Cars - Golden Gate Park’s most cherished resource.
Anyone who goes into Golden Gate Park by foot or bike, immediately knows they don’t belong there. Last year a bicyclist even died in the park, and that’s why the SFMTA is ready to protect our most cherished San Franciscans - cars. So the mayor asked the SFMTA to devise a plan that does the bare minimum and keep cars driving and parking everywhere for free. The project’s goals can be found here.
SFMTA makes note of a person dying in Golden Gate Park as a reason why they’re willing to make tepid car-friendly changes to the park.
The SFMTA used index cards to collect all the potential ideas for Golden Gate Park improvements. Ideas included:
Remove free on-street parking
Manage and charge for parking
Install bike lanes on all park streets
Divert all through traffic to the 2 ARTERIAL roads surrounding the park
Limit speed to 15 mph
Triple traffic fines within the park
Once all the ideas were collected, they were thrown into a dumpster and set on fire.
The SFMTA then came up with “solutions” that wouldn’t impact motorists in the slightest, honored suburban style street design, and treated bicyclists and pedestrians like second class citizens.
The SFMTA proposes adding a smattering of paint, some signs, and maybe even a few raised crosswalks and blinking lights in a grand show of safety theater. Fortunately none of the proposed changes will do anything to reduce the amount of people driving and parking for free in the park.
If you want to thank the SFMTA, Mayor Ed Lee and Ed Reiskin for all their hard work keeping cars everywhere in the park, you can thank them by filling out their survey here.
We heard you don’t want cars in the park, but we’re putting cars in the park, because of cars.
Anyone who drives around NYC in a 2-ton metal box knows the sheer terror bicyclists brings to a dense city core. Not a day goes by without hearing about some victim who needed to go to the emergency room for “nearly hit” injuries.
Doctor looking over “nearly hit” patient’s x-ray, filled with unbroken bones and non-contusions.
With their small, light, nimble bikes propelled by their human bodies and sense of entitlement, bicyclists are a force to be reckoned with. Hospitals are filling up with “nearly missed” and “almost killed” victims by the minute. There aren’t enough hospital beds to hold everyone with theoretical injuries.
After hearing complaint after complaint from unscathed victims, NYC finally had enough and came up with an innovative approach to curing this hypothetical catastrophe.
Glen Sandstone, NYCDOT safety think tank leader explained, “We had to think to ourselves, what’s going to stop these reckless bicyclists from hitting people, falling over, getting up, mending their bones, fixing their bikes, and leaving?! That’s when we had an ‘eureka’ moment. Get these reckless bicyclists into cars!”
“Read the news and you won’t find much about motorists causing injury and death to people. If a motorists is even mentioned, usually it’s just an ‘accident’ anyway. So why not get these reckless bicyclists into cars where they’ll magically turn into patient, safety conscious, law abiding motorists?” said Glen.
The program is a simple yet a powerful tool in preventing bad bicyclist behavior by removing the source; eight pounds of aluminum and rubber. “We give bicyclists an option, you either pay the fine for rolling through a stop sign, or we exchange your bike for a 2-ton, 350 horsepower metal box. The results have been nothing short of extraordinary.”
Reckless, helmetless bicyclist gives up bike for SUV.
Model behavior exhibited once they’re put in a tinted 4-ton entertainment system.
“It’s like night and day. Once they connect with their fellow motoring community, they pick up all their responsible behaviors quickly. Former bicyclists now come to a complete stop at every single stop sign and always allow pedestrians the right of way. Don’t even get me started on stop lights! It’s as if there’s an invisible force field preventing their car from even entering a yellow light.
“The real reward is just that look in an ex-bicyclist’s face when they’re able to reconnect with humanity through the windshield of an extended cab truck”, Glen said with a tear in his eye.
Which one of these is more dangerous in the eyes of the SFPD and Mayor Lee's "Vision Zero"?
Answer, ALL OF THEM
In what many cities across the country would consider at best "an abject exercise in futility" or at worst "a crime against humanity" the SFPD is ready to spend their limited time and resources to crack down on entitled bicyclists and stupid pedestrians that rob motorists of the experience promised in car ads. According to SFist, special enforcement periods of January 4th, 6th, 9th, 12th, 20th, 23rd and 31st. And even though the three pedestrian collisions this year involved people walking in a crosswalk, the SFPD is ready to crackdown on a auto-industry shame campaign term known as "jaywalking".
According to SFPD's enforcement plan "Officers will cite for violations when pedestrians cross the street illegally or fail to yield to drivers who have the right of way. Bike riders will be stopped and citations issued when they fail to follow the same traffic laws that apply to motorists. All riders are reminded to always wear a helmet – those under 18 years of age must wear helmets by law. Pedestrians should cross the street only in marked crosswalks or at corners."
Missing from the report? The countless number of of people killed by stop sign rolling bicyclists and distracted pedestrians.
When asked where these undisclosed areas were, the police captain said "well it certainly isn't going to be Valencia Street, SOMA or Golden Gate Park! But, seriously we're looking for areas where it's clear that people on foot or on a bike bear the responsibility of their impact on the freedom of autos to move about the city unimpeded."
"Everyone plays a part in safety! AHAHAHAHA!!!"
Mayor Lee said, "it's great to see our mangled shame campaign version of Vision Zero in full swing! We want to continue to enforce the idea that ~everyone plays a part~ in safety, from the innocent motorists who make mistakes, kill & maim people, down to the reckless bicyclists and pedestrians who theoretically have been killing themselves on motorist's cars.
The SFPD and Mayor hope they can follow the success of their pedestrian and bicyclist crackdowns and move towards preventing equally dangerous practices; such initiatives as cracking down on pea shooters and rubber band guns in SF. One officer replied "We take great pride in the time honored tradition of picking on vulnerable minority groups in the name of safety."
Officer valiantly defending the city from reckless bicyclists on relatively slow, nimble, lightweight devices.
The SFMTA is "required" to remove these posts (seen behind the SFMTA's massive truck blocking the bike lane) so they can make room for everyday double parking. image via SFMTrA
There's a major problem on the streets of San Francisco these days and the SFMTA is working diligently to fix it. No, I'm not talking about the countless deaths and injuries that happened on our streets. It's small plastic posts that the rogue group called SFMTrA have installed all over the city.
Illegal median parking on Valencia street that the SFMTA valiantly ignores every week. Image found here
The SFMTA, which recently enshrined free double parking on Sundays despite countless organizations and neighborhoods saying they didn't want it, removed the plastic posts at an unprecedented speed. They responded to this incredibly dangerous activity by saying they are "required" to remove the little posts from the streets. They went on to say, "We also need to make sure that there's plenty of room for the double parking that occurs on Valencia Street on a daily basis. If we don't stop this kind of behavior, what's next, they'll block illegal Sunday median parking on Valencia & Dolores, too?"
SFMTA righting the wrongs of of the SFMTrA so Valencia street is back to its natural state. image found here
The SFMTA is hopeful that they've removed the small posts so they'll be filled with incredibly safe daily double and median parking. A SFMTA representative said, "As a direct arm of our wimpy leaders, we want to ensure voting motorists aren't denied the promise given to them in car commercials."
Flex posts are a menace to the streets of San Francisco. Median parking on the red zones of Dolores Street is ~perfectly safe~ image found here
San Francisco is known as for innovation, and nothing could be more innovative than the SFMTA's latest pilot program which enshrines free Sunday double parking. "We're so excited this is finally happening! After decades of completely disregarding the law, public safety or the movement of traffic, we're getting a double parking pilot!" said one motorist while abandoning his car in the middle of the street.
The SFMTA said it took a lot of hard work to make this happen. "First of all, we had to completely disregard the community process, because they voted it down 4 to 3. It was deeply unpopular with the community, but we came up with some arbitrary need for 5 people to vote it down, not just a simple majority. So we easily cleared that hurdle. The second part was to completely disregard the separation of church and state. I mean we made it legal near churches and on Sunday mornings, but it's totally not for church people or whatever. It's just that easy!"
What the pilot will look like is anyone's guess, since the program hasn't been finalized and it's making something most cities consider an undesirable and dangerous practice a weekly occurrence. "We'll just do what we usually do," said one SFMTA employee, "We'll distinguish between the legal double parking and illegal double parking. People will start respecting the laws surrounding double parking once we have rules in place... even though the reason why we're doing this pilot because is because people broke the law in the first place. We'll also rely heavily on 'enforcement,'" he said with a hearty laugh.
Motorists are hoping the SFMTA will forgo other bike lane, pedestrian and public transit improvement to pilot other previously illegal and dangerous practices. "They could pilot blocking the crosswalk, blasting through red lights, or the time honored tradition of driving over the speed limit," tweeted one motorist while searching for double parking.
"We have statistical proof that motorists have little reverence to signs, paint, speeds or pedestrians, but hey it might happen right?" - SFMTA "Planner"
With any SFMTA project, be it adding a bike lane to Polk street or any pedestrian safety improvement, the question is, "how can we save all or add more parking?" The L Taraval ~Improvement~ Project is no different. The SFMTA is ready to experiment with the lives of people to satisfy the perceived need of parking on every square inch of an arterial street.
Such great features as "people walk into the streets hoping they don't die" and "parking saved"!
Ed Reiskin, the SFMTA's Politician of Transportation, said "we completely understand that Ninety-five percent of collisions have occurred as people were getting off the light rail, but I want to keep my job. So we came up with an innovative paint and sign idea that saves parking, and retain our jobs as well. It's a hell of a lot easier than conjuring up political will and leadership in this city. Oh, and Vision Zero something something."
"We just want to see how many people will stop because of signs and paint, because they usually don't stop for signs and paint. image found here
"This kind of pilot is unprecedented, possibly because it's a crime against humanity," said one self proclaimed SFMTA Planner. "You just don't see this kind of innovation anywhere else! It's quite elegant really. Only five people need to get severely injured before we add real bus islands to these areas. Think of it as 'Vision 90 Percent'. If we can prevent just one person from never experiencing the displeasure of searching for parking, we've really done our job."
"This kind of thing happens every day on our streets, but the L Taraval "Bus Islands" will totally probably be different! image found here
At this public hearing, members of the public can scream and complain about their loss of parking and demean human life on this latest proposal for the L-Taraval.
Dear motorists, despite all our efforts to "Save Masonic", the countless flyers filled with exclamations(!!!), bold lettering, and RAGE CAPS, we have lost a battle in the perverbial ~War on Cars~. The Masonic Avenue redesign is only a few days away. It's now a time of mourning, and to enjoy the last few days of this perfect Avenue, born out of an intense love of freeways and parking lots. Get your fill of free arterial on-street parking, and watch your "high scores" on the radar speed sign while you race back and forth between Oak and Bush without even the slightest worry that there's law enforcement near.
Elmer Snodgrass, neighborhood parking activist, bemoaned, "You knows that once they start this so-called 'improvement project' that traffic is gonna be gridlock. I'm thinkin' about movin' to San Jose. I hear they got it good down there with wide roads, loads of free parkin' for ya' and there's ain't stupid pedestrians wanting to walk all out in the road all of the time.
Used to be a time here when the mayor and the MTA cared about people and cars. Not no more. Now they just care about 'safety' and 'multi modal use' and other code words for stealin' from cars and drivers. First they stealin' our parkin'. Now they's puttin' in bike lanes that no one's ever gonna use. I don't even see many bikers risking their lives biking down this suburban wonder. It's just like the saying goes, 'you don't go building bridges until you see people swimming across shark infested waters.'"
Ellis Hendrickson screamed, "theres's a perfectly fine bike alternative that non-biking people whipped up. Bikers just need to go through the Baker Street sharrows and dooring lanes, hit several stop signs along the way, climb a major hill while the bike lanes disappear in favor of angled parking. Then Cross six lanes of Turk street highway, continue to climb up the hill until it plateaus, then ride down a steep hill without any bike lanes, pray that you don't get hit by cars exiting the garages, and on-street parking. Take a right turn and continue down a steep hill, more stop signs, hang a left and continue to spiral down through moving and parked cars, continue across Geary's eight lanes of traffic, then go on the left side of Baker for some reason, hang another left at the stop sigh and go back up Post Street's steep hills. Oh, and then hang a right on Presidio's non existent bike lanes. Now isn't that much easier than just biking straight through Masonic Avenue?!" When asked if motorists should use that route she exclaimed, "that's a burden no motorist should ever have to bear."
Despite all this common sense from people who don't want their motoring way of live altered in any way whatsoever, the city is still bent on creating an "active transport" hellscape on Masonic Avenue. It's hard to imagine anyone will continue to live on this street for much longer, given the lack of arterial on-street parking. In the meantime, go out there and enjoy the glory days of the 50's before they screw it up!
Deemed "controversial" because only a lot of it goes to cars.
