Christian Science Monitor Mocks Mayor Gavin Newsom
In an article on cities trying to be ‘ecofriendly,’ the paper quotes some bike folks, and puts the wood to Newsom:
“Younger folks are looking for cities where they can lead an active life,†says Tom Radulovich of the San Francisco nonprofit Livable City. “The suburban notion of ‘drive to the gym’ doesn’t work for them. They want to be able to walk out their front door and shoot hoops in the neighborhood park, or find nearby trails and bike paths to jog or cycle.â€
…
Leading green cities in other parts of the world have been pulled along by strong, charismatic leaders: Ken Livingstone in London, Enrique Penalosa in Bogotá, Colombia. In the US, there’s more input from advocacy groups, such as the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, and Transportation Alternatives in New York. They’re staffed by 20- and 30-somethings who articulate the desires of those who aim to stumble onto the fun.
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San Francisco, despite a notoriously green citizenry, surprisingly lags. It doesn’t help that Mayor Newsom (right-of-center, by San Francisco standards) has a contentious relationship with the more progressive Board of SuperÂÂvisors. Its business community has been lukewarm toward the kind of green initiatives that have taken off in other cities.
So Newsom has had to settle for symbolic gestures: planting that organic garden near City Hall and issuing a stream of press releases that call for one green initiative after another.
“If press releases could save the environment, we’d be in great shape by now,†says Mr. Radulovich of Livable City.
Still, no one’s a loser in this green competition. San Franciscans can cycle on car-free streets in Golden Gate Park on weekends, and the city boasts a spacious waterfront promenade and a bike-friendly boulevard that have replaced earthquake-crumpled freeways.
The article implies that Gavin Newsom is not ’strong and charismatic’. But further, we see the state of democracy in San Francisco. We are told the ‘business community has been lukewarm’ towards greening the city, thus Newsom can only do what he is told by the people who actually own and control the city - Newsom is reduced to making ’symbolic gestures.’ This should be a lesson to us all - the government will only do what we force it to do, in spite of what the owners of the city want.
As for this alleged bike-friendly boulevard, I’d like to know where that is. I know they can’t be referring to the Embarcadero, where it is illegal to ride your bike on the promenade/sidewalk, and the only refuge we cyclists have is the small bike lane along the traffic- and SUV-choked, Nascar-like roadways.
The true shocker comes in the form of a table showing the mileage of roadways with bike lanes in what are (or should be) signature green cities:
Miles of bike lanes:
1. Portland, Ore., 432.7
2. New York, 360
3. Chicago, 112.5
4. Seattle, 80
5. San Francisco, 45
Humiliating.
Leave comment (3)[p.s. The Forums are open for participation.]
October 24th, 2008 at 11:45 pm
That’s our photo-op Mayor… if only him and Wade Crowfoot could make their Press Releases turn back into trees or bike lanes, we’d be set…
October 25th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
San Francisco city government rightly deserves a bad reputation among cycling advocates in 2008.
We are having a bicycle revolution–as in other cities–but here, unlike everywhere else, we are doing without any help from the political establishment.
And by the time the injunction is lifted I think our bicycling culture will have a DIY and anti-establishment bent in its DNA, no matter how many miles of bike lanes we do or don’t get. Newsom will get zero credit for whatever gains we make, and that’s just as it should be. This is a people’s movement.
October 27th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Let’s do like that episode of Seinfeld and paint the road ourselves.