All right, get up to speed here and then check out demiurgic Chris Roberts right here in the San Francisco Examiner.
From the back:
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And from the side:
See how that balances out?
Actually, I don’t think these ads are necessarily pro or anti semitic.
But I didn’t see how the prior ads were “anti-gay.”
On It Goes…
From Rishi Mukhopadhyay of NextDoor.com comes word of the:
Clement Street Farmers Market.
See?
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So, they’re going to shut down Clement between 2nd and 4th Avenues in the Inner Richmond every Sunday until 2:00 PM starting four weeks from now on June 9th, 2013?
What? This is news to me! The opening date strikes me as highly, highly improbable, but what do I know?
The next steps for this concept:
- Monday, May 20, 2013: Community Meeting at 5:30 PM to 6:30 PM, Richmond District Police Station, 461 6th Ave between Anza and Geary.
- Thursday, May 23, 2013: Interdepartmental Staff Committee on Traffic and Transportation (ISCOTT) Hearing, One South Van Ness, Seventh Floor, Room #7080.
OK, we’ll see how this one goes.
IMO, the SFMTA isn’t going to laugh off having the #2 Clement make a quarter-mile detour to get to a parallel street only to have to drive another quarter-mile to get back to Clement.
And I’ll point out that Clement Street itself is kind of a farmers market already on Sundays.
And I’ll point out that 2:00 PM is kind of a busy time on Clement in the Inner Richmond on Sundays.
And I’ll ask how does this proposal square with our Prime Directive of “Transit First?”
Now let’s hear from youthful Peter Lauterborn, Legislative Aide to District One Supervisor Eric Mar:
“Dear All,
I am writing you because of your past interest in opening a farmer’s market in the Richmond. And while I have been quiet on the subject for a little while, it is not for a lack of work. We are at the point of nearing approval for a significant market entering the neighborhood!
The Plan: The Agricultural Institute of Marin (AIM) has teamed up with the Clement Merchants Association. AIM is known for a small number of high-quality, large scale markets around California.
The older plans for smaller markets all fell through, so we’re going big! This plan calls for a Sunday morning street closure of Clement from 2nd to 4th Aves on Sunday mornings. AIM plans very robust, well-rounded markets that are a major draw.
Major highlights of the AIM Market:
- Wide range of local products, including eggs, milk, cheeses, meats, etc.
- Include enrichment such as children activities, live music, and even kids jumpers.
- Provide matching dollars for “food stamp” users.
- Based on usage, the parking loss should be a non issue and the 2 Clement bus rerouting isn’t a problem. We are also planning outreach to all of the existing produce merchants along Clement. Also, the SF Bike Coalition is going to help make this a friendly event for those who don’t drive.
The Asks: As people who have advocated for a market, this is the time where we need your leadership the most! Our plan is going before the MTA for the street closure, and we need support!
1. Write a letter of support explaining why the Richmond needs a farmer’s market and how, given the low usage of Clement on Sunday mornings, this is the right use of public space. (send to Peter.Lauterborn@sfgov.org). The letter should explicitly support the street closure.
2. Encourage friends and community members to ask write!
3. Attend a community meeting on Monday May 20, 5:30-6:30pm at the Richmond Police Station. And bring out allies!
4. Bonus! Come to the MTA hearing on Thursday May 23rd at 1 South Van Ness to support the motion.
We wouldn’t have gotten this far without all of you. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to me at any time.
Let’s do this!
Best,
Peter Lauterborn
Legislative Aide
Supervisor Eric Mar, District 1″
Are you up to speed on this one?
Laird Harrison of KQED has the deets on the original “My Jihad” campaign.
Then some lady spent money on ads making fun of that campaign. An example can be found here.
But then the SFMTA responded by quoting Maya Angelou since it couldn’t figure out any different way of responding to pressure.
Which, at the time, wasn’t clear to me because Maya Angelou is still alive, right?
So now, I see this ad and now I understand:
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OK fine, a mystery solved…
OMG, would you look at this?
I mean check out all these deadly, beastly automobiles parked on Polk, the very same street that the SFMTA is trying to “complete” don’t you know:
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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.”
Organizing people to support whatever the SFMTA wants to do? Yes.
Now, does the SFMTA give lots of money to the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition?
So what does all that money buy?
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
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.”
I think so. Let me Google that for you.
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!
Look at them all go:
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Remember, Cyclists Alway Have the Right Of Way.
Oh wait a second, I just made that up. It’s not correct. I’ll fix my error by telling you I was wrong.
What I meant to say was Pedestrians Always Have the Right Of Way.
Oh wait, that’s wrong as well.
The SFBC knows by now that their statement is wrong but they still have it up on their website?
Yep.
What they should have done is had a lawyer do their bikelaw page.
Oh well.
Uh, what’s this?
“Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at it destination full of hope.”
Click to expand
Did Maya Angelou pay for this? That would make sense, I guess.
Or did someone else? You know, to increase love awareness?
Or maybe the pathetic SFMTA paid for this, so some people won’t hate it as much in the future, you know, to improve its image?
If so, did the SFMTA pay Maya Angelou for her quote or did it just rip her off? I mean, maybe she doesn’t even like the SFMTA.
And what about this – at the bottom of the ad it’s all:
So make up your mind, SFMTA. I mean, does love recognize barriers or not?
And do YOUR PASSENGERS arrive at their destinations ”full of hope?”
In closing, MUNI sucks.
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.
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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:
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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?
Hell Yes.
Am I surprised to see that corrupt Randy Shaw* of the corrupt Tenderloin Housing Clinic (it’s budgeted for 95 million taxpayer dollars or something? All that for a clinic? Srsly?) isn’t lining up to hail our Dear Leader / WalkSF / SFGov right here?
Yes, a little.
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?
We’ll see.
* You know, a “Skid Row feudal lord,” the “political ally of slumlords,” and a “skid-row kingpin.”
‘Cause by the time you hear about this opportunity from the MSM or a blog, it’ll be too late.
Now some people wanted to charge you for the chance to walk the bridge, but they ended up deciding to just require registration with no payment required.
C’mon, this thing is only two decades-plus late.
All the deets:
“We are excited to announce that registration for the Bay Bridge Walk will be FREE! Our next email will include more details on each event and registration dates.
Registration is required for all on-bridge activities and there will be limited capacity so sign up early!
Please tell your friends and family who wish to participate to visit baybridgecelebration.com and sign up for e-mail updates. You will be the first to hear when registration is open.
More details on the Bay Bridge Bike, Run & Walk coming soon!
-The Bay Bridge Celebration Team”
There’ll be plenty of space to roam:
See you there!
