diesel automatic is like. It’s slow, with a o-60 time of 20 seconds plus. I know your CODA is quicker than that, but is the experience of driving the thing “completely different” from other cars? Nope.
“It’s small, energy-dense UQM PowerPhase® electric motor packs a punch, and weighs hundreds of pounds less than internal combustion engines.”
How can a motor be “energy-dense?” Shouldn’t you be talking about the energy density of the battery instead? Speaking of which, how much does the battery weigh? Isn’t that the more salient aspect?
“So whether you’re standing still or moving at a good pace, you’ll get instant torque and acceleration when you need it.”
You’re selling an electric car on this basis? Isn’t the CODA slower than the average car being sold today? Yep.
All right, caveat emptor.
All the deets, after the jump
