Posts Tagged ‘twin peaks’
Monday, August 22nd, 2016
Here’s the scene, located hundreds and hundreds of feet above us Frisco Flatlanders:
And here’s the pitch, from the RPD, and from V-O-Cal (Volunteer for Outdoor California).
IDK, man, I think they’re pushing this outdoor metaphor a bit far, you know, for an urban area:
Friday
5pm – Registration and camping opens
Saturday
7:30am – Registration, light breakfast, and lunch prep begin.
8am – Morning greeting, announcements, stretching and safety talk. Project begins.
12:30pm – Break for lunch on trail.
3:30pm – Head back to camp.
4pm – Drinks, appetizers and socializing. Showers available.
6:15pm – Dinner and entertainment.
Sunday
8am – Registration, hot breakfast, and lunch prep.
8:30am – Morning greeting, announcements, stretching and safety talk. Project begins.
11:30am – Break for lunch on trail.
1:30pm – Head back to camp to pack gear and truck.
2pm – Celebrate the work and say goodbyes
(It’d be like “camping” at Piers 30-32 and then “hiking” to Pier 39 to do some yard work, IMO.)
Anyway, thanks for your work, V-O-Cal volunteers.
And I’ll tell you, TP is a “smaller” place now – it seemed to be at capacity and yet there wasn’t a whole big crowd of people there the way we had, on dreaded sunny days, back before RPD and the SFMTA took away all those parking spaces…
Tags:2016, bay area, california, chain gang, community service, hoes, rec and park, road, rpd, San Francisco, SFMTA, Trail, twin peaks, v-o-cal, vocal, volunteers, Work, workers, yard
Posted in parks | No Comments »
Thursday, July 14th, 2016
What the SFMTA’s Twin Peaks Figure 8 Redesign Project is a gonna do is get rid of these, these people from the top of Twin Peaks, particularly on busy dreaded sunny days, like this one:
Most of the tourists on top of that twin came from all the cars you can see on the left side. But all that parking is gone now, so tourists aren’t going to go to the top of Twin Peaks as much anymore.
What’s that, “good,” you say? Well OK, but why doesn’t the SFMTA just come out and say that? Instead, we get this:
Twin Peaks Figure 8 Redesign Project Frequently Asked Questions – April 8, 2016 version:
Will any parking be added or removed? No parking is being proposed for removal. Today, informal (illegal) parking takes place at the center of the Figure 8 and occasionally in the outer lane of the roadway. This project will formalize parking at both the center and south intersections, increasing the number of available stalls. Parking in the travel lane will no longer be possible.
So they’re not “removing parking,” they’re simply blocking cars from getting to the parking spaces? And you can’t park on the side of a highway in CA anymore, is that correct, really?
So the real answer to the question Will any parking be added or removed is:
Yes. Hell yes.
But who are these people so uncouth and “informal” that they think they can park their rental cars on the side of the road and walk up a hill for a look-see? Just fucking tourists, that’s all. And it’s not even the same ones day after day and year after year – it’s a constant flow of new people from all over the Bay Area, California, ‘Mericah, and The Rest Of The World. Those are the people the SFMTA and the Rec and Park (RPD – it’s Frisco’s name for the Parks and Recreation Department) are getting rid of, at least on busy days.
As with most things in Life, there are trade-offs. Our SFMTA wants to deny that, oh well (at 2:10)…
Tags:2016, access, accessibility, bay area, bikes, california, clouds, crime, cyclists, deaths, figure 8, fireworks, fog, full, lot, matier, parking, pedestrians, Phil Ginsburg, police, ros, rpd, San Francisco, SFMTA, tourists, twin peaks, visitors
Posted in streets | No Comments »
Tuesday, May 3rd, 2016
Or “so-called red carpet,” if you’d prefer.
‘Cause that’s what people call them.
Even though they’re not.
Tags:2016, bay area, bus, california, cars, citation, fmta, hov, lanes, market, munis, red, San Francisco, so called red carpet, street, streetcars, ticket, transit, twin peaks
Posted in transit | No Comments »
Friday, April 22nd, 2016
A decade or two ago, you’d see hawks hunting for mice above Twin Peaks, like every day. There were hawks, like this one, all over:
But they’re gone now.
Replaced by crows. Here’s one with a field mouse from a few weeks ago:
Anyway, hawks out, crows in, for whatever reason…
Tags:2016, bay area, california, coopers, crow, crows, displaced, flying, gophers, hawk, hawks, hunting, mice, mouse, red-tailed, San Francisco, twin peaks
Posted in Animals | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 19th, 2016
Here you go:
Making Room to Enjoy Spectacular Twin Peaks by Aaron Bialick
Friday, April 15, 2016
But the SFMTA isn’t really making anything is it?
Access by foot and bike is pretty limited, the road that loops around the mountain top in a “figure 8” is underused by car traffic and the loop’s intersections are confusing.
OK, well, “access” by foot and bike will still be “pretty limited” after the SFMTA completes the scheme it came up with, right? And let’s take a look at that road, on a dreaded sunny day:
Now, would you say that the east (left) side of this figure 8 is “underused?” No, not at all!
car-free access
Hey, is being “car-free” a good thing? Like is it as good as being something like herpes-free? One wonders.
On Tuesday, the SFMTA Board of Directors will consider approval of a pilot phase…
This means that the SFMTA is going to do what it wants to do, with the little bit of money it can scrape up to enact its ideology.
The project was shaped with community feedback…
First of all, there’s no community up there atop Twin Peaks. Second of all, if there is, it’s tourists (international, national, regional, and local) and this plan cooked up by the SFMTA is about as anti-tourist as one could imagine.
We’d also create legitimate parking spaces at the center and south intersections to address the illegal parking that already occurs.
WHAT WHAT? So all these People With Cars, the hundreds of People what congregate up there sometimes, they’re parking on the side of the highway “illegitimately?” So it’s legal but it doesn’t comport with SFMTA ideology? Or maybe it’s illegal, but our SFMTA hasn’t seen fit to put up signage what explains things nice and clear for visitors who don’t really have a good handle on English? And so all the scores of places where people park now and, indeed, the past century, all of that was not and is not “legitimate?” Whoo boy.
So the plan is to decrease access IRL and advertise this paint job (that doesn’t add ANYTHING) as one what will “increase” access.
Will that cost anything? Yes.
Will it cost the vaunted SFMTA anything. No, not really. Just a bit of paint…
Tags:2016, Aaron Bialick, access, accessibility, bay area, bikes, california, clouds, crime, cyclists, deaths, figure 8, fireworks, fog, full, lot, matier, parking, pedestrians, Phil Ginsburg, phil matier, police, ros, rpd, San Francisco, SFMTA, tourists, twin peaks, visitors
Posted in paranormal | No Comments »
Friday, April 8th, 2016
IDK, man. On the one hand, SFGov promotes the 49-Mile-Drive, but OTOH, SFGov wants to make it more difficult.
Take a look here down below – where are all these cars going to go after this plan gets going?
The plan, advertised as one what would “increase access,” will decrease access, obviously. Parking areas will be decreased by a whole lot. Oh what’s that, that’s a good thing AFAYAC, Gentle Reader? Well, fine – but let’s agree that taking out scores of places for people to park is going to make for a less-busy Twin Peaks, for better or worse.
And hey, are these people glorious Pedestrians / People With Bikes or are they terrible, horrible People With Cars? One simply can’t tell. Some locals walk and bike up here, but I see very few tourists attempting to do so. Mostly they come by tour bus or car, FWICS.
On It Goes…
Tags:2016, access, accessibility, bay area, bikes, california, clouds, crime, cyclists, deaths, figure 8, fireworks, fog, full, lot, matier, parking, pedestrians, Phil Ginsburg, phil matier, police, ros, rpd, San Francisco, SFMTA, tourists, twin peaks, visitors
Posted in streets | No Comments »
Tuesday, March 15th, 2016
For some reason, I associate coin-operated telescopes with coin-operated telephones.
Anyway, here’s a bidness opportunity for you!
Some things never change…
Tags:2016, bay area, business, california, coin operated, operated, point of view, pov, San Francisco, Telescope, twin peaks
Posted in bidness | No Comments »
Tuesday, March 15th, 2016
Take a listen, to Phil Matier here.
And then take a look, at what an Ivy Leaguer / Attorney / Former Gavin Newsom Jogging Buddy Who For Some Reason Is In Charge Of Our Park System has to say here:
As he sees it, the plan “increases the recreational accessibility of the area and makes it safer for bicyclists and pedestrians.”
As for safety, we’ll have to wait and see. But as for “accessibility,” this is going to be a Big Fat Decrease.
Here’s the east side of Twin Peaks Boulevard as it looks when the parking lot at Christmas Tree Point is all fulled up:
Where are these people going to go? Not Twin Peaks, that’s for sure. This plan will decrease access, certainly. (Or is the SFMTA going to run a shuttle bus up here? IDTS)
And oh, here’s how Phil Ginsburg attains access himself, using a car:
Tags:2016, access, accessibility, bay area, bikes, california, clouds, crime, cyclists, deaths, figure 8, fireworks, fog, full, lot, matier, parking, pedestrians, Phil Ginsburg, phil matier, police, ros, rpd, San Francisco, SFMTA, tourists, twin peaks, visitors
Posted in cars | No Comments »
Friday, March 11th, 2016
This place is a magnet – it attracts all kinds of people.
It wouldn’t seem to be a good place to escape from, after breaking into cars for valuables, but turns out that it is…
Tags:2016, bay area, break ins, california, cars, christmas tree, crime, graffiti, overlook, point, road, San Francisco, tourists, twin peaks, valuables, visitors
Posted in crime | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 9th, 2016
Dude was having a moment here, so I didn’t make it all the way up the hills we call Twin Peaks.
I’ll tell you, back in the day I’d see hawks and falcons patrolling the slopes of Twin Peaks. But now it’s flocks of crows / ravens? OK, but this is the first I’ve seen like this:
Anyway, after going to the parking lot and coming back, Dude was still up there:
He was having a Moment.
It must have been cold…
Tags:2016, bay area, bird, california, crows, feathered, feathers, hawk, man, murder, San Francisco, twin peaks
Posted in Animals, environment | No Comments »
