Figure 1. photograph of an open window with the Transamerica building in the center, through which a mirror on a perpendicular wall shows a view of the top of the salesforce tower (which needs a better name imo)one of those lead blankets they use for x-rays hands on a rack below the mirrormy astro teacher in high school used to lol about those x-ray bibs, apparently the radiation you could get hit with by an xray machine ist like, not even close to what you get hit with taking any airline flight? i should look that up.
Lmao a driver going south on Valencia turning right on Duboce with the windows all the way down inching into the bike lane was loudly scolded into the open passenger window by two guys ahead of me YOU ARE TURNING RIGHT ON A NO TURN RED while they pointed at the signs as I approached behind them hitting both of my breaks turned turned right on the red
purpose of a system is what does yes I know it’s 420 but c’mon they had an SF parking sticker on the bumper, they’re a local
Figure 1. google maps street view of the no turn on red signs, red (cyclists had the green in this case).
the last time I yelled at someone doing the same thing at the same intersection, the guys working the oil change spot got on their drive through intercom PA and said [PHSK!] “STOP YELLING”
(also not trying to be a bike account but this shit happens multiple times a day but we just talked about this spot lolsob)
Everloving wife couldn’t find my wool cardigan to steal so she put on the very moth eaten cashmere pullover that she asks me to get rid of every single time i wear, going on ten years, since the moths were a real problem, and which she had never ever worn before, on account of all the moth holes in it, and said “damn sweater is comfy as hell.”
Not my goofy ass sitting on a log reading Italo Calvino’s “The Argentine Ant” only to discover by feel that I am sitting on a damned ant hill as they crawl up my back under my shirt 😬🤣 ( https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6752551)
The Argentine AntA fantastical storyGoodreads (opens in a new tab)Figure 1. Link preview of https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6752551, "The Argentine Ant".Figure 2. a log on the third base line of Rikki Streicher Field on Diamond at 19th covered with little tiny ants.
The everloving wife and I made about an eighth of the way around Stow Lake in Golden Gate Park with junior and my dad in the back seat yesterday (so about 650 pounds passenger load) in one of those little peddle boats before my legs said to turn around
Lovely to be on the water but I’m definitely getting a row boat next time. The “bike seat height” equivalent is bottomed out so my legs barely made it past 90 degrees at extension. I’m about 6’0”.
Figure 1. Photograph of Stow Lake with four fiberglass 2x2 boards on a small lack moored at a wooden dock, trees surround(photo from duckduckgo images search, but we were in a red one like that).
It usually drives me crazy when writers (borrowing another afterword word) peacock how well-read or at least broadly-read they are, or explode every scene into a McMaster-Carr order, but the half-a-dozen fields expanded in Novel Explosives and the etymology there-in kept my attention.
I’ve been a huge fan of Ruff since “Sewer, Gas, and Electric" ( https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/71846.Sewer_Gas_and_Electric) and of course the Lovecraft Country show was also p good (although a bit scary for my tastes), so, picking this up after Novel Explosions was a great call.
the new valencia bicycle lane design is effectively an upside down muni track painted green down the center. I expect cyclists to eat shit when they try to enter or exit it mid-block just like we already eat shit when we have to ride parallel to them.
I immediately take the car lane for the full block as soon as I see a car in the current bike lanes. “I got us a lane, come on in fellow riders, I think to myself”, and maybe I’m imaging it but I usually get a vibe of relief when the see another cyclist stuck in the bike lane realize that they can join me safely
(while on bad days I’ll also mentally add, to myself, ”the people in cars will never respect you for following their rules, look out for yourself first”)
so anyway, with an upside down muni track painted green, I’ll have to pretty much stop my bike to enter an unobstructed travel lane mid-block when the curbed bike lane is obstructed, so I will probably try to look farther up ahead and do it at intersections. it’s gonna be dumb but I’ll cope #BicyclingInSanFrancisco
what really grinds my gears about the design is the repeated references to paint, signs, and enforcement: no left turn, no turn on red, and so on: imaginary safe places to be next to actually unsafe places to be
maybe it’s my stupid vulgar marxism, or engineer-brain but that smacks of liberal metaphysics to me: deeply unserious magical thinking that inherently tolerates failure for the insanely shitty reason that its credulous to other unserious critics
if your goal is zero deaths, this ain’t it. if your goal is zero injuries, this definitely ain’t it.
We already have this pattern northbound on Valencia at 14th (at Zeitgeist). I always assume I’m going to be killed here and take the car lane before the intersection if I can, I’ve seen too many rights on red bearing down on other cyclists here
it isn’t the driver’s fault, it’s simply a design failure with band-aides. it relies on signs, paint, and enforcement.
Figure 1. google street view of valenca northbound at 14th in the car right-turn-lane, the bike lane to it’s right.Figure 2. google street view of valenca northbound at 14th in the car right-turn-lane, the bike lane to it’s right, close up of Zeitgeit and the multiple redundant signs SFMTA put up, after I assume the first few failed?Figure 3. ECU the signs, google street view of valenca northbound at 14th in the car right-turn-lane, the bike lane to it’s rightleft most, a standard reflective paint metal sign on a light post over the street: no right turn on red except for bikescenter: a stoplight with a red arrow indicating that cars need to stop and wait for the green signalright: a back-lit LED version of same sign on the leftright-most a green/red stoplight for bicyclists that you should definitely ignore if you are one, and instead assume a car is about to turn right on red into you.
so clearly the goal isn’t zero deaths, and the city should drop the vision zero pretense, it is absolutely stollen valor at this point
I’m also pretty unsatisfied w/ the SF Bike Coalition line on this. They’ve never, in the history of the organization, been radical, but c’mon y’all “centering merchants voices?” sounds like something london breed would say.
Another one! “Death and the Gardener” by Jean Cocteau, fits in two posts:
A young gardener said to his prince, “Save me! I met Death in the garden this morning and he made a menacing gesture. Tonight I wish by some miracle I could be far away, in Ispahan”. The prince lent him his swiftest horse.
That afternoon, walking in the garden, the prince came face to face with Death. “Why,” he asked, “did you make a threatening gesture at my gardener this morning?” “It wasn’t a threatening gesture,” answered Death. “It was a gesture of surprise. I saw him far from Ispahan this morning and I knew I must take him in Ispahan tonight.”
