"Or whatever"

Jim Morin on the democratic underground

From today's NY Times:

To the Editor:

I have been reading with an increasingly heavy heart news articles about the Trump administration’s separation of children from their parents at the border.

But I was stopped cold by a quote in Nicholas Kristof’s column “ ‘My Babies Started Crying’ as ICE Took Them Away” (May 31): “White House Chief of Staff John Kelly hails family separation as a ‘tough deterrent’ and shrugs that ‘the children will be taken care of — put into foster care or whatever.’ ”

“Or whatever” — that most dismissive phrase! So, it has come to this: We have weaponized the callous traumatization of children in the name of the promised immigration reform. Children have become acceptable collateral damage in a policy war.

Are there no parents in this administration? Are there no parents in the Border Patrol? Are there no Trump supporters who are parents? How can anyone who has children justify this?

Anita Moran

San Francisco

City Hall's contempt for small business

Head of MTA is a bike guy

From the Westside Observer:

Coursing through the Parkside and Sunset neighborhoods, Taraval Street is dotted with small businesses. Since 2015, their owners have strenuously opposed Metropolitan Transportation Agency (MTA) plans to cut parking along the commercial corridor. The latest flare-up came on Monday, May 5th. Taraval merchants were vexed to see fresh red paint along the entire curb of the 2200 block. 

Gone were the parking spaces in front of Gene's Liquor & Deli, Universal Fire Equipment, Avenues Pet Hospital, Allstate Insurance and the Zhong Shan Restaurant. Reportedly, there was no forewarning. Although the MTA had promised fliers, business owners say they weren't notified. Worse, the parking ban deters customers and eliminates loading zones for daily deliveries of essential supplies.

Taraval is an MTA Rapid Transit Project. The rationale, per Muni Forward, is to speed up transit times and enhance public safety. The City's Vision Zero program, designed to end pedestrian deaths, labels Taraval between 26th and 36th Avenues a "High Injury Network." 

However, there are many hazardous roadways and Taraval doesn't rank among Vision Zero's 57 priorities...(Taraval Merchants see red over parking ban)

Rob's comment:

Usually the MTA removes parking that small businesses in the neighborhoods rely on is to make bike lanes, which it has done on Upper Market Street, 17th Street, Polk Street, Ocean Avenue, and Masonic Avenue.

But the MTA often deploys the safety lie---safety for everyone, including pedestrians, not just cyclists---to justify its "improvements" to city streets, which it did prominently to justify both the Polk Street bike project and the Masonic Avenue bike project. 

Like redesigning city streets on behalf of a small minority of cyclists based on nothing but the hope that more people will start riding bikes, Vision Zero is a fantasy, since the city will not eliminate traffic deaths by 2024. (Vision Zero is just a slogan)

See also Vision Zero and traffic accidents in San Francisco.