Gas prices are above $5 a gallon on March 5 at a gas station in San Francisco.
Lea Suzuki/S.F. Chronicle
In the Bay Area, our public transit system is falling apart due to a lack of ridership, and gas is getting really expensive, really quickly. I think this is an opportunity for a national solidarity moment.
People in suburban and rural areas don’t have much choice but to drive. I think we who live in urban areas can do something to help the Bay Area, our state and country.
Are enough of us willing to save some money on gas and get on public transportation through this oil crunch? As someone who commutes exclusively on foot and on public transportation, I can tell you that it doesn’t take nearly as much time as you think.
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The biggest time waster is the spacing between buses, but our mobile phones have a mapping feature that can automatically create the fastest route to wherever you’re going.
Also, the more cars we keep off the road in the Bay Area, the faster the buses will travel. If we did a good enough job, we could actually create the capacity to run more frequent buses and trains.
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In the process, we would meet each other and learn what it’s like to be part of a community again.
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Trump’s Iran scam
As the Trump administration defunds infrastructure for wind and solar power generation, dismissing renewable energy as a “green new scam,” we find ourselves tethered to an energy source that comes from dinosaurs.
With the war with Iran tightening its grip on global oil supplies, the “energy independence” promised by a fossil-fuel-only philosophy has turned out to be a house of cards. The Trump administration has removed the lifeboats while the ship is springing leaks — literally.
Oil tankers are now floating bombs, and recent strikes in the region have already turned the sea black and rained soot over cities, creating an ecological disaster.
By abandoning sustainable energy options at a moment when global chaos makes them most necessary, we haven’t secured our future; we’ve simply ensured that our economy will falter, and human health and the environment are victims.
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It is quite the achievement to manufacture an energy crisis and environmental disaster simultaneously. History will likely find it less pithy and more tragic that we chose to go dark just as the sun and wind were becoming our most reliable allies.
Pay attention, pedestrians
Regarding “Why are cars still killing so many people in San Francisco?” (Opinion, SFChronicle.com, March 14): The column and other stories about the subject assume that all accidents between autos and pedestrians or bicyclists are the fault of the automobile driver. That is not always the case. Pedestrians and bicyclists share responsibility for their own safety.
Pedestrians must realize that motorists navigating an intersection need to check in many directions while enclosed in a vehicle with limited visibility. Pedestrians, on the other hand, have 360-degree visibility and can stop instantly if necessary.
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Sometimes pedestrians start to cross the street before they reach the crosswalk and are often looking at their phones. Or a pedestrian may appear suddenly from around a building or parked vehicle after the motorist had already looked in that direction.
And getting bicyclists to obey traffic laws — good luck with that.
Property owners contribute
Regarding “Taxing this type of home could help ease S.F.’s housing crisis” (Letters to the Editor, SFChronicle.com, March 15): I am one of those 8,500 out-of-town owners of a pied-à-terre in San Francisco that the letter talks about.
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I pay taxes, stiff property taxes, even though I don’t get to vote in San Francisco.
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My wife and I frequent our San Francisco property regularly and contribute to the local economy, from grocery stores and restaurants to entertainment venues and repair and cleaning services, and let’s not forget Uber, which we frequently use to get around. All these activities generate sales taxes for the city.
We love San Francisco and consider it a stroke of good fortune to own property there. I suggest the letter writer direct her resentments toward a different target.