Last year we got one lousy tomato. This year, our single Early Girl is thriving

Red salvia Orange marigold Yellow marigold Green strawberry Blue lobelia Purple petunia 🌈

Big event elsewhere in Golden Gate Park means getting the Conservatory all to ourselves

I would LOVE to know the racial breakdown of that. Because I damn sure have some theories.

Bryce Covert@brycecovert.bsky.social · 3d ago

Yikes. Women accounted for all of the job losses and all of the labor force decline in July, according to @nwlc.org

Latest AV lesson from SF: If you want transit and traffic to function, keep AVs three blocks away from concert venues, arenas, and other major events.

John Berry@aniccia.bsky.social · 3d ago

San Francisco's AV/ADS transportation plan for the big Outside Lands music festival in Golden Gate imposes a geofence (pic1) ~same as Waymo voluntarily used last year for this and the Hardly Strictly festival (pic2). Walking to/from your robot is the new multimodal. www.sf.gov/news-mayor-l...

June US transit data is in today, & all of the 10 largest US rail networks are growing! SF is seeing a real boom, with ridership up 16% on Muni & 14% on BART SEPTA (Philly, 9.1%) and PATH (NY/NJ, +8.7%) are also seeing strong growth, while MTS (San Diego, +1.4%) is the slowest🧵

“he was confronted by Trump over the bare weapons stockpile, Hegseth defended himself & blamed his deputy, Stephen Feinberg, for the shortages & for not ensuring Trump was fully apprised of the issue” Throwing underlinings under the bus for your own incompetence will go over well in the military.🙄

Trump, Hegseth clashed at Camp David over Iran missile depletion concerns

At a Camp David summit this weekend, President Trump demanded answers from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over extreme munitions shortages.

washingtonpost.com

In 1930, a German newspaper imagined life in the 2000s, depicting people at the dinner table using telephones instead of talking to one another. Boy, did they get that wrong.

SF artist? Make under $80K solo or $92K as couple? Sign up for deeply discounted artist housing lottery for new bldg at Market/Gough

San Francisco Arts Commission@sfac.bsky.social · 4d ago

Attention artists! SFAC's new Artist Housing Certification Program launches early 2027, building an eligibility list for affordable housing lotteries — incl. 94 units at Artists Hub on Market. Learn more: sf.gov/affordable-artist-housing & sf.gov/artist-housing-certification

My overgrown backyard is wildly successful at attracting phoebes, juncos, goldfinches, chickadees and other birds. So I shouldn't be surprised it's now attracted a Cooper's Hawk, grabbing smaller birds midair and distracting me from my writing en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooper%...

Cooper's hawk - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Internal audits and external analysis by ENO, NYU Transit Costs Project, Institute for Progress and others document exactly what's needed for US to deliver transit capital projects effectively. Yet we still look the other way on highway and military projects cost overruns

Yonah Freemark@yonahfreemark.com · 4d ago

That’s enough to build multiple new subway lines in every US city above a million people

Transit nerd 🚨🚨🚨

BART@bart.gov · 5d ago

On Saturday, August 8, BART Deputy General Manager Michael Jones invites riders to explore the inner workings of BART and the equipment that keeps it running for 👷 Tool Time with the BART Deputy General Manager, in the Fremont Station north parking lot from 10am to 12:30pm.

The best riders' guide to Muni I've ever read: www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancis...

From the sanfrancisco community on Reddit

Explore this post and more from the sanfrancisco community

reddit.com

Data are clear: Speed safety cameras are arguably the fastest, most effective, most affordable way to cut traffic fatalities

David Zipper@davidzipper.bsky.social · 6d ago

A story of cause and effect: Last November, Ontario banned cities from using speed safety cameras to issue tickets. Reckless speeding immediately surged in Toronto, Ottawa, Guelph, and cities throughout the province. A 🧵 about my latest in Bloomberg (gift link)

I want AVs to improve urban safety outcomes and mobility choices. But absence of basic data transparency and worsening public comms suggest Waymo hasn't learned from Dec 22 and July 4 debacles - and isn't ready to scale in cities. Read: thefrisc.com/waymo-behavi...

Waymo Behavior Now Harder to Decipher, Even After July 4th Fiasco

Mayor Lurie wants more scrutiny. Despite new California DMV rules, there’s less information publicly available, not more.

thefrisc.com

Husband presenting today's tomato harvest.

Hmm... Beach day?

I have long wanted to write for the excellent Bay Area publishing collective COYOTE...and they let me write something that honestly no other publication would. All hail independent media!!

Reo Eveleth@reveleth.com · 7d ago

Early on @coyotemedia.org made a list of dream bylines we'd LOVE to have on the site and @annaleen.bsky.social was one of the first on it for me. So stoked to see this piece about ~~speculative transit~~ and big dreams for the Bay Area. www.coyotemedia.org/funding-bay-...

SF's high housing costs arise from three "separate policy failures: federal affordable housing defunding since the 1980s, exclusionary zoning with racist roots, and a permitting process that legislated NIMBYism. Picking one villain lets everyone else off the hook." missionlocal.org/2026/08/san-...

Who killed housing affordability in San Francisco?

Despite what the most vitriolic keyboard warriors on the internet would have you believe, this is a complicated question

missionlocal.org

this is not true. there was no conspiracy. it didn't matter whether the streetcars were publicly owned (seattle, detroit) or private (los angeles, atlanta). a thread (because i wrote a whole-ass book on this): 1/?

David Ho@davidho.bsky.social · last wk.

Is everyone aware of the General Motors streetcar conspiracy? In the mid-20th century, auto and oil interests bought up electric streetcar systems across the US and systematically replaced them with bus routes and paved roads, funneling commuters toward private cars.

I wrote about this NYC congestion pricing study earlier this year, noting that most driving time savings accrues to people who never venture into the zone at all (i.e., driving within Queens or Long Island). IOW some of the most vociferous critics of CP are among its biggest beneficiaries.

Congestion Pricing’s Unexpected Winners: Suburban Drivers

NYC’s controversial toll program hasn’t just sped up trips inside Manhattan, a new paper finds. It’s easing traffic in outer boroughs and neighboring counties.

bloomberg.com

Your periodic reminder that my 1991 SF Mission apt was $980/mo in today's dollars - an unaffordable sum for me then. This is what decades of NIMBY SF politics stole from you and our beloved city's creative spark

San Francisco blue

In the 70s-80s Curtis Green and H. Welton Flynn reinvented Muni while other cities abandoned transit. Art Agnos staked his political future on demolishing the Embarcadero Fwy. I can't wait to hear more about these inspiring figures, esp @peterhartlaub.bsky.social interviewing Mayor Agnos himself

San Francisco Chronicle@sfchronicle.com · last wk.

Join the Chronicle’s Peter Hartlaub live at Gray Area as he takes us back to the 1970s and ’80s along side the former mayor and SFMTA photographer and archivist Jeremy Menzies

Which vehicles most endanger the drivers of other cars? Giant pickup trucks — and the Dodge Charger Source: www.iihs.org/news/detail/...

Quaint, cottagey, BBC "Gardeners' World" 2026 season quietly leads with climate messaging. Because all of us who garden know the world is changing rapidly, and our lifelong favorites may no longer survive here www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b...

BBC Two - Gardeners' World - Episode guide

All episodes of Gardeners' World

bbc.co.uk

The Bear grumbleth

The Public Domain Review@publicdomainrev.bsky.social · 2w ago

"The Duck quaketh... The Wolf howleth" — from what many consider to be the first picture book for children, Orbis Sensualium Pictus (1658). More in our essay here: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/in-the-image-of-god-john-comenius-and-the-first-children-s-picture-book

Heaven is a place on earth. Specifically the potato chip aisle at Tokyo Central Market

Stop going to Europe for inspiration about making US cities better. Go to Quebec.

Oh The Urbanity!@ohtheurbanity.bsky.social · 2w ago

How Quebec became North America’s urban outlier (with @adammongrain.bsky.social and @jfrheault.bsky.social)

Bay Area transit advocates are leading the charge to save BART, Muni, Caltrain and AC Transit from dire service cuts. To hone your advocacy skills join this free training Aug 5 at @spur-urbanist.bsky.social @transitcenter.bsky.social luma.com/m78g9xyz

Storytelling for Transit Advocates: A Hands-on Training · Luma

Two important ballot measures will be on the ballot this November: Connect Bay Area and Stronger Muni for All. Both of these were voter initiatives, and we…

luma.com