S.F. isn’t doing enough to make streets safe
Regarding “Driver arrested in street death of S.F. educator” (Bay Area & Business, Nov. 13): After another tragic pedestrian death, I’m yet again frustrated at the lack of actual effort taken by San Francisco to reach its Vision Zero goals on traffic fatalities.
It’s not as if we don’t know what needs to be done. Narrowing lanes, fully protecting bike lanes, widening sidewalks, traffic calming at intersections, reduced speed limits and more dedicated bus lanes, just to name a few.
Certainly, this would make driving around the city mildly less convenient, but that’s the point; at the same time it would encourage alternatives to driving.
We’ve made investments a few blocks at a time, but this patchwork approach just doesn’t work. What we really need is some serious commitment and political will to redefine modes of transit in this city. But yet again it appears that our city, citizens and electeds care more about their parking and speedy driving over a city that’s safe to walk and bike, and one where transit lines get precedence over car routes.
Andrew Day, San Francisco
Cut out real estate agents
Regarding “Real estate agents earn it” (Letters, Nov. 7): As a startup founder helping people buy homes without an agent, I want to balance Amelia Marshall’s perspective.
Of the hundreds of home buyers my company has interviewed, the majority are shopping for homes online without an agent. When they need to submit an offer, they’ll still recruit an agent, and with the how high home prices are today, these agents get paid tens of thousands of dollars for a few hours of work.
Having grown up with a real estate agent mom, I understand the value of full service agents. Certain buyers do need significant emotional support.
However, for others, that doesn’t mean we can’t imagine a future where real estate transactions are simple and done seamlessly online.
So how do we get there? We need to demand change through our institutions.
Though Zillow struggled, iBuyers and tech continue to expand into real estate. The Justice Department is leading a major antitrust investigation into real estate agent associations with the potential to dramatically lower home transaction costs. Already, the majority of the world operates without buyer agents and with significantly lower fees, so it’ll be a great win for the U.S. to catch up and save people their hard-earned money. Kevin Tian, San Francisco
Missed angle on Getty
Regarding “Getty wedding at City Hall pours money into S.F. coffers” (Bay Area, Nov. 12): Your reporters are only too glad to feature articles on the Ivy Getty wedding, and how great a dad Gavin Newsom is for staying home for some family time instead of going to the U.N. climate conference.
But why isn’t anyone mentioning how ironic that the Getty wedding took place during the climate conference and it was paid for with oil baron billions?
Big Oil is one big reason behind our climate crisis. Was the oil-financed wedding date chosen purposefully to coincide with the climate conference as a statement of how the super rich are unlikely to become affected by a melting world?
Or was it just a highly insensitive oversight? Can’t the same be said for those progressive Democrats who attended (or officiated!) the wedding? I am so disappointed that none of your reporters connected the dots. Sabrina Maras, Berkeley
Take Navy showers
If everyone in California took Navy showers we would save thousands of gallons of water daily.
What are Navy showers?
Get in, get wet, turn off water, suds all over, rinse, get out.
Let’s get serious about saving this precious gift of water! Rosemary Everett, Campbell