ELECTION 2022
If you’re still on the fence about voting, we’re here to give you a push. With all the hand-wringing over San Francisco’s problems — and we at The Frisc do our fair share — it’s important to remind ourselves that our city can do things right: the ease of voting here, the proximity of so much open space, queer/LGBTQ rights, all of which, in many places, face often insidious barriers.
Sometimes we take these things for granted; often they come with caveats. Even what we do right is far from perfect.
But let’s ignore the national narrative about SF that’s become so ugly and convenient. Let’s look on the bright side for at least a moment and, as we’ve done in the past, applaud SF for a few things.
(All our nonpartisan SF election coverage, FYI, is here.)
Muni on the move
Just over a year ago our public transportation agency, crushed by the pandemic, saw a faint light at the end of the tunnel thanks to federal rescue funds. But it remained tricky getting around town on transit, and with many lines yet to be restored, a fundamental question remained: Go back to pre-COVID service, or rethink the network to account for a downtown that might not recover quickly, if ever?
While the outlook is bleak for downtown, bolstering other lines is showing results. The long-delayed Van Ness rapid bus, opened this spring, is so fast and convenient that ridership is higher than pre-COVID levels. SFMTA director of transportation Jeffrey Tumlin noted recently that some lines between neighborhoods, especially those serving schools and students, have also rebounded.
Overall, Muni ridership still hasn’t hit 60 percent of pre-COVID levels, hamstrung by the dearth of downtown commuters. With customers simply not there, Muni’s options are limited. The Embarcadero and Montgomery metro stations are only at 30 to 40 percent — although there’s anecdotal evidence of underground trains filling up.https://twitter.com/sfreadhead/status/1589634440988614656
We’re not here to give Muni and its parent agency SFMTA a free pass. Long delays for big projects, like the Van Ness BRT, have soured some residents. The Better Market Street boondoggle recently resulted in the loss of millions in grant funding, and after 20 years the agency gave up trying to bring true bus rapid transit to Geary. The soon-to-open Central Subway will be hard-pressed to find enough riders to justify cost overruns.
SFMTA also runs SF’s streets. While there’s little progress reaching the goal of zero traffic deaths by 2024, a new safety report says projects from the last five years, including the agency’s “quick build” program for fast changes, have cut collisions of all sorts by 18 percent. That’s not enough, and truly transformational work has yet to begin. But it’s a start. — Kristi Coale
Parks here now
You could argue that the city’s open spaces saved our bacon during the pandemic. In the second densest city in the United States, we flocked to them for refuge and recreation, and they were among the reasons SF had such low COVID death rates. (Vaccine uptake was another.)
But inequitable levels of suffering reflect the history of SF’s unequal distribution of green space. SF Recreation and Parks is working to fix it. In the last few months in the city’s southeast corner, officials have broken ground on the India Basin Waterfront Park as well as the Herz Recreation Center, which will bring an indoor gym to McLaren Park. Over the last year, Heron’s Head Park opened a new Nature Exploration Center for children and families. (A new Bayview community center isn’t a park project, but it also provides indoor and outdoor meeting and play spaces.)
There are other commitments too. The city recently revamped the Waller Street skatepark and rewarded the steadfast rollerskate community with a mural for Golden Gate Park’s Skatin’ Place. Several swimming pools also got face-lifts, including Garfield Pool and Clubhouse and Rossi Pool, and the reimagined tennis center even has pickleball. (Perhaps not enough.)
While SF voters consistently approve money for parks and open spaces, today they’ll decide the fate of two narrow slivers: 1.4 miles of the former JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park and 3 miles of the Great Highway that could be reopened to cars permanently. This fall, Rec and Park transformed part of what’s now called JFK Promenade into the “Golden Mile,” with murals and sculpture, music, games, even an outdoor library — a not-so-subtle promotion of the road’s car-free perks. — Kristi Coale
A different tune on housing
One year ago, eight of 11 SF supervisors nixed a proposed tower that would have built 500 homes on a valet parking lot downtown. It checked all the boxes SF wants (an affordable quotient, walking distance to transit and jobs, and more) yet supervisors found spurious reasons to say no.
Now we’re saying housing is something SF does right? Have we gone crazy?
There’s one word for our very cautious optimism: fourplexes. Earlier this year, those same supervisors undermined a modest upzoning bill, adding conditions to defeat its purpose, then voted for it. Only a mayoral veto kept it from becoming law. But when the bill’s author brought it back without those conditions, it passed 10 to 1, a shocking near-consensus.
The bill, which allows up to four or even six units to be built on 60 percent of city properties, isn’t likely to put a dent in the housing shortage. But it’s at least another option in an expanding toolbox.
A stiffer test is coming. By January 31, the supervisors must approve a blueprint to build 82,000 more homes by 2031 (the Planning Department is working on it). If state housing watchdogs judge it unfeasible, they could withhold funds for affordable housing and more, or perhaps strip SF of local housing control.
Are our officials getting the message? Tune into the supervisors on November 15 — their first full hearing of the plan.
If SF has a housing mind shift, we might end up thanking voters who keep sending pro-housing lawmakers to Sacramento. Scott Wiener, David Chiu, and Phil Ting have been on the front lines rewiring the state’s housing laws. Without them, there would be no toolbox, as well as no threat to compel cities to use it.
Running to replace Chu in Sacramento, former SF supervisor Matt Haney went all in on housing. (That rejected tower on a parking lot was in his district, and his fellow supes burned him by voting it down.) Voters had a stark choice between Haney and longtime progressive David Campos — the vice chair of the state Democratic Party and a market-rate housing skeptic. Haney trounced him. — Alex Lash
Democracy lives
At a time when democracy is in freefall in many parts of the country, elections in San Francisco remain safe, secure, and relatively easy.
No armed vigilantes are spying on SF ballot boxes or tying up public meetings with ravings about “communism,” and no conspiracy-addled election deniers will be sweeping into office on our account in the next year.
The recent attack on Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s home and family shows we’re not immune from the violent outbreaks that have pushed our American polity to the brink of internecine war.
Nor is SF immune from political disinformation and demagoguery. But a culture of conspiracy has not yet poisoned our voting process the way it has many corners of the country; the Justice Department is sending election monitors to key districts as close as Sonoma County to help ensure that local jurisdictions (or just yahoos) are not infringing on voting rights, but none are coming here.
Early voting began a month in advance in SF without objection, and the city has over 500 polling places open and ready to go. While this is just about average on the basis of population, San Francisco’s small size means polling locations saturate almost every neighborhood, and the city provides an online tool that reports wait times at each location on and before election day.
Voter turnout in major elections in SF is generally quite high, cracking 86 percent in 2020, nearly 75 percent in 2018, and 80 percent in 2016, compared with a national average of just two-thirds of eligible voters.
SF’s off-year mayoral elections net fewer than 50 percent turnout, however, and the recent Board of Education recall fared even worse. (It’s hard to blame voters when we’re on our 16th election in 10 years.) Prop H on the current ballot would realign those odd-year elections and likely boost turnout.
The larger point is this: Whether you vote on Tuesday or you’ve already done it, polling places and drop-off stations are easily accessible, your vote will be counted in a reasonably expedient fashion, and nobody with a trucker hat, sunglasses, and openly carried firearm will be hovering around, taking your picture, or writing down your license plate number.
The whole country should be so lucky. — Adam L. Brinklow