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Bike to Work Day. Or, Boat to Artwork Day

Monday, May 17, 2010

Bike to work day was last Thursday. Since I bike to work all the time anyway, I have to seek out other ways to mark the day. (I suppose I could borrow a car and drive to work, but that would defeat the point.) Last year I took an extremely circuitous route to work in order to visit the festivities at city hall and some of the other “energizer stations” around town. (I’m a sucker for free food and coffee.) This year, I should have volunteered at one of the BTWD events, but I didn’t have my act together enough to sign up, so instead I decided to take advantage of the free ferry rides across the bay to San Francisco. (Okay, I’m a sucker for free anything.)

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Many of the people with bikes on the ferry seemed to be people like me, who would normally take BART across the bay at less than half the price, but who were taking advantage of the chance to get a free scenic trip in the fresh air instead.

I rode around the city for a while admiring all the nice new bike infrastructure since the last time I was there just a few weeks ago, such as the on-street bike racks on Valencia Street and the green-painted, separated bike lanes on Market Street. I then stopped by the San Francisco MoMA to look in on some old friends. I only took a few photos there (photos from an earlier trip to SFMoMA are here), and for some reason I was on a windows and bars kick this time:

Prison Wall

(Come to think of it, I have felt somewhat imprisoned by circumstances lately…)

Quartet

Filed in Art, Bicycling | | Comments (8)

Stolen Bike Recovered; Oakland’s Good Name Still Missing

Sunday, May 16, 2010

If you listen to some of the complaints of Oakland residents, you might get the impression that the Oakland Police Department is either unable or unwilling to pay any attention to property crimes. And given the high levels of violent crime, it is presumably true that the OPD isn’t able to spend a whole lot of time investigating, say, bike thefts.

It’s reassuring, therefore, that the police do respond quickly (at least sometimes) when they have a concrete lead about a stolen bicycle. I just came across the following notice over at the blog Change Your Life. Ride A Bike. (Yes! Good advice!)

MY STOLEN PEUGEOT WAS RECOVERED TODAY IN OAKLAND!

It’s a little the worse for wear and beaten up, but she’s whole, and only missing her leather-padded toe straps and the contents of my panniers and my seat bag (tools, lock, cable, pump, 3 flashing red bike lights, etc.).

Many thanks to Jason, a Cycles of Change APC volunteer, who spotted my unique mixte in Emeryville, trailed the 12-year-old riding it back to his house in Oakland, then called me.

Many thanks also to Oakland PD Officers Charles O’Connor (#8732) and Terry Jones (#8427), who quickly responded to my call and were at the house before I arrived. They checked out the house, recovered my bike, and brought it to me.

Thanks to all of you who kept an eye out for my ride, spread the word, posted about it in blogs, and offered your support through all this. It has meant a great deal and helped keep me going in the search, which took lots of time and effort in my depressed state.

(In case you’re wondering, he was in a depressed state because the beloved bike was a family heirloom. Really.) Kudos to the eagle-eyed good samaritan from Cycles of Change and to OPD!

Unfortunately, this story isn’t entirely good for Oakland. There is a widespread belief in Alameda that the crime they have on their side of the estuary is mostly caused by hoodlums from Oakland who cross the water and prey on innocent Alameda residents before crossing to safety back in Oakland, where the Oakland Police will be too overwhelmed by violent to help track them down. That fear of the barbarians at the gate—or across the drawbridge, in this case—might be overly simplistic (as is my portrayal of the Alamedan mindset), but the sad fact is that it probably has a lot of truth to it. So when I learned that the bike recovered in Oakland had been stolen in Alameda, my relief at finding out that the Oakland police promptly and professionally handled a call about a stolen bicycle (a stolen bicycle!) was tempered by disappointment at hearing yet another story about something that was stolen in Alameda and brought to Oakland, just over the water but a world away. Sigh.

Filed in Bicycling, Oakland | | Comments (1)

…As Long as You Get My Name Right

Friday, May 7, 2010

It’s nice to see the Oakland Tribune covering the wonderful improvements that are about to be made to the southern end of Lake Merritt, where a dreadful ten-lane thoroughfare is going to be turned into a pedestrian-friendly, bike-friendly area with expanded lakeside parkland. It would have been nice, too, if they hadn’t flubbed the name of my City Councilmember in a photo caption in this morning’s paper:

Her name is Patricia—or usually, just Pat—Kernighan, as any copy editor at the Tribune should know. Nancy is the first name of the other Councilmember whose district includes part of the lake, Nancy Nadel. A minor error, to be sure, which was fixed in the online edition and quickly followed by a published correction, but whenever I see these sloppy mistakes in the Tribune, I always think of a new line that was added to the paper’s front page nameplate at the beginning of this year:

Ah, I see, the Oakland Tribune is now merely “an edition of the San Jose Mercury News.” No wonder they sometimes can’t keep the people on the Oakland City Council straight!

Filed in Journalism, Oakland | | Comments (9)

Take Five

Sunday, April 25, 2010

This sweet ride was locked in front of Tucker’s Ice Cream in Alameda this afternoon (just across the street from where I spotted the cool Tiki Bike a few months ago):

Family Style

It seats five, just like the Honda Accord behind it, but I bet it was a lot more fun to ride to the ice cream shop. Sadly, I came by a few minutes too late to capture the grand arrival of this limousine, but I heard it was carrying some incredibly cute triplets.

Filed in Bicycling | | Comments (9)

Anonymous Mayoral Candidate Seeks Good Help

Sunday, April 25, 2010

I was perusing the Craigslist job listings (anyone in need of a gently used blogger and dilettante?) when I came across this ad:

Liberal Oakland Mayoral Candidate Seeks Campaign Staff (oakland downtown)

Life-long leftist grass roots organizer and business woman considering bid in upcoming election.

In order to evaluate a logistical and thematic approach we are soliciting applicants for the positions of Treasurer, Publicist, and Community Liaison. Please review position descriptions below and submit your qualifications by email. In person meetings will be scheduled to for further discussion.

Treasurer: Will manage incoming contributions and campaign expenses as well as insuring compliance with regulations governing the reporting of both. Experience with campaign finance preferred.

Office Manager/Publicist: Will handle phone calls, correspondence, and headquarter establishment. Will also manage website and social networking presence. Competency in Twitter and Facebook a must. A high-quality camera is a plus. Excellent opportunity for a student of PR.

Community Liaison: Advisor to candidate on trending issues and position formulation. Will reach out to local groups for support, standing relationships with community organizations will be of the up most importance. Duties will include scheduling meetings, and coordinating a supporter’s network.

All positions will be on a part-time volunteer basis with future compensation dependent on fundraising success.

If you are dissatisfied with the current candidates for office and would like to take a stand and make a difference for a better Oakland please send an email with information about yourself and your vision.

Being Mayor of Oakland is a thankless job, and it won’t be getting any easier as the city careers toward a fiscal cliff, but apparently a lot of people want the gig: there are already more than half a dozen names in the hat, or hats in the ring, or whatever your preferred hat metaphor is. And no, I’m not signing up for this incipient campaign—at least not until the mystery candidate emerges from the shadows.

Filed in Oakland, Politics | | Comments (2)

Where Angels Dwell

Saturday, April 24, 2010

I was passing by Mountain View Cemetery a bit before dusk today, so I decided to go in and take some pictures.

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I posted a few more in a Flickr set.

Filed in Oakland, Photography | | Comments (10)

Olio

Thursday, April 15, 2010

No particular rhyme or reason to these photos, and if I had anything better to post, these would probably be relegated to Flickr, but they’ll have to fill the void for now. All taken this morning in Oakland:

In Memoriam

Talk to the Hand

A Dog's Home is His Castle

You Choose

Filed in Oakland, Photography | | Comments (3)

Alchemy

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Somehow, a bike and a camera can turn a quick outing to do two easy errands into a three hour odyssey to Middle Harbor Shoreline Park and other spots around town. Sadly, I only ended up with a couple of photos that seem worth posting here:

Soundwave

B2 or not B2, that is the question

Filed in Oakland, Photography | | Comments (14)

Under the Freeway and Through the Parking Lot, to Amtrak’s House We Go

Sunday, April 4, 2010

If you want to walk from historic (and tourist-oriented) Old Town Sacramento to the train station, you are directed across a parking area, under two or three freeway ramps, and then through another parking lot. (The yellow sign says “TO AMTRAK STATION” and the sign on the parking lot booth behind it says “PAY HERE.” Indeed, we are paying dearly for the privileging of the automobile in the last century).

To Amtrak Station

(Ironically, this photo was taken about 50 feet from the entrance to the California State Railroad Museum.)

Pedestrian access from the direction of downtown and the capitol isn’t much better—you have to cross this wide boulevard designed to be a freeway feeder, and there’s only one crosswalk at one corner of one intersection. And of course there is a parking lot to traverse on this side of the building as well (the Amtrak station is the brick building visible behind the trees):

I don’t know why I’m continually surprised by all the little ways that American cities have been designed to accommodate cars at the expense of other modes of transportation, but I am. Maybe it’s because I’ve been lucky to spend most of my life in cities which retain a lot of their pre-automobile design. (In fairness to Sacramento, much of it seems like a fairly livable, walkable city, at least in the neighborhoods surrounding the city center, and its flat terrain makes riding a bike easy too.)

Filed in Automobiles, California, Pedestrians, Urbanism | | Comments (4)

Dumpster Diver

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Midnight snacks are served seven nights a week here at Chez Fragève…

Snacktime

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Good News: Endangering Pedestrians Really Is Illegal in Oakland

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

I complain occasionally (okay, all the time) about how dangerous our streets are for pedestrians, and how I wish that the Oakland Police Department would crack down on reckless drivers so that people can feel safe crossing the street. So you can imagine how pleased I was to read about a string operation in West Oakland this morning, in which 25 drivers were cited for failing to stop for an OPD staffer as she tried to cross a crosswalk:

Twenty-five motorists were cited this morning in a West Oakland police sting for not yielding to pedestrians crossing the street.

The operation, which went from 7:30 to 9:30 a.m. at the intersection of San Pablo Avenue and Brockhurst Street, was done in response to residents’ complaints about pedestrian safety, Officer Holly Joshi said.

While motorcycle officers observed from a distance, a civilian employee of the Police Department would walk in the marked crosswalk at the intersection. Motorists who failed to stop for her were stopped by officers and given a citation.

Joshi said that there were a few close calls for the decoy from some of the cars that did not stop but that she was not hurt.

Kudos to OPD. Now if we could get them to start citing reckless drivers as a matter of habit, then we’d be making real progress. I’m happy to report that even on that front I witnessed a promising event the other day. I arrived at a 4-way stop on my bike just before an Alameda County Sheriff’s deputy reached the intersection from another direction. After doing a quick computation of our respective masses and acceleration capabilities, I decided to wait for him to proceed, but he waved me ahead of him. That was refreshing enough, but what happened next was nothing short of miraculous: He turned onto my street, and we were waiting side by side at the next red light when an SUV sped through the intersection on the cross street, probably going about 40 mph in a 30 mph zone—definitely speeding somewhat dangerously, but nothing out of the ordinary on the streets of Oakland, and he hadn’t run a red light or a stop sign or anything like that. To my amazement, however, the sheriff’s deputy immediately turned the corner and pursued the SUV, clearly intending to pull it over.

I’m sure cars do get pulled over for speeding in Oakland sometimes, but I have literally never seen it happen before, and I spend a fair amount of time walking and biking around the city as cars speed by. Maybe that deputy was particularly enlightened, or maybe he never got the memo about how reckless driving is tolerated on the streets of Oakland, but either way, it was nice to see—I look forward to a day when it will no longer seem remarkable to see a speeding SUV get pulled over in our city.

Filed in Oakland, Pedestrians | | Comments (10)

Fun with Google Maps for Bicycling

Friday, March 12, 2010

It’s pretty exciting that the folks at Google Maps have added bicycling directions in addition to the walking and public transit options that have been available for a few years. I’ve played with the bicycling directions a bit over the past few days, and they seem to work pretty well, suggesting routes which have bike lanes or bike boulevards, and directing people around steep hills when a good alternative exists. They advise, however, that “bicycling directions are in beta,” and there are definitely some kinks to work out. Gene at Our Oakland, for example, pointed out that Google suggests riding on a “hecka busy, hecka steep” street behind Montclair Village instead of using the much easier (and much more pleasant) rail-to-trail bike path that I wrote about back in January. My favorite suggestion so far, however, is this route between Grand Avenue and Park Boulevard:

This is an unlikely route for several reasons, but the part that amused me the most is near the top, where Google Maps suggests a shortcut between Beacon Street and Merritt Avenue. That might look like a sensible maneuver on a map, but in real life, few (if any) people on bikes would choose that shortcut. To see why, all you have to do is switch to the street view in Google Maps and look at the turn from Beacon Street toward Merritt Avenue:

Oops! I hope your bike is lightweight, because you’ll have to carry it up about 5 flights of stairs, which just happen to be steeper than most—enjoy the workout!

Google is aware that it is using imperfect data to suggest routes, so they are encouraging people to report problems. If they are responsive to feedback, and receive enough of it, then these issues should be easily fixed, but until then, use caution, lest Google send you and your bike flying down any steep staircases…

Filed in Bicycling | | Comments (5)