Don't be fooled by the precious moniker— "soft-story" buildings, those whose first floors include glass storefronts or garages, are the biggest potential death traps in San Francisco. In 2000, the Department of Building Inspection began a rather morbid study of buildings types in an attempt to estimate the number of deaths that would occur in the city should a major earthquake hit nearby. Though the study was shelved long before it was finished—viva bureaucracy!— one thing did become abundantly clear: in a serious quake, so-called soft-story buildings would yield the majority of casualties. Despite that incomplete, yet sufficiently macabre analysis, San Francisco doesn't sponsor a seismic retrofitting program for its buildings— in fact, the mayor recently relocated funds for brick building retrofits to the new solar panel subsidy program. Although Gav has placed the retrofitting burden with home owners the policy amounts to little more than a municipal guilt trip. San Francisco has more of these buildings than any other city in the Bay Area, yet almost nothing has been done to ensure their survival should an earthquake hit close to home. Reminiscing about the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, one structural engineer told the Chron, "In the Marina, (the buildings) rolled over and killed cars. If they roll over in other neighborhoods, which they will, they'll kill a lot of people." A resounding endorsement if ever there was one.
· S.F. leaders ignore weak buildings' quake risk [SF Gate]
· Newsom: SF Homeowners Accountable for Retrofits [Curbed SF]
[Image via Earthquake Safety]
Brace for the backlash, San Francisco: Gavin and Company are considering closing down certain city streets on Sundays in order to provide "cheap, healthy and safe" recreation spaces for those who live in areas that are relatively flat and aren't so close to major parks— Chinatown, Bayview, and the Tenderloin have been mentioned as possible test grounds for the proposed initiative. (Can't you just picture the fleets of impeccably waxed, matching spandex-clad cyclists gliding gracefully through the Tenderloin? So can we!) Given the incessant kvetch fest over similar closures in Golden Gate Park, it should be, shall we say, interesting to see how individual nabes react to the possibility of having their streets either partially or fully shut down in the name of a program called "Sunday Healthways." Given that the plan can't be realized without a million feasibility studies, planning meetings, and negotiations with local neighborhood groups, it should be a good, long while before such ideas even come close to fruition.
Brace, NIMBYs and Acrophobics among you: San Francisco's skyline will soon rise up triumphantly from the depths of blocked views, earthquake fears, and neighborhood in-fighting; the city will announce a new urban development plan on Wednesday that focuses on skyscrapers planned for the South of Market area, near the Transbay Terminal site and First and Mission Streets. Stay low to the ground, people, as officials are likely to champion more than one scheme for skyscrapers exceeding the city's current 550-foot height limit (The 853-foot Transamerica Pyramid ruined the party for everyone— following its construction in 1972, city buildings haven't exceeded 650 feet in height.) The overall planning process is expected to take 18 months, so fire up your protest engines now.
