Matthew Roth
Recent Posts
A Sunny and Beautiful Sunday Streets on the Great Highway
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Walking the dog on the portion of the Great Highway closed to traffic for four hours. Photo: sfbike Despite early fog hugging the coast, the sun finally came out to play around 12:30 pm yesterday and blessed the thousands of cyclists, skaters, bladers and walkers who enjoyed the approximately six miles of the car-free Sunday […]
“Penguins to Penguins” Sunday Streets Kicks Off This Weekend
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Now imagine riding on that road. Flickr photo: J.B. Davis The next two Sunday Streets are moving from the heart of the busy Mission to two of San Francisco’s more picturesque natural locales as it winds through Golden Gate Park to the Great Highway along Ocean Beach. This Sunday, August 9th and again on Sunday, […]
Chief Gascón Addresses Driver Accountability at Swearing-In Presser
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SFPD Chief Gascón. Photo: Matthew Roth At a press conference today immediately after Mayor Gavin Newsom swore in SFPD’s new police Chief George Gascón, the city’s top cop, responding to a question from Streetsblog, addressed a number of issues central to his command, including, notably, how driver behavior can endanger certain neighborhoods as much or […]
Eyes on the Street: Oakland’s Newest Bike Lanes
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Photos: WOBO Cyclists in Oakland’s Lakeshore district are celebrating a hard-fought new bike lane that runs along Harrison and Oakland Avenues south of I-580. Jen Jackson, Vice Chair and co-founder of Walk Oakland Bike Oakland (WOBO), helped spearhead the initiative, and was thrilled: WOBO is very excited about this important new addition to Oakland’s bike […]
Extra! Extra! Nevius and Matier Serving Up Steaming Piles of Journalism
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C.W. Nevius. Photo: dumbeast A couple of real stinkers over in Mainstream Medialand today. Let’s start with Chuck Nevius’s column, which tries to argue that San Francisco will never be bike friendly. Forget the fact that San Franciscans are riding in greater numbers than ever before despite the fact that the city has implemented only […]
Demand for Trial Plazas Increases as Lower Potrero Design is Revealed
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Conceptual rendering of Lower Potrero trial plaza at 16th Street and 8th Street. View from 16th Street, Axis Cafe on right, Wolfe Cafe on left, under billboard. Image: Rebar Art Collective. When the 17th Street and Castro Street trial Pavement to Parks plaza was implemented in San Francisco, Mayor Gavin Newsom said at the press […]
Six Injured When Historic Muni Streetcars Collide with SUV
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Crash at Market and Noe. Photos: Nocturnal Perambulations Two historic San Francisco streetcars on the outbound Market Street tracks collided with a Nissan SUV at Market and Noe streets in the Castro at 5:45 p.m. Monday. Six people were injured, including both people in the SUV, and the operator of the train that collided with […]
Poof! San Francisco’s Mason Street Has Become a Temporary Park
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Cross sections of tree stumps for seating on Mason Street. Photo: SurfaceWork A coalition of community volunteers, pro-bono landscape architects and personnel from several city agencies this weekend swooped in to North Beach to transform the roadway of Mason Street between Columbus Avenue and Lombard Street into a temporary park in conjunction with the two-month […]
Montreal’s Bixi Bicycle Share Will Showcase Program in GG Park Sunday
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Photo: Adrien B The MTA and City Car Share are welcoming the Bixi bicycle share program from Montreal, Canada, to San Francisco this Sunday to demonstrate how bicycle share could work if this city embraces it. City CarShare is using the event to conduct a user survey and provide information about the service to interested […]
On Bike Theft and Boneheads
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Flickr Photo: Jym Dyer Last week I did something wholly in opposition to the tenets of common sense cycling in a city: I left my quality bicycle locked up for four days in a high bicycle theft location, in this case on 24th Street right next to the BART station. You see, last Thursday afternoon, […]
Wade Crowfoot Leaves Mayor’s Office for EDF
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Photo: Bryan Goebel Wade Crowfoot, Mayor Gavin Newsom’s Director of Climate Change Initiatives, quietly transitioned out of his role in city government last Friday to become the West Coast Legislative and Political Director at the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), a new post created just for him. His portfolio will be primarily climate, water safety, and […]
Kalashnikovs for Clunkers: The Next Stimulus Plan
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In case you don’t qualify for the federal Cash-for-Clunkers rebate program, Mark Muller of Max Motors in Butler, Missouri, has an offer you might want to consider: get a free AK-47 with a new truck. The dealer, whose motto is "God, Guns, Guts and American Pick-Up Trucks," one-upped himself from last year’s offer of pistols […]