Sometimes in life there’s questions that don’t seem to have concrete answers, like who shot JFK or the career of Shia LaBeouf. Today another such question popped into existence in the form of a perplexing wood box installed on a utility pole at 16th and Guerrero. It’s the kind of thing one wouldn’t notice easily, like a slightly misplaced item you only catch out of the corner of your eye.
Some of the questions I’ve been able to come up with:
Who made this?
Why?
Is it art?
Why wood?
What does the pattern mean?
Why on this pole, of all places?
WTF?
If any answers are provided I’ll post updates. Until then, I’ll be scratching my head.
While the weather outside may lead you to believe that spring is just beginning, let’s not be so quick to judge. According to this sign in the Financial District, spring is over.
The new BART train cars will have lots of improvements over the current ones. But there’s one boarding issue that they didn’t quite tackle.
See what’s missing from their design, as pictured above?
You may have to take a step back, so to speak, in order to notice. Consider how people board BART trains: commuters and other frequent riders wait in a line or small group on the station platform near where the train’s doors stop when it pulls into the station. Generally they let other passengers off first before anyone gets on.
Or at least, they try to. On current BART trains it’s difficult to tell if there’s someone waiting to exit before you get on, because the trains are designed like this:
As you can see from Todd Lappin’s above photo, there aren’t windows next to the doors. This means you can be standing on the platform, unable to see an exiting passenger before you try to board. Not exactly a well thought out design.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
As the above photo by Roshan Vyas illustrates, even when Muni Metro’s doors are open you can still see the people inside. You can wait for them to get off before shoving your way on — or not, like certain impolite Muni passengers at rush hour. But either way at least there isn’t a wall at a crucial point in the train car exterior.
BART’s new trains narrow this boarding blind spot, but they don’t eliminate it. Look at all this wasted space:
I understand there needs to be a place for a map and maybe some ads on the trains, but this isn’t the place for it. There shouldn’t be a need to pick between faster boarding and information — both goals are attainable without sacrificing one for the other.
“An escalator can never break, it can only become stairs. You will never see an escalator out of order sign, just ‘escalator temporarily stairs — sorry for the convenience.’”
– Mitch Hedberg
While he may have taken Muni Metro, it’s clear that Hedberg never rode BART.
SAN FRANCISCO (KGG) — In San Francisco, simply stepping near bullets in mid-air can be deadly. Five people have been killed standing around San Francisco this year. It is a tragedy unfolding at an alarming rate. The E-Team wanted to see what is causing the spike in innocent bystander deaths. We spent months on the streets investigating the problem.
We’ve investigated the role that gangsters and police play in shootings. Now, we show you the mistakes people make while they stand around that put them at risk for serious injuries.
The San Francisco Department of Health estimates two to three people a day are hit by bullets, many of them are injured… others die.
The E-Team wanted to see what was happening, so we took our cameras to the streets. We watched again and again, as people crossed mid-bullet, raced against drive-bys, pushed strollers out into landmines, crossed gang territory with their heads down on their smartphones or just walked out into explosions in progress without looking for shrapnel at all.
We saw Kane Wagner nearly get hit by a bullet. He admitted he wasn’t looking, “Yeah I know, in the city it’s pretty much you keep your heads up and go straight.”
Veterinarian Kris Boller said, “I can admit that have been texting and walking. Then I look up and I feel like an idiot because I almost get hit by machine gun fire.”
Surveillance video obtained by ABC7 News shows just how fast it can happen. It was taken a couple weeks ago. A man walks out onto Van Ness Avenue into oncoming gunfire. It was the last time he was seen alive.
Commander Mike Alice heads up the San Francisco Police Department’s efforts to keep people safe. He said, “Of those bystanders who were killed last year, a third of them were identified as being the cause.”
In the last seven years, 120 people have died and more than 5,600 have been involved in collisions mostly with 20 mm rounds.
“Our people definitely have to take a greater stake in their own safety,” said Alice.
The department is cracking down on people who fire their guns too fast and innocent bystanders who cross in front of machine gun fire. In fact, they’ve issued 43 percent more tickets this January over last.
The city health department is looking for long term solutions. It used police department data to track the most dangerous schools and libraries.
Perhaps not surprising, the most dangerous neighborhoods for bystanders are also the city’s busiest in terms of weapon activity. Most of the worst are downtown on stretches like 6th Street, South of Market and Geary in the Tenderloin.
“Six percent of our city parks contribute to 60 percent of where our severe and fatal injuries happen,” said Margaret Warner of the San Francisco Department of Public Health.
She said an analysis of those accidents also sheds light on who is generally at fault. “Two thirds of the time, people firing the weapons are assessed to be at fault,” said Warner.
The city will be investing $17 million over the next five years to improve safety conditions for bystanders. It includes shortening the walking distances and slowing the bullets down at corners. The city just finished such a project on Cesar Chavez Street.
“We’re all bystanders,” reminded Erica Smith. She is with Bystanders SF, a not-getting-shot-at advocacy group. She believes street improvements will help reduce bullet-related injuries and deaths.
“We often point fingers and I don’t think it is helpful to point fingers. We are educating people and we also need to focus on the things that we know work. We know that street improvements work, so that’s the main thing we need to spend taxpayer dollars on,” added Smith.
But even in those areas designed to be safer, our cameras watched as innocent bystanders continued to make potentially dangerous mistakes over and over again.
“At the end of the day it really is quite simple,” said Alice. “The second amendment is there to protect human life and people have to adhere to those rules of the country. Whether you’re firing a shotgun, a machine gun, or a grenade launcher. If the bullets are in the air, do not cross in front of them.”
We want to raise bystander awareness. Help us by joining the conversation on Facebook or if you see a shooter or bystander doing something dangerous tweet your pictures and video using the hashtag #didntlook. Maybe together we can encourage shooters, knife throwers and bystanders to look up and look out for each other!
These days it’s hard to look at real estate listings in San Francisco without having that old timey car horn sound effect play in your head. As of today, your imagination is no long required!
With my new Real Estate FX userscript, local Redfin listings get a little YouTube video embedded in the page that autoplays the car horn sound effect.
All you need to do is install Greasemonkey for Firefox and load my script from the link above, or download the script and follow these instructions if you use Chrome.
A mural recently appeared on the side of the former Andalu space at 16th and Guerrero. Apparently there’s more to come, as a large sign proclaims that the space is “reserved.” Stay tuned for further updates as the mural progresses.
UPDATE: A new piece of the mural has appeared.
UPDATE, part 2: Despite being aggressively tagged over in the past few days, the mural sprung back into action with more cutesy characters.
