4 BART Stations, 1,000 New Residences, 0 Added Footprint
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Photo by Karen Chapple Accessory dwelling units — better known as cottages, in-law apartments or granny flats — could provide an estimated 1,000 new residences near selected BART stations, research by UC Berkeley Professor Karen Chapple shows.ADUs diversify and increase the housing stock without enlarging a neighborhood's footprint, while allowing senior citizens to find a smaller dwelling without leaving their neighborhood, or college graduates…
The Numbers: San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont Has 91.7% Transit Coverage
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BART station in the East Bay, photo by flickr user travesty01 We definitely have work to do--that was the take home point of a recent Brookings Institute study, examining the top 100 metropolitan areas in the nation for transit access to jobs. While the study found that our area ranked fifth in the nation for access of transit to resident, only 35% of jobs…
Hidden Histories: The Oakland Museum of California
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The recent renovation of the Oakland Museum of California by Mark Cavagnero Associates has brought much-deserved attention to this important Modernist design. But the original design of this Modern masterpiece deserves a closer look.
Good Government Awards: How JobsNow Put San Franciscans Back to Work
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SPUR’s 31st annual Good Government Awards, held earlier this year, honored five City of San Francisco employees and teams who have performed exceptionally, becoming models for other agencies and cities around the country. The JobsNow Program was arguably the most innovative and effective subsidized employment program in the United States. During a time of high unemployment, the JobsNow team quickly built a local structure that…
Ocean Beach Master Plan - Public Workshop #2
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Please join us at the Golden Gate Park Senior Center on Saturday, June 4th for the Ocean Beach Master Plan Public Workshop #2. The project team has been hard at work analyzing the impacts of different courses of action at Ocean Beach. You will have a chance to review several "test scenarios" and compare their outcomes in categories like ecology, infrastructure, and public access over a 100-year period…
The Numbers: 96% of U.S. Transportation Energy Comes from Oil
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A recent editorial by the Regional Plan Association cites this sobering stat (from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) to make the argument for a higher tax on gasoline as a way to both reduce carbon emissions and raise revenues in a time of huge fiscal shortfalls. Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy recently included a three-cent-per-gallon increase in the gasoline tax in his…
Weekly Snapshot: Good News for Seattle Bikers and Walkers? Kinda.
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Seattle is consistently ranked one of the nation's most bikeable and walkable cities, with low pedestrian fatality rates, bicycle-friendly legislation and a high percentage of commuters who bike or walk to work. However, some worry that these high scores have made Seattle "too cocky," and that the city still has a ways to go in providing acceptable bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure. Residents hope Seattle's…
Public Workshop #2 - Ocean Beach Master Plan
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Please join us at the Golden Gate Park Senior Center on Saturday, June 4th for the Ocean Beach Master Plan Public Workshop #2. The project team has been hard at work analyzing the impacts of different courses of action at Ocean Beach. You will have a chance to review several "test scenarios" and compare their outcomes in categories like ecology, infrastructure, and public access over a 100-year period…
The Numbers: SF's Compost Program Offsets 2 years of Bay Bridge Traffic
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San Franciscans have been throwing compostable waste into the “third bin” for 15 years now, since we began a composting pilot program in 1996. But anyone who thinks the third bin has only tertiary importance should know that since its beginning, San Francisco’s composting program has offset 354,600 metric tons of greenhouse gasses, equivalent to the emissions of all vehicles crossing the Bay Bridge for…
7 Phone Apps That Can Make Cities Better
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One of the greatest allures of a smart phone is the time it saves at the bus stop. Having real-time transit info and nearby stop locations at your fingertips makes city living just a little easier. But popular transit apps are just the beginning. Increasingly, smart phone technology is fundamentally changing the way we physically experience our cities.We have written before about SFMTA’s SFpark…
Weekly Snapshot: Imagining Detroit
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Mark Bittman of the New York Times calls Detroit a model of "self-reliance and growth," citing the residents ability to look within the city for solutions to challenges posed by a shrinking population. The key to Detroit's recent successes, Bittman argues, is food. The city's food system is integrated with a sense of justice, community, and a commitment to smart land use that unifies residents…
The Numbers: Sea Level Rise Will Expose 270,000 People in the Bay Area to Flood Risk
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Tomorrow night, we open " Adapt!" an exhibition on the coming effects of climate change in the Bay Area. The show highlights key points from a SPUR policy report released earlier this month, which explains the kinds of changes we can expect to our climate — and what we need to do now to prepare. As our report explains, efforts to slow down…
The Numbers: 30.3% of San Francisco Households Do Not Have a Vehicle
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Compare this to the national picture: only 8.7% of U.S. household don't have cars. While we're certainly ahead of most parts of the country on carfree living, this still means that more than two thirds of San Francisco households do own a car -- and a higher percentage of San Franciscans, 38.9%, use their cars to drive alone to work. The San Francisco Municipal…
Good Government Awards: How Cheryl Nashir Increased Retail Sales at SFO
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SPUR’s 31st annual Good Government Awards, held earlier this year, honored five City of San Francisco employees and teams who have performed exceptionally, becoming models for other agencies and cities around the country. Cheryl Nashir received an award in recognition of her leadership and vision in making San Francisco Airport a vibrant marketplace and increasing revenue. Since joining the Airport in 2006 she has developed…
The Numbers: SF Bike Rental Revenue Up 2,000% Since 1998
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SPUR has made the case that an expanded bike network gives residents a safer option to add exercise and subtract carbon from their transportation diet. Better bike infrastructure would benefit tourism as well — although visitors are already discovering the pleasures of biking San Francisco: in 1998, bike rental businesses in San Francisco had combined earnings of $500,000. Thirteen years later, that figure has ballooned…
Why We Need to Start Planning for Climate Change — Now
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On May 4 SPUR released a major report, " Climate Change Hits Home," that lays out what the Bay Area must do to start preparing for the coming effects of climate change. This project, a multi-year effort by a team of top climate scientists and government leaders, represents a turning point for SPUR. We have long worked to stop climate change, but now we…
From Port City to Today: San Francisco's Layered Waterfront History
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History of San Francisco's waterfront from 1875 to present day.
The Joys of Density: a Blogging Bird Reminds Us Why We Love Cities
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The back window of our office here at SPUR looks out on a building with an entertaining tenant, a green Pacific Parrotlet who has free range of his studio apartment and an impressive collection of plastic toys. After observing his activities, we became curious about our feathered neighbor and Tweeted him the old-fashioned way. We taped a note up in the window: Hi green bird…
Climate Change Hits Home
SPUR Report
Global efforts to slow climate change by reducing greenhouse-gas emissions have largely failed. As a result we must not only intensify our efforts to reduce climate change but start preparing for its inevitable effects. In this report, SPUR recommends more than 30 strategies for local and regional agencies to begin minimizing the region’s vulnerabilities to these long-term but potentially catastrophic effects.
