Matthew Roth
Recent Posts
Cartoon Tuesday: GM Imitates WALL-E With La-Z-Boy on Wheels
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GM has seen the future, and it looks like a B-n-L Hover Chair. If you held out any hope that billions in taxpayer bailout money and Barack Obama’s dismissal of Rick Wagoner would mark the end of General Motors’ bad plans, today was a wake-up call. GM’s solution for the future of transportation is — […]
The World’s Best Music Videos Featuring Bicycles
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Dave Burdick this week offered up his choices for the Top 5 videos featuring a bicycle on the Huffington Post. While it’s nice to see the mainstream blogosphere types showing some love for two-wheelers, c’mon man! Robin Thicke bouncing around NYC on a crappy bike to disco Beethoven is the world’s number one bike video?! […]
SeeClickFix: Is “Little Brother” the Next Big Thing?
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SeeClickFix users report Union Street gridlock The next generation of community-driven reporting of quality-of-life issues — like potholes, graffiti, garbage buildup, or broken street lights — is SeeClickFix, software that enables users to populate a map with cases that are then forwarded to the responsible city agency. Much like a 311 system, SeeClickFix is predicated […]
Senate’s $50 Billion Highway Giveaway Nearly Dead
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The Inhofe/Boxer stimulus bill amendment for $50 billion in additional infrastructure funds appears to be dead, with official word expected soon from Senator Harry Reid’s office. Sources close to the negotiations say that at least five Democratic Senators were not going to support the amendment if transit and water provisions weren’t improved, while Senate Republicans […]
The Boxer/Inhofe Amendment: Not Green Enough
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A revised draft of the Boxer/Inhofe amendment just came over the transom from a source in DC close to the negotiations (PDF). This is a draft from yesterday and negotiations are ongoing, so expect changes. Specifically, enviros are trying to get a "green screen" put in place, so that USDOT can pick from the priority […]
It Gets Worse: Boxer/Inhofe to Request $50B More for Highways
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Barbara Boxer and infamous global warming denier James Inhofe will present an amendment to the Senate stimulus plan that could funnel as much as $50 billion in additional funding to highways, Streetsblog has learned. Friends of the Earth tells us that Boxer’s staff confirmed she will introduce the amendment, which could bring the total for […]
San Francisco Mayor to NYC: “Eat Your Heart Out.”
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A rendering of the Transbay Transit Center with a 5.4 acre park on its roof. At a groundbreaking ceremony for the long-awaited Transbay Transit Center in San Francisco yesterday, Mayor Gavin Newsom asserted the project will be "so much more extraordinary than Grand Central Station." Pointing to the renderings on a projection screen behind him, […]
SF Responds to Bike Injunction With 1,353 Page Enviro Review
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Two-and-a-half years after a judge issued an injunction preventing the city from adding any new bicycle infrastructure to its streets, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) and the San Francisco Planning Department have released a 1353-page Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) on the San Francisco Bicycle Plan.
At a cost of more than $1 million, the city has attempted to demonstrate in excruciating detail what would seem to be obvious: better bicycle amenities contribute to increased cycling and an improved environment.
Jan Gehl Reflects on San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf
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"When I was a visiting professor at Berkeley in the 1980s, I used to come to Fisherman’s Wharf and walk around," Danish urban designer Jan Gehl said Wednesday night, to more than 100 San Franciscans at the Pier 39 Theater near Fisherman’s Wharf. "Now it’s like deja vu; it’s exactly like I remember it 25 […]
Jan Gehl Says San Francisco Must be Sweet to Pedestrians and Cyclists
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It’s a good day in a city’s urbanist evolution when Jan Gehl comes to town, and now San Francisco can add itself to the growing list of cities around the world that have embraced his people-first approach to urban design and planning. Hoping to keep pace with the progress in New York City over the […]