'Urban development near the harbor has created a kaleidoscope of lights competing with the visual aids that mariners use. Traffic lights onshore can mimic the critical red and green buoys that mark safe channels.
''“You've got all of these lights going off everywhere and sometimes it can be a little bit tricky.” He argues that it's made the audible signals even more important. “They're critical pieces of information,” he says. “There will never not be a need.”'

"SPUR asked Stokle to draw two transit maps for them (full disclosure—I edit SPUR’s monthly magazine, The Urbanist), with the intent of demonstrating how a single, unified transit map might provide greater accessibility and ease of use and to stimulate conversation about how transit decisions are made." The maps are interesting but I think flawed. More later, perhaps.

"Arthur Tress: San Francisco 1964 opens tomorrow at the de Young. Although the primary subject of the exhibition is the city we call home, many of the locations represented in the pictures were difficult to pin point. During his preparations for the exhibition, curator James Ganz tried to track down some of the more mysterious sites portrayed, which resulted in a San Francisco adventure of his own." Closes 3 June 2012.

"By early next year the city's entire fleet of 819 buses will be equipped with forward-facing cameras that take pictures of cars traveling or parked in the bus and transit-only lanes." A good look at how to enforce bus lanes and why you need to: "While an empty bus lane is actually a functional bus lane, an empty car lane is a wasted car lane, so drivers are quick to capitalize on what they view as a transportation inefficiency."

Simon Baker: "One of the most spectacular photographs in the book is of San Francisco after the great fire following the 1906 earthquake. I had seen it before and assumed that the camera was carried aloft by a balloon over San Francisco Bay." "Newhall related that the camera was lifted into the air by kites, but he had little to say about how it was kept steady to make such a sharp image or how much it actually weighed. For answers to these and other questions, I began a long research."

Virginia Postrel: "Eventually, all the theories wind up there, at the one thing that makes Silicon Valley unlike Boston, or Austin, or Seattle, the one thing they can never hope to copy: It's the weather. The weather in the valley is perfect. Not temperate, not tolerable, not good. Perfect. Month after month after month of sunny days."

"Upon moving to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2007," [Leigh Merrill] writes, "I began looking at the complexity of its urban environment. The Bay Area presents a unique blend of residential living that sits between urban and suburban in a way that never quite reconciles one with the other."

"It’s been a San Francisco icon for more than a decade. It’s graced our skyline through the dot.com boom and bust. And it’s one of the most recognizable pieces of advertising the city has seen in a long time. But the San Francisco Egotist has learned that in two weeks, the Yahoo! billboard will be no longer."

I don't quite know what to say about this. I'm sure that if you don't know 6th and Mission it won't mean as much to you, but if you do, this is well worth taking the time to look at.

Speaking of the High Line, this proposal for a new urban area on the Bay Bridge is somewhat interesting, very Gibsonian, but utterly impractical. Still, that's kind of the Bay Area all over.

"DesignworksUSA is the design-consulting division of BMW Group. In collaboration with BART, it will conceptualize the next generation of BART trains from the inside out, conveying a style, shape and functionality that reflects the needs of customers and the future of transportation in the Bay Area."

Usually I'd post a bunch of these to Tumblr, but there are so many good ones here (unveiling the train, Nixon looking weirdly excited / suprised, bikes in the under construction tunnels, the confused chap looking at the ticket machine) that it's easier to just bookmark the whole thing.

"Public Library: An American Commons is an exhibition and photographic survey of public libraries throughout the United States by San Francisco based photographer Robert Dawson." Plus supporting events (including a talk in Noe this Saturday, 14th May). Closes 12th June.

"For a man who has been making political films all his life, Nostalgia for the Light by Patricio Guzmán appears at first to be an aberration: an examination of the strangely beautiful work of astronomers using the mammoth telescopes in the remote highlands of Chile’s Atacama Desert." "But there is another side of the Atacama. Here is where the Pinochet dictatorship quietly established its biggest concentration camp." Sounds fascinating, but sadly I can't make it to either showing.

I should write more on this, but for now, just a bookmark. "The prototypes all have their flaws, but they're a vast improvement on BART's Nixon-era norm. And with a small budget surplus forecast for the year ahead, this is an ideal time to begin rolling the changes out systemwide."

"Originally designed to haul lumber and freight, and then later passengers, it was sealed shut in 1978 after a series of fires and structural collapses. Today it carries bicyclists and pedestrians between Larkspur and San Rafael. It is a key component in the North-South Greenway and is also part of the future SMART corridor with a planned station"

San Francisco and the Bay Area don't have any major underwater tunnels (like the Mersey or Dartford tunnels in the UK), but there are plenty of others around. This seems to be a good overview.

"There is only one other access point discovered and though almost completely hidden, is excellent. It is a dramatic, sudden revelation of the park interior from high up which is simply stunning. It occurs midsection of the park behind Diamond Heights Shopping Center and George Christopher Playground."

I've climbed Bernal Heights, but haven't visited Glen Canyon yet. Next time there's a nice weekend, perhaps?

"When I first discovered the Lands End Labyrinth I was surprised and excited. Little did I know that it would lead to a series of cascading discoveries across the San Francisco bay area and lead me to meet the man responsible for it all."

"Eric Fischer, an Oakland amateur digital cartographer, mines data found online to examine the information that people leave in their wake - anonymously, on sites like Flickr.com, Cabspotting.org and a NextBus.com - to reveal the patterns of a city."

"Port View Park, reopened and greatly expanded in 1995 after extensive redesign and reconstruction because of damage suffered during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, offers spectacular views of San Francisco Bay, the San Francisco skyline and Port of Oakland maritime operations" Forget the skyline: maritime operations! And there's even a snack bar!

"Mission / La Lengua / Bernal residents hold a deep, dark secret. The glorious Transamerica Pyramid is invisible to us, thanks to the unfortunate placement of the evil and golem-like Bank of America tower."

"What makes a place? Infinite City, Rebecca Solnit's brilliant reinvention of the traditional atlas, searches out the answer by examining the many layers of meaning in one place, the San Francisco Bay Area."

"What makes a place? Infinite City, Rebecca Solnit's brilliant reinvention of the traditional atlas, searches out the answer by examining the many layers of meaning in one place, the San Francisco Bay Area." The biggest round of applause of the day? The author's praise for her publisher prioritising local bookshops over Amazon.

"San Francisco, the home of many of the very technologies that have drawn a bead on the book, visitors will find a living, historically rooted literary scene that, though it has surely heard the news of its own demise, isn’t buying it." A very grateful hat tip to Chris for posting this.

"At the Energy Center’s two downtown plants, we produce steam and pipe it to approximately 170 customer buildings for space heating, domestic hot water, air conditioning and industrial process use." Either the network, or its proximity to water pipes, probably explains the occasional sight of steam venting downtown. Shame the full-size map is only a PDF.

"The $7.9 million pilot project would provide bikes in San Francisco and along the Caltrain corridor in San Jose, Palo Alto, Mountain View and Redwood City for use by registered subscribers." Interesting, but Londoners complained about only 3000 bikes. 1000 for that area seems worryingly minimal.

Subtitled "Auto-Free Outdoor Adventures in the San Francisco Bay Area". One to refer to. The most recent post (announcing a hiatus, boo) has a good overview of available walks (yay).

"The success of Andy Goldsworthy’s Spire means we get more outdoor art in the Presidio. Yes! Nevada City–based art group For Site ('art about place'), emboldened by the crush of people who come to see Goldsworthy’s poignant pile of sticks, now gives us 'Presidio Habitats.'" Closes (if at all?) 15th May.

"Babcock has spent the summer creating 1,000 cameras for the exhibit, and he says anything that can keep out light and accommodate a pinhole or lens as well as film or photo paper will work." Closes 5th November.

"Hoferer makes drawings that create luminous and beguiling optical effects through the refraction of light on their surfaces. Although the drawings begin with a preconceived structure of precise grids, the artist deliberately invites the interaction of chance, intuition, and imperfection as she works." Closes 16th October.

"Exhibits consisting of such 'commonplace' photographs, however, add a layer of meaning into the mix: the curator's. He sees something in his collection of found photographs." Closes 27th November.

"Donwood, who has done artwork for Radiohead, has also produced a 12-page newspaper to accompany the exhibit. He says he wanted to create an overwhelming atmosphere that is at once attractive and troubling, much like advertising." Closes 27th October.

"Photo/Synthesis highlights the dynamic trend in the field of contemporary photography, collages, assemblages, and other multi-part or composite photo-based projects."

"What makes a place? Infinite City, Rebecca Solnit’s brilliant reinvention of the traditional atlas, searches out the answer by examining the many layers of meaning in one place, the San Francisco Bay Area."

"2008 celebrates the 130th anniversary of Muybridge's panorama and in that year Tom Pope and James Doyle re-photographed the panorama on the original site. Employing the largest Polaroid camera in the world; the Polaroid 20x24." For some reason I have a (really nicely produced) leaflet about this, but I have no idea any more where I picked it up.

Eadweard Muybridge's 1878 panoramic photograph(s) of San Francisco (as currently on display in Tate Britain's presentation of the Corcoran Gallery's touring exhibition).

"Constructed in October 2008, The Spire tells the story of the forest, celebrates its history and natural rhythms, and welcomes the next generation of trees."

"[MTC have] begun to provide free personal monitoring services to users of Clipper. It's now possible to access to a complete, up-to-the-minute stream of your own card usage (including the geographic location of each beep)". This for Oyster, please. The Bay Area may be slow to start but they're getting that bit right early.

He's right: if you're in San Francisco, this weekend or next go and see Three Screen Ray at SFMOMA. (I'm intending to post a still to Flickr at some point; hopefully it won't get served with the takedown notice that hit the videos.)

Subtitled 'volcanos and the psychology in the sky,' this is a look at the artistic response to vivid post-volcano sunsets. "An unscientific search of Flickr shows that the tag 'sunset' had a minor peak (about half again as many hits as usual) on April 15th and 16th–the dates the ash from Eyjafjallajokull began drifting over Europe. We’re reminded of Penelope Umbrico’s 5,377,183 Suns from Flickr, which [is showing] in the SFMOMA in the 75th Anniversary Exhibition."

The New York Times reviews the San Francisco Museum Of Modern Art's 75th anniversary exhibition. I'd certainly recommend it.

This seems interesting. Shame it's a third of the world away.

"Like a child drawing, the old BART map could take you on a flight of fancy, but wouldn't get you to and from work." However: "If I consider the old BART map in the context of the visual culture of the San Francisco Bay Area, I am no longer certain of its inferiority." An interesting piece touching on the cultural links between subway maps and the cities (or areas) they depict. (I prefer the new map, but then, I'm a Londoner.)

Lovely stuff. Maybe I should set up an account for 30 St Mary Axe...

"The $3 toll would be collected on weekdays between 6 and 9 a.m. and 4 and 7 p.m. - meaning the average car commuter would pay $6 a day in congestion tolls." "Residents of the toll zone would pay half."

San Francisco Planning + Urban Research Association report on what the public transport system in the city needs to do to be better. It kind of worked for me as a tourist, but I could tell it wasn't anywhere near London's standards.

Even the relatively public-transport-friendly SF has rubbish bus signage. I was shocked at how poor it was in St Louis, but I did take a few buses in NY without mishap, so they must vaguely work. Not as good as London's, mind.

"Throw away your screen scraper: BART has official schedules, fares and other data in the open Google Transit™ Feed Specification (GTFS)." Great news for those in SF.

Good lord, what will the crazy colonists try next?

candace's first choice for DIP. Not a bad one either.

Article in SFGate about the tower crane operator at the Rincon Hill site. Now, if any SF dotcommies fancy posting photos to the Flickr Craneporn group...

A rather odd artefact of the interesting terrain and planning of San Francisco. Didn't see any of them last time I was there, though. via mefi ( http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/45974 ) via ChrisDodo

Candace has one of the bigger of these.

The US really knows how to treat scientists.