California Department of Transportation

Here's Your Bay to Breakers Traffic Advice

It's that time of year again to put on your finest foppery (ass-less chaps, tutus and chicken masks) and swill cheap beer in the streets. All the things that make for a great footrace in San Francisco. For those of you who aren't into costumes, morning imbibing, or running -- period -- well it's t ... More >>

Interactive Map Shows Which S.F. Transit Stops Are Rich and Which Are Poor

This probably isn't news, but there's some pretty stark income discrepancies between certain neighborhoods of our fair city. What is news is that while most of us are aware that the rich people live in the Marina and the poor(er) people live in the Tenderloin, the income gaps can vary widely from on ... More >>

Waste Management: Why Muni Won't Ban Serial Bus-Soilers

World Series: Everything We Ever Wanted -- And More

Sergio Romo's slider frisbeed into Buster Posey's mitt for strike three. Sit down, Triple Crown -- and everyone was dancing on top of the tables. A Caltrain engineer leaned hard on his horn and the fans swarming the streets answered in kind. Thousands of orange-clad revelers descended upon Fourth an ... More >>

Gonzalez Guzman, Drunk and Stranded Club-Goer, Off the Hook for Burglary

Now here's some good fodder for an anti-drinking campaign.A San Francisco jury acquitted a 20-year-old man today of burglary charges and instead convicted him of petty theft and receiving stolen property after he convinced jurors that he was just a drunk, not a crook. Gonzalez Guzman and his buddy, ... More >>

Muni Money: Caltrain Connection Could Fund Central Subway

Homeless Man's Service Dog, Shot Dead By CHP, Was Charging Supervisor's Aide

"I was convinced I was going to die," says city worker​Megan Hamilton, a legislative aide for Supervisor Malia Cohen, joined a gaggle of public employees for a tour of urban blight in the city's southeast. Instead, she says she was charged by three "aggressive" dogs and watched in horror as a Cali ... More >>

Gorilla Pete on Crazy Work Hours, Looking for a Business Partner, and His Three Favorite S.F. Hot Dogs

Gorilla Pete wants YOU!​After working on the original concept for six months, Pete Buckley opened Gorilla Pete's two years ago. As with any new food enterprise, his first couple of years haven't been the easiest. He often doesn't get home from work until 4 a.m., and that's after traveling all over ... More >>

San Francisco to Los Angeles on Public Transportation: Maps, Pictures, Insanity

View "In Transit:" How to Get from S.F. to L.A. in a larger map Huh. We just realized we're crazy. How so? The Google map above traces the public transit odyssey your humble narrator undertook between San Francisco and Los Angeles. Fifteen transfers, seven local transit agencies -- ah, sorry, we' ... More >>

Godfather of street art Dan Witz hides his work in plain sight

Legion of Honor Museum Employee Accused of Fondling Children

Do Not Touch ​Santa Cruz authorities have arrested James Edward Taylor on suspicion of lewd or lascivious acts with two children younger than14. Taylor, a San Francisco resident, was arrested on Thursday morning while he was inside his office at the San Francisco Legion of Honor Museum, where he i ... More >>

Congestion Pricing Showdown: Assemblyman Jerry Hill To Address San Francisco Supes

Seriously, take Caltrain. You're allowed to drink coffee and everything. ​San Francisco's idea to charge motorists $6 a day to enter or exit the city's southern border has spurred what could only be labeled a congestion pricing pissing contest. Peninsula officials are huffing that they'll impose a ... More >>

San Francycle: How SF's Impending Bikeshare Will Work

​Bikesharing: crazy, right? The expense, the hills, the repairs, the theft -- it seems like it would never, in a million years, work. Except it does, in plenty of cities from Montreal to Budapest to Washington, D.C. And it's getting a little embarrassing that San Francisco isn't one of them. ... More >>

San Francycle: Can Treat Street Become Mission Bay's Bike Superhighway?

​ First, it was a stinky marsh. Then it was a railroad. Now, Treat Street faces a new lease on life with a vision to transform it from a dilapidated, weirdly diagonal alleyway into a sparkling green bike corridor. It would be a pretty amazing accomplishment: a smooth path that curves up from ... More >>

San Mateo Bridge Cracked -- Traffic Nightmare Ensues

​The San Mateo Bridge is a span most locals don't invest much thought in. Maybe they will now, however. A 10-inch crack on a steel beam beneath the roadway was uncovered by crews during an inspection last night, necessitating the closure of a westbound lane this morning during an emergency fix. Co ... More >>

Doyle Drive's costly pothole

Governor Schwarzenegger is willing to pour billions of public dollars into a schemeto benefit private investors.

Ballpark-Area Homeless Eagerly Await Baseball Opening Day

Joe EskenaziJim McQuown looks forward to snapping up beer cans and empty bottles near AT&T Park​It turns out you don't need a home to enjoy a home game. Friday's opening day at AT&T Park transforms Mission Bay from a banal realm of wide streets and boxy condos resembling something you'd fi ... More >>

SF Weekly Letters

Perverting Justice

Jessica's Law prevents paroled sex offenders from residing near schools or parks. That means they can only live one place in S.F.: on the streets.

Does This Giraffe Look Guilty? Net Tightens Around Renowned S.F. Graffiti Artist 'Girafa'

Late last month, San Jose cops made an announcement that reverberated like a shock wave through the ranks of local graffiti fans. Police in the South Bay metropolis believed they had unmasked the prominent artist-vandal known as "Girafa," a graffiti "writer" -- as such auteurs prefer to be called -- ... More >>

Cement Contractors Baffled By Muni's Delays on N-Judah Line Fix

Jim Herd​Among San Francisco neighborhoods, the Outer Sunset is high on the list of places you could conceivably land a spaceship with no one noticing. And yet denizens of the area certainly noticed that Muni's weekend repairs to the N-Judah rails were not confined to the weekend -- hence they wer ... More >>

Bridge Expert: I'll Still Drive Bay Bridge -- But Break Is Baffling

​Whenever something goes wrong with a bridge here or elsewhere, one of the first people we call is Mark Ketchum -- one of the Structural Engineers Association of Northern California's designated experts on bridges. So, for what it's worth, Ketchum said he will unhesitatingly drive his car across t ... More >>

Bay Bridge Rupture Reminiscent of Carquinez Eyebar Failure in 1970s

The 1927 Carquinez Bridge also had issues with eyebars -- and aging​The Bay Bridge isn't the first local aging span to have problems with torn and failing eyebars. Yet the low traffic load and easy alternate route available to the engineers who remedied the last situation aren't applicable when it ... More >>

S.F. Street Art Mecca to be Demolished in September

Joseph Schell​Words by Anna McCarthy, Photos by Joseph Schell The old tuna cannery down in the flats of Bayview Hunters Point has, technically, been sitting empty ever since it was condemned after the '89 quake. Joseph Schell​But one peek inside the immense building - now completely boarded u ... More >>

SF Gov InAction: Mandatory Composting Gets Some New Sponsors. Which Bin Do We Put 'Futility' In?

I hope you'll forgive me if I keep this week's Gov InAction curt: I told WAY too many David Chiu jokes over the weekend, and now I'm worn out. I've got to remember to pace myself. However, in case you're wondering, here's how many David Chius it takes to change a light bulb: • None: Aaro ... More >>

Pssst, Buddy: You Wanna Buy a Giant Crane? Massive 'Left-Coast Lifter' Could Be On the Market By 2010.

Courtesy American Bridge-Fluor EnterprisesThe 'Left-Coast Lifter,' seen here in a 'proof load' in China, has lifted up to 2,000-ton objects. Do you have room for it in your backyard?On what section of Craigslist would you hawk "MASSIVE CRANE! Lifts 1,700 tons -- Like New!"? How about "Tools"? "Colle ... More >>

Critical Mass Today at 6 p.m. -- Hide Your Car!

Gimme Indie Rock!

Local promoters take a big risk to give S.F. a music fest that will restore the city's cool cred

Big BART Brother

The transit system's bosses know when you're sleeping, know if you're awake ... or singing Christmas carols

Profits for Developers Initiative

Take a closer look at this truly awful measure funded by Don Fisher before signing on

The Tipping Point

Artist Josh Greene waits tables to fund other people's art. But wait, it's not that simple.

Smoka Free

Holiday Happenings

Letters to the Editor

Week of Wednesday, November 2, 2005

Bridge Out

A look at the comically delayed Fourth Street drawbridge project, and how the city's Byzantine contracting system costs millions

Reps Etc.

Rail Out of Town

Right now, the museum consists mainly of dozens of dusty old train hulls scattered across a splay of disused tracks

Letters to the Editor

Week of Wednesday, June 30, 2004

Tower Inferno

Mayor Newsom aids a developer at the apparent expense of the Transbay Terminal project, raising a question: Is the new boss just like the old boss?

Subwaylaid

Why the new mayor should spend his political honeymoon taking the doggle out of a boondoggle known as the Central Subway

A Kinder, Gentler Commute

Tired of sitting in traffic till your butt turns to granite? This French guy may be able to help you.

Letters to the Editor

Week of April 24, 2002

Visionary Thinking

The "X Plan," a draft of Muni's hopes for the future, offers a glimpse of transit utopia

Aparkalypse Now

Bedlam reigns as a great development boom besets the warehouse district south of downtown. Blood boiling, drivers late to work search in vain for parking. Are we doomed?

Political Economy

How a Willie Brown real estate venture snagged tens of millions of dollars in government subsidies and opened the way for Democratic heavyweight Angelo Tsakopoulo to make even more money

Hunting in the Shadows

A unique Oakland program coaxes homeless from the streets

Death Ray From Outer Space

Satellite radio brings 100 stations and digital sound to San Francisco's car stereos. Can local broadcasting survive?

Dog Bites

Letters

The Grid