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Vahe Oughourlian's avatar

"This is such a shame, the restaurant parklets that I visited in SF were quite nice, it'll be a shame to see them go just because of poorly thought out policies that were supposed to make them permanent."

I think the truth is somewhere in between. Some of the restaurants I've visited have parklets of highly questionable build quality, along with a number of electrical safety violations.

Moreover, I would not trust any of them to do much more than completely collapse in the event of even a low-speed collision by a vehicle. A few out here didn't even withstand the storms that came through, collapsing due to high winds. I would like to see them made permanent as well, but with a few additional safety measures including embedded posts streetside.

That said, a more gradual and guided shift to better-built and safer parklets would have been the constructive option.

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David Watson's avatar

I think I agree with you on their stability vs vehicle collisions, but I don't think it ran 60 pages because of durability requirements:

https://s.hdnux.com/photos/01/23/06/65/21785926/18/1200x0.jpg

The ones they're pointing out seem to mostly involve emergency vehicle access.

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Vahe Oughourlian's avatar

One part confuses me. "Roofs aren't allowed if the sidewalk is less than 10 feet wide." Do they mean _more_ than 10 feet wide? So as to be able to run a ladder from a fire engine parked on the street?

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David Watson's avatar

Maybe less, and they plan to drive the fire engine on the sidewalk?

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Vahe Oughourlian's avatar

I thought that as one alternative but surely there are too many random obstructions on most sidewalks like planters in front of businesses and tree branches overhanging. The only places I can think of with such wide sidewalks is the Embarcadero and Market.

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