Brain Drain
The average San Francisco commuter loses 78 hours to traffic jams each year. That's almost three days of life spent contemplating a faded Obama-Biden bumper sticker or a license plate reading IAMBOSS. And as last weekend's 101 shutdown demonstrated, sometimes the standstills are far longer — and without warning.
Caltrans knows the Bay Area (and all of California) has a traffic problem, and the agency wants your help fixing it. A just announced contest will award $25,000 to the person who proposes the most unique, actionable plan to improve the state's transportation system.
It's an intriguing moment when state agencies turn to John Q. Citizen for inspiration. The jury's out on whether we should interpret it as an indicator of scraping-the-barrel desperation or spirited civic crowdsourcing. Either way, let's hope Caltrans posts some of these brainstorms online so have a record of what might have been.
Spin Cycle
Airbnb is doing whatever it can to defeat Prop. F, the ballot measure that would outlaw listing a San Francisco housing unit on Airbnb or other "home-sharing" websites for more than 75 nights per year.
Last week, the company announced it hired former White House strategist Chris Lehane to be its new head of global policy and public affairs. Lehane, nicknamed the "Master of Disaster," is a high-profile spin doctor best known for managing fallout from Whitewater and the Monica Lewinsky affair during Bill Clinton's scandal-plagued presidency.
Last year, Lehane co-wrote a book, Masters of Disaster: The Ten Commandments of Damage Control, outlining "the strategies that can make real time news alerts, Twitter trend lines and viral videos work for you rather against you," according to the jacket copy.
Perhaps most relevant to the showdown over Prop. F is Lehane's First Commandment of damage control: full disclosure. Given Airbnb's refusal to release numbers quantifying its impact on San Francisco, Lehane should be prepared to sin against himself.
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