A plan for Twin Peaks
Twin Peaks is one of San Francisco’s best-known public spaces. It has been a City landmark for centuries. When surveyor Jasper O’Farrell laid out Market Street in 1847 he aligned it to Twin Peaks. It is a popular spot with visitors as well as locals and immediate neighbors. Twin Peaks is also one of the…
2022 in review: progress towards livability
2022 is nearly behind us. The lingering pandemic, political rancor and scandal, and economic uncertainty dominated the local news. Despite all the tumult and uncertainty, Livable City worked hard to help San Francisco take some important steps towards a more livable, just, and sustainable San Francisco. Join us in reflecting on and celebrating what we…
San Francisco’s Car-Free Roots
Human beings have been carving roads and paths for eons, but it’s easy to forget that cars are quite new. Before automobiles, roads were shared spaces – open to pedestrians, vendors and modes of transport like horses and buggies.
Planning Commission Approves Better Environmental Review Standards
On Thursday March 3, San Francisco’s Planning Commission unanimously approved an essential, and long overdue, change to the way it reviews projects under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The Commission replaced automobile level of service (LOS), a measure of automobile delay at intersections, with vehicle miles travelled (VMT) as their chief transportation measure for analyzing projects. This…
Car-Free Streets and the Poetry of the City
Poets Plaza, a proposed piazza in North Beach, has been delayed again. Supporters have started an online petition to get the project moving. There will be a public meeting about the piazza on Thursday, March 3 from 6 to 7:30 pm at the Tel-Hi Center, 660 Lombard Street near Mason. The plaza, also called Piazza Saint Francis, would…
The Perils of Planning by Exception
Two big private developments won important approvals in the last month – one from the voters, and the other from the Board of Supervisors. Voters approved Proposition D, approving a height limit increase for the Mission Rock Development on San Francisco’s waterfront, as well as a host of policies related to the development. The Board of Supervisors approved…
Reshaping the Urban Landscape
City Streets comprise 25% of San Francisco’s land area. Most of San Francisco’s street area is used for the movement and storage of private autos, but there is a growing movement to unlock City streets’ potential as temporary and permanent spaces for active transportation, meeting, play, community, greenery, nature, and managing urban waters. This moderated…
Rethinking Downtown: San Francisco’s Downtown Plan at 30
San Francisco’s Downtown Plan turned 30 this year. The plan came about in the midst of the 1980s “Planning Wars,” when battles over density, building height, and office uses were fought in City Hall and the ballot box. The Downtown Plan attempted two reconcile two contending visions of the city – that of postwar Modernism, which had transformed…
Planning for a Better City
For many decades, transportation planning in San Francisco was focused almost entirely on the automobile, and walking, cycling, and public transit were marginalized. We need to put sustainable modes at the center of our transportation plans, and replace “predict and provide” models of traffic and parking planning with ones that take into account the potential…
Reclaiming San Francisco’s Alleyways
Public rights-of-way – streets and alleyways – make up about a quarter of San Francisco’s land area. Projects that reclaim alleyways as neighborhood-serving public places with greening, traffic-calming, and pedestrianization are moving forward in 2015. Living Alleys, also known as woonerfs, are shared space alleyways that prioritize pedestrian use and open space, using special paving, traffic calming, lighting, seating, green landscaping, and…
