Politics in the Americas

Urban planning is important now than ever since there are political pressures to cut us all short from what we people deserve. What we deserve is a better life in San Francisco and how we get it depends on changes made.

A change worth exploring would be to have lockers available to commuters in every major and busy stopping point. These lockers at the very least would be installed in Caltrain stations and all the San Francisco Bart stations from 24th Street to Embarcadero. Such a change would be a shift of urban priorities from a car-favored one currently in place to one where people are more encouraged to move around using the public transit system. Using your car as your personal locker when you go out is what is now encouraged. Contrast that personal convenience with the inconvenience of needing to take all your belongings with you as you do your business in the city if you choose to take bus or train. Not having these lockers definitely favors a more gas-hungry car society.

Now the money received from charging the usage of these lockers can be put back to the city coffers to continue providing other much needed public services. Not enough money? Well then, how about collecting from bicycle registrations like they do cars and using the money to hire more workers to make our roads more bicycle friendly.

Although this is about urban development and how it can be done to make everyone's transient visit and stay in the city more comfortable, it is sometimes about asking what values more to us, cars or people. This question has been asked before. The specific historical point worth noting here is San Francisco's Kearny Street International Hotel conflict of 1977. It was a political conflict concerning a Philipino tenant community of mostly men against the owner of the building who wanted them all out to build a parking lot structure.