Here's what's happening in the Bay Area, as curated by KALW news:
Major expansion approved for Bay Area Bike Share // SF Examiner
"Bay Area Bike Share is poised for a tenfold expansion in the region. The expansion to more than 7,000 bicycles, set to be completed by 2017, would introduce the popular program in the East Bay for the first time and come at no cost to taxpayers, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, which approved the increase Wednesday.
"Bike sharing, a subscription service where bikes are available at docking stations for short rides, was first introduced in the Bay Area in 2013 with 700 bikes at 70 docking stations in San Francisco, Redwood City, Palo Alto, Mountain View and San Jose. … Most of the new bikes would go to San Francisco, where the total number of bikes would jump to 4,500. After the expansion, there would be 1,000 bikes in San Jose, 850 in Oakland, 400 in Berkeley and 100 in Emeryville."
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S.F. program to give ex-cons rooms to improve // SF Chronicle
"Several dozen good-sized studio apartments with new kitchenettes, furnishings and flat-screen televisions will soon be available in the heart of San Francisco — and in today’s frothing real estate market, they could probably fetch $1,500 a month or more.
"But these apartments in a spruced-up single-room-occupancy hotel in the Tenderloin neighborhood will not be part of the rental listings on Craigslist. Instead, they’re reserved for a perhaps surprising population: people who have committed crimes. The apartments are part of a pioneering move by San Francisco’s Superior Court and Adult Probation Department to help people convicted of crimes find success outside the criminal court system rather than cycle in and out of jail."
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The great tech migration: Bay Area people increasingly searching for homes elsewhere // SF Business Times
"It seems like Silicon Valley and Bay Area residents are finally getting fed up with rising home prices and crowded cities. One in four people who live in the Bay Area searched for homes outside the area, according to data from Seattle online real estate brokerage Redfin. That’s up from one in seven people in 2014.
"Many of them are looking to relocate to the Puget Sound region. The number of people from the Bay Area looking for homes in Seattle has quadrupled in four years…. Redfin reports that the Silicon Valley exodus is also driving up home prices in Denver and Boston."
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At the SFPD Mission Station’s Monthly Meeting Everyone Is Heard // Mission Local
"Some 16 people met Tuesday at Mission Station’s monthly community meeting and discussed community, displacement and what one resident called local “knuckleheads.” Mission Station Captain Daniel Perea started the meeting announcing a drop in robberies as well as a demand for more traffic enforcement. Already he’s on the latter, he said….
"Another gentleman, who spoke to the group in Spanish, wanted to know if Perea could give citation powers to the members of neighborhood watch groups who witness crimes in progress including graffiti, littering, and public intoxication. “The good news is, we don’t have to organize anyone, because we’re already set, all that we ask is that you call the non-emergency number,” said Perea. (The number is 415-553-0123)"
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Berkeley lab unveils new solar energy center aimed at producing fuel from sunlight // Contra Costa Times
"In a christening hailed as a key moment in the effort to harness the sun's energy to create fuel, Lawrence Berkeley Lab officials on Tuesday unveiled a $59 million Solar Energy Research Center. Named after former Energy Department Secretary and Lab Director Steven Chu, the 40,000-square-foot Chu Hall will be a place of world-changing research in producing cheaper, more efficient renewable energy to replace fossil fuels, said Chu, who was honored for inspiring the mission….
"The facility will be home to the Berkeley hub of the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis, a Department of Energy-funded collaboration led by Caltech that is attempting to create solar fuel as plants do by using sunlight and other catalysts to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gas and convert carbon dioxide into liquid fuels such as methanol and ethanol."
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The Warriors Had No Idea If Steph Curry Had A Concussion [Monday] Night // Deadspin
"Steph called it the scariest fall of his career. “You’re in the air for a long time,” he said after the game, “not knowing how you’re going to hit the floor, knowing that it’s inevitable.” Curry’s taken harder hits—and come away with worse symptoms—but that second-and-a-half or so of unexpected flight was the scariest.
"For the Warriors, that fear likely extended through the 15 or so minutes Curry returned to play in the second half, or at least it should have, because even though Curry passed the NBA’s concussion protocol, the team didn’t know for sure that Curry didn’t have a concussion—because it couldn’t have."
