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http://www.streetsblog.org/


Street fighters
Green City: StreetsBlog throws an edgy curve into San Francisco
bicycle coverage
BY STEVEN T. JONES
Wednesday January 14, 2009
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› st...@sfbg.com

StreetsBlog (www.streetsblog.org) isn't your average blog, but rather
a well-funded institution that helped promote and propel a major
transformation that has taken place on New York City streets since the
site was founded in 2006, sparking rapid and substantial improvements
for bicyclists and pedestrians.

In the process, StreetsBlog — which is part of the Livable Streets
Network, along with StreetFilms and the StreetsWiki, started by urban
cyclist Mark Gordon, founder of the popular file-sharing site LimeWire
— developed a loyal following among alternative transportation
planners and advocates in cities across the United States.

"There was nothing like it," said Leah Shahum, executive director of
the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. "They put out these inspiring
images and really helped people envision better streets."

So when a group of about two dozen of these Bay Area transportation
geeks made the trek up to Portland, Ore. last summer for the Towards
Carfree Cities International Conference (see "Towards Carfree Cities:
wrap-up," Guardian Politics blog), one of their secret goals was to
try to lure StreetsBlog to San Francisco.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T


What began with a long, beer-soaked meeting at a Portland brewpub has
turned into substantial new voice in the local media and
transportation landscape since StreetsBlog San Francisco
(www.sf.streetsblog.org) launched at the start of this year.

"All this really came together in Portland during the Carfree
conference," said Aaron Naparstek, executive editor of the three
StreetsBlogs (SF, NYC, and Los Angeles) and executive producer of the
LivableStreets Network. "The No. 1 reason we decided to open up SF
StreetsBlog is because so many people were asking us to do it,
particularly from the bike activist community. Most important, we also
had a guy with money asking us to do it — [San Francisco bicyclist]
Jonathan Weiner ... There's a vibrant activist community that thinks
we can be useful and there are people willing to fund the work."

It also dovetailed nicely with the organization's push to influence
the quadrennial federal transportation bill reauthorization that
Congress will consider later this year, which environmentalists hope
will shift money away from freeway projects. "There was a sense that
now is the time to build a nationwide movement," Naparstek said. "The
freeway lobby guys are very organized and embedded in all the state
[departments of transportation] and it's tough to counter that. We
want to use the Internet to foment a national movement."

StreetsBlog SF has two full-time staffers, editor Bryan Goebel, a San
Francisco-based journalist who worked for KCBS) and reporters Matthew
Roth, part of the team that started StreetsBlog in New York.
StreetsBlog also pays as a contributor longtime local author and
activist Chris Carlsson, who was part of the SF crew in Portland.

"I think they have an opportunity to bring close attention to the
texture of life on the streets, something print journalism doesn't do
very well," Carlsson said. "It's about reinhabiting city life."

Shahum said she's thrilled at the arrival of StreetsBlog, which she
says will help local leaders envision ...
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