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Urban Design Observations, San Francisco Edition: Street Furniture

By Rain Noe - March 27, 2018

in Urbanism

The hills in this godforsaken city are insane. I'm used to walking long distances in Manhattan, but the constant up-and-down in Bernal Heights is nutty. This is a city where you want to make sure your parking brake is tip-top and where pedestrians never want to drop anything spherical.

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I saw this one-person bench outside of a residence. It appears to be DIY rather than city-sanctioned.

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I tried to shoot the photo to give you an idea of the slope it's built on. The 2x4 rim encircling the tree is level and the sidewalk slopes down to the right.

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I imagine the builder had to go back and forth to the miter saw in order to get the angle of the feet right on the vertical members of the back support. All of the other pieces are cut at 90 degrees.

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I appreciate that they took the time to chamfer the corners of the frontmost board for the seat. They also made the topmost cross piece of the backrest wider than the rest, then chamfered the corners. It's a small detail that doesn't really improve the function of the bench, but shows that they were trying to inject a little flair.

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This is a bench outside of a coffee shop, obviously custom-built.

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It occurs to me that custom furniture builders can probably do better in SF than in NYC. In New York most streets are close to level, so stores can buy off-the-shelf benches. Not so here.

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I also came across this "Public Parklet."

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You might not find it special, but I'm impressed that the municipal government here was willing to sacrifice street parking spaces to install this. Anything that infringes on street parking in NYC typically meets stiff resistance.

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I only passed this very early in the morning on the way to the convention center, so there was no chance to see if people actually use it during the day.

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The plants probably make it look nice when it isn't winter and the plants are maintained.

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One thing I don't like about this design, is that it has you sitting right next to bypassing traffic. There's only a board between your spine and moving cars. In NYC you hear about cars jumping the curb on a regular-enough basis that I wouldn't be comfortable sitting in one of these. Particularly when you see motorists staring at their phones while driving past you.

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Note the hoop mounted to the ground for locking bicycles to.

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I've got to say that SF's bike racks look way better than New York's.

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Pete Schirmer

6 years ago

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those parklets are all over the city, they have to go up for public hearing before they get the green-light to be built. many times they do come up against push-back from locals over parking spaces, here's a bunch of good info about them
map: http://pavementtoparks.org/resources/map-of-projects-in-san-francisco/
design manual: http://pavementtoparks.org/parklets/

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- Rain Noe
  
  Pete Schirmer
  
  6 years ago
  
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  Thanks for this, Pete! Always appreciate when a reader responds with more info, will check the link out.
  
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Scott Brown

6 years ago

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it's a scientific fact that flair is more effective when injected, rather than swallowed, inhaled, or applied topically.
;)

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- Rain Noe
  
  Scott Brown
  
  6 years ago
  
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  Flair must be main-lined! Any other way and you're just fooling yourself.
  
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