Sunday, March 13, 2016

Franklin Street Crash Control



Approximately once a week we will hear a crash outside of our living room windows at the corner of Franklin and McAllister Streets.



Franklin Street has timed lights for a more thruway-like experience driving north towards the Marina and Marin County, but people often take the risk of plowing through the intersection just as the light turns red, and disaster ensues.



Between the SF Opera House, Davies Hall, the SFJAZZ Center, Nourse Theater, the two theaters in the Veterans Building, the SF Conservatory of Music, and the occasional rock concert at Bill Graham auditorium, there are lots of confused motorists converging on the area. This is in addition to the many commuters and visitors driving to and from City Hall and adjoining government offices and courthouses.



There are also thousands of new residents in the neighborhood who have moved into recently constructed luxury condos and rentals which have been sprouting like huge mushrooms in the rain.



This week new, more prominent stoplights are being installed on Franklin Street intersections in the neighborhood. This could be ecological (the new lights have a solar energy component), or it could be for safety.



Whatever the reasons, it's good to see because the daily mayhem is completely out of hand.

4 comments:

  1. Godawful. The density of automobiles in urban areas is ridiculous.
    Anyway, it looks as if I can go to the Seattle concert you recommended, but the price for the tickets is ridiculous, in the several hundreds of dollars per each. I was wondering if you knew a way around that.

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  2. Dear Hattie: I just checked the Seattle Symphony website and the tickets run from about $40 to $90, so I'm not sure where you're getting the several hundred dollars a piece figure. Here's a link to buy tickets at their website: http://www.seattlesymphony.org/concerttickets/calendar

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  3. Mike: I don't know how to thank you enough for guiding me to the right place to get tickets. Terry and I will go to the concert on Saturday! We are staying another week in Seattle. The whole cultural scene is blossoming here, and I will get to at least a couple of museums.
    I don't know what those other sites are about. Some of them were obvious phonies, but one looked authentic and actually had me believing only such expensive tickets were available. Wonder what's going on. Are paid sites bumping unpaid ones off the search engines?

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  4. Hattie: That's interesting, about the paid scalper sites. It's yet another reminder not to believe everything you read on the internet, including search engines. And for tickets, if at all possible I try to go to the actual box office ahead of time and interact with a real human being. It's usually cheaper and more fulfilling.

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