Almost thought it was a fake from the filming of NBC’s horrible Trauma action/dramedy at first, but no, if you count the points on the big blue door star it comes up seven (and not eight) every time.  

Fake Michael Schumacher will have even less of a chance of evading Park Station the next time he drives his Ferrari F355 Spyder to Haight Ashbury for a pint or five.

Maybe our City is just trying out something new…

The intersection of Fell and Broderick

This meet-and-greet happened a couple of weeks back but the BANP is crowing about it today, so head over and check it out, why don’t you?

Look, it’s brand-new BANP EIC Jonathan Weber and CEO Lisa Frazier at North Gate Hall sharing a few brewskis with the J students:

TwitPic via jrue, aka Jeremy Rue, multimedia training instructor for the Knight Digital Media Center and a lecturer for the Carnegie-Knight program News21

Do you fret over* these students becoming “slaves” or something? You may be richer and older than they, but they’re smarter than you - try to keep that in mind when pondering such matters. These 20-somethings will do fine - they’ll manage to get by, with or without the BANP.

Bon courage, BANP et etudiants.

*Absence of pay-wall duly noted. Isn’t it ironic, dont’cha think?

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Doesn’t it sort of look a bit like San Francisco, complete with a Bay Bridge, Treasure Island, Market Street, an Embarcadero, Twin Peaks, Russian Hill and all those gridded streets?

Of course, there are differences. Like they’re a big city and we’re a little-big city with less than a million.

And their town is a lot flatter than ours, too. That’s something that we’ll have to take into account when we kick off our Bixi-like bike share system. (Montreal’s attractive bike share system is currently pretty much confined to the flatter parts of town. That kind of approach won’t work here in San Francisco. But at least we don’t ever have heavy snow, which suspends Bixi service for almost half the year.)  

Anyway, compare Montreal with the 415:

The very wide and usually quiet Moraga Street:

Here’s Polly’s versions of the SFPD-released captures:

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That’s it, there aren’t any official updates for this case.

*Moraga Avenue isn’t in the Avenues, it’s in the Presidio, for some reason.

“Feb 5, 2010 to Feb 7, 2010 - SF Muni N-Judah Line Delay: On Saturday, February 6, SF Muni reports delays on the inbound N-Judah Line at Judah and 29th Avenue due to a street closure involving a sinkhole near the inbound tracks. N trains are turning back at Judah and 19th Avenue and bus shuttles are being provided until further notice.”

And, in fact, the actual sinkhole location itself looks unremarkable, excepting for all the signs all around it.

But check it – appears as if work crews might be spending the next two weeks onsite at 29th and Judah:

 ”WE WILL TOW,” says MUNI. No doubt.

People riding the N Judah buses this AM seemed relatively unaffected* by the loss of the trolleys, but that probably won’t be the case on Monday if the tracks aren’t usable.

Or, maybe, the City’s taciturn work crews will be able to get a quick fix in this weekend and then work on a better job over the next week or so? Perhaps there’s an ongoing issue there anyway and this whole deal is a big nothingburger with a side order of nada?

MUNI probably has a pretty good idea on what will occur but they aren’t officially saying anything yet.

Only Time Will Tell.

Le mise-en-scene ce matin:

An avid radio fan, call-sign Star Scream (srsly, perhaps ironically), hepped  me to when the supervisors would show up this AM, and lo, he was spot-on. (Radio – it’s like the Internet but without pictures.)

Note the cracks nearby the purported sinkhole…

…and then compare them with these nearby bits (could we call them railroad ties?) that appear to be waiting to go:

Good luck, MUNI!

[UPDATE: If you believe what Next MUNI is saying, then the trolleys will be rolling across the sinkhole spot by this afternoon, February 7th.]

*So people trying to get to MUNI’s Town Hall Meeting today (maybe it’s still going on) should be able to make it. MUNI likes these kinds of meetings because they disunite riders (because of infighting over the preservation of service on particular lines) and they unite the disparate elements of MUNI. (Is the state of California really “taking away” money from MUNI or just not giving as much money to MUNI?) Regardless, if enough people hammer on the importance of one particular line, that can make a difference…

“Free Screening of “Inside Buffalo” This award winning documentary tells the story of the 92nd infantry division, an African-American combat unit that fought heroically in Italy during World War II. Nicknamed the “Buffalo Soldiers”, these men valiantly fought two wars at once: one against fascism in Italy, the other against racial discrimination at home.
 
Born and raised in Italy to a Ghanaian father and an Italian mother, director Fred Kuwornu details little known aspects of the story, including the profound and lasting friendships forged between the soldiers and the Italian villagers they liberated from Fascist rule. The screening will be followed by a conversation with the director.
 
Friday, February 12, 2010 — 6:30pm
Golden Gate Club, 135 Fisher Loop in the Presidio
Free Admission—To RSVP call (415) 788-7142 ext. 18
For more information visit: www.presidio.gov/calendar  or www.iicsanfrancisco.esteri.it

Buffalo Soldiers engaging the Germans in Massa, Italy, 1944:

The 92nd Infantry chasing the Wehrmacht in the Po Valley, 1945. (If only they had given more time for the sanctions to work!) 

All the deets, after the jump.

PRESIDIO TO HOST FREE SCREENING OF “INSIDE BUFFALO”
AWARD WINNING DOCUMENTARY CAPTURES BUFFALO SOLDIERS’ HEROISM AND PLIGHT
 
Presidio of San Francisco (February 5, 2010) — The Presidio Trust, in conjunction with the Italian Cultural Institute and the Consul General of Italy, is hosting a free screening of the award-winning documentary Inside Buffalo on Friday, February 12 at 6:30pm in the Presidio’s Golden Gate Club. The screening will be followed by a conversation with the film’s director, Fred Kuwornu.
 
Inside Buffalo tells the story of the 92nd infantry division, an African-American combat unit that fought heroically in Italy during World War II. Nicknamed the “Buffalo Soldiers”, these men valiantly fought two wars at once: one against the Nazi’s and fascism in Italy, the other against racial discrimination at home. They took their name from the original Buffalo Soldiers, an African-American cavalry regiment formed during the Civil War. Like their namesakes of World War II, these soldiers, some of whom were stationed at the Presidio for a brief time, were renowned for their bravery.
 
A meeting with Spike Lee while working on Lee’s film Miracle at St. Anna in Tuscany inspired Kuwornu to make his very personal and moving documentary. Born and raised in Italy to a Ghanaian father and an Italian mother, Kuwornu details little known aspects of the story, including the profound and lasting friendships forged between the soldiers and the Italian villagers they liberated from Fascist rule. These stories, vividly recounted by veterans of the 92nd provide the film with its most poignant moments.  The film includes Vernon Baker, the last living African-American to be awarded the Medal of Honor in World War II and a special appearance by President Barack Obama.
 
It was the Consul General, impressed with the Presidio’s previous exhibit about the Buffalo Soldiers, who first suggested screening the film at the Presidio.
 
 “We’re extremely excited about the new partnership with the Consulate General and the Italian Cultural Institute,” says Jeff Weik, public programs director for the Presidio Trust. “History is such large part of what we do at the Presidio and this film details an important—and often overlooked—piece of American and Italian history.”
 
Timed to coincide with Black History Month, Inside Buffalo will be screened on Friday, February 12 at 6:30pm in the Golden Gate Club, 135 Fisher Loop in the Presidio. Admission is free, but reservations are recommended. To RSVP call 415-788-7142 ext. 18. For more information visit www.presidio.gov/calendar or www.iicsanfrancisco.esteri.it.
 
The Presidio Trust was established by the United States Congress in 1996 to administer the Presidio of San Francisco, an urban national park located at the base of the Golden Gate Bridge. The areas overseen by the Trust include expansive open space and spectacular views, a 300-acre historic forest, and rare and endangered plants and wildlife. The park comprises nearly 6 million square feet of buildings, including 469 historic structures that contribute to the Presidio’s status as a National Historic Landmark District. 
  

“The agreement also requires Clear Channel to provide a Bicycle-Sharing Program, at the SFMTA’s request, details of which will be negotiated in an amendment to the Agreement.”

Details! Oh noes. Well Clear Channel looked at the details of running a bike share program and decided that they didn’t want to do it. Of course, they were not “required” to do Jack despite what the SFMTA thought. Isn’t that funny? 

Now let’s imagine that you’re in charge of San Francisco’s bike-share program. What should you do? Let’s start with the good stuff and then worry about the details, the gritty nitty.

But first, let’s check in with Jessica Alba in Paris on a Velib. She’s in your corner:

All right, let’s go:

1. Junkets, junkets, junkets!

Try to get in as many “fact-finding missions” as possible early on. You’re the CEO, right? So, first thing you do is jet off to France, or D.C. or Montreal, bidness-class. Start a blog to post vacation photos of you on a Velib and complain about how you have to spend so much time away from your kids. Enjoy yourself, it’s going to go downhill from here.

2. Make the program as small as possible.

This is key. The bigger the program, the more headaches you’ll have. If you listen to people who tell you that you need to have a “critical mass” to be sustainable, you’ll have 5000 bikes on the streets – that means 5000 things to fret over every day. The Feds might give you millions to get started, but they’re not going to give you millions every year. As far as you’re concerned, a bike share program is a bike share program.

3. Think of a catchy name for your program.

I don’t know, BikeConnect (if Alex Tourk would license the name)? How about City BikeShare, CalBike, BikeCal, SFBike, BikeSF, FoggyBike, or Frisco a Go Go? I’m at a loss…

And now, decisions to be made:

1. Which bikes to use?

In the Parisian program, the heavy bikes come from Hungary and they cost $1000 per. This is both good and bad, because you want to have the bikes well-built in order to survive the rigors of heavy use, but you don’t want to lose too much money every time one dissappears. I think it’d be impossible to charge $1000 to a San Francscan when the bike s/he just checked out got lifted by a thief, so you’re going to lose big bucks on theft. On the other hand, if you go the cheap route and use inexpensive mountain-type bikes, they’ll get stripped for parts with a quickness. You want bike thieves to think these are custom-made with no reuseable parts. Bixi bikes are cheaper (I hope) – perhaps they’d be a good starting point?

2. How much to charge users who don’t return bikes?

The Parisian government now subsidizes share program operator JC Decaux’s losses to the tune of millions of dollars per year. This is despite the fact that this company makes a mint from the 1600 advertising spaces given to them to pay for the program. If you are “too nice” to customers and only charge $50 for a bike they don’t return, then the customers won’t really care if their rental goes missing. On the other hand, if you try to charge the full replacement value, your customers won’t stand for it.

3. What about vandalism?

What about it – the little monsters are going to mess you up. They’re going to make it their business to make you want to go out of business. How will you react to the taggers who will paint over whatever they can? Now, program operators don’t have to deal with this issue in La Rochelle or Lyon, but in Paris, that’s a different story. Well guess what? We’re going to be just like Paris, having bikes with broken keels and lost keels. Deal with it. How about getting the City to cover all vandalism costs? That would help.

4. What about helmets?

You know, France has different attitudes about certain things. For example, they’ve got 58 nuclear panner plants and they’re building more, and they have a huge nuclear waste dump in Champagne, of all places. So, when you talk to the French about helmets for non-Tour-de-France-bike-riders, they don’t like it. Could San Francisco somehow rent out a smelly used helmet along with the bike? Doubtful. Could customers carry their own helmets? Sure, some of them would, but carrying around a helmet goes against the very nature of the whole program, which is designed to appeal to the general non-bike-riding public. In France, they tolerate deaths due to share program customers not having helmets. Will San Francisco?

5. What about hills?

Now let’s say your customer wants to go from a bike station at the top of Nob Hill down to Embarcadero Station – that’s a straight shot down California, it would take about five minutes, easy peasy. But who’s going to pay for the right to pedal a heavy bike back up to the top of Nob Hill? Should you give people who turn bikes in at the Nob Hill station more time? Certainly. Should you go ahead and just make that a free ride? Should you give these hardy souls a credit for future trips? Should you just pay jobless people to ride bikes uphill? Should you load up a truck and have an employee redistributing bikes all day long? Should you just not have a Nob Hill station? Don’t know.

There are no easy solutions for you. You’ll be made sport of in the pages of SFist and SFGate, San Francisco’s online newspaper. It’ll be endless. The Velib program works in Paris because of all that sweet, sweet street advertising money from all those signs. You won’t have access to that kind of dough, not in San Francisco.

Oh well, that’s why you’ll get paid the big bucks. 

Good luck, Chuck.

After the jump, all the places you should junket to, before the cash runs out. 

Bike sharing programs:

• Bycyklen, Copenhagen inaugurated in late 1995
• Call a Bike, Munich inaugurated in March 2000
• Cityräder, Helsinki inaugurated in June 2000
• Call a Bike, Berlin inaugurated in March 2003
• Citybike, Vienna inaugurated in June 2003
• Peking, inaugurated in 2005
• Vélo’v, Lyon (France) inaugurated in May 2005
• Stockholm City Bikes, Stockholm (Sweden) inaugurated in April 2006
• Bicing, Barcelona (Spain) inaugurated in March 2007
• Sevici, Sevilla (Spain) inaugurated in April 2007
• Vélomagg’, Montpellier (France) inaugurated in June 2007
• Vélib’, Paris (France) inaugurated in July 2007
• Vel’oh, Luxembourg (Luxembourg) inaugurated in March 2008
• Bizi, Zaragoza (Spain) inaugurated in May 2008
• BikeOne, Kraków (Poland) inaugurated in October 2008
• HZ Bike, Hangzhou, China inaugurated in October 2008
• Bicicletas públicas, Chile inaugurated in December 2008
• BikeMi, Milan (Italy) inaugurated in December 2008
• Salt Lake City Bicycle Collective
• SmartBike DC, Washington, D.C., launched August 2008^[12]
• SAMBA^[13], Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). Operated by the Brazilian urban mobility company: Mobilicidade, using cellphones to activate. Inaugurated in January 2009.
• Bixi^[14], Montreal (Canada) inaugurated May 2009
• Villo!, Brussels (Belgium), inaugurated in May 2009
• OYBike ^[15], London, UK
• Rome’s Roma’n'BikeRoma’n'Bike
• Melbourne, Australia, bicycle hire scheme is planned.^[16]
• Boston, Massachusetts, USA bike sharing program is planned ^[17]
• Blue Urban Bikes, Chapel Hill/Carrboro, North Carolina,^[18]
• FC Bike Library, Ft. Collins, Colorado^[19]
• Bike Emory, Atlanta, Georgia^[20]
• The Field Museum shared bikes. Inaugurated for employees in April, 2008^[21]
• Hourbike ^[22], Bristol and Blackpool, UK
• Vélopop’^[23], Avignon (France) inaugurated in July 2009
• DublinBikes^[24] operated by JCDecaux (Ireland), Dublin, Republic of Ireland inaugurated in September 2009
• WSU Green Bike Program^[25], operated by WSU Wellbeing (Pullman), Washington, United States of America inaugurated in Fall 2009
• Nice Ride^[26], operated by Nice Ride Minnesota, a non-profit. Inauguration planned for April 2010.

The exceptions to that rule are days like today. It’s like we’re living inside a rain cloud or something.

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Oh well, Spring is coming….

But what if this area were to have an icon – what could possibly symbolize District One? Now, the nearby Sunset District has its marijuana grow houses and brothels, of course, but what’s similarly unique to the Richmond?  

My vote is for the big old NeoPlan AN 460 articulated bus – you know, the one used by the #38 Geary line:  

Of course these artic bendy buses are all over town but I associate them with the Richmond District most of all.