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On a closely related note, I read a very interesting piece about "curb cuts" in San Francisco. http://www.spur.org/publications/article/2008-06-01/eye-street h
by geebee 12y ago
On a closely related note, I read a very interesting piece about "curb cuts" in San Francisco.
http://www.spur.org/publications/article/2008-06-01/eye-street http://www.spur.org/publications/article/2008-06-01/eye-stre...
The image showing the difference between Park Slope (without curb cuts) and a stretch of Dolores street in San Francisco (with curb cuts) is really eye-opening.
It's a bummer, because a lot of SF really is small and walkable, but you know, we really do spend a lot of time dodging cars on the sidewalk. I didn't notice as much this until I had kids, because while you can dodge the cars coming and going across the sidewalk as an adult (or the cars just parked on the sidewalk, which is common here but nearly impossible without curb cuts), for a kid, it actually is dangerous.
It's a shame that SF allows curb cuts to render even the sidewalks a hazardous place for people (esp kids) to walk, cause let's face it, SF likes to tout itself as a more urban city with a vibrant pedestrian life.
The irony is that curb cuts - the bit of concrete cut out of a curb so a car can get out of the driveway and onto the street, doesn't even increase parking much, since it divides the street up into tiny bits of actual curb too small to fit a car! What it does is take a spot from the public and turns it into a private "reserved" street space. In fact, one study estimated that 50% of garages in the mission are unusable for parking (used instead for storage or other purposes), so really, this is just a reserved parking spot on the street.
- sliverstorm 12y agoHas SF ever been considered or even wanted to be considered a kid/family-friendly place? Watching from the sidelines, it's never seemed like a priority.
- Kalium 12y agoBeing friendly to incumbents has always seemed to be the highest priority.
- bronson 12y agoWhich incumbents do you mean? The millionaires or the people being displaced?
- Kalium 12y agoNeither, because policy has largely been written to favor those who already live on or own a given patch of dirt. Most of SF is neither millionaires nor being displaced.
- toomuchtodo 12y ago"Peninsula Lords"
- swang 12y agoThe only place that seems relatively sane (and relatively affordable) for families in SF is Noe Valley. If you have _tons_ of money, probably further north like Pac Heights. And maybe, _maybe_ the area between Haight/Duboce Triangle near Duboce Park where there is a playground for kids seems to attract families. But even still, you can't go out at night around there as there have been lots of violent crimes in that area. SF is really weird.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- tsotha 12y agoPeople move away when their kids reach school age. Not so much because it isn't kid friendly, but because it's too expensive to raise a family here. Not too many young families can shell out three quarters of a million bucks for a house, and the schools are just so-so.
- kansface 12y agoThis is basically impossible for two reasons: 1. The city is too expensive for a family. Practically no one can afford a 3 bedroom house or apartment (or one that will allow pets). Even if you can afford a house in the school district you want, it won't matter because ... 2. Living in a school district is not a guarantee for enrollment in that district. Your kids may be shipped on an hour long bus ride one way to a comparatively bad school across town. Your kids may be sent in opposite directions to different schools. Some changes recently may have improved the situation, if only slightly. All in the name of equality.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- dpeck 12y agoNot SF, but I feel exactly the same cars. After having my kid and him getting to the toddler stage I started to actually understand just how hazardous cars can be. There is nothing I appreciate more these days than a open area with fencing or whatever else to keep cars at bay and let kids run around and be kids without parents having to constantly stay on guard that one of them might make a run for the street.
- prawn 12y agoStreet parking is really dangerous for kids. No visibility for drivers when a kid is crossing from a footpath and is shorter than many of the parked cars. Driving an empty street, you can see children leaving their homes, crossing the verge, etc. In a street full of parked cars, you might only have a split second as they leave a gap between two parked cars to cross a street. As a motorist and a parent of a toddler, I really don't like that from either side.
- cylinder 12y agoBrings me to the broader question: why are Californians so bad at urban planning? LA is a disaster, SF has endless issues and pitfalls, the Bay Area is a sprawling mess. For a people who seem to pride themselves on being progressive, "enlightened" etc they sure are bad at livability, almost as bad as Texas.
- tempestn 12y ago99% Invisible had an episode recently that explained some of LA's sprawl: http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/episode-70-the-great-red-car-conspiracy/ http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/episode-70-the-great-r...
- geebee 12y agoMy impression is that poor urban planning correlates more with era than geography. One thing I noticed while traveling in Europe is that while the old urban centers are pretty great, the outskirts, built during the automotive era, are no better than anywhere else. There's just less of it. That said, in SF (according to the article), some pre-automotive buildings were actually retrofitted to reflect the new car culture and add garages.
- dredmorbius 12y agoContrasting with where exactly? Los Angeles is not particularly better or worse than any post-WWII automobile-centric metropolis, except that it's bigger than all others in the U.S. Compare it to Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, or Atlanta (focusing on downtown and suburbs more than the inner city core), and its primary problem is simply scale, not quality. As in -- it doesn't have a markedly worse quality than any of the other examples, it's simply just larger. San Francisco is actually pretty well planned, but it's got exceptionally high demand, very limited land (courtesy of geography), and sits in the middle of what's essentially a post-WWII urban sprawl. Not quite so bad as L.A., but at ~1/3 the size, only slightly less so. Washington, D.C., is far worse in many respects. For livable experiences in the U.S., you've generally got to either look to older cities (New York or Boston, say, not that either's wonderful), or smaller towns: Portland, Oregon, Boise, Idaho, Santa Fe, NM, old-town Wilmington in North Carolina, Knoxville, TN, to name a few examples. Some are older, some simply have managed to retain a smaller-town feel. And the places which are just plain hellholes ... Industrial pop-up towns and burbclaves across the country. Hardly at all restricted to California.
- meej 12y agoThe thing that drove me nuts about curb cuts when I lived in SF were all the people who used them as sidewalk-blocking private parking spaces (which is illegal, not that the city ever did anything about it), forcing pedestrians into the street. It was especially maddening when I was pushing my bike up a steep hill; I can only imagine how frustrating it would be for those in wheelchairs or pushing strollers. Car culture makes people astonishingly selfish.
- mc32 12y agoThe city owns the fist two squares worth of sidewalk, if there are more those belong to the residence and you're allowed to park there. If your vehicle etc. block or intrude on the city parts you do get cited. Enforcement may vary, however. Plus you're free to call the SFmta to ticket violators.
- meej 12y agoHmm, I'm not sure what you mean by "first two squares of sidewalk". I lived on Coso Ave in Bernal Heights, where a bunch of garage doors are right next to the sidewalks. Some of my neighbors would park their cars in their driveways, with the tail end sticking out into the street, and blocking sidewalk users from crossing their driveways as a result. I can't imagine how that could be legal.
- mc32 12y agoThat is quite illegal. Typically sidewalks are not uninterrupted planes of concrete, but are divided into squares so that in case there is sidewalk buckling, they have some give and don't break up the whole thing, plus repair is made easier. So, usually the first two squares' width belong to the municipality, any others are property of the residence. Here is a decent FAQ on parking in SF: http://www.excelsiorsf.org/district/parking_summit/summit_stuff/faqs.html http://www.excelsiorsf.org/district/parking_summit/summit_st...
- mzs 12y agoThis is funny to me cause I came from different background where parking on sidewalk or partially on sidewalk is very common, and there are no cut-outs in the curb. I think your POV is very American, and that is fine. Here are some examples of parking signs, in Poland you will get a ticket for example if you do not park diagonally with at least one tire over the curb when there is a parking sign indicating you must park like so even if your car is a supermini that would fit lengthwise and you wish to save your tire. http://jamron.org/2013/05/13/polish-parking-signs/ http://jamron.org/2013/05/13/polish-parking-signs/ http://www.gettingaroundgermany.info/zeichen2.shtml http://www.gettingaroundgermany.info/zeichen2.shtml
- mixmastamyk 12y agoI've noticed when that is the case in Europe, the curbs are low and rounded, so it isn't hard too drive over them slowly. When they are high and square like in CA, it wouldn't be easy at all to get on the sidewalk (even if the fascist parking dictatorship were to allow it).