Dude, where's my street?

The city's abrupt transit changes can transform a street overnight. And now they want to ban cars on Valencia.

Add another San Francisco annoyance to the list that includes the $22 hamburger and people who actually care if you call it “Frisco.”

It’s the guerrilla street modification, where you wake up one morning and discover red transit-only lanes, bike lane poles and bus loading zones on your local avenue.

One day our street was two lanes, one way, with parking. The next morning it was one center lane, in-street parking and a one-block bike lane that runs in the opposite direction of the street.

Which is nothing compared to the on-going transit melodrama on Mission Street. At one point traffic visionaries blocked entrance to Mission from Cesar Chavez, which is a major east-west corridor. SFMTA corrected that, but as Mission Local pointed out in 2018, the red transit lanes are wildly unpopular.

And now they want to close Valencia, the best alternative to Mission, to cars.

The concern here is that this sounds like the workings of the we-must-force-people-to-ride-the-bus crowd.

Which is not to say there’s anything wrong with cutting down on car traffic in San Francisco. It just doesn’t seem like this is the way to do it.

Has transit-first really made drastic improvements? A story in in the Chronicle says only 3% of Bay Area trips are made on transit. And that ridership is falling. In 2016, SFMTA said the red transit lanes on Mission had decreased bus travel time by just two minutes, but . . .

“People are perceiving their trip to be on average 10 min faster since the bus is spending less time delayed and getting more green lights.”

Nice. So when you arrive you can say, “I know it looks like I am late, but I am perceiving that I am 10 minutes early.” 

It all comes down to the obvious — would you rather ride in a bus or car? Spoiler, it’s a car.

But closing Market Street to cars isn’t going to have an impact. Nobody who lives in San Francisco drives on Market unless they make a wrong turn. Making it harder for cars to get around hasn’t improved the gridlock. Try to get on the Bay Bridge at four p.m.

If you really want to go after cars, you have to go after parking. It is one thing to fight your way through traffic to work, it’s another if you don’t have a place to leave the car. There are a lot parking garages, even in the Financial District. Find a way to decrease available parking and drivers will self-select out of their cars.

The problem is, that’s only going to nurture the car-sharing companies, which are surely much to blame for the clogged streets. Lyft and Uber drivers don’t drive somewhere and park, they circle the streets until they are pinged.

That may be the future — fleets of car-sharing vehicles and nobody in San Francisco owns a car. The problem is, you’d still have streets full of cars.

So I don’t have a solution. But I do have a suggestion.

Recently I met up for coffee with a guy at the Cole Street Muni stop. He said he often sits at the cafe and notices that every morning there is a huge crowd of commuters, waiting for a train. And when the train arrives, it is so full that only some of the crowd can get on board. They end up waiting for the next train — which is also jam-packed.

There you have it: committed, dedicated Muni riders. There’s got to be a way to make that station work for them. Fix that and then we’ll talk about Valencia.

The 49ers. Not what we had in mind

Well, at least the debate about where to hold the Super Bowl victory parade — SF or SC — has been settled. Actually it would have been fun to announce it was going to be in Santa Clara. Their relationship with Niners is so fraught, they might have turned it down.

The critical play of the Super Bowl, the one that turned the tide to the Chiefs, was Mahomes’ 44-yard completion to Tyreek Hill on third-and-15 with a little more than seven minutes left in the game. The floating throw was more hot air balloon than a line drive.

It reminded me of the last time the 49ers were in the Super Bowl and Baltimore quarterback Joe Flacco, under huge pressure on third down, tossed one up in the air. I actually assumed he was throwing it away. But Anquan Boldin, later with the 49ers, went up and got it. Players make plays.

So anyhow, I think we’ve pretty much analyzed that game to a fine powder. Think it might be time for a little lighter Super Bowl take? How about this one I wrote for the Press Democrat pre-game section about some memorable moments. Also, the greatest actor in the world.

On declining a Kobe Bryant tribute.

The death of Kobe Bryant was all the more poignant because of the others who were killed in the helicopter crash with him, including his daughter. Heartbreaking.

However, it led to a kind of can-you-top-this vibe. Jersey numbers changed, tattoos were inked and every arena and event had a ceremony. So it was odd to hear the Celtics Gordon Hayward refusing to take credit for what seemed to be a nice gesture.

Sportscaster Mike Tirico told a story of the night Bryant scored 60 points in the final game of his NBA career. Tirico said, when Bryant was shooting a free throw, Hayward intentionally stepped into the lane too soon so if Bryant missed, he’d have another chance to score his 60th point.

Hayward made a point get in Twitter to say that wasn’t true. Why?

He got 60 on me and I didn't give him anything free all night. What happened on the free throw line was not intentional. Kobe would have lost respect for me if I gave him something free.

Almost a better story.