Scott Feeney

@graue.bsky.social

2040 Followers 670 Following

car-free urbanist, socialist, semi-lapsed techie, gardener, guitar player. he/him also on fedi https://carfree.city/@scott/ blog https://scott.mn

Myrna Melgar on city hall steps
Chyanne Chen on city hall steps
Jackie Fielder speaks on city hall steps amid people with pro transit signs
Jackie Fielder speaks on city hall steps amid people with pro transit signs
Before Clipper 2.0, the first Muni leg is $2.85, BART is $2.40, second Muni leg is $2.35 with 50 cent discount. Total: $7.60. After Clipper 2.0, first Muni leg is $2.85, BART is free with transfer, second Muni leg is free with transfer. Total: $2.85.
Two comments in an Instagram comment section: despair_core 2d @deanprestond5 This is just outright fear mongering at this point - You're completely ignoring the economics of the situation as well as SF's own rent control laws that actively disincentivize the very demolition you're talking about. 2 unit rent controlled buildings will always remain: - Expensive to acquire - Legally difficult to tear down - Obligated to be replaced with rent-controlled equivalent units - Required to allow tenants back at old regulated rents into new buildings - Primarily exist outside of high density rezoning corridors - Exist on small low footprint lots that can't fit high density construction that make development actually profitable Every post you make seems to be a half truth that is purely designed to score political points rather than suggesting a realistic and comprehensive alternative. Do better. scottinahat 2d @despair_core if they're so unlikely to be developed, why didn't they simply remove them from the plan?
Bus line in sort of an S shape. From the north, it goes west, south, east, northeast, and several blocks east before coming back southwest, comes within one block of meeting up with itself, then turns south, then for the last little bit, north again.
Ten month old post by Michael Burchert: “How about stopping to repeat those nonsense narratives that originate from urban-rural inequality and slums induced by industrialisation and adjacent wars that led to climate change.” Quoting me saying: “It’s a good start, but how do they score on big bad wolf resistance?”
pixelated brown bird wearing a blue vest and belting out a song
Video biking on Overlook in the park, pointed at the new plants
A wide park path rises up a gentle incline with wooden steps to a bench, under and surrounded by coast live oak trees.
The ugly mirror phenomenon, by which ruling elites encourage forms of popular participation that continually remind the public just how much they are unfit to rule, seems, in many modern states, to have been brought to a condition of unprecedented perfection. Consider here, for example, the view of human nature one might derive generalizing from the experience of driving to work on the highway, as opposed to the view one might derive from the experience of public transportation. Yet the American—or German—love affair with the car was the result of conscious policy decisions by political and corporate elites beginning in the 1930s. One could write a similar history of the television, or consumerism, or, as Polanyi long ago noted, “the market”.
Map of Prop K vote share by precinct across San Francisco, with an outline around an area of the city's interior along its southern border, containing the Oceanview, Outer Mission, Excelsior, Portola, and Visitacion Valley neighborhoods. All but one precinct in that area majority opposed K, and it includes about one-quarter of all the areas that opposed K.
Map of central Golden Gate Park with the areas around Crossover Drive and Park Presidio Bypass crudely outlined, with the area measured as a large number of square feet that converts to 50.9 acres. 19th Ave becomes Crossover as it crosses Lincoln Way north into the park, then at the park's northern end curves west to emerge on 25th Ave while the Bypass splits off curving east to emerge as Park Presidio, next to 14th Ave.
In the public workshop, participants expressed some indication that they would increase their transit use if additional frequency was provided and new markets were served, including: • Express bus. If there was an express bus between the Richmond, Sunset, and the Peninsula, participants indicated that they would be about 37% likely and very likely to consider taking transit instead of driving. • Improved north-south transit. If the 29 and 28 bus lines came more frequently (about 5 minutes during commute times), participants indicated that they would be about 38% likely and very likely to consider taking transit instead of driving for short distance north-south trips.
Chart of buses ordered by max peak crowding, AM inbound or PM outbound, 2025. The 38R Geary Rapid is highlighted as the third most crowded after the 1 California and 45 Union. The 28 19th Avenue is fifth, after those three and he 30X Marina Express.
California's population is 38.9 million as of 2023
Image of a divided highway with bike lanes at the curb, then a buffer with bollards, then parking, then two vehicle lanes, all on either side of a median.
Just Added District 6 Public Safety Town Hall By Supervisor Matt Dorsey Dec 1 from 6pm to 7:30pm PST Overview Public Safety Town Hall: Dec 1, 6–7:30 PM at The Strand Theater. Join Supervisor Dorsey, Mayor Lurie & City leaders to discuss safety in D6. District 6 Public Safety Town Hall Category: Government, Republican Party
Six people hand out literature and hold signs, including "Mayor Lurie, Don't ConnectSF to Bigotry" and "Lurie, You're Fundraising for the Anti-Trans Agenda."
Figure 3.3. Growth in Incomes at the Very Top, 1917–2006 (in 2006 Dollars) There are lines for 99th percentile, 99.5th percentile, 99.9th percentile, and 99.9th percentile. After World War II, they're all flat and then gradually increasing, but after Reagan becomes president in 1981, indicated by a picture of his head pointing at the graph, 99.99th percentile begins to spike rapidly, from $1.5 million in 1981 to $6.4 million by 2005. 99.9th percentile wealth also more than doubles after Reagan. Source: Emmanuel Saez’s computations from IRS income tax statistics, http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~saez
Large number of people on promenade at golden hour, with scattered benches, picnic tables, and a wooden art piece of a big heart
A two-way bike path separated by concrete barriers on a road in a park
Karl Marx
Cropped RCV results from the November 5, 2024 election. Only round 1 is shown, and in this round Daniel Lurie has 102,720 votes or 26.33%, London Breed has 95,117 or 24.38%, Aaron Peskin 89,215 or 22.86%, and Mark Farrell 72,115 or 18.48%
Flex post-separated bike lane blocked completely by an SUV. There is a line of SUVs in the lane in front of that one.
YIMBY is riding a bike. Puts a stick in his wheel (caption: "Attacking not just zoning but rent control too"). Falls doubled over in pain: "Why doesn't the left trust us?"
Bus shelter that says TAX THE RICH on the side
Bernie Sanders in a winter coat: "I am once again extending my climb, last up 0.4% at 154.77"
Superintendent Chalmers and Principal Skinner look at the aurora borealis in Skinner's kitchen as Chalmers sheds a tear of joy and says, "Why, it's beautiful, Seymour." Art by Dustin Studios
Urbanist think tank SPUR unveils plans to revamp S.F. charter Blueprint to enhance mayoral power a likely preview of 2026 charter amendment
Table 17.1, Circulation of property and progressive taxation Part of the table shows a "progressive property tax (financing the capital endowment to each young adult)" with effective annual rates of 0.1% for an 0.5 multiple of average wealth, 1% for a 2 times multiple of average wealth, 2% for a 5 times multiple of average wealth, 5% for 10 times, 10% for 100 times, 60% for 1,000 times, and 90% for 10,000 times average wealth.
warehouse painted red, but recently patches of light blue around some doors and windows
annoyed man shrugs, "I guess"
When the fountain’s water was shut off during California’s energy crisis from 2001 to 2004, then-Supervisor Aaron Peskin introduced a resolution to remove it, saying it looked out of place without the freeway and was too expensive to operate.
Jane Natoli, organizing director of YIMBY Action, said “this is why we have been asking for someone to verify the math independently.” “We support the family zoning plan but we wanted to make sure it’s going to do what it says it’s going to do,” she said. “Now we know, based on independent verification, we are going to have to try more than we are right now if we want to meet our state mandated goals.” She said the board should pass the rezoning and then redouble efforts to streamline and incentivize development, look at cutting inclusionary housing fees, lowering the real estate transfer tax and cutting other fees.
Still from the cartoon Adventure Time of Finn crouching on the ground looking at a tiny ant
A man speaking and gesturing in front of a projected photo of the Castro.
Person in Giants cap speaking and looking at display where an agenda is up with pictures of Muni buses and light rail vehicles to the side
City park (In Chan Kaajal) with 8 story gray and white building behind it
What people were actually witnessing as they watched a particular product get worse—enshittify, to use Cory Doctorow’s coinage—was not the slow approach of some inexorable fate, as many believed. It was, as the tech writer put it to me, “evidence of a company doing very well by being very bad.” A lot of sharp people still don’t see it, in part because of a faith, not yet exhausted, in some kind of self-correcting market mechanism: A costly and degraded product would be punished somehow. It simply had to be. Forget generative AI. That faith is the biggest bubble of all.
aunt, noun, 1. The sister or sister-in-law of one's parent. 2. The female cousin or cousin-in-law of one's parent.
View downhill to the nursery, on a long strip of land from left to right. It’s foggy and there’s a euc forest behind
A blocked off escalator in a BART station
Sunni Khalid speaking on a Litquake stage while Doug Gordon and Sarah Goodyear listen
Spine of the hardback of Life After Cars. Above the book title, between the title and authors’ names, and below the authors’ names, there are drawings of roadways with flowering vines growing over them. The background is yellow.
I’m holding a copy of Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile as I sit in the audience of a Litquake/KALW event that has yet to start.
Spongebob meme of looking out the window wistfully at others having a good time
Wednesday, October 22, 7:30pm Social Housing: Challenging YIMBYs and NIMBYs Public Talk at 518 Valencia Image: a distinctive 7-story very wide apartment building, Karl-Marx-Hof in Vienna. What we’re doing on housing isn’t working. We’ve upzoned, streamlined, deregulated. We’ve chased the promise of supply-side solutions. And still, the crisis deepens. Across San Francisco and the state, we’re told that zoning and deregulation will solve the housing crisis. But real solutions require more than zoning maps — they need public investment, tenant protections, and community-led planning that puts people before profit. Deregulation is politically convenient. It makes headlines without asking the wealthy to pay. It shifts blame from capital to planners. It offers the illusion of action—without the substance of redistribution. But it doesn’t build homes for restaurant workers earning $40,000 a year. It doesn’t produce family-sized units. It doesn’t build trust, or coalitions, or equity. Because deregulation isn’t housing policy. It’s land-use policy. And land-use reform without capital isn’t a solution. It’s a stall... There is a movement waiting to be built—beyond the tired binary of YIMBY and NIMBY. One rooted in care, solidarity, and the belief that everyone deserves a place to live. with FTC Manning (SF Community Land Trust—SFCLT), Quintin Mecke (Council of Community Housing Organizations—CCHO), and Shanti Singh (Tenants Together)
Foreground: a large shrub with long narrow pointy leaves glowing yellow-green in the sunlight. Middleground: a brown grassy hillside descends down, and a path runs across the ridgeline below another hill topped by cypress trees. To the left, backyards of two houses. Background: various buildings, mostly rowhomes, line city streets that curve up to Mount Davidson, thickly tree-lined on the left with the forest ending at its peak.
Paved path branching off the Mansell Promenade, itself a wide paved path with designated areas for walking and for biking in each direction.
A back-and-forth argument using the American Choppers meme template. "This is my favorite time of year in California." "It's getting darker and colder every day." "Beginning of rainy season makes it the perfect time to sow annual wildflowers." "That also means Oxalis pes-caprae is coming up everywhere." "The bulbs were in the soil all along. Now that it's showing itself you can rip it out!"
Screenshot of a headline: "Mamdani is dominating the NYC mayoral debate" Sub-heading: "The front-runner has made no major mistakes, and his opponents haven't landed any serious blows." At the top it says "LIVE."
“The general consensus of most testers is that Clariti is the most suitable of the 3 Products,” states a July report with feedback from 16 technical city staffers. The report added that OpenGov’s technology had “gaps so significant” that it “shouldn’t be considered.” A scoring sheet shows Clariti was rated significantly higher than OpenGov in all eight technical categories, including how it handles data, security, and customer management. Across the categories, Clariti scored an average of 4.42 out of 5, while OpenGov scored 2.88. A third company, LeapThought, scored 2.5.
Future Fleet Composition graph, hybrids decrease over time (eliminated by 2043), battery electric buses grow consistently, trolleybuses stay fixed at 278 until 2033 when they're reduced to 246 and then stay there through 2043.
Kate Chatfield, executive director of the California Public Defenders Association said the data proves that Prop. 36 “is a fail” — not because people are treatment resistant but because treatment is not available. “There’s no indication that anything will change,” she said. “Meanwhile, proponents are spending precious county resources on prosecution and incarceration in local jails and saying — magically — some money will appear for treatment. Proponents are the ones preventing those resources from being spent on treatment.”
Billboard with two smiling white men in suits and it says INJURED? GOOD
Three panels of screens from the Simpsons. 1: Lisa, with a panicked look, pulling an unconscious Bart in a wagon toward their parents' room, says, "A single nuclear warhead, of unknown origin, is heading toward the U.S. mainland." 2: Homer and Marge rise up in bed with looks of terror on their faces. 3: BART continues, with a big smile, "In Kathryn Bigelow's new Netflix film. It's an unnerving scenario - but it's also thrilling to watch!"
Screenshot of SF Democratic Party email: "Honoring GrowSF this Oct 23rd! "Announcing our Fourth (and final) Champion of Change: GrowSF "Our fourth and final honoree is the advocacy organization GrowSF."