I know, why don’t you take out all these spaces and replace them with a separated bike lane or something, SFMTA?
After all, Transit First, right?
Oh, what’s that? These are the spaces that the Board of Supervisors and their aides park in for free every day so that’s where you just happened to end your campaign of completion?
But don’t you care about safety, SFMTA?
Mmmmm….
“This project seeks to implement aesthetic and safety improvements for all users of Polk Street between McAllister and Union Streets. In accordance with the City’s Transit First policy, improvements will primarily be focused on people who walk, use transit and ride a bicycle along Polk Street. The project is funded by Proposition B General Obligation Bonds and is part of an overall citywide effort to curb pedestrian and bicycle collisions and to provide a safe north-south connection for people on bicycles. Pedestrian and bicyclist collision and injury data on Polk Street point to a corridor in need of safety improvements for all those who share the road. In fact, the southern portion from Sacramento to McAllister Streets is part of the 5% of San Francisco streets that have more than half of the City’s most severe pedestrian collisions.”
The SFMTA has just announced it will be holding the third official Polk Street Improvement project meeting series on Saturday, April 27 from 10 am to 1 pm and Tuesday, April 30 from 5 to 8:30 pm at 1300 Polk St (at Bush) at the First Congregational Church Fellowship Hall. Please take a moment to read what’s at stake at these meetings. For a year, the SFMTA has conducted widespread community outreach and has developed proposals that will address the urgent safety needs on Polk Street (where once a month someone on a bicycle AND walking is involved in a collision).
If you support safety improvements to Polk Street, it is critical that you attend one or both of these SFMTA Community meetings on April 27 or 30 and speak up for the improvements proven to make biking and walking safer and bring more people to a commercial corridor.
RSVP below so we know that we can count on you to come to the April 27 or 30 SFMTA Community meetings to speak up for safety on Polk Street:
Polk Street Meetings RSVP
The SF Bicycle Coalition wants to know that you will attend the SFMTA meetings on Saturday, April 27th from 10 am to 1 pm and/or Tuesday, April 30th from 5pm-8:30 pm in support for safe biking and walking on Polk Street. Both meetings — hosted by the City, not the SF Bike Coalition — will be at 1300 Polk St (at Bush) at the First Congregational Church Fellowship Hall.
* Required
Now, could the SFMTA drum up support directly?
I don’t think so. BART, for instance, got in trouble for doing this type of stuff.
But what’s the difference if the SFBC functions as an arm of the SFMTA?
Hey SFMTA, what’s sample bias? Is it this?
“The SFMTA is looking to get input on how the proposed options for Polk Street meet your needs when you’re traveling on Polk Street. Click here to take SFMTA’s survey. and speak up for safety improvements that matter most.”
And actually, all the polling you do has sampling bias. Did you know that, SFMTA?
Maybe you don’t:
“Officials seemed taken aback by the anger at the Middle Polk Neighborhood Assn. gathering. Every seat in the Old First Presbyterian Church’s community room was filled. The crowd stood several deep along the walls and spilled out into the corridor.Audience members jeered when Edward D. Reiskin, the city’s transportation director, couldn’t say how many of the 320 curbside parking spots along Polk could be taken out under the plan. “I don’t have that data,” he said to loud boos, before going with “something like 170″ maximum. The response from the crowd was more of the same.”
All right, SFMTASFBC. Enjoy your staged meetings on April 27th and 30th!
All right, camera right shows a light-colored Chevy properly waiting at the red arrow light to turn from westbound Fell onto southbound Masonic. The confused driver is in the blue two-door Honda – she wants to make the same turn to get from NoPA to SoPA but she’s in the wrong lane.
Click to expand
Of course back in the day, the Honda driver would have been driving properly but things changed at this intersection about a half-decade back. Check it. Anywho, she sat there waiting to turn left even though she had a green to proceed straight on Fell Street.
That pissed off the driver of the car behind her, so then its driver is all “hoooooooooonk!” You know, at the Blue Honda Chick.
She doesn’t budge ’cause she knows she wants to turn left, you know, from the wrong lane.
Oh, here she goes, around the Chevy:
Now all that honking attracted the attention of the Park Station police, who also made an illegal left from the wrong lane in order to follow the blue Honda driver onto southbound Masonic. Here they are near Oak:
The moral of this story is that drivers will never get used to this unique intersection set-up. The reason being is that the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition overruled the traffic engineers who originally had cars on Fell turning left at the beginning of the green light phase for Fell Street. But you see, that had car drivers “going first.”
Oh well.
On It Goes…
And oh, what you’re supposed to do when you mistake driving is to just go with it, go with the flow. You know, respond to stimuli. So like if you’re in the westbound lane and you have a green to go straight then you should go straight for a while EVEN THOUGH THAT”S NOT WHAT YOU WANT TO DO RIGHT NOW. Obliviously, you can’t just make up your own traffic rules…
This is just part of the SFPD detail what follows Mayor Ed Lee about when he ventures into the corrupt Twitterloin.
As seen on Market Street at Sixth Friday AM:
Click to expand
Do I think the SFPD is far too obsequious when dealing with San Francisco Mayors?
Yes.
Do I understand why the the World’s Highest Paid Cops are that way?
Yes.
Can you spell obsequious without IOU?
No. Try it.
Am I happy that the current appointed Mayor (appointed by handsome man-child Gavin Newsom (IQ: 95), who, of course, got his start into politics by getting appointed by WIllie Brown) doesn’t have the SFPD drive a god damn SUV to Montana or someplace on the taxpayer’s dime?
Yes.
Am I happy that the current Mayor doesn’t treat the SFPD VIP security detail as kind of a personal motor pool, like when Gavin Newsom would get picked up at SFO in the GM hybrid SUV shortly after other elements of the SFPD chauffeured the then “First Lady” (which really isn’t the right phrase since she wasn’t even married to the Mayor at the time – she was First Girlfriend, let’s say, you know, at the time) to and from, I’m srsly, Quince restaurant in the stretched Lincoln Town Car?
And, does it look like WalkSF has taken a page from the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition right down to the exact amount of an annual membership and the highly similar official “____ To Work Day?”
Yes.
And will tiny WalkSF feel pressure to endorse Ed Lee for Mayor the same way the SFBC did?
Or you can ask Microsoft Yammer why it doesn’t want to pay its fair share of taxes.
Leave us begin.
In 2004, the Mayor of San Francisco signed a law that closed a tax loophole.
Later on, that very same Mayor took a lot of money from the owner owner of a building with which you Microsoft Yammerers should be familiar, the Twitter Building:
That kicked off the whole tax boondoggle that Microsoft Yammer is taking advantage of now.
Oh, here it is:
“THIS COMMUNITY BENEFIT AGREEMENT 2013 MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING is made as of January 1, 2013 in the City and County of San Francisco, State of California, by and between YAMMER, A SUBSIDIARY OF MICROSOFT(“Microsoft”) and the CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO, a municipal corporation (“City”) acting by and through the City Administrator”
And it goes on and on talking about all the things that Microsoft is obligated to do for non-profit organizations that just happened to have endorsed Appointed Mayor Ed Lee.
So, well meaning white people who appear to be so, so, soooooo very proud of giving monitors worth (let’s hope) at least the contractually obligated $10,000 agreed to by MS….
….my question to you is this:
WHY DON’T YOU SIMPLY PAY YOUR FUCKING TAXES INSTEAD OF DOING ALL THIS POLITICALLY-CONNECTED, PAT-YOURSELF-ON-THE-BACK RIGMAROLE?
I’ll do all the legwork if you’ll give me some basic tax and income information. So maybe some years that could end up being a lot of money. I’d say, ooh, IPO! That’s going to cost Microsoft SF a few million bucks. And then you’d cut a check for the general fund.
There’d be no Ron Conway-type exception for you.
What’s that? You can’t afford to pay the oppressive taxes and loophole closures signed into law by the San Francisco Mayors of Yesteryear?
You know, I don’t believe that, Yammer Micro$oft.
What’s that, you’d rather move to Brisbane or someplace in San Mateo County?
Well, then be my guest. (You know, most people pricing apartment rentals in town lately would welcome your departure. You think I’m joking? No, I’m srlsy.)
What’s that, you like “giving back” to the corrupt Twitterloin, ’cause you think it’s a kewl thing to do and whatnot?
Fine, do that AND pay your fair share of taxes to the General Fund, why not?
That would be groovy.
But what you’re doing now is getting involved with SFGov corruption in the most corrupt big American city west of Chicago.
1. Can somebody tell me when our San Francisco Bicycle Coalition became a quasi-official government organization, and then later on also tell me when it becomes a full-fledged subsidiary of the SFMTA? I ask that because the SFBC gets a lot of funding from SFGov. (That’s why the SFBC stopped promoting Critical Mass – because its government paymasters kept bugging them about it.) And the SFBC got included in that whole corrupt lets-let-Twitter-not-pay-taxes deal? Yep. And yet, the SFBC is allowed to freely endorse candidates for Mayor, and I’ll tell you, not necessarily the candidates that SFBC membership votes for, no no, but for the candidates that the officers of the SFBC think will win, like Appointed Mayor Ed Lee, for example. Mmmm…
2. Uh, the SFBC is still promoting the whole PEDESTRIANS ALWAYS HAVE THE RIGHT OF WAY trope? Yep. Even though that’s wrong. Dead wrong. Morally and legally. Here’s why. So, shouldn’t you have checked with a lawyer first, SFBC, you know, before you start spouting off about “BIKELAW”? (Oh, you did? Who’s that? Who’s that jackass?)
3. And, your attempts at moral suasion in this post-Chris Bucchere era have failed, SFBC. I say that because people be still being running red lights on Market Street, particularly the ones that are for ped crosswalks only, like betwixt 8th & 7th, and 7th & 6th, and 6th & 5th and so on. Your campaign has had no effect, FYI. I’ll show you right now. Everybody in this peloton has just run the red light (actually two red lights, sort of) on Market inbound betwixt 6th and 5th streets. Each and every one:
Now I’ll ask, is this kind of thing “biking politely?” (I already know the answers to my other questions, but I don’t know the answer to this one. I don’t know what the SFMTAMUNIDPTSFBC means when it talks about ‘biking polite.”) Oh, and BTW, 20 seconds after this shot was taken, you were rewarding these cyclists with candy bars on the other side of 5th, just saying.
Oh, here we go, here’s how the SFBC, a quasi-government organization, spends your tax dollars, on campaigns like this:
Now I’ll tell you, I didn’t stop to get a chocolate bar, but if I had I would have been able to win a Major Prize. Apparently, each bar had a code on it, kind of like a Willie Wonka movie.
“We know that the majority of people biking in San Francisco are biking politely, and giving pedestrians the right of way. So we at the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition wanted to say thank you! Thank you for following the law, being a great bicycle aombassador and leading the way in safe, civil streets.
Stopping behind the crosswalk and giving pedestrians the right of way keeps people who are on foot safe and goes a long way to making our streets safer and more comfortable for everyone.
The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition will be giving out delicious treats for those we catch biking polite. If you “got caught” by us, enter your information and ticket number below and you’ll be entered for a chance to win a great getaway at the Bear Valley Inn. Thanks to Alter Eco for donating the delicious chocolate rewards!
Giving pedestrians the right of way is just one of the Rules of the Road to biking safely and legally. For more Rules of the Road click here.
Biking Polite Prize Raffle Entry Form:
You got caught biking polite! Thanks for stopping behind the crosswalk and yielding to pedestrians.In thanks for your terrific bicycle ambassador behavior, you’re eligible for entry into our raffle to win one night mid-week stay (Sunday – Thursday) at the Bear Valley Inn, Olema CA. Please enter your contact information here to enter our raffle; your information is confidential and will not be shared.”
Longtime area cyclist and capitalist running dog Steven T. Jones typifies the type of person who will most benefit from re-education via the corrupt SFMTA and the messianic San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. See?
And then festivities will end, of course, this Friday with the big 20th Anniversary Ride the evening of September 28th, 2012. (Not that you’d know it from the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition website’s ”Chain of Events” section, where all info about CM* is now censored.)
“It started with a bike ride in San Francisco on Sept. 25, 1992. About 50 people cycled in a pack along Market Street, hoping to earn some respect from drivers who sometimes ignored them or edged them off the road. They called it the “Commute Clot.” Today it’s known as Critical Mass, a movement that’s spread worldwide. Supporters say it promotes cycling and the rights of bicyclists. But critics say it is illegal, clogs traffic and antagonizes drivers. We talk about Critical Mass’ 20th anniversary, and its effects on the city.
Host: Michael Krasny
Guests:
Chris Carlsson, co-founder of Critical Mass who was part of the first ride on Sept. 25, 1992, and has since participated in Critical Mass rides in Milan, Vancouver and Porto Alegre, Brazil
Tune in at 10:00 on your radio or on your device, Listen Live.
*The SFBC raises money through fees but it also gets mucho dinero directly from SFGov. So that’s why it endorsed Ed Lee for Mayor even though SFBC’s members generally did not and still do not like Ed Lee. Similarly, Chrstina Olague, Mayor Ed Lee’s hand-picked recruit for District 5 Supervisor, gets endorsed over Julian Davis even though SFBC members actually favor JD. The SFBC is basically a quasi-government agency now, so it’s very afraid of seeming to say something negative about certain members of the City Family. It’s also afraid of hurting the chances of its officers someday getting jobs / health care directly with SFGov / SFMTA. Anyway, that’s why the SFBC is basically a SFGov kiss-ass these days. It will lobby San Francisco government, certainly, but that’s about as far as it wants to go. (Think about it – who would the SFMTA endorse for Mayor?)
