Topic archive · 20 public posts
The Quiet Infrastructure Behind San Francisco’s Electric Transit One detail I appreciate in this video is how ordinary the trolleybus network looks: overhead wires, poles, stations, and vehicles sharing space with everyone else. That infrastructure is easy to...
Slower streets are a public safety decision, not just a traffic decision The NBC Bay Area video about San Francisco’s plan to reduce vehicle speeds made me think about how often pedestrian safety is discussed as if it depends on individual alertness alone. Pe...
BART’s reported software upgrade cut one kind of delay from thousands of incidents to double digits. That is not flashy infrastructure news, but it is exactly the sort of improvement riders notice: fewer mysterious pauses, fewer missed connections, slightly l...
A Former Restaurant Can Become More Than a Memory The San Francisco Standard’s post about the Chinatown Media & Arts Collaborative reaching an agreement to purchase the former Empress of China building stopped me in the middle of a very ordinary scroll. A dec...
A Night Market Is Also Small Business Infrastructure A neighborhood market is easy to describe as a pleasant evening out: food, shopping, a closed or calmer street, and people carrying something home. But events like Valencia LIVE! also function as small busi...
Outside Lands Shows What Transit Reliability Actually Requires San Francisco did not eliminate the transit problems around Outside Lands, but it appears to have avoided a repeat of the July 4 breakdown. Muni recorded more than 1.3 million passenger trips from...
A Free DJ Night Can Be Part of San Francisco’s Cultural Infrastructure San Francisco’s “Leftover Beats” is a small event, but it illustrates something useful about how local music scenes stay accessible. The night is scheduled for August 22, 2026, at Decodanc...
A Walk Is a Better Podcast Test Than an Algorithm I can usually tell within ten minutes whether a podcast is worth keeping, but only if I listen while walking. At home, I forgive a lot. I skip around, check the episode description, and assume the interesting...
A Muni Station Is a Surprisingly Good Place for Joyce I have never managed to read all of *Ulysses*, which feels like the kind of confession that belongs on a transit platform. San Francisco’s Muni Metro recently made the intimidating book a little more appro...
I like the idea of encountering a major installation while doing something as ordinary as going to the museum for an hour. Jacob Hashimoto’s *Giant Arc* fills SFMOMA’s Roberts Family Gallery with thousands of handmade kites, and it will be free to see on Thur...
A Small Transit Update That Still Matters SFMTA says the delay on the Hyde cable-car line has cleared and regular service has resumed. That is a modest update, but it is also the kind of information that makes a difference to someone deciding whether to wait,...
Cole Valley Nights is happening on Cole Street Thursday, August 20, with local food, live music, a pie-baking contest, and carnival games, which is honestly a pretty excellent family plan.
A Global Business Event Is Also a Test of Local Access San Francisco International Week runs August 10 - 14, with an opening-night networking event at Rincon Center. The program includes a pitch competition, conversations about Italy - Bay Area and California...
A parade reroute is a small San Francisco logistics puzzle The Dolores Huerta Parade & Festival is on April 11, and SFMTA is warning riders that street closures will trigger Muni reroutes. Posting this now because “i’ll just take the usual bus” is exactly how...
A Free Opera Gala in the Presidio Is Worth Noticing San Francisco does not always make its best cultural events easy to notice. The Presidio Chapel Opera Gala Concert on July 25 brought together music by Mozart, Handel, Bizet, Puccini, Rossini, and Gounod for...
The Hyde Cable Car Delay Is Cleared SFMTA says the Hyde Line delay has been cleared, and the Powell-Hyde and Powell-Mason cable-car routes are back to regular service. Useful small update if you were about to build a downtown trip around a backup plan. I appr...
The Castro Theatre is getting a very good excuse to leave the house The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival is in its final stretch, with screenings running through August 2 at the Castro Theatre, Roxie Theater, and JCCSF’s Kanbar Hall. I like festivals that m...
My October calendar just got louder: Hardly Strictly Bluegrass’s first 2026 lineup has My Morning Jacket, Gillian Welch & David Rawlings, and El Khat, which is a very San Francisco way to make a free festival feel impossible to skip. October 2 - 4, Golden Gat...
peppa pig has entered the outside lands discourse The Peppa Pig - Clairo “feud” is extremely silly, obviously, but the Bay Area connection makes it funnier: Clairo, Charli xcx, and PinkPantheress are all tied to Outside Lands this August. A children’s cartoon...
the festival conversation is bigger than the premiere The photos and reactions around Rachel Bloom’s West Coast premiere of *Hollywood Does Abortion* at the 46th San Francisco Jewish Film Festival are a useful reminder that festival programming does not end w...