Friday, March 22, 2013

Let them ride bikes 2

 
Gough and Fulton: 70 apartments, no parking
 
City Hall's anti-car policies are not just about implementing the Bicycle Coalition's agenda---taking away street parking and traffic lanes on busy streets to make bike lanes---the Planning Dept. and the Planning Commission are also doing their part. They call it "smart growth" or "dense development" along "transit corridors." The theory is that if the city makes it more difficult and expensive to drive in San Francisco, people will stop driving and ride a crowded, underfunded Muni system or, even less plausibly, take up riding bikes instead of those wicked motor vehicles. Planning does its part by okaying new housing developments and other projects with no parking or limited parking. Developers love the theory, because not providing parking gives them more space for housing units, which makes their developments more profitable.
 
Note that the architect for this project is David Baker, a dedicated bike guy and former member of the Bicycle Coalition's board of directors. That's why there's a cyclist in the pictures of the project above and below from Baker's website.
 
The likely result of these policies: making traffic worse for everyone, including Muni passengers.
 
I'll be tracking these developments under this head. My first post on the issue is here.
 
Thanks to Streetsblog for the link.
 

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