Heather Knight sells city's phony emergency

London Breed

Heather Knight is still selling City Hall's anti-car emergency lie in the Chronicle.

Not hard to find all the falsehoods packed into this short paragraph, since it's all untrue:

...they[appellants] appealed two phases of the Slow Streets program to prohibit through traffic on some residential streets to allow pedestrians and bicyclists to socially distance; temporary changes to streets to make room for coronavirus testing sites and pop-up food pantries; emergency transit lanes for buses to get essential workers to their jobs without getting stuck in traffic; and a protected bike lane on Fell Street to alleviate the crush of people exercising in the Panhandle.

I count five falsehoods: 1) the notion that before the city's aptly-named "Slow Streets" project pedestrians and cyclists had a problem social distancing; 2) that the city has had trouble finding space for virus testing sites and "pop-up food pantries"; 3) that there is any need for "emergency transit lanes"; 4) that any essential workers have ever been stuck in city traffic; 5) that the new bike lane on Fell Street is making any difference for anyone using the Panhandle. 

The only problem on the Panhandle has long been the danger to pedestrians from speeding cyclists on the path cyclists and pedestrians share.

I could have counted the claim that these changes are "temporary," but that remains to be seen. [later: Of course they will be permanent!]

I can't fairly accuse Knight of lying, since, like Trump and many Republicans, people who make dumb, fact-free arguments are often sincere and the word "lie" means a deliberate falsehood. Hard to believe, however, that the people in City Hall and the SFMTA actually believe this nonsense.

One of the appellants has already refuted all the falsehoods in Knight's remarkable paragraph. If anyone litigated this project, the city would lose under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).

Knight:

Defending each appeal cost more than 100 hours of staff time, according to Jeffrey Tumlin, director of the SFMTA. They also resulted in long hearings before the Board of Supervisors that cost tens of thousands of dollars of time spent by city officials and attorneys. And, as was obvious, each was eventually dismissed by a unanimous vote of the board. Most astoundingly, each project was put on hold while this silly process played out. Yes, during a pandemic. “With fewer frivolous appeals, staff could instead spend time on the city’s recovery,” Tumlin said.

Recall that the Bicycle Plan in days of yore was also passed unanimously by the Board of Supervisors. 

Everyone on the bloated "staff" of 42,568 city employees---and 7,079 employees at the MTA!---was on the clock during that process. What was the hurry? The City That Knows How doesn't do dissent very well. North Korea probably has more political dialogue than San Francisco. 

We still need to know what all those people in the MTA normally do all day, besides working to make it hard to drive and park in San Francisco.

Knight quotes Mayor Breed approvingly:

“This is about whether or not we want things in San Francisco to get done on time and on budget, or whether we’ll continue to allow just one person to stand in the way of progress,” she said in a statement. “San Francisco is capable of accomplishing big things, as we’ve shown it in our response to the pandemic. The lesson we should learn from this is that more bureaucracy, more process and endless appeals only set us up for failure.”

London Breed has always been a dim bulb. She was an awful supervisor who was only elected by a small minority in the first place because of the flawed ranked choice voting system. 

She burnished her anti-car credentials by endorsing the falsehood about the safety of Masonic Avenue, which led to the bike lane fiasco on that important street in the middle of the city.

Knight's account of CEQA:

The two[appellants] had argued that the five transit projects should have been subject to regular review process under the California Environmental Quality Act, signed in 1970 by then-Gov. Ronald Reagan to mandate that state and local agencies disclose the environmental impacts of projects and try to mitigate them. CEQA allows agencies to bypass the regular review process during an emergency, and that’s how the SFMTA has gotten so much done so quickly this year.

Knight's mention of Reagan is an attempt to denigrate CEQA. What can we expect from a law passed under a Republican governor? The problem here is that the claimed emergency to justify taking away traffic lanes and street parking is bogus. 

We are in the middle of a pandemic, but deliberately snarling city traffic in San Francisco can't possibly mitigate that public health emergency.

Instead, this project---it's really one project---is City Hall's chance to make San Francisco a "car-free" bike utopia like the liberal illusion about Europe, which Knight referred to earlier. Because we liberals know how much smarter foreigners are about bikes and traffic, right? (Heather Knight comes unglued)

This is why she goes to the city's two special interest anti-car groups for sound-bites, the Bicycle Coalition and Walk SF.

Knight ends her column triumphantly:

It’s clear that San Franciscans back the recent projects being appealed. SFMTA data shows more than 6,200 San Franciscans have given input to the agency on the Slow Streets program, and 78% support it. The rest were split between not liking it and having no opinion. The agency is about to start its fourth phase of the program, closing even more streets to through traffic throughout the city. Sorry, Mr. Pilpel and Ms. Miles. It’s what the majority of San Francisco supports.

A survey by the city agency whose project this is somehow represents the will of the people of San Francisco? As I pointed out during the debate about the Bicycle Plan, why didn't the city put the issue on the ballot in the first place? 

Instead, City Hall has been redesigning city streets on behalf of a small minority of cyclists with no real buy-in by the city's voters.

The answer to that question is suggested by the City Beat poll in 2018 when residents were asked whether they supported or opposed this proposition:

"Removing traffic lanes in various locations around the city to install bike only lanes. 47% support, 46% oppose."

That's what the Bicycle Coalition and its enablers in City Hall feared: even a close vote would have been enough to derail the great bike revolution here in Progressive Land.

More soon, particularly the SF Chronicle's history as a megaphone for City Hall's important projects.