The "San Francisco Sux" thread

[ericbarbour]

“When we make changes to improve safety, people get angry because we are directly impacting their convenience in order to solve a safety or climate goal,” he said. “It’s one of the reasons why few (people in my field) stay in their jobs very long. At a certain point, if they have been successful in creating change, they have created resentment from people who prioritize the status quo over the environment or the next generation.”

None of the seven members of the transit agency’s board of directors responded to questions about threats directed at SFMTA employees.

But bike and transit advocates said they have witnessed transportation workers face a steady stream of abuse that at times has resembled an intimidation campaign designed to hamper or altogether halt the city’s long-standing transit goals. While advocates focused mainly on threats to transportation planners and engineers, bus drivers and other frontline staff have also faced abuse and violence from riders.

“SFMTA staff have been verbally accosted, aggressively surrounded or approached,” said Dylan Fabris, who leads regional policy and advocacy efforts at the nonprofit San Francisco Transit Riders. “It does seem like things have gotten worse.”

Christopher White, executive director of San Francisco Bicycle Commission, condemned attacks on the agency’s planners and engineers during an SFMTA meeting late last month.

“They believe in the goals the city has given itself, they want to do their jobs,” he said. “But I have heard from them that they feel traumatized by the amount of ire and rage that is directed toward them, with little political cover or backup. That rage comes not only from opponents of bike and roll infrastructure but sometimes from advocates themselves.”

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/art ... 958047.php
archive:
https://archive.ph/FJVdE

It was always a crazy place. Imagine how crazy it will get when all those residents won't be able to park their stupid Toyotas and Hondas anywhere, nor be able to get in the stupid car and drive to the latest "hip bistro".

Simply driving thru the peninsula to get somewhere other than San Francisco (which I have to do occasionally) will become very difficult. They demolished the Central Expressway and Embaracadero Freeway, so going from the Golden Gate to the south end of the city and 101/280 forced three choices: the Great Highway which usually wasn't bad apart from the endless red lights, 19th Avenue (berserk traffic jams all day), or struggle thru the mess of Lombard and Van Ness (even worse traffic) to reach the 101 entrances in SOMA. And they're closing the Great Highway. Resulting in death threats.

[Archer]

Bike lanes serve no purpose.

https://www.sheldonbrown.com/physically ... lanes.html

[Strelnikov]

Bike lanes serve no purpose.

https://www.sheldonbrown.com/physically ... lanes.html

Look at a map of Amsterdam; bikes and cars are on entirely different circuits of roads that do not cross thanks to car bridges. The half-assed mess of bike lanes in America are a sloppy compromise for keeping bikes away from automobiles. Only worse are bike lanes in the UK.

[ericbarbour]

Look at a map of Amsterdam; bikes and cars are on entirely different circuits of roads that do not cross thanks to car bridges. The half-assed mess of bike lanes in America are a sloppy compromise for keeping bikes away from automobiles. Only worse are bike lanes in the UK.

I'd call the way SF handles bikes as a LOT worse than the UK. In SF you get roving gangs of cyclists randomly blocking streets, smashing car windows, attacking pedestrians etc. It's literally Mad Max or Clockwork Orange, but with whiny hipster assholes pedaling fat-tired bikes.

Seen it happen several times.

[Archer]

Look at a map of Amsterdam; bikes and cars are on entirely different circuits of roads that do not cross thanks to car bridges. The half-assed mess of bike lanes in America are a sloppy compromise for keeping bikes away from automobiles. Only worse are bike lanes in the UK.

I'd call the way SF handles bikes as a LOT worse than the UK. In SF you get roving gangs of cyclists randomly blocking streets, smashing car windows, attacking pedestrians etc. It's literally Mad Max or Clockwork Orange, but with whiny hipster assholes pedaling fat-tired bikes.

Seen it happen several times.

Never been to California, but as I understand it's the only state worse than New York.

[ericbarbour]

Never been to California, but as I understand it's the only state worse than New York.

California is a HUGE place and most of it is sedate rural country and quiet small towns. The crazy is concentrated into two major areas, the bay area and LA metro. With lesser levels of crazy in Sacramento, San Diego, Bakersfield etc.

Seriously, I remember seeing San Francisco more than 50 years ago. It was actually a nice place to visit. Relatively quiet, clean, parking was not impossible to find on the streets, an honest working-class port city with some tourism. Then the "Summer of Love", mobs of hippies who decided to stay, and assorted crackpots descended during the 1970s. And made it into an open-air mental asylum. Tech dudebros using it as a "hip bedroom community" have NOT improved anything that I can see. They do little to nothing to help the community, except patronize the bloody restaurants. Otherwise they take company buses to the south bay for work 6-7 days a week, and the city just gets more crowded and expensive and dirty and chaotic every year.