Closing city streets based on a lie
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| Jim Swanson |
A letter to the editor in today's SF Chronicle:
Now that the Great Highway has been reopened, how about the rest of the slow streets? These streets were originally closed for people/families who were sheltered at home so they could have a safe (social distance) path to walk or ride bikes.
With schools open and many people returning to their workplaces, there is no need to have these streets closed.
Mike Jang
San Francisco
Rob's comment:
Jang doesn't mention other justifications for closing city streets during the pandemic. The Chronicle's Heather Knight: people need that space to walk their dogs and hug their friends!
In fact there was never a sensible public health justification to close city streets to cars during the pandemic.
Making it harder to drive and park in the city---when cars are actually safer than public transportation---was City Hall's opportunistic extension of its long-time policies and the city's anti-car special interest groups, the Bicycle Coalition and Walk San Francisco that represent a small, militant minority of city residents.
Recall the City's attempt to rush its ambitious Bicycle Plan illegally through the system back in 2005.
Since then the Chronicle hasn't opposed a major City Hall project: How the SF Chronicle failed San Francisco.
See also Heather Knight sells city's phony emergency and Heather Knight and the Big Lie about the pandemic.
Labels: Anti-Car, Bicycle Coalition, City Hall, Great Highway, Heather Knight, Pandemic, SF Chronicle, Walk SF
posted by Rob Anderson @ 1:57 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
The true belivers have won.
When JeffTumblin was hired to run SFMTA, the fix is in, sort of speak. There is NO objective thought in that agency. It is their way. Public input? Nope, certainly not the public that has divergent views from the agency. There is no reasoning with them, no rational thought or study to backup SFMTA staff assertions that getting rid of cars (gas powered or otherwise) will make for a better urban area.
I always thought that the operative word is "city", we live in an urban area. We are not the suburbs. Not everyone chooses to ride a bike. Not everyone CAN ride a bike (older people/families with infants and children). Not everyone chooses to ride MUNI.
SFMTA never intended to offer people freedom to choose the mode of transportation they wished. SFMTA merely takes away freedom to choose...slowly but constantly.
The only transportation choice they are limiting is cars/trucks. The goofy "slow streets" program is only the latest of City Hall's anti-car policies that go back more than fifteen years.
All the anti-car "improvements" the city makes to our streets are supposedly about safety. Instead they seem to mainly be a jobs program for Public Works, since they haven't reduced injuries and fatalities on city streets.
If you're driving your car everyday to take your kids to school and/or transport yourself to work, you're part of the problem.
Rob, you keep forgetting the "Anti-Environment" tag on these posts.
I bet you don't have any school-age children. Getting them ready in the morning and out the door to school is an intense, labor-intensive process. After that if school is some distance away and being on time is an issue of course a car can be useful, particularly if public transportation is unavailable or unreliable.
I do have a school aged child. I would guess that you don't since you think getting in a car during rush hour morning traffic and hoping to be on time is "reliable." I know its not an option for everyone, but biking is extremely reliable - don't have to worry about traffic or parking. Not to mention that biking isn't contributing to San Francisco's pollution problem. Looking forward to the day that you start opining on what to do about that.
See Bikes and "the illusion of safety"
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