The awkward nexus of Valencia Street, Market Street and McCoppin Street in what is technically Western SoMa is about due for a renaissance. The Department of Public Works had planned to revamp the area's dank corners and brighten up the street with some green space since 2005, but those plans were stalled when the city had a hard time selling off the parcels left empty when the freeway came down. Now, According to Streetsblog, that could all change in the next year with a new, food-truck friendly public plaza. more ›

We thought it a little odd that the day after the tragic accident at Octavia and Oak that took the life of a UCSF professor Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi made sure to praise Octavia Street as "a fabulous Boulevard." Mirkarimi may have been trying to head off the inevitable criticism that would follow such an accident, given the Board's two-decade-old push to ban freeway construction north of Market Street, which led to the Boulevard plan for Octavia and the creation of what is, arguably, a very high-speed zone of city streets with cars exiting the freeway and rapidly making their way to the western ends of town. more ›

Here's a weird tale of yet another car-on-bike hit-and-run at perennial danger spot Octavia and Market, off ABC 7. (More details at CBS 5 too, plus a video clip.) more ›

First up, bicycles! Matier & Ross are reporting that Muni is actually going to start up a program where people can rent bikes to get around. What they're thinking of is making it so any company that wants to be in the business of building our bus shelters would have to have bikes at the shelter people could rent. There's not much in the way of details or information or even plans so far, but it's something they're beginning to work on and have asked the six companies now bidding on building our bus shelter s to come up with a plan. more ›

What did we tell you? Bay Bridge traffic was a nightmare today with the new reconfiguration of the SF offramps. Making matters worse, one of the contractors got a little delayed this morning and took an hour longer to get the cones taken down than he should have, which further backed things up. On the MUNI side, no one knows what the effect of the fare hike's going to be. The fare strikers released numbers that showed no real effect in money earned for the first three days of the month. The strikers take the position that this shows that the strike has had an effect (since numbers should have gone up), whereas MUNI takes the position that you have to wait until the end of the month to tell, because more people may have bought FastPasses instead. We're impressed that people can read so much into so little data -- but we will say, though, that for the first time ever, our usual FastPass vendors were reporting that they'd sold out of passes by Thursday the 1st. And hey -- they're finally opening the new Central Freeway! Ribbon-cutting ceremony today, new Octavia Street offramp opening Saturday, congestion back shortly after. Hey, did they take down that Webster Street temple yet? more ›

We're always happy to give new and emerging fashion design talent showplace R.A.G. love, because we think they're cool as heck. They join fellow Hayes Valley retailer Manifesto for this Saturday's Octavia Spring Sidewalk Faire, running from 12-5 between 514 and 543 Octavia Street. There will be sale-priced designer backstock and new spring lines, DJs, and a designer-created potluck. Yum! more ›

Duboce Street's loss is Hayes Valley's gain, as the City and Caltrans laboriously rebuild the Central Expressway offramp one block over from where they laboriously tore it down, but leave Octavia to become a beautiful pedestrian-friendly street. And, in keeping with the beautification theme, the city has just announced a competition where architects are challenged to design innovative residential houses for Octavia Street. Designs must conform to city codes and zoning regulations, and the plots of land in question are all different in orientation (yes, some are straight and some are gay), and they're hoping to encourage beautiful but liveable spaces in an open-minded up-and-coming neighborhood. The winner gets $40,000, though the city also notes that the last time they had a similar contest, for Union Square, the design of the architect who won was too avant-garde for the area and they ended up building on the designs of a runner-up. Info on the contest is here. There's a briefing on March 19, and entries are due on June 1. All entries will be displayed in City Hall, and winners will be announced some time in mid-June. more ›