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Posts tagged "San Francisco"

StreetFilms Tuesday, March 7, 2017
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Riders First: How Buses Are Moving San Francisco Forward

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The unsung hero of San Francisco is the humble city bus, which moves more than 400,000 people through the city every day. This didn’t happen by accident –  the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) have taken a systematic, rider-centric approach to improving bus service across the city.

This policy and implementation effort, dubbed “Muni Forward,” has been bolstered by a $500 million dollar injection of funding approved by voters in 2014, which enabled new capital investments to improve transportation access in an already service-rich city.

Muni Forward comprises a suite of service improvements, including dedicated bus lanes (“red carpets”), the first implementation of all-door boarding in a major American transit system, stop consolidation, transit signal priority, and the branding of a Rapid Network of bus routes in high impact corridors.

Though some of the bus lane projects have been controversial in San Francisco, it’s important to acknowledge the smart policy-making and intent behind Muni Forward.  The city is attempting to optimize its transit resources by prioritizing transit on streets, making transit easy to use and conducting a rolling review of routes and stops.

Bus ridership has increased in recent years as population has continued to grow, which has been essential as congestion has worsened and cost of living continues to rise. Even as the Bay Area increases its investments in BART rail extensions andPhase 2 of the Transbay Transit Center, Muni Forward demonstrates the city’s recognition of the essential role that buses will continue to play to ensure that Bay Area residents can get where they need to go.

The SFMTA’s comprehensive approach to improving bus service across the city should be a model for other cities across the country.

StreetFilms Thursday, February 12, 2015
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America’s Love Affair With Great City Streets

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People crave interaction with other people. Given the choice, we'll gravitate to places where we can socialize or just be in the presence of our fellow humans.

It's not in our nature to spend hours each day isolated inside a car, but for much of the 20th century we shaped our streets and cities to make driving inescapable. In a few short decades we all but designed walking out of our lives. The good news is that by now, many cities have recognized that mistake and are working to fix it. We're falling in love with our streets again.

In this Streetfilm, four American mayors talk about why they're working to make their cities more walkable, bikeable, and sociable, and you'll hear from advocates and experts who are leading the movement to reclaim streets for people.

StreetFilms Thursday, February 13, 2014
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The Power of Bicycling (Get Psyched)

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Has winter fatigue set in yet? Time to get psyched about biking again!

This has been the worst winter of my adult life. And if you live most places in the United States you'd probably agree.  Between the extreme below-average temperatures and the constant barrage of snowstorms, it's made cycling outdoors a rough proposition - even for the intrepid.

To attempt to lift my spirits, I started browsing archived Streetfilms bike b-roll from all over the world, and I could feel my mood instantly change. We've certainly been lucky to shoot in great bicycle places in beautiful weather and that magic of bike love easily translates via the camera.  So I thought maybe I should share some of that joy and get some of you looking forward to the Spring with this hasty-assembled montage.  

Warmer days are coming my friends. Enjoy the bike porn.

StreetFilms Thursday, December 5, 2013
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Riding the Bike Share Boom

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Without a doubt, 2013 has been a banner year for bike-share in the United States. Major systems were implemented in New York City and Chicago, and many others debuted or expanded in other cities. In fact, Citi Bike users have biked over 10 million miles and the system is closing in on 100,000 annual members!

The Institute for Transportation & Development Policy (ITDP) has been studying 25 bike-share systems throughout the world, analyzing which ones perform the best and why. That informed ITDP's Bike Share Planning Guide, which has copious data and fascinating charts to pore over, helping cities create bike-share systems that will thrive.

We were very happy to team up with ITDP to make this Streetfilm. It features a dozen bike-share systems and captures footage from an unprecedented number of bike-share cities in any one film. Enjoy and download the report!

StreetFilms Thursday, August 1, 2013
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Hey NY Times, San Francisco Has Also Been Invaded by a “Sea of Bikes”

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Just wanted to drop some fun nuggets in here for fans while I've been on vacation in the Bay Area.

If you ask me, Market Street in San Francisco continues to do battle with Portland's Hawthorne Bridge as the busiest bicycling channel in the United States. It's been three years since my last visit, but Market bike traffic continues to grow and dazzle during the commuting hours.  So I cajoled myself to grab my camera from the hotel one morning and in only about 20 minutes picked up enough for the following short montage.

Of course, it makes you think back to the recent controversial New York Times article warning that there are perhaps too many bicycles in Amsterdam. I'd love to know what they would write about this alarming number of bikes taking over a major city street.

The day prior I attended my first SF Sunday Streets event. This one was in the Mission and it had a wonderful laid back vibe with the majority of the attendees walking.  There was also much more live music than any other ciclovia-style open street event I have ever been to. My favorite was this bluegrass band Rusty Stringfield which played a great alfresco set to dozens of passerby who were comfortably lounging in the street on furniture.  Watch this, we need more of this in the world.

Another thing I can report: I stumbled upon San Francisco's re-installation of its Market bike counter following a road re-paving (last year Portland minted the first in the U.S., see video here). As these photos show, the ground sensors were re-activated to detect the daily "sea of bikes" and the counter was up and running as of this morning.  Hat tip for the edit/clarification to Prinzrob in the comments.

Photo: SFMTA

Read more...

StreetFilms Wednesday, July 31, 2013
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San Francisco Bicycle Rush Hour on Market Street

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While vacationing in San Francisco, just happened to step out on to Market Street one morning with the camera. Was only out there shooting in a 20 minute window and captured enough footage for this 1 minute montage. It has been about three years since I have been in the Bay Area and I always knew that Market Street was an incredible place to watch cyclists, but it seems more impressive than ever! Kudos to San Francisco, may it continue.

StreetFilms Tuesday, April 24, 2012
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San Francisco: Reclaiming Streets With Innovative Solutions

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Tom Radulovich, the executive director of the local non-profit Livable City, describes the recent livable streets achievements in San Francisco as "tactical urbanism" -- using low-cost materials like paint and bollards to reclaim street space.

That willingness to experiment was a big reason that the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) gave its 2012 Sustainable Transport Award to San Francisco (an honor shared with Medellín, Colombia). In this Streetfilm we profile the innovations that earned SF recognition from ITDP.

Perhaps the city's most exciting new development has been the parklet program, which converts parking spaces into public space complete with tables, chairs, art, and greenery. These mini-parks are adopted and paid for by local businesses, but they remain public space. The concept has its roots in the PARK(ing) Day phenomenon started by the SF-based Rebar Group in 2005.

San Francisco has also seen an impressive 71 percent increase in bicycling in the past five years, despite being under a court injunction that prohibited bicycle improvements for most of that time. The city aims to have 20 percent of trips by bike by 2020. Sunday Streets, San Francisco's version of Ciclovia, has also drawn huge numbers of participants and continues to expand.

The city has also taken the lead on innovative parking management with the SFPark program, which uses new technology to help manage public parking in several pilot neighborhoods. It aims to make it easier to find a parking spot by adjusting prices according to demand, helping to reduce pollution, traffic, and frustrations for drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists.

StreetFilms Tuesday, April 26, 2011
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MBA: Parking Reform

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In the tenth and final video in Streetfilms' Moving Beyond the Automobile series, we are talking about parking reform. From doing away with mandatory parking minimums, to charging the right price for curbside parking, to converting on-street parking spots into parklets and bike corrals, cities are latching onto exciting new ideas to make more room for people in our cities and repurpose the valuable public space that lines our streets.

"Historically the parking problem was defined as there not being enough convenient places to put your car," UPenn professor Rachel Weinberger told Streetfilms, "but increasingly cities are starting to understand that the parking problem could be defined differently and it could be the case that there is too much parking."

StreetFilms Tuesday, April 19, 2011
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MBA: The Right Price for Parking

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You might be shocked at how much traffic consists of drivers who have already arrived at their destination but find themselves cruising the streets, searching for an open parking spot. In some city neighborhoods, cruising makes up as much as 40 percent of all traffic. All this unnecessary traffic slows down buses, endangers cyclists and pedestrians, delays other motorists, and produces harmful emissions. The key to eliminating it is to get the price of parking right.

So what's the right price for curbside parking? According to UCLA professor Donald Shoup, author of The High Cost of Free Parking, "the right price is the lowest price you can charge and still have one or two spaces available on each block." Depending on the demand for parking at a given location, the right price could be higher or lower than the static prices you see at traditional meters. You need a dynamic system that adjusts the price based on demand.

The city of San Francisco has been putting Shoup's ideas into practice on an unprecedented scale with its SFpark program, which is set to launch later this week. In addition to strategically adjusting curbside meter rates, SFpark sets prices in city garages to make them an attractive alternative to on-street spots, and distributes real-time information about parking availability to help drivers find open spaces. It is the most ambitious project in the United States to cut traffic and improve quality of life by getting the price of parking right.

Streetfilms would like to thank The Fund for the Environment & Urban Life for making this series possible.

StreetFilms Tuesday, April 12, 2011
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MBA: Road Diet

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What’s a road diet? Quite simply, traffic-calming expert Dan Burden told Streetfilms, “A road diet is anytime you take any lane out of a road.”

The first time people hear about a road diet, their initial reaction likely goes something like this: “How can removing lanes improve my neighborhood and not cause traffic backups?” It seems counterintuitive, but taking away lanes can actually help traffic flow smoother while improving safety for everyone.

Road diets are good for pedestrians: They reduce speeding and make vehicle movements more predictable while shortening crossing distances, usually through curb extensions or center median islands. They’re good for cyclists: Many road diets shift space from car lanes to create bike lanes. They’re good for drivers: Less speeding improves safety for motorists and passengers, and providing left-turn pockets allows through traffic to proceed without shifting lanes or waiting behind turning vehicles.

And here’s something to keep in mind during this era of lean budgets: Road diets are a highly-effective infrastructure improvement that can be implemented quickly and at low cost.

Streetfilms would like to thank The Fund for the Environment & Urban Life for making this series possible.

StreetFilms Tuesday, March 29, 2011
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MBA: Highway Removal

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In this week's episode of "Moving Beyond the Automobile," Streetfilms takes you on a guided tour of past, present and future highway removal projects with John Norquist of the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU).

Some of the most well-known highway removals in America -- like New York City's Miller Highway and San Francisco's Embarcadero Freeway -- have actually been unpredictable highway collapses brought on by structural deficiencies or natural disasters. It turns out there are good reasons for not rebuilding these urban highways once they become rubble: They drain the life from the neighborhoods around them, they suck wealth and value out of city, and they don't even move traffic that well during rush hour.

Now several cities are pursuing highway removals more intentionally, as a way to reclaim city space for housing, parks, and economic development. CNU has designated ten "Freeways without Futures" here in North America, and in this video, you'll hear about the benefits of tearing down the Alaskan Way Viaduct in Seattle, the Sheridan Expressway in the Bronx, the Skyway and Route 5 in Buffalo, and the Claiborne Expressway in New Orleans.

Streetfilms would like to thank The Fund for the Environment & Urban Life for making this series possible.

StreetFilms Monday, March 21, 2011
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Connecting the City: Stephanie’s Story

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Here's a real favorite of mine, a video that Streetfilms was fortunate enough to work on late last year. Connecting the City is a project from the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition all about encouraging a vision of the Bay Area that is more bike-friendly to families, seniors and everyday folks who endeavor to ride more than they already do.  Connecting the City advocates for a series of safe, protected cycletracks on a number of vital cross-town streets to make it safer and easier to bike.

I got to spend a few days with a Richmond District family who already use their bikes to do short rides to Golden Gate Park and participate in events like Sunday Streets, but they would love to do so much more. In many ways, it is this filmmaker's dream to continue to meet wonderful people like Stephanie and her family and capture them at work, play and rest and hear their thoughts.  Folks like these are the magnificent pulse of every city and we need to continue to make healthier cities so they prosper.

StreetFilms Tuesday, February 22, 2011
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MBA: Bicycling

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For the second chapter in our Moving Beyond the Automobile series we'll take a look at bicycling. More and more people are choosing to cycle for at least part of their commute in cities across the world. Leading the way in the United States, Portland, Oregon is up to a daily bike count of 17,000 riders! For this video we spent some time with leading thinkers in New York, San Francisco and Portland to discuss the direct relationship between providing safe cycling infrastructure and the number of people biking. The benefits of cycling are simple. Biking helps reduce congestion, air pollution, meet climate action goals and makes for healthier communities.

(Note: This series is made possible by funding from the Fund for The Environment & Urban Life.)

StreetFilms Thursday, February 17, 2011
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The Case for Bike Racks on NYC Buses

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Over the last ten years (or more) just about every major city in the U.S. has added bike-carrying capacity to their buses. While cities like Chicago, Las Vegas, Kansas City, Seattle, Philadelphia, and San Francisco can boast 100% of their bus fleet sporting bike racks, NYC comes in at 0% - the only one in The Alliance for Biking & Walking's 2010 Benchmarking report.

This probably comes as no surprise to any cyclist from NYC who travels an ample amount, but what is shocking is this fact quietly goes unmentioned in NYC. We cannot recall a single news story or push to get bike racks anywhere in the last ten years.

Of course, there are reasonable assumptions one can make why NYC has not tried out some program. First and foremost: the NYC MTA subway system already allows bikes 24 hours a day.  It's an excellent benefit for sure, but there are many regions of the five boroughs that are not easily within reach of a train. If we want to encourage multi-modalism, we need seriously think about that.

Then there is a barrage of others: cyclists will be too slow to load, bikes might fall off the racks, cost, maintenance, etc, but after viewing our Streetfilm you'll see there really isn't a valid excuse not to.

So we think it's time that the MTA and the city to consider a few pilot programs to put some bike racks on some routes. Of course, we are not talking about places like Manhattan or most parts of Brooklyn but we feel there are some great candidates that would yield good results.  Look here:

  • Anywhere in Staten Island.
  • Eastern Queens.
  • Parts of The Bronx.
  • Any buses that cross bridges without cycle paths including the Verrazano-Narrows, The Whitestone and The Throggs Neck bridges.
StreetFilms Thursday, July 8, 2010
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NACTO’s “Cities for Cycling”

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"Cities for Cycling" is a project of the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) to document, promote and implement the world’s best bicycle transportation practices in U.S. cities.

In this Streetfilm you'll see how a typical visit can inspire, enlighten and energize city leaders & advocates.  During bike month, experts from the transportation departments of NYC (Jon Orcutt), Portland (Roger Geller) and San Francisco (Timothy Papandreou) came to Boston to talk about bike infrastructure in their cities and how they accomplished innovative change to their streetscapes.  Thru public presentations, private meetings with city officials, and bike ride audits, the "Cities for Cycling" road show is poised to be an informative, powerful tool for governments.

In addition, NACTO is in the process of developing a dynamic on-line Urban Bikeway Design Guide which will showcase the engineering techniques being deployed by NACTO members to make bicycling safer, more comfortable and more convenient. This guide is due to be released later this year, but they already are hosting many useful resources for bike planners.

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